News from Jules | 03.19.2025 | Seasons Within
It has been a long winter.
The other day the tree outside of my second-story window was so laden with snow the bare branches bent over and smooshed up against the window screen as if begging for a reprieve. The following morning I heard a thud as if the branches had dropped their burden and by noon, they’d bounced back, once again bare and stretched upright toward the clear blue skies.
It has been a long winter—not hard, just long, this isn’t Minnesota after all—and I am ready for a new season.
Coming into the winter, I thought my bucket list was short, my schedule was spacious, and my commitments were intentionally light. I looked forward to one sweet, sleepy, snow-covered season focused on writing and skiing, of deeply hibernating and rejuvenating.
That is and isn’t what happened.
Winter arrived two months earlier than last year. When my friend and I stayed overnight at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood the night before Halloween it snowed over a foot. A few days later, at REI we celebrated our traditional Twinkie roast to pray for snow—lo and behold we had our first dusting of snow in town a few days later. I saw the first flakes falling during an evening yoga class and walked home with my eyes up and tongue out enchanted by the white flakes. The next day, I made hot cocoa and wandered the neighborhood on our first official snow day. Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort opened almost two weeks early.
After Thanksgiving, I started working weeknights on the mountain cleaning lodges and weekends at REI selling outdoor apparel and footwear. I got out my big snow boots and mentally prepared to switch my commute from a quick drive or bike ride to a long, snowy walk. I hung up my bike and figured I’d pick up where I left off on the Get There Oregon bike commute challenge in the spring.
After what felt like a five-month summer, I was craving the comfort and rest that Andrea Bremis describes in her Dishing Up the Dirt: Recipes for All Seasons from Your Garden cookbook, which I leafed through drooling about her hearty winter recipes.
“Becoming a farmer has taught me that even humans tend to gravitate toward hibernation and after nine months of physical labor and twelve-plus hours of daylight, the dark and cold days of winter ask something different from us. Our bodies deserve the comfort and rest, and our taste buds crave the richness and nourishment of winter meals,” Bremis wrote.
I was very ready to hibernate. And I did, sort of.
I slept a ton while recovering from Bronchitis in November, and then COVID-19 in December, followed by extra busy shifts over the holidays.
I forgot about how the physical labor of my jobs compounded with the exertion of skiing on my days off every week and I felt just as tired, if not more, than from the long summer days.
While it was cold, wet, and icy in town for most of December, I rode the shuttle several days a week into the snow-covered forest, feeling once again in my idea of winter—a snow globe where time slowed down, the world was quiet and life felt simple.
See photos of this wild winter on instagram.
But then, in January it was as if we switched from a snow globe to a sun globe. The first weekend after the new year, I went outside to drive to my shift a little behind schedule. I simultaneously realized that I didn’t have time to defrost my car and drive to work, but I did have time to bike since the roads were bare. I biked to every shift that month, sometimes even without a coat.
One blue sky day after another, the temperature crept up until it hovered in the 50s Fahrenheit. Mid-January, my friend and I even complained about how hot we were hiking up to the snowed-in Crater Lake at 6,000 feet elevation. At the same time, my schedule filled up with random opportunities, like being an extra in an REI photo shoot, and additional activities, like Book Club, plus new friends.
It was so disorienting. Was this spring already? Were we done with winter? But, El Niño was last year, wasn’t it?
Just as suddenly, during February a series of winter storm fronts swooped in one after another covering the town and mountain with a ton more snow. I was back to walking to work and crossing my fingers when I drove my car on errands that it would keep working as one issue after another kept popping up. Many plans, like the monthly nature walk I guided, were canceled due to inclement weather. We all slowed down to small, safe penguin steps as we shuffled about our lives.
By March 1, I had my sturdy new CR-V ready to tackle the weather with all-wheel drive and instead, I was back on my bike and almost completing the bike commute challenge, basking barefoot in the sun by Mirror Pond on Sabbath and hiking Pilot Butte in a T-shirt.
Three weeks ago, I spent a very windy and very wet weekend at the Oregon Coast for my Portland women’s spiritual group’s annual retreat, and then last weekend during my Bend womxn’s spiritual group’s annual retreat nearby we had nearly a foot of new snow, as well as three feet of snow on the mountain.
It’s felt like a five-month winter, after one month of fall, after a five-month summer, after one month of spring. Each month has often felt like its own season. Sometimes each week. Sometimes even in a day.
Seasons within seasons.
And it’s been exhausting.
Checking the weather apps every morning, if not multiple times a day. Being prepared with sunglasses and mittens; a beanie and a trucker hat; boots and an umbrella. Ready to ski or bike or hike or practice yoga, depending on the weather. Recalibrating constantly. Meditating every day so I can practice accepting that right now, it’s like this.
This isn’t El Niño like last year and this isn’t just life in the high desert. Some of this is the climate of a planet that is rapidly changing—the erratic and precarious consequences of an imbalanced ecosystem. And most of this is how nature works—as a system and a cycle constantly rebalancing—and my resistance to living by the natural rhythms of the sun, instead of living by the controllable hourly increments in my digital calendar, no matter the season.
Just like at the end of last summer, I have been counting down the days until the equinox on Mar. 20, because I am burnt out on winter. I slept a lot but I am not rejuvenated. I skied a lot and made progress on my book project, but I’ve been losing stamina and motivation.
I am ready for a new season.
And a new cycle of growth.
May you celebrate what is this week.
Love,
Jules
I really appreciate this reflection in every way 🙏
Wow! Fantastic photo!