In New Zealand, we’re venturing into the darker months of winter. I always expect it to happen more gradually- like somehow, despite the changing of the clocks, there’ll still be some lazy morning light, a period of adjustment before the impending blackness calls us out- but this hasn’t been the case.
At 7am, I find myself peering into blackness, and at the other end of the day, watching the clock to time the feeding of the horses with the last licks of the light.
Seasonal change is something that we’re biologically primed for but with the conveniences of living, something we paradoxically stamp out.
The other night, I crawled into bed with my little boy; he’d asked me to read a chapter of his book to him, all about the invention of electricity (I know, it was not the book I was expecting to be lulled off to sleep too with either!). We read about the various stages that both Edison and Tesla’s inventions went through as they tinkered with the light bulb. The race to establish whether AC or DC electricity was the best. And how, at the big reveal, the street lights all lit up.
In that moment, I found myself holding two different thoughts. One: that I was grateful for both electricity and light.
And yet: how that moment marked something so much bigger. The movement away from being in sync with the seasons towards the ability to stay up longer, to work harder, despite the month or the year or available light.
The lightbulb, was in every way, a capitalist’s delight.
We are speaking here of the obvious seasons but there are seasons within seasons amongst that too.
Seasons of caregiving.
Seasons of ill health.
Seasons where the demands on you are greater than normal.
And I wonder: how much room do we allow ourselves for adjustment? When do we let ourselves take it easy?
I have been going through an intensive season of caregiving. What it’s resulted in- often separately to my own desires- is less horse time overall, and when there is horse time, less of it within that window.
When I have moments to “get things done” I feel a certain pressure. I am aware of the finite offering in front of me and at times it can pull me into panic.
We are so hard on ourselves.
First comes the lightbulb. Second, this idea that we are supposed to grow, grow, grow and work, work, work.
With that in mind, I’m asking myself:
What is the least that I can do? What is the minimum that I get to call “enough”?
When should maintenance instead of growth be our main focus?
How can we let ourselves be more seasonal within what it is we have to do?
This, after all, is the way that our bodies are designed to live.
When is it time to simply maintain?
xx Jane