At "Reverb" at the Vinyl Factory in London, in front of "Vigil" by Caterina Barbieri and Ruben Spini.
Something strange is happening: we're over halfway through December, the sky is the colour of concrete and the light starts to back away at 3pm, and somehow I feel ... fine? Sure, I'm sleeping more, but that's just a natural reaction to the darkness. But my mind is clear, and I can't believe I've actually been able to keep the gloom of winter SAD at bay this year.
This is how I did it: thoroughly fed up with losing months every year to this bullsh*t, I decided to get into the science, once and for all. I've messed around with SAD lamps for years, but this time I did exactly what Russell Foster, professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University, told me to do: I anchor my circadian rhythm every day by making sure to get some daylight into my eyeballs before 10am. As I want to start the day by quietly reading a book instead of trudging through a field before the coffee has kicked in, I achieve this by placing my SAD lamp next to the window where the sun rises, and I sit in front of it for 45 minutes.
The crucial part of this too-simple-to-seem-true trick is the timing. A walk at lunchtime won't cut it! First light is an anchor for the body, which uses environmental cues to regulate all sorts of physical processes from tiredness and hunger to temperature and cortisol release. I may not be a morning person, but my body is – in winter, we're all animals, stretching towards the light.
I'm having such a a strong "first time" feeling this winter. Some of it is the novelty of a December that doesn't hurt, but it's also a feeling of a year that's taken a turn – 2024 has been such a pleasant surprise for me. Several longstanding issues reached resolution this year, leaving behind a feeling of freedom so expansive that I'm still in awe of it. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with it, revelling in this feeling as I walked through the city woods this summer. It was the best way I could think of to physically experience the open space that was in my head – I've been craving that feeling for years and years, and suddenly it was there.
But what to do with this sudden freedom? I didn't have to think about it for long, as one thing rapidly rose to the surface: I wanted to have more fun. Good old fashioned fun – what a concept! I wholly recommend a Summer of Fun *especially* if you think you're too old for one. Top tip: Listen to some music you loved when you were a teenager to conjure up some ideas for what this may look like for you. Like Beth Orton sang on my CD player when I was 18, "And why should I know better by now, when I'm old enough not to?"
And honestly, the Summer of Fun never really ended. Not only was I a very un-rebellious teenager with a lot of first times left, but I've also realised that even if it's not technically a brand new thing, it may still be a "first time" if the experience is different enough. Think of it like how you may have tried pickles once as a child and spent decades identifying as a person who "hates pickles", only to try one again at 35 and realise they are in fact delicious. Or how you can hear something 20 times and know it's probably true but not really feel it, before the 21st time hits you like a truth so profound that it makes you shake in your boots. Timing really is everything.
As much as it's nice to know yourself, the flexibility of the mind is one of the more merciful features of our biology – we can find ourselves changed at any point. As sentimental as our hearts can be, the brain cares so much more about the future than the past, and will think nothing of betraying an old grudge for future hope. At least that's what I try and conjure nowadays when opportunities present themselves, inviting me to try things for the first time, again.
Sometimes the solution is to just say yes, with the knowledge that you can always say no later. Sometimes the solution is to blast 10,000 lux into your eyeballs because the earth's axis is at odds with the demands of capitalism. Sometimes the solution is to get really sweaty with one or hundreds of people. Sometimes it's like Alanis Morissette sang on my DiscMan when I was 14 and cruising around the village on my bike: "I recommend biting off more than you can chew, to anyone." It doesn't really matter what you do, as long as it involves engaging with the edges of yourself through nature, art, or people. In 2025 I want to do all three, but especially the latter. There are a lot of things a body cannot experience alone.
Writings
Rose, snowflake, star, sun – Hazlitt
Norway has claimed the Selburose as its own, but you can find it all over the world - so who does it belong to, really? I spent a year reporting on the origins of the eight point star, and found that actually, it belongs to all of us. This was an incredible journey and I'm so pleased that I can finally share it – it's out now in Hazlitt. This is one of my all time favourite stories I’ve worked on, weaving together threads from my own life with something that ended up stretching all across the world.
Readings
For this month's article recommendations from around the internet, head over to Reading List, Cloud Study edition.
This year I subscribed to a bit more fun than usual too.