BOREAS

In Greek myth the north wind was a god. Boreas lived in the cold mountains of Thrace, with wings and a beard full of frost, and he took what he wanted. When he blew, people shut their doors.

Anyone who has stood on a bridge in January knows why. The north wind does not go around you. It goes straight through your coat, your skin and your plans for the afternoon. There is nothing gentle in it.

And yet it was the cold that taught people to make fire. Every hearth, every candle in a window, every story told around a flame exists because winter came first. The warmth we remember is almost always a warmth that followed cold.

Heraclitus wrote that all things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things, the way goods are exchanged for gold. Air feeds the flame, and the flame warms the air.

Nothing simply disappears. It turns into something else.

Hard seasons in a life work in a similar way. Few people would choose them. They strip things away, some of them precious. But many people, looking back, can point to one cold year and say: that is where something started. A decision, a friendship, a strength they did not know they had.

The wind does not ask our permission, and it does not stay forever. At the very end, when it finally drops, there is often a small light somewhere that was not there before.