it was raining today.
not that hard, but more of an overcast kind of rain, that kind of makes the whole world seem a bit gray.
as i was sitting in my car on the drive home, looking out the window, i got a familiar yet somewhat "blurry" feeling -- one that i've felt so often, but i've never truly been able to describe.
i came home and my mom had been cleaning out the fridge. the contents of the refrigerator were strewn across the kitchen island, and there was chai boiling on the stove. a completely mundane, ordinary afternoon. the feeling grew stronger.
i've always loved the winter time. today, i tried to really hone in on what this feeling was.
it was the sharp, contrasting delineation between the dry, stationary inside and the chaotic, damp outside. the artificially illuminated rooms of my house looking especially out of place compared to usual when contrasted with the grayscale backyard feeling the full force of nature's downpour.
it was the temperature in the house, not even close to being uncomfortable, ever so close to room temperature while still being just below it enough for you to feel that it was cold outside but not feel it yourself inside.
it was the nostalgia for a simpler time, when the days would get darker sooner after you got home from school. when the biggest thing on your mind was what you'd get for christmas this year, or whether you did well enough on that test last week to squeak out the good grade you wanted, or the car ride home in the pitch dark after thanksgiving dinner where you ate just a little bit more than you probably should have.
in a weird way, that nostalgia is mixed with a sense of unease. a feeling of somber anticipation, of going to taekwondo in the dark and wondering if you'd get singled out for being the chubby kid who can't do enough push ups again. the uncomfortable thought in the back of your mind that the deep darkness outside the window stretched out in all directions, making you all the more glad that you were at home in the warmth and light. like you're just a speck in the grand scheme of nature, experiencing all the world has to offer and taking care that you don't stray so far off course that it swallows you whole.
i love this feeling. the culmination of all those intangibles, the feeling of winter.
a few years ago, i heard of something that i've been thinking about a lot since then. the idea of the ship of theseus, applied to the human experience. if you replace all the parts of a ship, part by part, until none of the parts are the same as the original, is it still the same ship by the end? at what point did it cease to be the same ship?
the same way, our bodies replace all of our cells. the common time period i've heard people share is that it takes 7 years until none of the cells in your body are the same as they were before, and they've been entirely replaced with new ones. a quick google search says that that number is actually more like 80-100 days.
for a long time, that idea really weighed heavily on me. i certainly don't feel the same as before; i've forgotten most of the things that gave me intense joy as a child, the feeling of not being able to sleep because you were so excited for your birthday the next day, or something as small as a rubik's cube you'd been waiting for arriving in the mail being enough to brighten up your whole week. sometimes it feels like i'm not even the same person deep down. i think about different things, i spend less of my time captured by that childlike joy, and even the bigger things hardly give me the same level of joy that the little things used to as a small child.
hindu scripture actually engages with this idea directly. it posits that the changes of the body are meaningless, because the individual identity is ultimately the soul, which goes through cycles of rebirth. just as the body changes clothes, but the clothes are not part of the self, so too the soul changes bodies, and the bodies are not part of the soul or self. while the idea sounds compelling to me on paper, it's pretty hard to realize the metaphysical implications of that, or actually feel it, as a 21 year old in the middle of california.
the feeling of winter is my version of that idea. maybe i'm tall and skinny now instead of short and chubby. maybe i don't get as excited at the thought of what i'll get for christmas this year anymore. maybe there isn't a cell in my body that's the same as seven years ago.
but when i get that feeling of winter, from something as small as rain outside the window or chai on the stove, i get shot back in time to 10 years ago. my body may have changed or forgotten, but my soul is still here, the same as it's always been. to me, that's what the human experience is.
i'll keep growing and changing. i'll go to different places. i'll go through the stresses and joys of life, start a family, retire, experience all the things life has in store to me. and there will inevitably be points where i'll look back and won't even be able to recognize myself compared to who i think i used to be.
but every time it rains, i'll still get the feeling of winter.