winter sleep

Heard that roofs have crashed in Boston under the weight of the snow this month. and there's more snow starting today. I couldn't imagine living in Boston. it almost feels as if humans are fighting against nature in places that have become near-uninhabitable. here itself the cold is awful and long drawn, and yet nothing near the reality of humans buried in snow. although the wind does carry the trauma of bostonians into our ears. such that I've taken off my earrings for the entire winter. better unadorned than freezing with cold metal biting into them. and morning runs are painful without my ear-band.

And yet winter is good. it is fresh, and so alive, to be out in the cold hiding from the wind in the hood and in those pockets. it makes me feel so alert. and of course staying indoors while the white feathery precipitation blows around. uncertain whether to layer the earth. for now giving in to the wind and waiting it out. winter is bare and ruthless and yet so far from death or stillness.

it was therefore good timing to go watch 'Winter Sleep'. in an out of nowhere, pop-up Angelika. with about 20 seats, us in the second row, and not more than 5 others filled. sleeping the winter out is such a bummer, why would any animals want to do it? even if we hadn't invented heating and clothing and snowblowers etc. and were forced to stay indoors or rather under-earth, we wouldn't help being awake I'm sure. like me in my unemployed status right now for example. lazy and passive, yet hardly napping. or like the ppl in winter sleep: biting at each other, clawing, snapping, driven by their own motives and convictions of self-heroism or despair.

the movie teetered at the edge of a sopa opera. yet was real enough not to tumble down that alley, allowing forgiveness among and for the characters, saving the conversation within and without from becoming sentimental. sort of like the only kind of hibernation humans are capable of.

and we all are in some sense always like that. supremely proud of our work our achievements however admirable or small, however tangible or imagined, leading to an arrogance that naturally miniaturizes others; those others around us, who can only weaken us, attack us, reduce us. and continue to do so, till they have debased us to such a point where we fight back out of urgency. fight back with self-pity, with self-righteousness, with fists of blame and indignation that help our way back. to "resurface to the top like oil".

someone once said to me how important information was. information from one human to another about the latter. and vice versa when possible. its like what Smith (Vernon) was talking about in the podcast the other day: how a person sees and realizes what s/he is only through the reactions and feedback others give. and yet civility dilutes such feedback and substitutes it with politeness, when the external is deceiving. on the other hand breakdown of civility often results in anger and then censure without information, mutual and tit-for-tat. it is then that our inner voices deceive us. between the two, or probably with some filtering of both lies true information. in both cases, it is information that is sacred, and possibly scarce too. it is information we need, and we must give. yes, with caution, with care but also with honesty. and we should learn to take too.