Usually, by this time of year, I'm thinking about escaping somewhere warm. This autumn, for the first time in many years, I have absolutely no desire to go anywhere. Quite the opposite. I'm enjoying the rain, the changing colours of the trees, the shorter days and the prospect of wrapping myself in warm clothes. I'm looking forward to winter, and I can't quite believe how happy that makes me.
Lately, I've been finding enormous pleasure in the most ordinary things. Pottering around the house, cooking nourishing meals from scratch, reading, writing, arranging my space, bringing out winter clothes and making home feel even more like home. Nothing particularly remarkable, and yet it feels almost luxurious.
Perhaps because, for so many years, there was never enough time for any of it.
I was always going somewhere, building something, managing something, thinking about the next thing. The everyday pleasures of living were squeezed into whatever time remained after everything supposedly more important had been taken care of.
And isn't that rather strange? We spend so much of our lives working towards a better life, while barely finding time to enjoy the one we already have.
In a world where almost everyone is encouraged to strive for bigger, better, more visible, more successful, more recognised, time has become perhaps our greatest luxury.
We work hard to afford beautiful homes, good food, wonderful experiences and time with those we love, yet somehow we can become too busy to enjoy any of them.
Perhaps winter is a good time to reconsider our relationship with time itself.
Nature has never expected itself to flourish continuously. Trees release their leaves, the earth prepares for colder months, and life follows rhythms that existed long before our calendars, targets and productivity culture. There is something wonderfully reassuring about remembering that we belong to this natural world too.
As Katherine May writes in Wintering, "Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season."
I've spent many winters trying to escape them. This year, I'm staying. I want to experience the season rather than hurry through it, to enjoy the warmth of home against the cold outside, the pleasure of a meal made with care, the changing landscape, and the freedom to spend an afternoon without having to justify what I've achieved by the end of it.
Of course, I realise that having the space to make these choices is a privilege, and not everyone can step away from their commitments.But perhaps there is something to be said for giving a little more importance to the pleasures of everyday living, however small, rather than continually leaving them for another day, or doing them in a hurry.
So, as autumn progresses, I'm happily putting away the summer clothes, enjoying the rain and welcoming the slower season ahead. I don't yet know exactly what will unfold by spring, and for once, I'm rather enjoying not knowing.
After all these years of rushing towards the next chapter, I have discovered how lovely it can be to enjoy the page I'm on.
With love,
Elena x
voice@elenademinska.com
