Carving Out Fresh Paths

I’m not sure when I started to truly love winter, but I’m thinking it coincided with my leaving the life I knew and loved as an artist in NYC, and heading north to isolate myself from the impending global pandemic that shut down the world as we knew it in March 2020.

Winter had been almost nonexistent in the city that year. I remember teaching my last class on March 9th. It was my birthday, and warm enough to sit outside that evening for a birthday dinner celebration. Little did I know, it would be the last time I dined in NYC for a very long time.

Things were moving quickly and the university went “remote” the next day. For dance teachers & students that meant a virtual limbo as classes were suspended until the administration could figure out how to get these dance and theater majors their required studio hours without access to any studios. All of my students were extraordinary artists on the cusp of promising professional careers. Broadway shut down 3 days later.

So we packed up our sublet and headed north via Vermont and then crossed the border back into Canada, our home and native land. Decades earlier, we had crossed the international border in the opposite direction, with just a student visa, our beloved cat Ziggy, and our dreams of “making it” in the Big Apple”.

This time we were leaving NYC as dual citizens and headed to the mountains of Quebec to isolate until “the storm” was over and we were cleared to return to our old lives.

Winter was alive and well in Quebec, and as cold as it was, like the warmth of our hearth, a fire rose inside of me that rekindled my creativity and opened my heart and mind. I felt excited and free. That was the season I fell in love with winter.

As kids, we used to pray for a snow day. Do you remember? For something larger than us to take our fate out of our own hands and cancel school, delay an exam, stop the routine. It was a much needed permission to slow down, to release the pressures of daily life and to play in the proverbial snow.

As we head into our 3rd winter of coping with the pandemic, it is more essential than ever that we focus on where we are going, rather than when we will be returning to where we once were.

There are gifts to be found if you dig deep enough to look for them. Like the snow day we wished for when we were kids, we’ve been given an opportunity to rethink, to clear our minds and carve out fresh paths. It’s heavy lifting for sure but the great thing about hard work is that you build strong muscles.

So sleep with a spoon under your pillow, flush ice cubes into the toilet, or wear your pajamas inside out and backwards! The season is here to conjure our own storms and create our own permissions.

There is no judgment here, only an invitation to see the beauty of this season within you and play in the proverbial snow rather than stay frozen inside waiting for summer to return.

Listen to Audio Version here!

Published in Collaboration with:

Also by Lisa Hopkins:

I Make My Own Bed

Unpacking What Weighs Us Down

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