While The Earth Holds Its Breath by Helen Moat

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Winter is a season people love and hate. Some love the cold bright days and the twinkling of lights in what seems to be an increasingly longer Christmas period. For others this is the worst time of the year, the days are short and grey, the lack of sunlight opening out to depression in the form of SAD.

Personally, I like all of the seasons for different reasons, but do hate what feels like the relentless grey that we sometimes get over the winter. Helen Moat is one of those who hates winter, the relentless gloom causes her severe anxiety. This book is her journey over three winters to see if she can overcome it.

Normally her anxiety builds from October; the long days of summer are over, the heat is fading and soon the clocks will change once again. This October is stranger than most. It is 2020 and I am sure we can remember what happened that year… She has managed to escape with her husband to Wales in their campervan where the lockdown and contact rules dictate who can do what and when. The weather causes them to cut short their break, something they come to regret as the further lockdowns that happen later in the year mean they can’t get away again.

But this year is different, this is the year she wants to break her fear of this season. It is a journey that will take her to Lapland and Japan, finding out how other cultures deal with the season of winter.

Moat learns that the people in the far north rarely suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) even though their day can be as short as six hours long. She is fortunate to get a trip out there as a freelance travel journalist. The -20C temperature will take a bit of getting used to…

She brings back to the UK what she has learnt over there, light from candles and a wood burner helps with the ambience as she learns to celebrate the small things; hot soups, cakes and getting outside into the natural world and adopting the Scandinavian policy of ‘bunkering down’. She uses the dark nights to slow down and reflect and consider how it was starting to work for her.

Mot reached her third winter. The summer had been great and she loved the time she spent with friends on patios drinking wine and watching the bats swoop by. In September her and her husband head to France. She was trying to postpone winter by trying to find the later summer sun, but she knew that she had to face the physical and figurative darkness.

Moat is fortunate enough to get a commission to write about Japanese food, Not only was she going to a place that she had always dreamed of visiting, Japan. Moat has always strived for perfection in her life, but it would be here that she would learn about the Japanese beauty of imperfection – Wabi-Sabi.

Being there is unsettling and alien. Only having three words in Japanese meant that communication was mostly laughing and gestures. She learns so much about the culture, their respect and awe for the natural world, but it also teaches her that all things must change and each season is treated with equal weight. She would bring home mental skills that would help her cope with winter at home.

I thought that this was really good. It is a journey in many senses, but it is mostly about her understanding and coming to terms with winter. She comes to understand why the winter is so hard to cope with and explains the methods she has found to mitigate her worries. Her trips abroad were fascinating and I felt that I had learnt a little more about the places she went to. If you have a thing about the darkest part of the year then I would really recommend reading this. It is worth reading in conjunction with Wintering by Katherine May too.