Little Adventures

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

(2/2023) It’s one of those days in January when it’s a bit warmer than normal, but a chill still sits in the air, sinking into our skin. Above us, the sky is blue and bright, with sharp pieces of sunlight piercing the world. Below us, dappled reservoir water envelops the rock we are standing on, creating the rhythm of a tide. It’s early in the afternoon, and my boyfriend and I decided to drive down backroads into the rural part of my town and explore.

In a few hours, the sun will set, and the air will grow colder. Tomorrow I’ll wake up, scrape the frost off my windshield (how intricate nature can be), and drive to buy a latte with extra foam. I’ll probably spend the rest of the day reading, or bingeing a show, or baking cookies. Whatever I decide, I’ll spend the day with intent. I won’t waste it.

I used to hate wintertime because it highlighted the mundaneness of life. The return to routine, especially after the holidays, can make it difficult to find beauty or purpose or reason in anything. As I write this in January, lying in bed, I feel both unproductive and satisfied with the fact that I’ve only worked out and read all day. But I know that in exactly one week, I will be swarmed with schoolwork, with books that I don’t want to read, with my new student teaching internship and many, many lesson plans to write. Yet, I’ll be busy, which is a feeling I’ve been craving since Christmas.

Wintertime is a paradox. We can’t wait to jump back in the routines of the new year, but we also want to spend the cold days wrapped in a blanket, napping away. We love when it snows, when the world is sparkling and crystalline, but we also hate how it takes away from what we’re meant to do. We want to escape the chaos from the holidays, but we also want to make it last for as long as we can.

And it’s hard to live in a paradox.

How are we meant to endure these long nights and short days? This period of the year where everything is cold and gray and mundane?

I’m convinced that everything happens for a reason, and that each season prepares us for the next. However, I’m also set in my belief that we must enjoy every moment on its own to the fullest. Although we are tempted to spend the winter months dreaming of spring and summer, we must live for the present.

In fact, I read a quote that truly resonates with this: "Treat every day as if it is an adventure."

Even in winter.

If we fill our January and February days with little adventures, we can live for and in the moment, therefore making the most of winter.

For example, driving to the reservoir on a warmer-than-usual January afternoon felt almost surreal. Everything was captured in a simple wonder. In winter, the world uses less color and detail to make a deeper kind of beauty—a more intricate and searchable one. However, your adventures can be as miniscule as taking a trip to get coffee. Sometimes, I make an entire journey out of my daily Starbucks runs. I’ll blast the heat, put on my favorite Taylor Swift CD, and crawl down the best backroads in my town. Although it’s winter, I like to find pieces of hidden beauty: the sky, how the sunlight splits into fractals and reflects against every surface. The bare tree branches, reaching their spindly limbs like artwork. The tall, Victorian homes with silver bricks, contrasting the landscape surrounding them.

However, we can also make our own adventures, ones that don’t necessarily need to take place outside like most do. On a bitterly cold Saturday in January, my boyfriend and I drove one hour away to a small town in Pennsylvania. As we drifted down windy backroads, I noticed how gray the world appeared, and how the freezing chill of the air sank into my skin, even though I was protected by the heat in my car. But then we pulled up to a tall vintage barn. Or, at least it looked like a barn, with white bricks and a beautiful charm to it. I then learned that the building in front of me contained four stories filled with rooms and rooms full of books.

Fiction from authors A-Z. Cookbooks. Poetry collections. Travel journals. Memoirs. Classics. Children’s books. All the stories, narratives, and novels you could imagine, organized and lined up against walls and ceilings. The barn was simple, with no decorations or modern appeal—just frosted windows that overlooked the countryside of Pennsylvania, and shelves upon shelves of words.

My boyfriend and I spent hours walking around this bookstore, skimming through chapters and reading summaries. I lost track of time, only to peer out of a window in the bookstore’s attic to see the dusky pink sky. I realized then that I had spent an entire wintry Saturday on a beautiful adventure, and it wasn’t even that difficult.

The following Saturday, I found myself standing at the shore of a reservoir near my house—one that I had always driven past, but never explored. That day was warmer than usual, but the world was still gray, the colors hard to search for. Still, we made the most of that day as well.

Wintertime after the holidays is typically labeled as a time of hibernation, where we sit back in our warm homes and wait for the flowers to bloom, wait for a more colorful world. And while rest and relaxation is important, we must never forget that life is never mundane, not if we try. There are little adventures hidden everywhere: on the backroads to your favorite coffeeshop, or at a small town far away, at a local park. Never let the long nights and cold air stop you from enjoying life, especially a life full of color and spontaneity in a season where it is hard to find.

Read other articles by Claire Doll