Hello friend.
I’m a January baby.
When I was a child my birthday presents were always wrapped in discarded Christmas paper. As a teenager, I remember mum would brave the post-Christmas sales frenzy to buy me the largest box of make-up she could afford. I didn’t care that the packaging was covered in glittery, gold stars and Merry Christmas script. She did her best to make me feel special even if my birthday cake was leftover fruit cake with mistletoe on top.
Growing up I hated having my birthday in early January as my friends were either getting ready to go back to school or college, nursing hangovers from over-exuberant holiday celebrations, or too focused on their annual diet and new gym membership to be coaxed out of their house to party.
As an adult, my birthday has largely gone unnoticed and unfêted and I’m okay with that—the older I get the less I want to count those rising numbers anyway—but in recent years Mr C and I have been flying south to mark my loops around the sun and escape the post-Yule gloom of Seattle.
And that’s why I’m writing to you from the desert this week.
This annual pilgrimage to the low desert of Coachella Valley, where the light is as golden as syrup and the warmth is bone-deep even in the depths of winter, has become a ritual for me and Mr C as we flip the calendar over to the second week of January.
Here, we’re on the edge of the otherworldly landscape of Joshua Tree National Park with its namesake trees, alien rock formations and the deep scar of the San Andreas fault. Anyone up for a guided tour of the gaping rift in the earth’s crust that may slip at any minute and wipe out Los Angeles? No? Haha—me neither. I may be a Capricorn mountain goat but I’m keeping my feet well away from that fault line.
This annual trip has taken on the aura of a retreat, dare I say? Mr C would say that’s too “woo-woo” but we both bring journals, talk about our intentions for the year, make individual and partnership goals, and just kind of re-align ourselves to each other.
It sounds daft, but although we’re in other’s company a lot of the time, we don’t always share our deepest thoughts and dreams; we’re too busy discussing who’s going to contact the arborist about the trees that need pruning or arguing over what temperature the house should be—I run hot, Mr C runs cold (opposites again, of course).
There’s something about the warmth of the light and the air here in the desert that acts like the old-fashioned coal tar drawing salve that mum used to put on my splinters; it draws out the love in us; it pulls out the old dreams and lays them there on the surface for us to pick at and re-construct into an adventure.
What started as an off-the-cuff, I don’t want to spend my birthday in the cold. Where is it warm and easy to get to? declaration has become an anchor point for both of us and a cherished way of starting the year.
I’m now even glad my birthday is in early January.
Before I left for this trip, I hard-pruned all the roses in my garden. Prune to an outward-facing bud is the golden rule. I’m doing the same with my art practice: pruning back old, unproductive wood, letting light in and opening up space for new buds to flourish.
This means you’ll notice some changes—here in my newsletter and other places where my art might touch you.
It feels a little scary, to be honest. Where are the outward-facing buds of my creative practice?
Growth doesn’t always come from the places we expect.
As I get older I recognize how I stay attached to patterns of behaviour that may not be harmful but don’t necessarily add anything of value to my life or art practice.
Like the way I keep watching YouTube videos of Korean women cleaning their house in the hope I’ll become a tidier person.
Or the way I insist on keeping every rubber band that enters the house, just in case.
Or (Mr C suggested this one) the way I never unpack my bag after a trip until I need the bag again.
Bring me the secateurs! (Mr C bought me a brilliant Japanese pair for Christmas.)
So as I set off on another merry dance around the sun, I’m doing so with the mindset of a fresh, green bud, waiting to grow and bloom. This body may have a few more aches, my face a few more wrinkles, but my brain is a fertile bed of compost waiting to be seeded. And I’m growing a meadow of wildflowers.
Until next time.
JC
Have a wonderful time pruning and shooting, composting and drawing out. It looks beautiful x
Happy early birthday! Bring back some warm weather and sunshine, please lol :) <3