What Goes In The Cup
the december slump is coming for me
Dear friends, I am pouring from an empty cup.
The cat must go to the vet for at least one, probably two, suspected abscesses because he has been beaten up by a bigger and very beautiful tabby, as is his way; the car has a trouble; the house is an uninhabitable wreck, which absorbs more money and time than I thought possible; and December, my personal shipwreck of a month, is mere hours away. Another of my dearest, most touchstone friends has left the country for a prolonged period of time. Some family things. Some logistical things. And, to add injury to insult, I am suffering, for the second time in six weeks and actually only the fourth or fifth time in my entire life, with the kind of take-to-my-bed hacking-cough chest cold that has entirely wiped me out and left me feeble and stupid. I think I might have managed, with luck and a full week in bed, to duck needing antibiotics for it, but if it goes on for very many days longer I will have no choice but to confront my worst fears and go to the doctor myself. It is the same sneezy, achy, drippy cold as before; I think I just banished it temporarily the first time with pure adrenaline of needing to do two huge complicated work things, go on tour and sort a house. This year has been the most intense of my working life, and there are things still to do: big things to do in the last weeks of the year.
My eyes are, genuinely, closing as I am writing this. I will prop them open with matchsticks and keep going.
[I fell asleep for twenty five minutes here. In the day!]
I have been writing this letter to you for weeks and weeks on trains up and down the country, and somehow I’m no better off, words-wise. I am still at the beginning, where I always am, except that I am writing to you, mostly old friends, probably most of whom remember last year’s winter slump, some even the year before that. The cup is empty. I am pouring with both hands. The! Cup! Is! Empty!
I know it is empty and I know you know this sensation; whenever I write about the December slumps it is like a call to arms for all the slumpers everywhere. The cup! Is! Empty!
The answer might be, stop pouring.
The obvious answer is to stop pouring.
But when I stop pouring, then I have nothing, and nor does anybody else.
I just sit here in my nest of blankets and foul tissues feeling empty and hollow and sorry for myself. When I stop pouring, then I don’t even have a reason to hold the cup. I don’t have a reason to do anything at all. The cup bounces to the ground: I am cupless and lonely! I cannot stop pouring or I will die!
So the question, then, is: how to fill the cup?
This is a list to refer back to:
-Very hot showers.
-Very hot magnesium baths.
-An exercise class, ideally Pilates, ideally expensive Pilates that smells nice.
-Turn on the goddamn SAD lamp. Stop thinking you no longer need the SAD lamp and that this is a completely new phenomenon incurable by science. Turn on the SAD lamp that exists to aid you with this exact feeling!
-Take your Vitamin D and your calcium tablet even though they are big like a horse. They exist to aid you! They are in this house for this exact purpose!
-Eat an orange. Small fat one, not a pouchy one.
-Bin all the pouchy small oranges. Bin all the old bad food. Now is not the time to worry about food waste. Now is the time to get a clear fridge for sanity reasons.
-If you can wipe down even one kitchen surface to sparkling minimalism, do so.
-In any room that you are in, get rid of six things right this second. Put them in a drawer or in the bin. Stop looking at six things right this second. Do this every time you remember.
