A Hibernation List
The Muse Letter No. 81
“It’s the time of the long exhale, hot air forming clouds in the cold winter nights. It’s time to defer anything too big, too heavy, too much to next year. Let it be 2021’s problem. The legs are still moving but like a toy robot being picked up mid-walk from a kid, feet pending for and back, it’s time to take out the batteries and re-charge. You’re not a robot, you can stop moving, stop reacting.” I wrote last year about why I love having a proper hibernation.
And this year is no different. From winter solstice (21.12.) I will log off social media, close my online shop, pause the Muse Letter and just let it all rest till the 6th of January.
When I tried it for the first time last year I was so nervous about “stepping away” from the constant interaction of EVERYTHING: What would I miss? Would the algorithm punish me later? Would it all go to waste while I wasn’t watching, while I wasn’t taking part?
“In a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to in turn feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success—do not be afraid to disappear. From it. From us. For a while. And see what comes to you in the silence.”
Said Michaela Coel in her inspiring speech this year after receiving an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and it’s exactly why hibernation to me is one of the most cherished practices I can use for myself in general but especially as an artist. The deafening silence of your own mind slowing down, decluttered from all the scrolling and opinions left and right, finding a calmer sea. A well inside of us that needs to be filled, again. Hibernation is my reset button. And I really need to hit it hard this year.
I’ve not only published a book and wrote a Muse Letter every week, I also fell in love, moved flats, explored more cyanotype printing, had some really low moments (hello seasonal depression), some really great ones I apparently didn’t bother to write a Muse Letter about because why write about the things that make you happy (should probably reflect on that) I also wrote many many hours on a novel that I still have to finish and spend even more hours on avoiding to write said novel.
So these are the things that I intend to do while I’m away with the luxury that I can take them or leave them, the only true rule being: to do what I feel like in any given moment.