Where to start? Already this morning thoughts of what I might write have been pulling my focus away from my quiet breakfast in the SAD lamp glare, from the energising wind on my daily walk, from my breath on my mat. In the shower ideas started to come together and I could feel the tangle of threads begin to separate into possible narratives. It’s a feeling I haven’t had in a while, and although there is an excitement that goes along with it, a quickening of my heart and mind as I can feel sentences form or the path unfold, I have noticed some shadow feelings that stalk the edges.
This daily blog writing challenge popped into my head sometime in September, while I was planning for winter. My seasonal affective disorder means that even in a ‘normal’ year, I can’t treat the darker months carelessly; there is a definite physical and emotional toll. So, I prepare. I remind myself of the things I need – the things that help the most, the habits and routines, the support and comfort – and I try to make a start so that by the time January and February roll around (typically the most challenging months) I feel ready. But, you know, 2020 is not a normal year. And I’ve been slightly terrified of winter since the pandemic sent us into lockdown in March. What will winter look like this year – when everyone is suffering through the season too, when I have the additional effect of long Covid to add to my symptoms, when my partner faces the worst NHS winter in his career? It’s overwhelming to think about the whole of it, so I tried to focus on the things I can manage, reminding myself of my stoic practice, and concentrating on my own mental and physical health.
This blog is a space that I control entirely. No one made me start it, no one is relying on me to continue. What happens here is completely up to me. What a kind of freedom that is, especially in these times. But, I have stopped seeing it as a gift, as a place that can offer me something I can’t get elsewhere. At some point it became work. And I handed over my sovereignty to the host of voices that police my actions, that try to keep me safe. The voice of self-doubt, the voice of judgement, the voice of comparison. Don’t write if you don’t know why you’re doing it. Don’t write if you don’t have something important to say. Don’t write because it won’t be good. Don’t write because other people do it better. Don’t write, it’s safer this way.
How much goes undone because we listen to these voices? How much creative energy gets thwarted, how many possibilities disappear? How much excitement and joy dissipates, making way for the security of doing nothing. Yes, it’s safe, but it’s not really alive is it? Today, and each day that I make my way here to my keyboard, I want to be mindful of what is happening inside. Those tentative feelings that creativity brings, the ones that need tending to carefully. I need to nurture that. But I also want to acknowledge the deep-rooted need for security in uncertain times, the shadow feelings the voices articulate. They have a function; they let me know what is at stake. But they are misguided, and they have forgotten how much I like to use my creativity, how much it gives me, how much it is me. It’s time for them to remember.