The chief problem with engaging in one's own winter of discontent is that one never sees the leaves falling.
I dream of Tuscan skies I haven't seen, of catalog-perfect cocoons of warmth that have yet to materialize; where is my peaceful gray-blue wall with perfect view framed by vases of gently blooming hibiscus to perfume the breeze, and in what fiction-life will I have time to enjoy it? Is it possible to de-busy, to embrace the doing as well as the outcome? Can one re-engage one's own heart after so long an abesence, or like a lover forgotten, is one's own humanity as unfamiliar as the winding streets of an unkown village?
The winter of our discontent. The cold breeze of loneliness, the chill of having devoted many of the best years to something other than self. Is this to die righteously or to be blinded to the simplicity of the reverse of loving neighbor as self? To neglect to warm oneself with heart pleasures is only to loathe the cold, the neigbor, and the self. Has the fire spun out for good? How to rekindle the loveliness? How to shut out the cold?