A Love Letter to January
I always loved a new year and a new diary, its crisp blank pages ready for plans and intentions. This year, though, I looked out at the skeletal trees, the leaden London sky and the weary mask filled streets and decided that, like nature, I would sit January out.
We 21st century city folk can easily live entirely out of synch with nature, working through the dark, protected from the elements, barely aware of the seasons changing around us. Which suits our capitalist system very nicely but doesn't do much for our frazzled souls and arguably isn't even that productive - an engine that always runs at full steam will eventually run dry. We routinely curse January with its blue Mondays and bitter mornings, but maybe we're just doing it wrong.
As part of modern society, we can't duck out entirely - we still need to work and keep the wheels turning. But this January, I'm choosing early nights over Netflix, hot baths over the pub, contemplation overexertion. I won’t arrive in February fitter and shinier. My career goals will remain just that. But maybe, like a hyacinth, I'll reach the spring rested and ready to bloom.