The bleak midwinter: Small joys in the silence

This past Monday was Blue Monday, apparently the most depressing day of the year. The holidays are over, we’re back into the swing of things at work, it’s cold and dreary, and we’re all broke. And though I’m trying my darndest to have it otherwise, I need to be honest with you friends: I’m feeling it. I want to be creative and insightful and positive, but as I rack my brain for the words to share, it’s only returning static.

My creative wells feel tapped rather dry right now, for a whole bunch of reasons. Some of those reasons are in my control—I haven’t, for example, been getting out for my morning walks—and some are outside of it. Combined, the simple reality is that I want to hibernate, in a world that doesn’t really allow for hibernating at all.

Creativity, though, begets creativity, as I wrote about when I looked at making space this year. So in an effort to not go totally silent I’ve been diving into other forms of creativity outside my norm, including journaling (a total hyperfixation in the making, more to come on that I’m sure). For the first time in my life, I made a vision board to help me visualise what I want out of the next few years of my life. These are tiny steps that let me continue being creative without taking up too much energy, but they are also very inward-facing, very introspective—which, if we’re being honest, is very much what the bleak midwinter is good for.

But they don’t make for very good newsletter topics.

So, instead of a proper letter this week, I thought I’d share some small joyful things I’ve stumbled on in January as an antidote to the bleakness:

We finally have snow, which means I can see all of the tiny footprints left behind by the little creatures that live in my backyard. The bunnies have superhighways running from our bird feeders to under our porch to the mushroom stump and back again, the birds leave tiny marks around the frozen birdbath, and just this morning I noticed tiny mouse prints running over the garden beds. It’s a nice reminder that nature carries on, even in a frozen world.

Speaking of the backyard, my annual seed order arrived this week. I went totally rogue this year, ordering seeds based entirely on vibes and absolutely zero planning. Last year, the veggies that grew best were the ones I chaos-planted, so I’m trying to take that energy into the 2024 season. We’ve got weird squash and too many nasturtiums and multiple varieties of radishes and, of course, way too many sunflowers.
I bought a paper planner for the first time in years and years, moving away from digital and back to analog. This is responsible for the aforementioned journaling hyperfixation, as I’ve fallen headlong into the massive journal/planner/stationery communities on social media and just ordered a fancy new diary and Japanese pens. There’s something so nice about writing things out by hand, and I’m finding that I really missed the quiet solitude of it.
Willow’s new cat bed. It took her a week to decide that it met her standards, but now she snoozes in it all day as I work, and I love looking over to see her all curled up.
My tiny olive tree is continuing to grow steadily throughout the winter, which I really didn’t expect—they’re slow-growing trees and I thought she’d slow down significantly in the cold, but the windowsill she sits in is very bright and she’s thriving. She’s one of my favourite plants in our house, and I love to see the new growth she’s putting out.
Mike and I have developed a super cozy work week nighttime routine that basically consists of him getting home, us having dinner together, and then both of us poking away at our own thing for the rest of the evening. It’s a very simple (some might say boring!) routine, but after a year of him living away for work, just hanging out together has been really lovely.

I hope that you are also finding small joys in these quiet days of January, even if they’re simple and solitary, and I hope you’re staying warm.

Until next time.