A cup of tea is lovingly placed on a bed side table. The room is dimly lit, just the morning light seeping through the window. A shadow of the window pane on the wall behind it. The steaming vintage cup is gracefully picked up by a youngish woman with a bow in her hair as the voice over says “remember we’re cyclical beings.” She scrunches her hands around the cup, squeezing her shoulders in as if she’s giving her hands a hug. Her face serene, “remember this season is about hibernation,” the voice smugly says. Tinkling piano music plays as a frosty scene is then shown - the view from the woman’s window. “Plants and trees are all resting right now, so should we” the voice implores as the Reel comes to an end.
“Oh naff off” I say as I roll my eyes and furiously scroll to the next reel of someone else smugly telling me now is not the time to be busy or starting new things or rush about.
It’s easy to live a life of aesthetic slowness when you don’t have a 9-5 job, when your job doesn’t follow a seasonal pattern of slowing down in the winter months, when you don’t have school runs to do. I don’t know why these types of posts have made me so cynical this year but I call bullshit on them, sorry.
This year I feel like the social media wellness world has doubled down on the notion that the correct way to “do January” is to shun New Years Resolutions, to be an introvert and to scoff at the notion of goal setting.
I’m certainly a fan of saying no to restrictive diets, punishing ourselves in the gym and admonishing ourselves for being lazy after “failing” to keep unsustainable new habits going by day 14. But I don’t think the answer is to pretend that any form of high energy living at this time of year is something to look down on.
This letter is for anyone else already feeling frazzled by the return to work in January, who might get a similar reaction to the Instagramness of wintering. Here are some of my gripes and how I think we can reframe them:
Cyclical Beings
My first gripe is this idea that when the 1st January comes around we must stop everything and suddenly appreciate it’s winter. It’s been winter for over a month now. Whether you define winter as Nov-Feb or 21st Dec - 20th March, January is not a sudden notice of winter. January is the midpoint where we’re already fed up of it being cold, damp and dark, but knowing we have at least another 2 months of it left.
Where were the calls to do bugger all in winter back in November/December? We were all very happy to rush around like blue-arsed flies making sure we saw everyone, did all the things at work, tied up all the loose ends. The reward of that week between Christmas and New Year being the thing that kept us going. If we’re really slowing down in winter because we’re cyclical beings why aren’t we slowing down by the end of October?
Let’s unpick this idea of being cyclical beings. You are correct, throughout the history of civilisation we have worked with the seasons. Until electricity was invented we were forced to work less due to our shortening days. Now, I’m not for one second advocating we should be working round the clock like our modern world dictates just because electricity allows us to. But I do want to note that farmers, gardeners and other seasonal based industries are still working at this time of year.
This season is prime “maintenance time” - cleaning and fixing machinery, inventory, planning. Yes the work is perhaps less intensive but it’s still busy. I also can’t shake the feeling that people still have need of our health services this time of year. People get ill, people still get hit by cars, people have appendicitises. There are many lines of work and industries that kind of need to keep going, rain or shine.
Even in teaching, this term really is a “getting down to business” term - SATs, GCSEs are on their way, there’s still a bunch of curriculum that’s not yet been covered and barely any time to cram it all in with the current way our system is built. To be told to slow down in a job that doesn’t allow for it just because it’s winter, feels unhelpful and judgy at best.
If you’re in a job that doesn’t allow for a slower, more restful approach, it’s ok - I’m hoping these next points might help.
It’s time to hibernate
I hate to break it to you but we are not hedgehogs. It would be cute if we were, but our ancestors didn’t hibernate.
There are many variations of hibernation which many of our woodland creatures enter into in the winter. The most common being the ability for the body to almost completely shut down its functions for a prolonged period, to look and feel practically dead by way of protecting from predators, and to live off the body’s fat stores that have been built up in the autumn. Hibernating animals (or ones that enter into some form of dormancy) do actually still wake up from time to time during this season.
Granted they’re waking up to have a snack, do their business, or move location. But the point still stands, we are not hibernating creatures. Surely it’s better we try to be human at this time of year instead of pretending we’re a bear or a mouse?
Our ancestors certainly slowed down, and I do believe one of the reasons so many of our festivals and celebrations happen at this time of year is because we needed things to get us through the long dark winters. I can’t help shake the feeling however that for many of us, we’re actually more motivated at this time of year than we are in the summer.
Perhaps the trees and plants can be a good example instead.
Trees and plants are all resting at this time, so should we
Ok first - why do we all want to be like deciduous trees? Who said that was a good way for humans to behave? We work really really intensively for a couple of seasons then spend a season dropping off and decaying, then regrouping and going hell-for-leather all over again?
Why don’t we want to be more like evergreens? Doing the required amount of living in a given day but constantly regenerating year round instead? Evergreens still have growing periods and dormant periods, but their baseline is “we’ve still got our needles.”
Maybe the answer is we need both types to function in our world, just like the plant kingdoms. Maybe some of us are better predisposed to working really hard on specific projects for a specific amount of time then spending another amount of time resting and reflecting. While some of us are more designed to keep things ticking away, keeping the momentum and the world turning, tapping in and out daily/weekly as required.
I like that theory. No one says “deciduous trees are the best and evergreens are rubbish” do they? Deciduous trees definitely get more attention sure, but the evergreens seem happy to be in the background until other seasons right?
More to the point some flowers; snowdrops, crocus, hellebore, thrive at this time and don’t want to be busy in the summer. Imagine saying a snowdrop is doing it wrong because it blooms when all the other flowers aren’t even buds yet.
Maybe we could be more like a choir
It reminds me of an analogy I read once about a choir. When you sing in a choir and there’s a particularly long note to be held for a few bars, you stagger your breathing. That means that no one is sustaining the note for a full 24 beats, but one of you intuitively takes a breath while the rest keep singing, then you join in and another person intuitively takes their breath.
The result is a sustained note that sounds like the whole choir is singing for the whole time when in reality it’s a group of people tagging in and out to keep the note going and sounding its fullest. If everyone sustained the note for the full 24 beats it would have fizzled out by the end.
Similarly to the trees, no one is a better singer for taking their breath on the 7th beat instead of the 14th beat. It’s the intuitive nature of listening to your fellow singers and working out when is the time to push through and when is the time you can lift off. We’re all needed to keep it going.
Wintering for mere mortals
Perhaps I feel crotchety around the idea of wintering this year out of a place of envy or insecurity. I watch these instagrammers and feel embarrassed for starting a new project, for socialising, for taking part in Joyuary.
I question myself, “do I actually want to be someone who doesn’t spend January trying new ideas and setting goals?” “Do I want to spend the whole month indoors pretending winter is a time to hide away?” I think the answer is no.
I want to go outside, I want to feel the cold on my face and I want to think of all the possibilities the year has in store. I want to spend the month challenging myself to a new crafty project, or meeting up with friends I didn’t get a chance to see before Christmas. I want to spend the month getting cracking with a new way of organising my house or approaching my planning at school.
This year, instead of feeling guilty that I don’t want January to be a month that I side step every social occasion that comes my way, I’ve decided to embrace the month as a time to seek more joy in the daily humdrum. This for me is true wintering - spending time reflecting on who I am and what I want from my short time on this planet that keeps on turning year after year.
This is SO insightful and refreshing, Beth! I admit I am a person who needs to slow down and winter - but part of this is because I don't regulate my energy in an ideal way throughout the year, which is worth investigating. Thanks for sharing this, it was a great read xxx
Beth, I was amused by your crankiness about January and winter! Having lived all my life in the cold northeastern US and Canada, winter is just a fact and out in the countryside, especially, I've known very few people who even had the luxury of pretending to "hibernate" or "slow down." Yes, there's a sense of enjoying the coziness of a more interior space, but I've always tried to get outside a lot too, whether downhill skiing when I was younger, dealing with the snow at home, or walking outside now. Like you, I feel invigorated by the weather and the cold on my face, and it's a good time for me to start projects and work hard on them, as well as cooking, having friends over, trying to make a warm and inviting space for ourselves and for others. I wonder if some of what you observe in others is a general attitude of making excuses for not being active. Some of them may be the same people who, in hot weather, say summer's a time for kicking back ;-) There's no doubt that seasons, weather, and light levels affect our moods. Seasonal affective disorder is real, and it does create winter depression and low energy for some, but getting out and being active is one of the best ways to deal with it. So I'm with you on all of this!