It’s the dark time of year. I’ve got few opportunities to photograph, leaving and arriving the house most days in the dark, and even less motivation. A couple more weeks until the solstice and then we’ll turn the corner on daylight. A couple more weeks and maybe I’ll turn the corner on this malaise that’s come upon me.

I think I get this feeling every year, in December. This melancholy. This desire to check out of normal life and curl up inside myself for a little while. To go dark.

Does this happen to you?

I came across this article on Brain Pickings, about how melancholy is good for creativity. Maria Popova, the article author writes:

… I am also of the firm conviction that access to the full spectrum of human experience and the whole psychoemotional range of our inner lives — high and low, light and darkness — is what makes us complete individuals and enables us to create rich, dimensional, meaningful work.

I believe this too. So I’m allowing myself the dark time, knowing that the light will come again.

It does every year, without fail.