Always a bittersweet time, the beginning of September in the Northeast is upon us. There is a little regret I’m not starting classes of some kind, a relic of the excitement and dread of a new school year. There is also the refreshing specter of cooler, cleaner, dry air and the burst of energy that seems to come along with it.

The table I’ve been planning to sand outside on a lovely fall day is a few steps closer to the back door. I’m looking up recipes for savory dishes, using vegetables from my new organic garden—I’m thinking ratatouille pie—and imagining Sunday brunches with friends as the brilliant sunshine spills over the refinished tabletop and the little kids play underneath.

It occurs to me that we are given this lovely gift of autumn to prepare us for winter. It is a time to reconnect and share the harvest. A time to begin projects and make plans that will keep us occupied and interested through the cold months when we tend to hibernate and stick close to home.

Most of us manage to stay warm enough and have enough food. But how about our psyches? Not everyone is depressed by the reduced hours of daylight, but many of us feel the leaden hand of winter in a way that leavens our joie de vivre enough so that we find it easier to say no, to stay home, to curtail our activities. It’s harder to go to the gym after work when it’s below freezing and dark. Or get up earlier and do yoga when the only warm place is under the covers and the sun itself isn’t quite awake.

So I’ve decided to face this conundrum and use these next two months as an entree to winter. Before the leaves are all off the trees, before vistas of dark brown trunks become the backdrop for months, before it is 5:00 p.m. and full dark, before the full frost renders the garden a sea of blackened gunk with tomatoes, squashes, and peppers left on the ground with no viable stems, I will have a plan.

I’m imagining snow on the ground and ice in the driveway. I’m thinking what I’d like to look back on in April and feel good and satisfied about having accomplished. I’m raising the watts on all the lightbulbs and getting rid of dark corners of stuff. Fall cleaning is a necessary lead-in to a constructive and uplifting winter.

The garden is a great winter pastime. Seeds to order, drawings of new beds, and the utter excitement of filling the trays of the grow-light stand with all kinds of seedlings. But even before that, my house must be in order, because that is the sanctuary from the weather, the haven of warmth and protection on gray, cold days. It should be inviting. Happy. With comfortable places to read and dream and sit with friends and family.

What I hope to learn is how to embrace a season I have always fought. Many of us love summer: the ease of wearing light clothing, the sunlight for hours and hours each day, the colors, flowers everywhere, lush green trees. But winter always brings a long grudging wait for spring. There is a lesson in reframing the ordeal of cold and dark, transforming it into something more benign. How much more exciting spring will be when it comes as a gentle surprise, not as a desperately awaited respite from winter.

Read about Mary Traina.