It was the winter of 1996 when I discovered this musical gem from George Michael’s catalog, years after it had originally been released. I had just started living in Boston, and the snow had arrived earlier in the month, after my Uncle and cousins had painted the condo for the first time. We’d spent a frigid few days there, in a haze of my Uncle’s smoke and the gentle clicking and dribble of the coffee maker. 

I’d say love was a magical thing
I’d say love would keep us from pain
Had I been there
Had I been there
I would promise you all of my life
But to lose you would cut like a knife
So I don’t dare
No, I don’t dare

When they left, and I was alone in the condo that first winter, I felt the first twinges of loneliness, and there was such terror and horror in that I immediately pushed it from my mind. Knowing myself, I understood I might not survive if I gave in to that, and so I willed myself to be ok with being alone. You can do that. We like to pretend that we can’t, but it is possible. We can train ourselves to endure. I won’t, and can’t, say whether that’s right or wrong; so many things aren’t simple binary choices. And you can will yourself to be something better than you are today. 

‘Cause I’ve never come close in all of these years
You are the only one to stop my tears
And I’m so scared
I’m so scared

At the time, I didn’t entirely realize what I was doing. I understood that I was forcing myself to grow up, but it all felt like another guise, another image, another facet of a personality I hadn’t quite figured out how to reconcile. There were minutes when I seemed to watch myself go through the motions of life – stepping out of a shower into the cold air and shivering as I watched a mottled city through the steam-clouded window. Standing in the kitchen and swigging a carton of orange juice after ravenously tearing into an untoasted and undressed bagel – as I didn’t have toaster or glass or chair. So many things seemed to be missing, and somehow I felt more complete and whole at that time than in recent years. Maybe we are the most full in our youth, and with every passing year we simply lose a little bit more of ourselves. 

Take me back in time, maybe I can forget
Turn a different corner and we never would have met
Would you care?

I don’t understand it, for you it’s a breeze
Little by little, you’ve brought me to my knees
Don’t you care?

I knew that I craved companionship, and for a socially-anxious introvert (try as I might to outwardly dispel it by donning the role of flamboyant extrovert) I realized my quest would prove quite difficult. That was the restlessness I felt, that was the longing. That was also the unsettling sense of confusion that piled question upon question up in my head. Rooms filled with wonder, not the kind tinged with marvel, but the sort bound with worry, and when I look back at my prior selves I grow weary with the nonsense I put us all through. 

With each day, however, I learned to be a better companion to myself. I remembered when I used to walk in the woods as a boy, perfectly content to make the journey on my own. Solitude was something I once craved too. In a foreshadowing of mindfulness, I inhabited the moment, taking each hour as it came rather than planning out weeks and months and years in advance, as had been my overly-organized wont. I studied the way the sun moved through the space, the way the light ebbed and flowed during a day. I made myself the occasional dinner, realizing at an embarrassing evening with a close friend (thank God it was Alissa), and at an embarrassingly-late stage in life for such things, that I should put the pasta into the water after it started boiling, not before. It may have felt like I was merely going through the motions, but in doing so I was simultaneously living. 

We lead so many lives in a single lifetime. It’s exhausting to look back at them all. Satisfying too.

No, I’ve never come close in all of these years
You are the only one to stop my tears
I’m so scared of this love

And if all that there is
Is this fear of being used
I should go back to being lonely and confused
If I could, I would, I swear

We don’t want to say goodbye to this year’s Christmas tree, which in Andy’s opinion (and I share it) was one of our most beautiful. It still smells lovely – a fresh, lush, balsam beauty that rivals any cologne I could ever wear. Taking off its accessories and sending it back into the cold is always a sad exercise for Andy – and I share in that sadness as well. So let us have some music to lift and buoy the Friday night spirits – a suite for flute and jazz piano trio by Claude Bolling. 

This has been on every winter’s playlist for as long as I can remember, coming when the post-holiday blues are beginning to settle in, when the days are dark and the nights are long, and that wind is cruel and cutting. The time when summer feels as distant as it can be, because it actually is, and instead of being even cautiously optimistic, you give in to despair and try to sleep it all away. 

Before you set yourself to slumber, take a moment to listen to this fun rollercoaster ride of effervescent and occasionally melancholy music – idea for a winter’s night. 

The immaculately-talented singer Linda Eder first cast her spell on me when I saw her in ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ on Broadway. Since then I’ve been a fan, catching her live on occasion and thrilling at how she performs a song. This one has changed and come to mean different things over the years. I won’t bore you with what it means to me now – take it in and make it your own story.

On frigid winter mornings, the light is silver, the music is another memory waiting to be made, and the past is a comforting torment. 

Even now…I remember all the empty spaces
You filled with love
Even now…Every corner of the world we shared
Is still filled with love
Even now…not a day goes by
When I don’t ache for you
Through my tears I still hear your laughter even now

Stars still shine bright when they’re gone
Hearts that break will still beat on
Letting go is the hardest thing to do
Cause all those feelings start
And time can’t change my heart
It all leads back to you

Even now…you are in my dreams and in my dreams
You always will be
Even now…You’re the one true thing that brings my heart
Back home to me
When I’m scared…I can close my eyes
You are there…Ever young
And somehow, I can always find you even now

From all the memories kept inside
To all the dreams we knew, the rush of you
Will always be a part of me

Even now…you are in my dreams and in my dreams
You always will be
Even now…You’re the one true thing that brings my heart
Back home here to me
Even now…in my darkest night
Still you shine silver light
So I fall through forever with you even now