The Awesome Winter

I’m calling this period in time, “The Awesome Winter.” I was inspired by Phil Jackson (in The Last Dance), giving each NBA season a theme. So the theme of this period is The Awesome Winter.

Awesome: extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear. (Oxford Languages)

Winter: as Jim Rohn puts it, “Winter will always come; not only in the winter of cold, and wind, and ice, and snow, but the human winters of despair and loneliness, or disappointment, or tragedy.” ¹

I’ve heard “The New Normal” be passed around, but this period does not feel normal. The only normal thing, is that nothing is normal. In the Bay Area, we’ve had closures to reopenings and back to closures, and we’ve had protests and riots. There’s the continual political battle for the future of the country. And now, smoke clouds are shrouding the West Coast ².

During this period, it feels like I have just been existing. Going through the motions. Days blur together. Time moves on, and yet it feels like I’m stuck in time.

So giving this period in time a theme has been helpful for me. To realize and describe it for what it is. As my therapist puts it, that what we’re going through is “intense.” But it’s important to remember that “the major challenge confronting those surrounded by winter is not to let it affect the arrival of spring, and our ability to recognize that arrival.” ³