Dear Writing friends,
Here in the North, we find ourselves at the hinge of the year. I’m writing to you at our winter solstice, a word derived from Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).
Although we are still in motion, of course, this feels like a pausing point, a breath, a moment suspended between dark and light.
In North Yorkshire, at this time of year, the sun is rising at around 8.20am and setting before 4pm. Yesterday morning, I made my way through the dark house and saw the first sparks of light, just beginning to catch.
As I shared in our Dear Writing Together live session ten days ago, one of my favourite books to savour at this time of year is Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter.
If you’re not familiar with it, I urge you to treat yourself to a copy of this beautiful book. The story follows the adventures of Moomintroll who, like all Moomins, has filled his stomach with pine needles in readiness to hibernate through the long, dark months, but unexpectedly wakes up. Whilst the rest of the world is sleeping, whilst even the sea is sleeping under the ice, Moomintroll is wide awake, wandering through a world made strange by winter, learning about loneliness, longing, friendship and snow.
“There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.”
- Moominland Midwinter - Tove Jansson
We could think of this time of year as an invitation to acknowledge all the parts of us that don’t fit in, that don’t have their place at other times, and perhaps the parts that we don't quite believe in. What if the long, dark hours might offer a space to allow those parts of us to gently expand?
But there is a caveat to this. It’s easy to romanticise winter as a slower, more spacious time, a potentially creative time.
And it can be for some of us. There is so much of value in finding a slower rhythm, turning towards our weary bodies with tenderness.
At the same time, for many of us, these next couple of weeks can feel like the opposite of gentle expansion. Lots and lots of us are still working. If we’re not doing our official paid work, we might be rushing about and cooking and present-wrapping and house cleaning and bed-making and caring. We might be doing these things as well as our paid work.
Many of us, at this time of year, will feel alone. Many of us will be missing someone. Many of us will be wishing things were not as they are. Many of us will be full of fear and anxiety. Many of us will be living terror and lack of security as an everyday reality.
There is a lot of talk about self-care and self-love in the wellbeing world that, I think, doesn’t sufficiently acknowledge all of this other very real and difficult stuff of life - the labour some of us must still do, the wounds that we carry, the material insecurity, the injustice.
As bell hooks wrote:
‘I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community.’
- bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
The challenge, I think, for us as creative people is to reimagine the system that demands the labour and suffering of so many of us but not all of us. Like those Moomins in Moomin Valley (and I think this is exactly what Tove Jansson had in mind), we need to find ways for all of us to be well rested and well nourished. We need to care tenderly for all of the beings in our home on earth.
Perhaps this can be our dreaming in the dark hours. Perhaps this is the true offering of the midwinter metaphor, of solstice, of light-bringing.
Living-and-Writing Experiment
Dear Writing friends, if you’re not able to take longer stretches of rest over these next weeks, I wish you some small moments instead - to breathe, to notice the places in your body where you might be holding on, the places inside you where a spark is waiting to ignite and the places outside you where a glimmer is brightening the horizon.
Talk to yourself gently. When you catch yourself feeling exhausted or frustrated or angry, talk to yourself - or write to yourself in your journal - with soothing words.
If you’re not making head-way with your big holiday Writing Plans, move your body instead. Stretch, shake, jiggle. If you can, go for a walk or dance around the kitchen.
Turn to others. Tell your troubles to the trees or the clouds or a trusted friend. (This is my personal favourite. There is a very understanding sycamore that I can see from my kitchen window.)
If you like, leave a comment here and share your thoughts with the supportive people on this thread.
Next Writing Together:
Writing Together 2024 begins:
Wed Jan 17 at 6.30pm - 8pm (UK time)
In response to your feedback, let’s try a Wednesday evening, with 90-minutes to gently explore our writing together.
In this first workshop of the new calendar year, our theme will be: Ignite. We’ll explore the idea of togetherness and of small and tender actions we can take to cup our hands around the sparks and coax them into flame.
When you join us for a Writing Together paid subscriber session, you’ll find a gentle and restorative writing space where you’ll receive support and inspiration for your writing and reflection. Camera on or off, we’ll write together in response to writing rituals, suggestions and prompts and then have an opportunity to reflect on what we’ve written and the process. The first part of the workshop is recorded for everyone so that you can catch up later if you can’t join us in ‘real time’. The second reflective part of the workshop is never recorded, in order to honour confidentiality.
You can also now gift a subscription to someone you know will really enjoy our community.
Thank you, dear Writing Friends, near and far, for being here in this space with me throughout this year. Your support means more than you could possibly know. If you are celebrating, I wish you a warm and restorative festive season. I wish you all much love, strength and peace for the coming year.
Sophie x