Bleak and Bright
A winter newsletter
Hello friends!
Can you believe it’s almost the end of the year? We’ve hit the shortest day, and now with tiny increments, the light will be returning.
When I was younger, I didn’t mind the darkness as much as I do now. I’ve realised that I value the long days, the bright evenings. I’m not a fan of heat, and honestly the sun (or death orb) scares me. I’ve always been afraid of sunburn. Still, those evenings when the sun doesn’t set til almost 11pm are my favourite. The light as it hits the sea outside my window makes me feel so much happier.
Despite that, we need to respect the dark half. We learn to hibernate, take things slower, make our nests cosy against the cold.
Not everyone can do that - I’m lucky to have just enough to scrape together to keep my home heated this winter. So many are in dire situations. So many are houseless.
Come January, I’m going to try a 100 Day sketchbook project. I’ve been practising a little for it. Trying to get back into the habit of daily sketching is actually harder than it sounds. I used to be brilliant at that but since my health took a turn, it got harder for me and I ended up just working on singular painting projects instead of keeping my sketchbook practice as part of my routine. Sketchbooking is so important in artistic development in my opinion, and I was reading the inimitable Emma Carlisle’s substack, this one, to be exact, when I realised how much I wanted to get back to my roots of just drawing.
Tomorrow I’m having an interview about the role of community nurses and HCAs in end of life care. I’m really excited to get to talk about this as it’s such an important topic and passion of mine. I hope that I will do justice to how vital this work is while also applauding my families that I serve and how much work they put in to make sure that their person is dying well.
If anyone would like to hear more about that side of my work, let me know in the comments!