Some winters, you slow down by choice.
Others do it for you.
A few years ago, winter arrived in a way I didn’t expect. After a serious illness a few seasons prior left me managing Type 1 diabetes, I was doing better…teaching, traveling, living abroad. But my immune system was still fragile. While teaching fifth grade in Beijing, I contracted a staph infection that went unnoticed until it became severe.
Two days before Christmas in 2023, doctors amputated one of my toes and opened my foot completely to stop the spread. I was told I would be in the hospital for weeks, followed by strict bed rest. The physical atrophy came quickly. Then came blackouts and seizures. Even after being released, I spent months mostly confined to a bed or a wheelchair.
It was winter in every sense of the word.
When Action Is Taken Away
There are seasons when building, fixing, or doing simply isn’t an option. You can’t push through them with effort. You can’t rush them. You can only decide how to use the stillness.
During that time, my world became very small. But within that narrow space, something unexpected happened. With little else I could physically do, I turned to work that required patience instead of movement.
I wrote.
For years, I had carried an idea for a children’s story…a retelling of a biblical parable, but set in the place I was living. The story of the lost lamb and the good shepherd, imagined through the lens of ancient China, with the lamb encountering the animals of the Chinese zodiac on his journey back to the green pastures.
I had started it before. I had never finished it.
Winter gave me the time.
Learning Under Constraint
That season became a quiet apprenticeship.
I wrote over 50,000 words. I illustrated the story myself…the first time I had ever illustrated a full book. I created 54 digital images and 12 detailed pointillism pieces for the zodiac animals. I learned layout, formatting, and self-publishing from scratch because I didn’t know any other way forward.
Within a month, I published my first children’s book.
Then another.
And another.
By the time life slowly resumed its normal pace, I had published or helped publish 19 titles in less than a year…children’s stories, educational books, and travel journals. Not because I was rushing, but because the foundation had already been laid during a season when I couldn’t do much else.
Winter Work Is Often Invisible
None of that looked productive at the time. There was no urgency. No audience. No pressure to perform.
It was quiet learning. Practice without stakes. Skill-building without applause.
But those skills didn’t disappear when winter ended. They carried forward. They shaped how I think about work, hobbies, teaching, and preparation. They are part of what eventually led to this site.
Seasons Have Different Assignments
We often treat winter…literal or figurative…as lost time. Something to endure before life resumes.
But winter is often when the most durable skills are built.
- When we learn instead of perform
- When we prepare instead of rush
- When we practice without the pressure of results
Not every season asks you to build something visible. Some ask you to prepare quietly for when you can.
Final Thought
If you find yourself in a season where progress feels limited…by health, time, weather, or circumstance…it doesn’t mean nothing meaningful is happening.
Some of the most important work happens when conditions are reduced and distractions fall away.
Winter is not always a pause.
Sometimes, it’s the beginning.
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