What's better in the dark?
Finding fun as the clocks go back
Welcome back for the best time of the year - the official start of Wintry Mix season! I’m thrilled you’re here for the third year of Wintry Mix - from now on, every other week you’ll see Wintry Mix in your inbox, where I’ll be sharing strategies for cultivating a more positive wintertime mindset, embracing winter, and feeling more coziness and joy during the darkest days of the year.
This year, of course, is different and special because now my book, How to Winter, is officially out in the world! Thanks to all of you who have ordered the book, entered the pre-order giveaway (winners to be contacted soon!) or written to share your excitement, your enthusiasm, your stories of the children/siblings/parents/friends you bought the book for and why you think it’s such a good gift for them. My hope for both the book and the newsletter is that it brings us together - with ourselves, with nature, with the season, and with each other - and I love hearing your reactions.
With a whole book of travel stories, research tidbits, and strategies you can use to embrace winter wherever you are, my goal for Wintry Mix this year is to add to the content I’ve written about in How to Winter - with seasonally-timed suggestions, new and interesting research, or my favorite snippets that were casualties of the editing process but that I still love.
Embracing the clock change
While many of us are still enjoying leaf peeping, pumpkin spice, and apple cider donuts, amidst these fall wonders is a reminder that winter is definitely coming: the end of daylight saving time. In Europe, we got our extra hour of sleep last weekend and have been thrust into evening darkness ever since (in Amsterdam, where I live, the sun is setting today at 5:10pm). In the US, we’ll fall back this Sunday.
Maybe, hopefully, you were already aware of this. But as more and more of our clocks are connected to the internet (hello cell phone, smart watch, laptop), it becomes easier for people to sleep through the clock change without even realizing it - a disorienting experience when we start to wonder why we’re suddenly so tired at 7pm.
And so, the first step to embracing winter is anticipating winter: thinking about it and recognizing the ways it’s begging us to adapt our routines to a different season, one more suited to slowing down and seeking warmth. I’ve written about preparing for the clock change before - planning something special, celebrating the end of daylight saving time specifically. Living seasonally invites these kinds of annual rituals: practices that, when we repeat them year after year, take on more meaning, not less.
This year, I want you to ask yourself: what’s better in the dark?
We so often focus on the darkness as a lack of light - one that makes us tired, makes our commute home more difficult, makes it harder to get outside and recreate in the evenings. But darkness isn’t just a lack - it’s the presence of something else entirely. All sorts of things aren’t just possible in the dark - they are better in the dark. Any activity by candlelight, of course: dinners, baths, showers, yoga. Cozy evenings reading, or early movie nights. Going to sleep - and other bedroom activities. Gentle movement and meditation, or uninhibited dancing. Writing, journaling. Evening walks when your neighborhood is quieter, more reflective. Star-gazing.
When we start to ask ourselves not only what’s possible when the sun sets earlier, but what is better - more enjoyable, more peaceful, more meditative - on moonlit evenings, we start to reorient from winter’s limitations to its possibilities.
Over the next two weeks, your challenge is to come up with one activity that you think is better in the dark, and then do it. Just one intentional activity can help you start shifting into winter mode and reclaim the end of daylight saving time as an opportunity, putting you on a path to finding the many opportunities winter holds during the months to come.
How to Winter is available now in the US, the UK, and in Dutch.
Notes from the slush pile:
One of my favorite recent articles about How to Winter is in Express. I love it because it’s unusually forthright with how I describe my journey to Tromsø: “Dr Leibowitz admits when her application for the Tromso research fellowship was approved, her first thought was, “Oh my God, what have I done?””
This idea of embracing the darkness is taking off in the way people travel, too: this New York Times article is about travel adventures you can do at night.
Tis the season: for cartoons and memes making fun of winter:
Thank you for helping me change my winter mindset! I’m starting to enjoy moonlit-night walks and journaling by candlelight.
Reading “Wintry Mix” posts is better in the dark!