Rest
The importance of fun, and why not to turn it into work.
Mid October, an overcast day. I find the greyness soothing, the same way I enjoy walking in the dark, or wearing sunglasses in summer drizzle after weeks of glaring brightness. A sunny day glistens with potential, but a dull one expects nothing of you.
A grey day peppered with red berries, waiting, expectant.
I hear them. A familiar sound, but not one I have heard in recent months. A familiar chatchat. The are high, passing through, but they are here and they are fieldfares, come for those berries, bringing in the Autumn. Yellows tinge the trees. I am glad; I am ready for a change. October brings the night, and the dreams, a first frost; a shift in consciousness.
I am not a writer. Writers are not afraid to write. They write big, demanding blocks of writing. They have seen a goshawk, a streak of blue (kingfishers are always a streak of blue), travel to find wild animals in exotic places. They have seen impressive things, made impressive words. I don’t have a lot to offer.
I live my life in a small way, enjoying tiny everyday things.This weekend I felt that gardening was fun, tidying the vegetable plot for winter. My son wanted a kitchen garden, and I was happy to share the burden, but the his interest waned with adolescence and it became mine, the sort of thing that becomes a chore. Tasks stack up. Things die, or don’t grow well, or don’t get sown at all. I can’t keep up and become overwhelmed, guilty at my failures and comparing myself with instagram perfection. I have a way to turning fun activities into work.
This year, I set up a complex system of reminders on Todoist. I am still late doing tasks, but they get done eventually. I begin to enjoy my time outdoors. There are no beetroot because some hungry nibbler has eaten them from underground, every single one except the very top to remind me they were there. It doesn’t matter though. I find a potato as I dig about, then a carrot. I dig up a parsnip so big I need a fork, to make the basis for a hearty autumn stew.
The borlotti beans are ready for harvest, a new thing, a good thing. Young ones can be eaten likes French beans, but these last ones were left to ripen in the pods. I’ve never tasted them fresh, just sodden tinned ones, and they are delicious. The Greek gigantes beans are a flop though. No one enjoys those.
I disturb the munjac, who darts from the hedge. she’s living in the garden, I see her often, browsing on the spindle trees, which should annoy me. She tolerates me when I’m in the house, but in the garden, I’m cause for alarm. Something to do with smell I suppose.
After printing the sky, I didn’t know what my next move would be. I knew I had to print the ground, but I didn’t. Again, I find myself not enjoying a thing I started for fun. I want to push on, get it over with, but stop myself, because I don’t know what I’ll work on after I finish this print. It’s a symptom, the start of burnout, so I need to stop, take a break; to enjoy drawing again to feed myself. I can’t produce good work without feeding myself.
I need to reconnect with what I am doing, why I am doing it. Feel the comfort of the earth beneath my feet, on my hands. I take a rest from work and tend my garden, tend myself, make us ready for the slumber of winter. When I feel excited again, I gather my sketchbooks, and leave to find the sea.
You can deny it until you're (a streak of) blue in the face, but you are a writer.