'Tis the Season
Growing up in Brisbane, Australia, the idea of distinct seasons was foreign and incomprehensible. ‘Winter’ consisted of the few weeks in the second and third term of school where you might wear a jumper in the morning, but only until morning tea (10:30am) after which it would be far too warm to keep on. ‘Summer’ arrived when bus trips began to smell and the air hung like a Victorian curtain, thick and heavy before the afternoon storm.
My short years in Melbourne introduced me to the concept of a separate winter and summer, but I was too peripatetic to notice. It was not until my move to the UK in late 2017 that I understood what it meant to have seasons (and a proper winter coat).
Seasons, in the UK, meant entirely different wardrobes. It meant different opening hours for parks and museums, it meant a specific date when ‘the heating was turned on’ (or off). I watched nature go through the kinds of motions I had seen only on documentaries, squirrels searching for acorns (I think??) for the winter (I’m guessing??), leaves falling for the autumn and blooming, as advertised, in the spring.
I felt the shift of the clocks like a gear change in my soul, the shortening of the days contracting the spirits of the people, the dark mornings and endless nights suited mostly for the inside. I wondered if this explained things about the Europeans that hadn’t previously made sense - had they gotten on ships and traveled (read: invaded) other lands in search of, I dunno, sunshine? Good food? Warm weather? Was their passive aggressiveness and fondness of silence not a cultural quirk but simply a reflection of what their environment had put them through?
All that to say, I learnt to understand the presence - and value - of seasons. I was amazed at a tree’s ability to shed its entire crown of foliage, only to begin the process of growing it again, mere months later. Flowers would flower, entire fields bright with pomp and colour, only to wilt and disappear within weeks. If you didn’t catch the strawberries in time, you were out of luck. They had only their season.
Similarly, my friends, we experience our life in seasons. Some might say we experience ‘eras’, but *ahem* I’m sticking with the cycle by Nature™. Right now, in the UK, we’re technically in summer - the longest days, supposedly the hottest, and in the good times, somewhat productive. In the annual freelancer cycle, early summer is when the seeds planted earlier in the year are in full bloom, where you’re trying to do the big push, get all the big things over the line, before everyone goes away for their long awaited breaks.
We have our own personal life cycles as well. At least, that is what I have learned, in my creative freelance career. We have the years where we are sowing, and the years we are reaping. We have the times where we are out and about and PUBLIC FACING!!!, and the the times where we need to come back to ourselves, close the windows and shutter the doors, taking time, taking stock. I have years I write, and years I publish. Periods I am building relationships, periods those relationships are bearing fruit. It ebbs, it flows, it is not always in ones control and it does not always go to plan.
It is worth knowing what season one is in, and adjusting energy levels accordingly. There is no point trying to act like it’s summer when it’s winter, or pretend that it is spring when all you want to do is shed into fall. Indeed, at times, needs must - the rent must be paid, and the deadlines must be met. But sometimes, there is more flex than we allow for. Sometimes, we can - and must - give ourselves the permission to be in the season that our bodies and souls want us to be. It might feel difficult, counterintuitive - but in the words of a good friend, it’s not impossible, just inconvenient.
My time on Emmerdale has been, so far, an absolute delight. Why? Apart from the obvious - getting plunged into an incredibly creative, fast paced and generous production environment, spending all day talking about stories and ideas and possibility, living in a new city and learning all about The North (I had my first ‘chip butty’…) - I’ve realised that part of the reason I am enjoying it so thoroughly is because it has returned me to the season of apprenticeship.
I am a student again. It has been such a long time since I have been a student, provided the space and the grace to learn, to train, to grow. In many ways, I have been hoofing it - learning on the job, on the fly - for almost ten years. It’s how I’ve survived, and to a certain extent, I have thrived under that pressure. But to truly hone one’s craft, to give oneself the best possible chance at becoming the finest version of themselves, well. We need time. We need space. We need practice. We might even need obscurity.
My season of apprenticeship follows a season of bloom - lots of output, both long and short form, organising and educating around the war in Sudan, growing of audiences, an increase in visibility. But this is a quieter season, and I am glad for it.
I have felt some way about taking a step back from online spaces, posting less about Sudan when I know there are so few sources, saying no to events and podcast interviews and other engagements that I know are important and worthwhile, but I feel I cannot currently prioritise. On a bad day, it feels selfish, self involved, self indulgent even, to take this time away from the outside world. But on a good day, I understand that this may be my ego talking, it may be any myriad of self-sabotaging voices echoing missives and jibes I do not even believe.
The internet will be there when I come back from this season, I know it will. It might be different. I might have to re-plough the soil, re-till the land. But isn’t that always the way? And does this period, this season of apartness, of internal development, does it not provide the opportunity for new growth, for a harvest that might look utterly different from what came before, because I’ve planted an entirely different seed? The farmers call it crop rotation, a ‘practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health.’ I prefer to think of it as simply, a new season.
What season do you find yourself in, today? When was the last time you had the chance to be an apprentice?
Welcome back to the recommendations section of the newsletter! It’s been a while…
1. Watch: Dark Matter
The new sci-fi offering from AppleTV is what I’m watching this week. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s confident, and not too grim. The escapist visual feast I needed.
Listen: Apple’s Big Brother Moment
An interesting look at how the recent Apple advert so deeply missed the mark. If you didn’t see it - have a watch, and then listen to the podcast. I do think there is a sadness to the realisation by so many that the brand that once marketed itself so successfully as the ‘rebellious outsider’ is simply another member of Big Tech. Or is it?
Read: Embracing Inwardness as Artists
This post on rejecting the excessive ‘outwardness’ of the world chimes with my own feelings. It also nails a tension I am often negotiating - the idea that privacy is the same as secrecy (which it is not!!).
Social media does bear some blame for the shallowness Arendt warned about – not just because of our individual exhibitionism, but because it has led to a profound values shift, moving the baseline on what constitutes a generally acceptable level of privacy.
…it has made us begin to unconsciously question the validity of not ‘sharing’. This shift means that if we artists on social media are endlessly communicating, videoing ourselves, sharing our work spaces, our wardrobe choices, filming ourselves at protests or parties, expressing an opinion on every global atrocity or political event, even sharing images of our draft manuscripts or paintings in progress – all of which I have cheerfully, unthinkingly done – then a subtle suggestion begins to form: if we don’t do this, there is something uptight, ungenerous or evasive about us.
Honourable privacy has slowly morphed into suspect secrecy.
Gawd, this stuff fires me up. I had a small moment recently when, checking into a hotel, I was asked to sign the terms and conditions for something… but when I clicked in to have a read, it was for some new user account they were setting up for some app which I did not want or explicitly agree to. When I queried this, the folks behind the counter were confused and uncertain as to what the very thing they asked me to sign was for. Blimey! But even the desire to check is often seen as annoying, even suspicious. You know what that reminds me of? Fascism. As the author of the post reminds us: fascists love surveillance, and self-surveillance most of all.
Honourable mention to this piece: You Better Work, Ben: On Labor and Ben Stiller
Eid Mubarak to all who are observing. If you want to donate some money to Sudanese folks this Eid, check out this link, which is a way to get direct money to the emergency response rooms on the ground.
Until next week inshallah (which will be after June 21, so the days will be shortening once more…), take care of yourselves and your loved ones.
Best,
Yassmin
“But sometimes, there is more flex than we allow for. Sometimes, we can - and must - give ourselves the permission to be in the season that our bodies and souls want us to be. It might feel difficult, counterintuitive - but in the words of a good friend, it’s not impossible, just inconvenient.”
Thank you, a reminder I needed to read.