Hi lovely,
Winter isn’t asking us to optimize. It’s asking us to tell the truth. The truth is: we’re living inside relentless noise. Endless news cycles. Images of death and destruction pushed straight into our nervous systems. Political gaslighting that demands we keep moving, keep producing, keep looking away just enough to survive. Many of us are tired in a way rest alone doesn’t fix. War, genocide, displacement, state violence—these aren’t abstract events happening “elsewhere.” Our bodies know. The grief, the rage, the helplessness show up as exhaustion, numbness, tight chests, shallow breath. This isn’t personal fragility. It’s what awareness feels like in violent times.
Constant witnessing without space to metabolize does not build solidarity, it drains it. The demand to comment on everything, immediately, is not consciousness; it’s a fast track to burnout and despair. Winter offers another way. Turning down the noise is not disengagement. It’s how we protect our capacity. Grounding in joy right now (real joy, not bypassing) is not escapism. It’s a political act. Pleasure, beauty, laughter, creativity, connection: these are resources. Systems built on domination rely on our depletion.
Hope, when embodied, is disruptive.
Quiet is not complacency. Stillness is not surrender. Beneath frozen ground, something is always happening. Energy is being conserved. Strength is reorganizing. Spring doesn’t arrive through force, it arrives because something was allowed to gestate.
As we move slowly toward what’s next, a few questions to sit with:
What actually sustains me right now?
What am I taking in out of obligation rather than choice?
What kind of hope do I want to carry forward and how will I protect it?
May we let winter be winter. May we refuse numbness without abandoning rest. And may whatever we bring into spring be rooted enough to last.
If this landed for you, I’m glad you’re here. You’re not alone in navigating this moment, and you don’t have to do it loudly or perfectly.
Thank you for reading, for staying awake in the ways you can, and for tending to what keeps you human.
Warmly,
Vesna
The love list:
Watching: The new season of The Pitt (Doctor Robby!)
Reading: The Game – Ken Dryden
Listening: The BPM– Sudan Archives