Winter Confines

January feels out of balance. The month has been strange. I have been off-kilter, and by that I mean, well, I’ve been grumpy, crabby, and stressed out. I’m pretty sure that it’s just the winter doldrums. Winter is good, in general. Snow is beautiful, the cold is actually quite refreshing, and if I didn’t have winter, well, then summer wouldn’t seem so glorious and I’d miss the euphoria of spring creeping in. It’s just the lack of sunshine that affects me, and the diminished outdoor activity. I’m pining away for my runs by the lake.

Besides the indoors, business writing might be zapping my creativity. Most of the writing I’ve been doing this month has been hour after hour of data analysis for work. I actually enjoy it (let’s face it, I just love writing), but I’m losing my fresh lens on Chicago (hell, I’m losing any lens on the city altogether because I’m always trapped indoors), and I don’t have nearly as much time for introspection as I’d like these days. Most evenings, I can’t even begin to think about time for blogging. When I do have a few spare minutes, I open a blank Word document, punch out a few sentences, delete them, try again, select all, delete again, start a new paragraph, and eventually end up wiping out the whole thing and giving up for the night.

I’m starting to feel like I did in graduate school, when I was always researching and analyzing and writing long papers. Part of me loves it, with the challenge and the structure, trying to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit together seamlessly, but at the same time, I get into this mode. And all the whimsy and metaphor in my body seem to get sucked out by the dry nature of the work. I become restricted, trapped. It’s strange to say it, but I actually start to feel a bit plastic when my writing isn’t fluid and imaginative. Or maybe it’s the other way ‘round, and it’s my writing that’s becoming as confined as me. Maybe this is why January has left me feeling out of kilter.

Right now I feel as though I’m merely looking at Chicago from windows. Here’s hoping that work subsides a little and upcoming weeks hold opportunities for me to relax, re-envision my surroundings, and dream up some entertaining tales.