Sliding into the end of the year, slowly

Whilst remembering to keep a cool head and warm heart.

Photo by Marcus Woodbridge on Unsplash

How are you dear reader, this first Saturday of December as Storm Darragh makes its presence felt in the UK?

All is relatively calm in our corner of Yorkshire as I type this with a cup of tea to my side, but if the forecast is to be believed, we’re due 40-50 mph winds. Considerably less than the 90mph winds causing chaos elsewhere but still a sign to stay at home.

I have this overwhelming need to be at home right now, Storm Darragh or not. I’ve slowed right down, figuring if I stop, if I sit still and don’t move somehow I’ll be able to stop December from rushing past me in the same way that November did and October before it too.

It’s a bit like Bella, our 13 1/2 year old yellow labrador facing down the end of a dog walk. She’ll have been happy as anything sniffing, running, and ambling along the moorland paths but turning into our road at the end of the walk and her pace slows. And slows. Then she stops.

She’ll take an interest a leaf, or an invisible patch of the pavement, nose twitching, working out who’s passed by in the hour or so since she sniffed the same spot on our way out to the moor. She takes her time, using all 300 million odd of her scent receptors and I don’t blame her. For stopping I mean.

Sniffing can also be very calming for dogs. A meandering, sniff session on a long-leash can release the mood-boosting chemical in their brain called dopamine. It’s a lot like a yoga or meditation session for your pup.
The Dog’s Trust

She knows that our house is up there in the distance but she’s not ready for it yet. I coax and cajole her to keep going. We pass parked cars, our neighbours houses and reach the end of the driveway. She’ll pause by the car, I’ll nudge her forward dangling dog biscuits to encourage her while she looks from me to the steps and back again. ‘Really? Again? The steps?’ her eyes ask whilst her nose nudges my hand for another treat.

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Help, the dog's stuck in the tarn

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Draw the circle tight and gently keep going

That’s how I feel about Christmas and this time of year. I keep my head down, write all the lists and try to keep going even if it is at a snail’s pace and my response to ‘What to wear this Christmas’ articles is to reach for my comfy navy joggers and oversized navy jumper.

I’ve always been a Boxing Day kinda girl, happier with leftovers than the full on roast turkey dinner and crackers. My way of dealing with the slide into the end of the year is to do what Bella does. To slow down to a stop, drawing the circle around my life tight. While my husband disappears to London for days at a time for meetings and drinks, I’m happy to be here. At home. Up to a point.

When we attempt to expand during nature’s contraction we exhaust ourselves. So create more time for rest and conservation now, knowing that this kind of work- the work of resting- will fuel your vitality for the entire year ahead.
Dr Erica Matluck, The real reason we’re all tired

Tiffany Murray narrating her memoir ‘My Family and other Rock stars’ keeps me company as I walk the familiar loop around the tarn, up to White Wells and back again with Bella. I sink into watching Shetland, Black Doves and The Day of the Jackal. I make heavy weather of the final chapters of the War & Peace year long read along with Simon Haisell, turn to easy spy thriller page turners for light relief (Stella Rimmington does a good one) and I have Elizabeth Strout’s ‘The Burgess Boys’ waiting in the wings.

Always with her head in some leaves, looking back at White Wells and Bella posing, briefly

Cool head, warm heart and don’t forget to breathe

I sort of remember to write in my notebook each day, happily dipping into the camaraderie offered with the December Breakthroughs & Blocks writing sprint. I swiftly redraw my initial goal of working on a content plan for Gently Does It and settle - happily - for daily free writing, although my free writing is more random words and phrases lobbed at empty pages.

I write end of the year newsletters for a couple of clients and pootle down the hill to the Oliver Bonas shop floor where the shift in energy is palpable. We’re not in the panic Christmas present buying phase - at least we weren’t when I was in a few days ago - but we are in a mentally working through the to-do list while leaning on the till and trying to work out how to answer our questions.

We’re trying to be helpful but I can see that sometimes it’s easier for the customer to say a reflexive if distracted ‘No thank you’ to our offers to cover the price, wrap the gift (is it a gift?), do you need a gift box or gift bag and how do you want your receipt? Email, paper? Gift receipt? No receipt it is.

So much easier to say no than try and corral the brain into making another decision.

I hear about other people’s Christmas plans, gifts of jewellery being stowed in hand luggage and flown to Australia, the Philippines. A woman buys a Christmas card and tells me she’s sending it to her aunt who lives in Austria, she’s worried she hasn’t heard from her aunt in a while. I do love knowing where these gifts and cards are heading.

In between flurries of customers we sweep leaves from the floor, clear the till of discarded scarves and photo frames, wipe finger prints from glass cabinets and mirrors. We restock the shelves and make sense of the deliveries while reminding each other, ‘Cool head, warm heart’ adding ‘and don’t forget to breathe.’ Our Oliver Bonas mantra.

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How to Christmas with grown-up children

As customers share their festive plans I think about our Yorkshire Christmas - our eighth but probably our third or fourth where it’s been just the five of us (plus the dog) at home. The pre-Christmas present opening dog walk in the morning, the late afternoon Christmas lunch. We’ve probably already watched all the Nativity films several times over by Christmas Day but might still turn to this comfort watch while dinner cooks.

We’re an unwieldy bunch the five of us (plus the dog) especially now the children are all grown up and less able to squeeze into makeshift bedrooms in relatives homes. The 21-year old less likely to agree to sleep on an airbed next to the dining room table at my in-laws after a five hour drive squeezed in the back of my Mini Clubman with his siblings. Middle child normally ends up sleeping on an air bed under my father-in-laws desk while the youngest lands the bed in the spare bedroom with the patchwork and sewing machine. Andy and I in his old bedroom.

The oversized family Christmas gatherings of the past - recent and distant - in the too difficult box for now, but maybe that’ll change in the future. I mentally make plans for post-Christmas family visits, even if we do it in ones and twos rather than as a family unit. With the scattering of my own children their desire to spend these days and weeks in their own home is palpable, even if it is odd for them coming home as an adult child.

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Collective effervescence

In trying to pull these words together I flick through my notepad and see the words ‘collective effervescence’ circled and underlined. It’s something I’ve felt many times, this collective effervescence, but didn’t realise it had a name until reading ‘When writers gather, magic happens’ by Bec Evans the other week.

Coined by sociologist Émile Durkheim, it describes the shared energy people experience in group settings. This often leads to inspiration and a deep and long-lasting sense of connection. While originally applied to religion or rituals, it’s a perfect way to explain what happens when writers gather. That ‘electricity’ generated by shared purpose can lead to breakthroughs that wouldn’t happen alone.¹
Bec Evans, Breakthroughs & Blocks

It gives me a metaphorical kick up the backside. I love my own company, I crave solitude right now and even though it feels like my conversation (and writing) resembles that classic Eric Morecambe quote below, I know that time spent with customers and colleagues, at our local writing group social and our friend’s annual Christmas party, even for a few hours, will give me the energy and social boost I need to sustain me over the coming weeks. And it’ll stop me from sinking too far into this so far, so comfortable quiet.

‘I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order’
Eric Morecambe in the classic Morecambe & Wise sketch with André Previn (or is it Andrew Preview?) in their Christmas 1971 show

So that’s where I am right now. Does any of this make sense, or resonate? The shifting shape of our family and how it’s altering the way we ‘Christmas’ and this winter hibernation is what’s on my mind right now.

As you can tell I’m easing my way into the festive spirit gently. I love the ritual of switching on our Christmas tree lights in the morning while the kettle boils. Because yes, we put our tree up early these days. Switching on the lights in the morning feels like an act of defiance in the face of the black sky the other side of the curtains, but how are you finding this end of year period?

For the next month or so posts are more likely to be fortnightly than weekly but I am going to try and keep writing and sharing. Thank you as always for reading.

Harriet

PS Written in almost one go this afternoon so forgive typos and copy and pasting errors!