New year, new activity

Finding fun and joy in January's dark days

Happy New Year! Welcome, 2024! This feels like a big one for me, personally: for the past two years, I’ve been telling people (repeatedly, and sometimes resignedly), that my book “won’t be out until 2024.” It felt very far away. But now that long-awaited, far-off year is here. (How To Winter will be out this fall - don’t worry, you’ll hear about it more before then!) The future: it always arrives, somehow.

With the New Year comes, often, New Year’s Resolutions: our goals for the year. I am a big believer in goals (I set yearly, quarterly, and monthly goals for myself in my planner), and the new year does provide a natural fresh start to consider areas for growth in our lives. But New Year’s Resolutions are a bit complicated: they’re often focused on our perceived shortcomings (see: resolutions to lose weight or eat healthier), they often fail, they become so rote and expected as to be almost meaningless. Most resolutions don’t make it into February.

But there is an opportunity in the turning of the year to check in with ourselves and ask what we need in the coming weeks and months. We don’t need to make a resolution for the entire year to put ourselves on the path to joy, growth, meaning, or self-discovery. We can start right here in January. And it’s a time when we often need a boost the most; I call this time of year the “winter doldrums.” The comfort, ritual, and light (literally and figuratively) of the holidays is now behind us. The days are slowly lengthening, but this can feel like the darkest time of year. It’s back to work during cold days and long nights.

January gray (but Amsterdam looks good in any color)

And so it’s the perfect time to infuse a bit of intentional joy into our routines. Knowing that I’ll need a boost on January and February evenings, I’ve signed myself up for two classes: an eight-week ceramics course on Monday evenings, to get me out of the house, using my hands, and socializing at the start of the week. And a much scarier but potentially even more fun beginner hip hop dance class. I haven’t taken dance since I was in 6th grade, and even then I was…fine. But I love to dance and I have few opportunities to do so, and I saw someone on Instagram posting about this great, very beginner friendly dance class, and something inside me sparked a little bit. And so this month, on Wednesday nights, you will find me out of my comfort zone, moving to the music.

My first pottery creations from 6 years ago. I have definitely improved!

In addition to - or instead of - your New Year’s Resolution, I invite you to join me in finding some January Joy. What’s something you used to love but haven’t done in a while? Ceramics, baking, drawing, playing piano. What’s something that fills you with a burst of excitement, and maybe a little bit of fear? Trying roller skating, finding a conversation partner to improve your foreign language skills, winter swimming. It doesn’t have to be forever; it doesn’t have to last the whole year. But if you can try something new for the next few weeks - bonus points if it’s with new people or old friends or anyone else, really - it can give your January days and nights a little extra boost.

Chase your January Joy

Commit to an activity for the next month that gives you a little boost:

• This can be something creative (watercolor, needlepoint, writing poetry) or physical (dancing, cross-country skiing, tai chi); out of the house (classes, meet-ups, visiting a museum every week) or at home (long-distance shared activities, special bakes, writing letters).

• To help it stick, give it structure: I find that the best structure is some sort of class (there is an imperative to go at a certain day and time whether you feel like it or not, usually aided by some financial investment, and the promise of company), but you can also make your own structure: devote a specific day and time to the activity or enlist family members or friends to join you at scheduled times.

• The most important thing is to pick something that you actually look forward to: something you are pulled towards, that is fun, and that fills you up a bit.

I want to hear what you do and how it goes. Share what you’ll pursue for your January joy in the comments below. You can also always reach me directly at kari@karileibowitz.com.

Stay cozy,

Kari

Notes from the Slush Pile:

• This NatGeo video of making a portrait in a snowstorm shows how winter’s snow and darkness can provide a stark beauty for night photography.

• I’m proud to be on the Science Alliance of the climate-advocacy organization Protect Our Winters. Here’s an article from a few years ago about how the organization was founded by winter athletes trying to save the season.

• Don’t forget - lighting candles still provides comfort and coziness even now that the holidays are over - perhaps especially so. Embrace the darkness!