As I sit near the heater, eating kinnow, listening to Bach and Beethoven, and watching my pets frolic around, I wonder… why do I become miserable in winters. I’m told it’s a well-known seasonal disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or Winter Blues. But, deep in my heart, I know, it’s something different.

My mother grew up in a house full of leather-bound classics. The act of reading was most cherished. After marrying my father, she kept the tradition alive in her new home, and encouraged my sister and I to read abridged versions of classics in Jeddah where we lived back then.

These stories opened a window to my secret world, where I sought refuge from the harsh realities of life; where Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield was my favourite character, a handsome and well-dressed young man. Reading the classics created fantastical images in my mind about winters that have remained ingrained in my head.

David Copperfield’s description "… long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets," made winters surreal, as if "New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing." The dream and the real world grew apart as we grew up!

Our return to Lahore after many years abroad shook my perception of the city. We had to learn to cope with the city. And the winter wasn’t akin to the one described in classics or depicted in pictures. No snowfall, no mittens, no mufflers, no mugs of hot chocolate… Nothing matched my imagination!

Though we struggled to cope with the wintertime Lahore, life centered on the innocent pleasures of the season’s delicacies. We ate dinner off a tea trolley in the drawing room as the dining room did not have a heater. The 9pm PTV Khabarnama played out in the background. As the power went off by 10pm for an hour (loadshedding was for real even back then!), dry fruits came out. In the flickering of the candlelight, we huddled together to talk about life, family and future.

While we still have occasional power and gas loadshedding, the shape of family time has drastically changed. Some of the elders have passed on. UPSs has replaced the flickering candlelight. We can’t do without our cellphones, headphones and junk food. And in our shrunk, contained homes, there’s no space for volumes of beautifully bound classics.

Everyone has a different approach to life but for me it has always been hard to master the art of losing, as Elizabeth Bishop says in her poem. Spring has always been an indication of hope and life but it seems that even the angel of death likes to stalk people during winters for some reason!

No matter what I do in the other three seasons, depression waits on the sidelines for winter to come - like a long-lost friend returning from far off lands. All heartaches and fears are whispered in the fog. Eerie shadows form in winter darkness.

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But, then, I’m reminded of P B Shelly’s Ode to the West Wind, and things appear bright again:

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?