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Every year (since I moved to the northern hemisphere) February just knocks me flat, physically and emotionally, and every year I'm surprised and unmoored by this, even though I really should be used to it at this point. (It does beat life back in Australia before I emigrated, when instead of this state of affairs happening for the last month of winter, I essentially lived through whole years of continuous Februaries. I do not recommend it!) It saps my strength and drains me of all the promise and focus that I tend to feel in January. This year, February was a long one, and leaked into March. Unfortunately, the only way out is through.
Weirdly, what snapped me out of it was a throwaway line in an article that really had very little to do with my situation (an opinion piece about ordinary citizens in Taiwan finding ways to cope with their anxieties about invasion and annexation by China) — one of those moments where someone explains something in a few simple sentences that I've always understood subconsciously but never really bothered to articulate. Namely, that the best thing to do in the wake of either inexplicable anxiety, or anxiety caused by things beyond one's control, the best response is to do something potentially helpful that causes physical movement. In my case, this ended up being aggressive cleaning of the bathrooms, and a lot of gardening — weeding two garden beds, covering the weeded areas with mulch, and planting peas, beans, rocket, tomatoes, zucchini and radishes in little pots in the kitchen. It's too early to tell if this is enough to break the 'February' spell, but it's certainly had a temporarily energising effect.
In addition to using the garden as a receptacle of anxiety, I've been to the gym twice — to my fitness class on Saturday morning, and lap swimming today — and done a couple of longer yoga sessions at home. Sometimes Matthias and I go for longer walks on weekends, but this time the furthest we really went (apart from my solo trips to the gym) was down the road to the bakery, where I delighted in chatting with one of the sales assistants about Australia. I've never really sought out other Australian immigrants in my years in the UK, but when I meet them it tends to be nice, and I like having someone with whom to discuss incidental Australiana just down the road.
As is possibly obvious from the opening paragraph of this post, my reading has really suffered recently, but I did finally break the drought with a book that's long been on my to-read list, The Embroidered Book (Kate Heartfield). I really enjoy the premise and worldbuilding of the book — that two of the Habsburg princesses, sent off to further their family's political ambitions through marriages to the French and Neapolitan kings respectively, have been practicing magic in secret since childhood, and in very different ways end up forging connections with an underground community of powerful magic users, with unintended and sometimes terrible consequences. The magic system itself is clever — achieving one's aims through magic requires a very significant sacrifice, usually of a memory that matters, or of one's love for another person, which results in devastating loss of loving connections or terrifying gaps in characters' memories, meaning that the old platitude that 'all magic comes at a price' is given horrifying weight. The storytelling is sweeping and ponderous — Heartfield really lets things breathe, trusting readers to stick with her as things slowly unfold. And yet there is one consequence of the story's premise that really bothers me: the idea that all the major events of European (and, one assumes, world) politics are the result of the machinations of a secret group of powerful magic users robs ordinary people of their agency, so that, for example, the dire economic situation that in part sparked the French Revolution is now caused by the Neapolitan magic users refusing to share their spells for providing plentiful harvests and food. This could hardly be otherwise — if your story is about secret communities of magic users in and around centres of political power eighteenth-century Europe, this will be the obvious consequence, but it's too close to conspiratorial thinking for me. I think I really just dislike stories about secret societies, or any implication that political or social change is the result of shadowy underground networks of people operating without accountability outside the reach of ordinary individuals. In stories in which magic or the supernatural exists, I want everyone to know about it, and for its use to be out in the open and within the reach of all.
And that — with the addition of lots of cooking, a bit of![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
once_upon_fic writing, and nice Indian takeaway food last night — has been my weekend. Let's hope this recaptured vibe can carry through into the upcoming working week, and beyond!
Weirdly, what snapped me out of it was a throwaway line in an article that really had very little to do with my situation (an opinion piece about ordinary citizens in Taiwan finding ways to cope with their anxieties about invasion and annexation by China) — one of those moments where someone explains something in a few simple sentences that I've always understood subconsciously but never really bothered to articulate. Namely, that the best thing to do in the wake of either inexplicable anxiety, or anxiety caused by things beyond one's control, the best response is to do something potentially helpful that causes physical movement. In my case, this ended up being aggressive cleaning of the bathrooms, and a lot of gardening — weeding two garden beds, covering the weeded areas with mulch, and planting peas, beans, rocket, tomatoes, zucchini and radishes in little pots in the kitchen. It's too early to tell if this is enough to break the 'February' spell, but it's certainly had a temporarily energising effect.
In addition to using the garden as a receptacle of anxiety, I've been to the gym twice — to my fitness class on Saturday morning, and lap swimming today — and done a couple of longer yoga sessions at home. Sometimes Matthias and I go for longer walks on weekends, but this time the furthest we really went (apart from my solo trips to the gym) was down the road to the bakery, where I delighted in chatting with one of the sales assistants about Australia. I've never really sought out other Australian immigrants in my years in the UK, but when I meet them it tends to be nice, and I like having someone with whom to discuss incidental Australiana just down the road.
As is possibly obvious from the opening paragraph of this post, my reading has really suffered recently, but I did finally break the drought with a book that's long been on my to-read list, The Embroidered Book (Kate Heartfield). I really enjoy the premise and worldbuilding of the book — that two of the Habsburg princesses, sent off to further their family's political ambitions through marriages to the French and Neapolitan kings respectively, have been practicing magic in secret since childhood, and in very different ways end up forging connections with an underground community of powerful magic users, with unintended and sometimes terrible consequences. The magic system itself is clever — achieving one's aims through magic requires a very significant sacrifice, usually of a memory that matters, or of one's love for another person, which results in devastating loss of loving connections or terrifying gaps in characters' memories, meaning that the old platitude that 'all magic comes at a price' is given horrifying weight. The storytelling is sweeping and ponderous — Heartfield really lets things breathe, trusting readers to stick with her as things slowly unfold. And yet there is one consequence of the story's premise that really bothers me: the idea that all the major events of European (and, one assumes, world) politics are the result of the machinations of a secret group of powerful magic users robs ordinary people of their agency, so that, for example, the dire economic situation that in part sparked the French Revolution is now caused by the Neapolitan magic users refusing to share their spells for providing plentiful harvests and food. This could hardly be otherwise — if your story is about secret communities of magic users in and around centres of political power eighteenth-century Europe, this will be the obvious consequence, but it's too close to conspiratorial thinking for me. I think I really just dislike stories about secret societies, or any implication that political or social change is the result of shadowy underground networks of people operating without accountability outside the reach of ordinary individuals. In stories in which magic or the supernatural exists, I want everyone to know about it, and for its use to be out in the open and within the reach of all.
And that — with the addition of lots of cooking, a bit of
once_upon_fic writing, and nice Indian takeaway food last night — has been my weekend. Let's hope this recaptured vibe can carry through into the upcoming working week, and beyond!