Notes from the Swiss Alps: No. 6 – Learning How To Winter

Hi friends,

I have so much I’ve wanted to write — about new Swiss traditions, about a recent trip to Ireland that left me crying every day because it felt uncannily like California at times. Really, I have just wanted to start a conversation — even though I know that conversation might not come back to me. Maybe it happens quietly instead, in your own lives, or later with your people, after reading this.

I’ve been wanting to share my thoughts for some time now. There have been so many moments where I’ve thought, Okay, now I’m ready to share again. These notes from the Alps feel much more like a journal I share than anything else.

I keep finding myself stuck — not lost for words, but surrounded by too many of them. It feels impossible to decide where to begin.

So here we go again…

I think this is all part of what I’m experiencing: a real winter. Snow. Ice. Minus temperatures. Quiet.
I know I’ve spoken about the quiet before, but if I could only have you here with me to really experience it.

I was sitting in the woods the other day, and I swear the only sound around was coming from me. Then suddenly, there was another sound — not me. I could almost see it in my awareness, this singular movement coming closer and closer. I scanned the trees, the brush, the sky.

It was a raven.

I heard the swoosh-swoosh sound of its wings from what felt like miles away (or kilometers, as the rest of the world would say). I swear I could hear the heartbeat of this single black shadow in the sky. I sat completely still, watching. Being the only two souls around, there was an immediate sense of camaraderie — even though I’m sure this raven wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.

This quiet is deepening.
Not just because winter is deepening, but because I am allowing myself to winter.

Winter has become a verb in my mind — a way of being. I can feel it changing me, like older, ancient parts of myself are finally being given time to be remembered.

As beautiful as that sounds, there is also the reality that my sweet kitten, Robbi, is sitting on my lap as I write this and has just released the foulest-smelling fart imaginable. We’ve definitely been feeding him too many treats.

I think we can laugh and still be in our process.

Okay, did I just ruin that moment?
Sorry — but this is real life.

And honestly, this is the exact dichotomy I’ve been navigating: the mystical and the everyday. Ravens and silence… and cat farts.

Where are you on your journey?
Do you have any idea?
We’re all somewhere, right?

All I know is that I’m in this part now — whatever this part means.

Don’t you think there are these big-picture meanings, and within them all these tiny ah-ha moments, feelings, emotions, and experiences blending together into what we call life? It’s kind of like a rainbow shimmering in an oily pool of water.

Have you ever been somewhere so removed from everything you once knew — and at the same time so simple — that you almost miss the opportunity to feel how removed you actually are?

I feel removed from the noise. And after a little over six months here, I finally feel that noise beginning to leave my body. It’s a finicky thing, though, because the noise itself is as old as I am — and older.

It’s the voices from my fourth-grade classroom — our shared love of the Spice Girls and math problems.
It’s the narrative of Teen Vogue and Seventeen Magazine that my insecure fourteen-year-old self devoured (they promised perfect skin from drugstore products and a boyfriend by the end of summer, so of course I listened).
It’s the crash of waves against the wild California coast and the call of seagulls on the bluff.
It’s the sound of five-lane highways and the constant hum of traffic.
It’s the wind through the lone palm tree on my mom’s property, and the way birds go quiet when fog rolls over the coastal mountains.
It’s car doors opening and closing, footsteps clicking and clacking, espresso machines drilling, conversations floating around — always in a language I could understand.

This is the sound of where I came from.

These noises shaped me somehow. And when I feel that familiar pang in my heart, it’s almost always accompanied by this sound — the familiarity of voices I used to hear every day or every week, or waking to birdsong that shifts subtly throughout the day.

So right now, even though I have so much to tell, I’m in this phase of processing noise.
A place where it feels like there’s a giant bubble around me — filled with people, places, and knowing that I once lived inside.
A lake I’ve been swimming in since I was born.

So this is what this winter means for me.
What I think winter has always been meant for:
processing…
and resting within all that we are.

Off to warm up my hands and feet and light some incense to make the house not smell like cat farts.

Love you,

Bridgette Joy