Trusting the Timing of Your Own Life

I don’t remember winters feeling this long when I lived in the city. Even in the middle of winter, the small, modern apartments I lived in were always warm and cosy. In London, especially, whether it was winter or summer, I could happily stroll up and down the high street, nipping into shops or a café. The weather didn’t have as great an impact on my day to day life.

Here in the rural Lake District, in our old house that needs a lot of work, winters feel long. When the dark and cold really set in towards the end of the year, you pretty much don’t see the neighbours until the light starts to return in late February. There’s a strong feeling of hunkering down.

This winter has been extra difficult because our new heating system, which I spent months researching, wanting so much to make the ‘right’ decision, stopped working properly in June last year and so far we’ve been unable to get it fixed. Luckily, we have the log burner in the living room and that’s where I’ve spent most of my time all winter. And, thankfully, we can still get hot water.

Whilst I have one eye on making sure we have a functioning system before the end of the coming summer, the hardships of winter are already beginning to fade in my memory as the days get longer and warmer. When spring starts to arrive, it really is like a miracle, no matter how many times you witness it. There’s a feeling of complete amazement that it is happening again, that somehow everything is growing and bursting with life. Without the protection of the city, the transition into a new season seems more obvious and more important.

The snowdrops have already come and gone, the primroses and daffodils are in flower, the bluebell foliage is growing by the day and I have already sowed radish, sweet peas, field beans, lettuce and spring onions. I’ve been busy preparing some new veg beds as I’m trying to be more organised this year so I can grow a greater proportion of our food. This is very important to me as wanting to eat home grown food is one of the primary reasons I moved here.

My parents bought me a brilliant book for Christmas which is really making the planning and execution of sowing and planting so much easier for me. My dad has been gardening his entire adult life and says that this is the best book he has ever come across!

And now that it’s getting warmer and it’s easier to move around the house without feeling constantly contracted, I can feel some new creative energy too and I’m looking forward to getting to work.

Someone told me a while ago that they already see me as a successful writer, poet and artist. And in many ways, I do too. But she also told me that I wasn’t a ‘promoter’. And she was right. There are many reasons why I haven’t been the best at turning my creative output into something more tangible that can be exchanged for money and I won’t go into all those reasons now (let me know if you’d like me to write about this in the future), but it’s obvious to me that this is the year that I will dedicate more time to this.

I do believe it’s important to keep reminding yourself to trust the timing of the unfolding of your own life. This is especially true if you just don’t seem to fit into the conventional timeline we’ve been taught of how life ‘should’ go. I often joke that I’ve done life a bit backwards!

So, as the light and warmth return, I look forward to more blogging, more poems, more creativity and more expansion. And I look forward to sharing the journey with you all. Thank you so much for being here!

Love and courage,

Leah