April Skies

About this time every year, I start to think that maybe I should be getting on with things: making plans, completing projects, sorting out the detritus of my life. Spring cleaning.

After the emotional slump I tend to experience from late December to well into March, the longer days and warmer weather seem to stir some life into me. This year I’ve been more conscious than ever of the changing year, the procession of the seasons. Perhaps it’s because I’m older, and more stable in who I am, that I feel I can stay still and watch the world turn around me.

There is a great gulf between knowing something, and accepting it. One thing I’m finally beginning to truly accept, and incorporate into my life to a greater degree, is the importance of our immediate physical environment. Even small modulations—how tidy it is, whether the floor’s been vacuumed recently, how well organised the inevitable cables are—can have a profound effect on one’s emotional states.

Currently I’m trying to create a humane workplace: somewhere I feel comfortable, relaxed, but most of all, human—a person, not a machine.

There are two aspects to this task. Firstly, accepting this personhood: accepting that I’m sensitive to my environment, and that by altering it I can induce a greater sense of wellbeing. Secondly, the actual work of changing things. Tidying is a good start, but not sufficient; bare walls and empty tables do not a happy person make.

I kicked things off just after Christmas by adding a couple of posters; these have recently been joined by a little display of postcards and photographs, just above my desk. Amongst the postcards I mentioned the other week were a number that other people had sent me, a couple of poems I’d photocopied, and some photos of friends and family.

Having them arranged above me adds emotional texture to the room; it helps make it a home, makes it mine. My space, defined by who I am, and conducive to a continued state of being me.