Love List: January

wild solitude | lifesaving knitting | everyday beauty

I try my best to see the good in January. I’ve been listening to this song on repeat in my study at the top of the house, drinking endless coffee from a flask and watching the candyfloss sunrise over the frozen rooftops outside my little window. On bright days, I notice shards of light follow their path around the white walls, resting on my stacks of books, dancing past me out the open door and onto the floorboards of the landing beyond. When it rains — as it so often does — raindrops bounce off the windowsill and the sound soothes me. On foggy mornings (my favourite kind), I watch the rooftops fade from view and listen to crows calling in the still air. On a double-page spread of my notebook I have inked out a scrawled plan for the next stage of my writing project, spidery arrows linking ideas like thought bridges, mapping a tentative way for my words.

During these deepest winter weeks, self-care, for me, is about observing small moments and relishing simple pleasures. I take myself out for a walk — through frosty fields and along the stream where catkins hang low — and watch my breath cloud out ahead of me. Overhead, two swans circle, before landing on the ice of a frozen pond. In the evenings, I read more than ever, taking up a book from the top of a stack and wrapping myself in a blanket named for fog. On my kitchen table, purple hyacinth bulbs are coming into bloom, and there is a small bunch of daffodils in a French glass vase. This week, a jubilant squawking from beyond the kitchen window heralded that my two chickens — Ebony and Lola — have started laying again. The warmth of a fresh brown speckled egg, heavy in my hand, felt like hope.

Here’s what I’ve been reading & loving this month: