I am at last embarking on my Winter Season .  When I tell people this they stare at me sometimes in shock.  They equate the Winter Season with Death.  Yes, unless Life is a circle, this last season involving the  reduction of light and color is an ending.  But it is also a culmination. An assessment.  An evaluation  of what is left after the three preceding Seasons have taken their toll.

Playwrights set their plays in the fourth Season, showing the audience what remains after the nurturing, the buffeting, the recriminations, and possibly the forgiveness of characters.  As Hamlet says enigmatically “I could tell you…..”  But we already know what he has seen and lived through before being frozen before us there upon the page or stage.  Playwrights live in the Winter Season with their art form long before they come upon it in their lifetimes.

This year I turned 70.  It is the zero at the end that marks the change.  I do not look different in the mirror, but suddenly my writing became more focused. More directed to an answer.  It was the time to stop asking questions and start answering them for myself.  It was a time to read my cast of characters and try to define how they fit into my particular drama. 

I had done it – the growing up, the falling in love, the betrayals, the observance of others and their Winter season, the motherhood, the successes and the failures, and the acceptance that I am passing through, not stopping, in this world.  If much of my time was spent waiting for Godot, I am now done with the waiting.  

There are many who come to their ending without having lived the four seasons. I say we have a gift given to us if we get to hear the moods and themes, and when we learn to listen to the music of the season we are in.

© Christine Emmert 2013. This article may be reproduced only with full attribution to the copyright holder.