On Daylight Savings

and winter's arrival

The sky is blue in London today, guaranteeing a mood lift of at least 25%. I didn’t know how much I appreciated a blue sky until I moved to this grey old city.

from 1918 - US Library of Congress

We lost an hour overnight. I searched for it in vain and found nowt but a scrawled note: back in 5 months. Clocks have been awkwardly adjusted across the country, (though it will probably take me a week to reset my analog wrist watch), and while we might have gained an hour in sleep, we’ve lost sixty minutes of precious daylight at the end of the day. The darkness will shudder in earlier tonight, ushering us without ceremony into our warm buildings and out of the cold.

I did not grow up in a city or state with daylight savings, and the reasons behind the move continue to baffle me. According to one source, “the move was made during the first world war to help conserve fuel and has endured ever since, despite the fact that there is no real benefit to lighter mornings and longer evenings.” Funny, that. Rituals that have no tangible benefit but serve as an important part of the culture. Might just call it tradition.

from US Library of Congress

A quick google shows that the twice yearly clock change is far from uncontroversial - from Reddit to the New York Times people wonder ‘what the hell is the point’? But I know for me, the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of that cheeky unit of time feels like a marker, a stark break between the seasons, an announcement of sorts. And on the last weekend of October it reads: Winter is Here.

I like winter. Controversial, I know, especially since winter in London is more drab faces and wet streets than ski slopes and raclette. But having grown up in mostly sub-tropical climes, the advent of winter remains a novelty - thicker coats and layered looks, hot drinks and hygge, binge watching television without feeling bad about wasting away precious hours of daylight. Perhaps I unduly romanticise the season, it’s just as much heating bills and loneliness as it is Christmas markets and cider. But maybe there’s something old in the new gen z approach to ‘romanticising your life’?

You can’t mindset your way through winter, laughed a friend, when I shared a Guardian piece about psychologist Kari Leibowitz. For the past decade, Leibowitz has been investigating people’s attitudes to winter and brought it all together in her debut book, How to Winter: Harnessing Your Mindset to Thrive in Cold, Dark Or Difficult Times. I loved her flipping the script on the darkest months of the year:

…we might have a mindset that winter is limiting or that it is full of opportunity, dreadful or delightful. We conflate the objective circumstances – that winter is cold, dark and wet – with subjective things, like it being gloomy, boring and depressing, when you could just as easily make the case that it is cosy, magical and restorative.

She goes on to say:

The first step is to appreciate winter for what it is, without wishing that it were something different, and then try to notice the things that are pleasurable about it. For example, we might bemoan that we have less energy, but we could flip that on its head and say that winter is a time to do less and rest more.

You might also reframe your narrative about the weather. When it rains, your commute to work may be more uncomfortable, but you might also find this weather especially well-suited to indoor and creative tasks. Some research suggests that darkness enhances creativity. Which one of those things you focus on is going to have a big influence on how you experience the rain that day. These things might feel small or silly at first, but they train you to notice different things about the winter.

My coldest winter was one spent in Vilnius, Lithuania. The days were about five or six hours long, and temperatures were down at -15 and lower. I slept like I’d never slept before, moved slowly and less often, found myself more black bear than black panther, less active, less ‘productive’. But creatively, it was one of the most generative residencies I’ve done, the light and the space and the pace allowing for something different to grow.

the river behind the residency building in Lithuania

I do not know yet what this winter will hold. I am not yet ready for the hibernation, have things I want to get done and deadlines deadlines deadlines to meet! But inshallah, as the season tips into the next, and the year does the same, I meet both with gratitude and excitement. Change is in the air, and that is always - in my book - to be met with joy.

What are you doing this winter (or summer, for my southern hemisphere readers) to romanticise your life?

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Watch: Showtrial

I almost wrote the whole post on this show, which I finished this week. I prefer the first season to the second, although they both share similar features: a hooky, pulpy tone, part crime show part legal drama. Neither series gives you the sense of satisfaction that you might be craving for at the end, but that is - I imagine - by design, forcing us who are paying attention to come back to the deeper question: is due process and justice the same? You can catch Showtrial on BBC iPlayer.

Listen: Gatluak Bakermat Remix

My summer song of the year. Sudani + vibes.

Read: My Husband Wanted to Have a Child. I Didn’t. Here Is How It Went

An excerpt from a non-fiction title Others like Me: The Lives of Women without Children by Nicole Louie. I’m of the age now where children - having them, trying to have them, not wanting them, not being sure about wanting them - is a regular and ever evolving conversation topic. I am ever fascinated by those who choose to write about their choices, and have found reading such testimonies intriguing - though perhaps, not entirely helpful? I’m not sure having children is a choice one can intellectualise… though it appears I am definitely trying!

From the archive:

The last time I wrote about winter…

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Thank you all, as always, for reading. I was hoping to ask y’all a question, as a good thousand of you have joined this substack in the past year and are perhaps newer to my work, or just this space in general. Any burning questions? Themes you’d like me to explore? Please do leave a comment or reply to this email directly as I’d love to hear from you :)

Until next week, inshallah.

Yassmin