Solitude as a gift
On the transitory season inwards and burnout
As this hermit year comes to a close, I reflect on my sense of urgency and solitude as a gift. Outside, the sun is beautiful and beaming and yet today, I crave nothing more than to be tucked in bed. This year has been exhausting—maybe because we have the same amount of tasks piled onto a year where the bandwidth is much lower—energy is lower, capacity is lower, everything is simply lower.
Last month, I gave a talk on campus on resting and activism for our campus dialogue on race. In a filled room, I inquired on if people are able to notice burnout as it approaches or if they just wake up one day and find themselves heavily entrenched in the inability to move forward. Everyone shared the same astonishing thing: we do not notice when our body needs to stop. I was surprised.
In those moments of pause and reset and stillness, the collective goal always seems to be to get back to the set list of tasks that are being set aside. Two months and two very bad bouts of sick later, I wonder if the lists can be discarded and we can acknowledge and lean into the fact that maybe, we are not meant to be moving this fast at all. When sick, the first thing I do is clear my calendar as much as possible to address as little as I am able. Once mostly healed, the precarious and daunting task of trying to fit all the things in which fell by the wayside arrives, where I somehow need to get to all that is missed. Things still get missed, and there is simply not enough time in a day to do all that is asked of us in a western/colonial society. School teaches us that our needs don’t matter as much as doing what we said we were going to do, and as someone with a Virgo moon, I have to work incredibly hard to release the feelings of guilt that arise in needing to take something fully off my plate as I no longer have capacity. This is a problem. Our bodies matter. Our capacities matter. Slowing down matters.
As we are in a collective moment of collapsing (a polycrisis world as my professor friend calls it) and so many of us are quietly suffering. Possibly this is caused by our own inability to let things go which no longer serve us. Possibly we have contributed to the way things are today by pretending they did not impact us or that we had no way to make a difference. Possibly it’s time to shift inward, to gentle planning and the magic we can not only conjure but follow through in a new year. A year that invites many new beginnings and possibilities.
Today I feel like crap so it’s my work to rest and take things slow. Not so tomorrow can be better, or I can get to my Friday’s list that was inevitably impacted but so I can extend a little bit of gentleness and love to myself as I suffer through intense allergies from a transitioning season. I feel hope for a the darkest night which is approaching. I feel hope that my teenager is showing beautiful glimpses of how she will move through the world as an adult. I feel hope because those I love are fed, housed, and doing mostly well.
If you are suffering during this season, do not do it alone in silence. Find someone to connect with and share honestly about your woes. For me, this season is filled with activities for my hands. Ceramics keeps me sane, and wedging, although not my favorite task is something I will lean more into incorporating into my wheel practices.
Expressing the utmost gratitude for a beautiful week of fun, friends, smiles, and learning more stories about those I cherish in my life.
Thank you for being here,
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Written under a Scorpio sun and a Cancer moon, wishing that laundry could fold itself sometimes.
Invitations::
If you are in the Arcata area, this upcoming Friday, I have my last show of the year, a writers in the round with some incredible local artists. Tickets can be purchased here: I am curious to attend
Should we start a book club for the winter?
What are people craving right now, community wise?
Write me at foferasings@gmail.com with your thoughts.
That’s all for now,
S