Wintering

Adam Gordon is studying for a DFA in Creative Writing. His doctoral work explores queer histories of Glasgow, and the effect of contemporary theories of ecology on the form and structure of the novel. He is the current Researcher Development PGR Communications Intern.

I am not a morning person. But I love being the first one awake in a house filled with people, the air thick with the warm, full quiet of sleep. Padding down the hall in the early, winter dark, to make the first cup of coffee in an unlit kitchen. There is a deep contentment in the pause before the day begins, and I find that anxieties about my thesis can’t reach me here.

Silence, stillness, darkness. We don’t find much of these in the rush of a new year, a new term, looming annual progress reviews, results to be collated, lit reviews to submit, a social life to cling to like a life raft. But in a place like Scotland, where the balance of day and night shifts so dramatically from solstice to solstice, there is wisdom in listening to the rhythm of the seasons. This might sound portentous or pretentious, but there’s no mysticism here. It’s simply that we have to live with the dark and cold, so we might as well stop fighting them. It might just make it easier to submit your next chapter on time. 

I suspect that darkness and quiet make many of us uncomfortable because they’ve become unfamiliar. We equate stillness with lack of productivity (and nothing is more calculated to fill you with anxious, I should be working thoughts than your doctorate). When we do have ‘down time’, we often fill it with unhelpful things. Doom-scrolling the news or Instagram makes literally no-one feel happier or more rested, then we beat ourselves up for wasting time. 

So how to cultivate stillness, and an appreciation of the darker part of the year? 

Thanks to all that Instagram scrolling, many of us are familiar with the Danish concept of ‘hygge’, or the Scots sort-of equivalent, ‘coorie’: candlelight and warmth, perhaps a glass of wine, and those aimless, intimate conversations with friends that make the long nights fly. These things are definitely part of living winter well - and not losing all perspective when you’re writing that next chapter. But I’m also curious about solitude, and the (dis)comfort it brings. 

We’re used now to talking about how isolating the PhD experience can be, and this is a vital conversation to be having. In addition, the pandemic has deprived us of our social lives, and we’ve been desperate to reclaim them. I would suggest, however, that making an active choice to be alone makes all the difference. It’s ok to retreat, to not go out, to be still. To hermit, if ‘hermit’ were a verb. If I had the time or money, I would spend January in a cottage in the mountains (by the woods, please, and close to a river) to lie fallow and simply exist. These are the hardest months: the winter festivities are over and there is no glimmer of spring on the horizon. There won’t be a cottage in the highlands anytime soon, but there are moments in a day, in a week, when I can stare at the rain on the window and let the rest of the world fall away, before turning back to my books, more grounded, more alert.

The structure of the academic year means that these months are always busy. Researching, writing, and teaching don’t leave much spare time for sitting still, and the familiar injunction to get away from our desks is all important: we need what sunlight we can get. But I might counsel forgetting, from time to time, about exercising, and indulge in something far less active. Drifting. Watching. Savouring. I’m currently obsessed with the specific, exquisite grey-green of old man’s beard, the lichen that is visible on birch trees once the leaves have fallen. 

I’m not talking about ‘taking time to reflect’, or thinking much at all. ‘Reflect’ is too forceful a word, already a step too far. ‘Witness’ might be better, or simply ‘pay attention’. For me, the grace of winter lies in its stark materiality. Some people love the visceral shock of diving into cold water. For my own part, I have made my peace with rain. There is pleasure in the simple sensation of it, and in observing the fine shifts in intensity and quality. (My favourite, incidentally, is smirr: that fine, drifting mist that beads on your hair and clothes.) Taking the time to revel in these things - which are, after all, inevitable - is balancing. It makes me calmer, and better at my work. 

It’s coming on for evening as I write. The days are just a little longer now. I won’t light the lamp yet, the better to enjoy the slow embrace of dusk, the way that objects lose their form as the day fails. My books will wait for me until it’s dark.