Life isn't all summer sun. We have to face the winter as well

When you notice that winter has arrived in your head as well as in your world, all you can do it allow it in, no matter how cold it gets

Photo by Dominik Dombrowski on Unsplash

I open the door, and delight in warmth, smells and sounds as they wrap around me. The deep nut brown aroma of good Welsh coffee. The meaty waft of late breakfast bacon tingling even my vegan taste buds, a sure sign that I'm hungry. The wave of human voices tells me that there aren't many empty seats. I hope that I won't be turned away from another full coffee shop today. My legs are unfathomably tired after such a short walk by my usual standards. My belly, so undemanding for food lately, is eagerly awaiting the snack I've promised myself. I want coffee.

I spot a table I can sit at. Not where I wanted to sit, by the kitchen and the till, where I can see more people. But at least I can have a coffee, some toast, and a table to write on.

Making a pretence of looking at the menu, I peruse my very limited choices. It's getting easier to be vegan in the world, but in the South Wales valleys, options are still fairly limited. But I know what I want, and I head to the counter to place my order. Two pieces of toast, brown please, not white, with vegan spread and avocado on it, and a black coffee, no I don't need milk thanks.

I turn and spot a two person table right where I want to be. I tell the waitress that I’ll be sitting there, and mark the spot with my phone. I return to my former seat to collect my coat and bag with an air of triumph and delight that I feel sure others must be able to see. I remind myself that they almost certainly don't even know I'm there, and I smile. This is what I'm here for. To be around people, to feel their energy, to hear their chatter, and not have to be part of it in any way. They are in their coffee shop, I'm in mine, and that is all the connection I need right now.

Sitting down at my new seat, I look around and notice an old school friend, engaged in deep conversation with a friend I don't recognise. Or do I? I think maybe I do, but I can't place her at all. The former friend seems oblivious to my presence, and I'm happy to keep it that way. I'm in no mood for chat. The  polite 'How are you?' followed by the profoundly untrue 'I’m ok thanks’. I'm about as far from ok as I have ever been. But the passing acquaintance doesn't want to know that, do they? We ask each other 'how are you?' when what we really mean is 'hello'. Imagine if I was to tell everyone who asks me that right now what is true. It would make for some awkward conversations, wouldn't it?

"Hello! How are you?"

"Thank you for asking. I feel like I've lost all the parts of me that make me who I thought I was. I'm exhausted, and can't move or get off my bed, or I can't stop moving until I end up exhausted and trapped in my bed. I've got no enthusiasm for anything, dread seeing even my closest friends, and feel like I don't know who I'm anymore. I've got an invisible weight on my back that I just can't put down, and I sometimes worry that maybe I'm actually going to die soon. And I miss my Mum so much that it hurts. How are you?"

"Um....er..... lovely to see you.... got to go now, bye!"

So yeah. A false "I'm ok" with a brief, fake smile is better I think. We might have learned to recognise that mental ill health isn't the work of demons, and the younger generations might be increasingly comfortable with talking about it, but my generation still, I think, harbours the suspicion that you're probably just trying to get out of going to work, and that it's really best not to talk about it.

I watch my old school friend and her friend for a moment, wistfully wishing I was there with a friend, engaged in animated, involved conversation. But then I pull out my notebook and pen, and am glad I'm there on my own. That's the whole point of being here today. It's not for company. This is my Artist's Date, and I'm here to write.

The Artist's Date is part of Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way' program. I decided last week that I would restart this, and see if this time I could get to the end. I know I probably won't. I don't have a great track record of finishing things like this, no matter how enthusiastically I start. I've been doing the 'Morning Pages' part of the program intermittently for years, but have never managed to stick to them as a daily practice. But I love the whole concept of the program, and reasoned that whatever I do of it is going to help. I know that writing is one of the keys to my recovery now and in the past. And so anything that encourages me to write is to be embraced.

The idea of the coffee shop and notebook Artist's Date came to me in a moment of misery. I was trying to think of ideas for my artist's date throughout the program. The Artist's Date is time spent alone in something that feels like play. And I couldn't think of a damn thing. All I could think of was going for a walk, and I'm already doing that every day as it is.

And then I hit on the coffee shop idea. I used to love writing in coffee shops pre-Covid. But then, I wrote on my laptop, and I always had my headphones on.

What if I wrote in a notebook, and didn't have my headphones? I've been trying to spend more time away from technology, more time in the world and myself properly, experiencing what's really there. It's not always pleasant, the inside of my head is a bit of a mess to say the least. But I'm enjoying being in the world more, even if I feel more observer than participant at the moment.

I take out my blue spiral notebook, bought a few years ago, and as yet unmarked, and a pen, and write the heading 'Things I noticed on my walk here'.

I'm delighted as the list grows to cover almost 2 and a half pages. I've noticed so much today. The sounds of life in the Treorchy High Street. People shopping, chatting, greeting each other, sharing their day. I noticed the sounds of the engines of cars, recognising the many differences, from the quiet hum of the increasing number of electric cars on the road, to the roar of what I always think of as the 'small penis replacement' sports cars, with the exhaust sounds that would send me straight to the nearest mechanic if my car sounded like that! I hear the splashy tell tale sounds of a wet road as this morning's frost thaws under the wheels.

I notice the change in the weather and how it is affecting me. It's warmer, and my skin doesn't feel as chilled as it did on Wednesday. but the sun is hiding behind thick clouds, and I miss it. Whether it's the difference between walking in nature and the town, or the change in weather I can't be sure, but this walk hasn't filled me with the sense of aliveness that I enjoyed on Wednesday's walk.

My coffee arrives, and I look back over my list, pleased that I have noticed so much. Because that is what life is all about right now. Noticing has brought me to my knees, mentally, emotionally, physically. But it's also my path out of the depression that has, I think, always been there, but become glaringly obvious since I stopped hiding in technology. I have finally allowing myself to surrender to this, my own personal winter, and I need to feel it all..

In her beautiful book, Wintering,Katherine Maytells us

"That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can."

This is what I'm doing. I didn't plan it, but in the absence of Facebook and other social media, my 'sober person's Dry January', that is what I have ended up doing.

Like the worst depths of winter, it is brutal. My days are spent sleeping, drifting aimlessly around my life, writing words in my head that my arms don't often have the energy to write. I either can't get off the sofa, or out of bed, or I can't stop walking, roaming the streets and hillside of my home town until I need to lie down to recover. I'm moving so much slower than I'm used to, and I don't like it, but even this slow pace sometimes exhausts me completely.

I see with absolute clarity that I need this. The sadness that I feel in every cell of my being now needs to be felt. No matter how painful. There is lots of it. Lots of perfectly valid reasons for feeling it. And I've been trying to avoid facing it, and I didn't even realise. I spent last year, the year after Mum died, filling my calendar with so many fun things in a desperate bid to feel happy. It worked. I had a lot of fun. Lots of adventures. Lots of pockets of joy.

But there was no space for the sadness. And sadness doesn't go away. You can hide from it, but it will come bursting out eventually. It needs to. Sadness means that we have lost something that we valued. It's there to be treasured, not hidden and run away from. This sadness isn't just about Mum, although there is so much sadness in my grief at her death. There is lots to be faced in this winter of mine.

But if I can keep noticing, sitting with those feelings, writing them, and allowing myself the rest and kindness that I need, I know that I will find my way to spring.

Because while the winter of my mental health will likely always come around, again, I know that spring will come as long as I let winter run its course, and do all I need to do to keep myself warm and safe while the cold hits.

Winter is a time of rest, and waiting for new growth. And for maybe the first time in my life, I know I can wrap up warm, and allow this one to pass through me.