This magnificent sun is another triumph of Guildford charity shopping days. I thought I’d share it in honour of the solstice.
I haven’t seen much of the sun today. There was a tiny patch of blue sky visible through grey clouds when I went out for my morning walk; the rest of it has just been plain grey. Even sitting in front of the east-facing living room window, where I’ve been working the last week or so, there wasn’t any sun to be seen.
And oh, goodness, dark days are hard. Working from home makes things a bit easier, in that I can just about get away with staying in bed until sunrise (8.06am today, though I was actually up at 7am), but I think it might make the afternoon slump worse. And certainly as soon as the sun goes down I lose all motivation and energy. Which is annoying, when there are things I’d like to do with my life besides work.
I don’t think I quite got the balance right this year. I made some experiments that didn’t really work out. Writing ten thousand words in two days got that particular project moving again, but wiped me out for anything else; and staying on writing duty for an entire month didn’t work at all. Firstly, four writing weeks doesn’t automatically result in twice as much content as two writing weeks. Secondly, I couldn’t really enjoy anything else. I’d have done better to have taken every other day off and gone to the cinema. I went to the cinema on Friday and, even wiped out as I am, I am suddenly a whole lot more enthusiastic about all of it.
It’s all useful data, though. Next year I’m going back to half and half: writing from full moon to new moon, and doing other things from new moon to full moon. (It’s as good a way as splitting things up as any, and the moon phases are in every engagement diary.) As for what the sun does, well, that’s a different question. All I really know is that I need to be more gentle with myself when there isn’t very much of it. But from tomorrow, we get more. And more, and more, and more.
Kathleen Jowitt 