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I try to start each month on Patreon with a reflection on the previous month. Some months are easier to write than others. When trying to compose my thoughts on February--to look at the month as a whole and as little parts--I struggled to find the beauty in the dark of lingering winter. The reflections are meant to be observations, tinged with hope. But sometimes the latter feels hard to find.
Hope I’m reminding myself is not optimism. Optimism functions on the premise that things will get better; it is blind and doesn’t require your action. Even in inaction optimism promises a better tomorrow, which is why it so often rings hollow.
Hope is the idea that things are worth fighting for and improving upon. Hope requires our observation, appreciation, and ultimately action. Hope is determined. Yes, many terrible things are going on in the world, but look here are the first buds of spring—the determined snowdrops and hardy daffodils that continue to emerge through frozen ground and neglected garden. Isn’t it worth caring about nature in a world that still blooms?
I still have that touch of hope, but little else positive to recommend my mood for February and honestly this first half of March. It’s a season for me where everything feels hard. Not just the walks with the cold wind on my face, but the work, the burnout, the usual woes of social media that seem to bite a bit harder every year. I have weathered so many years in social media and sometimes I do wonder why I’m still here when some days it does just feel like I am weathering the storm. Treading water is never a good feeling.
Still, I can easily make a list of all the things that went wrong in February, all the times I felt tried and troubled, but equally there are those small, easily forgotten moments that are worth celebrating. Too often we do linger in our troubles, we recount our problems so easily and allow them space in the forefront of our minds and ignore all the quiet beauty unfolding around us.
For me this is where mindfulness and slow living principles come in. Ideas that take your common tasks and daily routines and try to find elements within them to appreciate. I can’t solve all my problems today, but I can appreciate the afternoon light slanting through my kitchen window casting diamond patterns on the wall and perhaps that is enough for now.
All the best,
Rebecca
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