I am a seasonally oriented person, perhaps to a fault. I don’t know if this is because school is a thing I enjoy and have always looked forward to or because I am a Midwesterner or because I am a big weirdo for almanacs. There are very few fruits of the earth that I do not enjoy when eaten in their prime season. But it’s easier to love spring and summer when life is at its most obvious, its showiest.
Loving winter takes patience and acceptance of endings. There is quiet, darkness, and cold. It is a time when doing very little, very slowly, is essential to the survival of many living things, but it is difficult for me to accept silence and stillness as a creative person. I often look at winter as an opportunity to put my head down and work while no one is watching, and often I am able to use the stillness of the outside world to my advantage. But this means I sacrifice my own stillness or silence, and that is something that looms larger over me as time goes on.
Many artists have discussed the value, if not the essential need, to incorporate periods of rest, stillness, or reflection - or whatever the opposite of creation, movement, or development might be - into their cycles of practice. I think we know we should be doing it, it’s just that in this late-stage capitalist artist nightmare it’s hard to justify stopping. What if my work is a shark, and if I stop moving, it dies? I still think this a lot of the time. Scarcity of creativity: if I stop making, I’ll stop being good (or people will think I’ve stopped being good).
But then, eventually, your brain will shriek every time you try to read one page of a book. Or 30 seconds into a TV show. You will skip through an album’s worth of songs because nothing keeps your attention. You pick up a guitar and nothing happens. You stare at a blank page and nothing comes out.
This happens to me several times a year. I’d like to think that I’m getting better at knowing when I’m entering a period of Brain Fullness. Still, sometimes it sneaks up on me, usually at the most inconvenient times, which is all the more reason to schedule regular Brain Emptyings. Sometimes I do this only for one activity - I’m not reading this week or not playing guitar - and the Brain Emptying is like a radiator slowly letting out steam. After a short time, I feel fine to return to whatever bullshit I was doing before. However, if I delay it for too long or my need is too great, my brain will cease any nonessential processing functions on its own.
I usually enter Brain Emptying periods reluctantly, in a bad mood, and annoyed at having to stop. I can’t say I leave them in a noticeably better mood, but because they keep happening whether or not I am willing, I do what I can to accept them. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder, and it’s not linear like most things are not linear. When I get up in the morning, I make coffee, and then I do nothing. I look at nothing in particular. I’ll google something I remember I wanted to know earlier. I listen to the guy downstairs play the flute mournfully. Then it’s 9, and I have to start work. After work, same deal. I do nothing in particular. Maybe I go for a walk? I look at the sunset. My partner and I make dinner. I take a shower and then continue to do nothing of value or importance. I start to think aimlessly, get worried, get tired, and then I go to bed.
I do this until it feels okay to not do it. I can’t really explain how I feel when I arrive at this conclusion, only that I can do something else now. I’m done witnessing the state of things around me, I’ve thought through some things without making it really painful or hard on myself, and now I can continue.
I just moved to a new apartment and now have a room to myself to make into a home recording studio. I am thrilled at this prospect and am itching to dive in, but I am also tired from a week of physical labor and need to rest. Stare at walls in soft focus and do nothing. Think about the strangeness and complexity of the last three months. But what I want is to think about the possibilities for this new space and create it with intention. I can’t help but be someone who wants to Do Thing instead of Plan Thing, and this is hard for me. Hopefully, I’ll report back that a season of rest made it easier to appreciate the fabric of my weird little life.
the good stuff
Rewatching movies, I watched The Wizard of Oz and The Martian back-to-back with my mom, an interesting pairing
Hallacas and pan de jamón
Having a glass of wine at lunch like I’m in Europe
Commercials that are dubbed in Spanish
Train rides
The big dogs on walks who are delighted by the snow
Nesting
Listening to old favorites on better headphones, like Cat Power’s Moon Pix and Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest
I love the Brain Emptying concept - not appealing or fun, but necessary. Love your writing, thanks for this.
Elegantly done, both in thought and style.
Over the years, I’ve come to view hibernation as a “moveable feast,” overlapping seasons, years, months, days,and sometimes even, hours. In such times, I find myself “distracted from distraction by distraction,” as Eliot notes, and so I turn outside of myself too watch the birds, squirrels, and deer at the back of the house, or standing on the slab of the side porch behind the railing, watch the yew, wedged between the stuccoed corner of the house and the ocher colored bricks of the chimney. It’s trebled in size over the 30 years we’ve lived here, but it has always provided from spring through fall a refuge for catbirds. Now , I’m waiting for the first one of this spring to return, perch and survey, then nest. By summer, they will have flown about many times and provided a new generation with an imprinted memory to return and start once more.