\n<\/p>\n
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through <\/em>The Atlantic\u2019s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s January 1, and the self-help corners of the internet tell me I\u2019m supposed to wake up as a matcha-drinking, Pilates-doing goddess of discipline. Except I don\u2019t like matcha, my gym leggings are in hibernation, and my discipline is nowhere to be found. Outside, winter has the nerve to continue.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you stride into the first week of the year full of good intentions, you may notice a sinking sensation: The vibes are just \u2026 off,\u201d Isle McElroy wrote in 2024. And for many of us, they are\u2014every year. In late November, winter can feel charming: Thanksgiving offers coziness and pie and the suggestion that cold weather is just a backdrop to togetherness. December doubles down\u2014lights, parties, rituals designed to make the early sunsets feel intentional. Then comes New Year\u2019s Eve, one last bit of glitter.<\/p>\n And then: January. A month so unadorned, it almost feels punitive. If December is champagne, January is the headache.<\/p>\n It\u2019s tempting to surrender to the slump\u2014to assume that the dullness is inevitable. But some writers throughout history have treated this month not as dead air but as an invitation: a moment when the world gets quiet enough that you can hear your own thoughts again. Henry David Thoreau\u2019s New Year\u2019s Day journal entries, published in The Atlantic in 1885, articulate how winter can sharpen a person\u2019s senses. \u201cThe rude pioneer work of the world has been done by the most devoted worshipers of beauty,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIn winter is their campaign \u2026 They are elastic under the heaviest burden, under the extremest physical suffering.\u201d Even the landscape rewarded anyone who bothered to notice: Frozen branches became \u201cfat, icy herbage\u201d; weeds turned into \u201cjewels.\u201d \u201cIn this clear air and bright sunlight, the ice-covered trees have a new beauty,\u201d he journaled in 1853.<\/p>\n Other writers in the archive seemed to recognize that same hidden momentum. In 1877, the poet Helen Hunt Jackson argued that winter is where fortitude gathers. \u201cO Winter!,\u201d she writes, \u201cJune could not hire \/ Her roses to forego the strength they learn \/ In sleeping on thy breast.\u201d What looks like nothing happening is often everything happening, just beneath the surface.<\/p>\n Three years later, in her \u201cNew Year Song,\u201d Celia Thaxter didn\u2019t ask the month to transform her\u2014she simply welcomed it.<\/p>\n Die and depart, Old Year, old sorrow! Her January is a reminder that a new year can begin quietly and still begin well.<\/p>\n Recently, one writer observed that winter\u2019s malaise can be a story we tell ourselves. Maggie Mertens noted in 2023 that although being sad in the wintertime is a \u201cprevailing narrative\u201d in American life, the data resist that frame: National depression rates across the year remain \u201cflat as a pancake,\u201d one researcher told her. Winter can be hard, but the belief that everyone is sadder during the season may simply be folklore passed off as fact. Taylor Kay Phillips argues that the secret to loving winter is to \u201cfirst accept it, then enjoy it.\u201d Beautiful things are possible \u201cbecause of the freezing temperatures and the precipitation and the wind, not in spite of them,\u201d she writes: \u201cSnow days require snow. Cute gloves need cold hands.\u201d Winter, she insists, is \u201cits own rich, wonderful destination,\u201d not an ordeal to endure en route to spring.<\/p>\n Which brings us back to our muted stretch of January. If you stop asking it to be December 2.0 and let it be what it is, the month stops feeling like the aftertaste of the holidays and starts to take on its own flavor. \u201cWhen reality clashes with expectations, perhaps we should change our expectations,\u201d McElroy wrote. Accept that old habits won\u2019t melt away overnight, or by mid-January, or maybe even by March. Accept that the month will be cold and plainspoken.<\/p>\n January may still feel like a hangover. But a hangover isn\u2019t just the end of the night. It\u2019s the body recalibrating after excess. Let the month be quiet. Let it be simple. The doldrums may still knock\u2014but if you meet the month on its own terms, they don\u2019t have to linger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic\u2019s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. It\u2019s January 1, and the self-help corners of the internet tell me I\u2019m supposed to wake up as a matcha-drinking, Pilates-doing goddess of discipline. Except I don\u2019t like matcha, my gym leggings are in hibernation,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[929,537,8310],"class_list":{"0":"post-39935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-loving","9":"tag-secret","10":"tag-winter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Welcome, O morning air of health and strength!
O glad New Year, bring us new hope to-morrow,
With blossom, leaf, and fruitage bright at length.<\/p>\n