Beginning-of-the-year blues

by Evelyn Logan

I missed writing and I’m so glad to be back.

For me, January always marks the glorious beginning of the new year and the time to complete all my new year rituals (new diary, ins and outs list, resolutions, the whole nine) but also the beginning of a slight, unshakable funk. I think many people call this state “January blues,” but since mine isn’t entirely limited to January, and you definitely won’t be reading this in January, I’ve renamed my experience: Beginning-of-the-year blues.

I’ve come to expect it, and almost welcome it. It ends promptly with my birthday (two days after Valentine’s Day), so it doesn’t last long. I feel like in many ways that my beginning-of-the-year blues go hand in hand with all of my excitement about the new year. While I spend all that time working up excitement about my goals and ambitions, the funk forces me to meditate on them, let them truly fester, and by the time it passes I’m ready to tackle everything. Still, even as I’m writing this I’m feeling the blues and as you’re reading it, I might still be in my blues.

[interlude music– Caretaker by DRAM ft. SZA]

I was walking around Mile End yesterday evening and the lights down St. Laurent were twinkling and my jacket was keeping me warm and I was overtaken by a wave of extreme gratitude. I’d had the kind of weekend that was filled with laughter and friendship and great hugs and I felt so full of appreciation for everything that I had and everyone that I knew. That feeling, I wanted to bottle it. I wanted to box it up so I could send it to my loved ones during the holidays. I wanted to keep it in my pocket for a rough day or pass it to a stranger on the street. I had never before felt so uniquely like I was a part of something. And the sky, which was turning into an even deeper blue by the minute, the same sky that had greeted me every day before, was even more pretty and even more forgiving and enduring.

It’s that feeling when you see something so beautiful and you think to yourself, “wow, this is probably the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever seen,” yet you’ve thought that (hopefully) a million times in your life already. How many beautiful things have I seen and how many more beautiful things will I see? All these thoughts were swirling around my head as the sky’s blue faded to black and my fingers started to become numb since I categorically refuse to wear gloves. So I rode my wave of gratitude home and I was thinking about what it even means to be blue or why I would even declare myself in such a state?

(because in the moment I felt orange with joy—definitely not blue)

For me, feeling blue is entirely distinct from seasonal depression, it is at once choosing to feel a touch of misery (in part because of the relentless winter symptoms) combined with a certain kind of pensiveness. When I envision the color blue, I think of a deep blue, like the sky that night, or the kind of blue that is almost purple. The kind of blue that I see when I think of the ocean or that one very famous painting by Yves Klein, Blue Monochrome. The work is a canvas painted with Klein’s own color, International Klein Blue, which was created using ultramarine pigment. When I first learned of Klein’s feat I was instantly taken with ultramarine. The pigment’s name sounded so beautiful to me and by seeing Klein’s work I felt this sense of drowning; being fully subsumed in the color, pigment, a completely blue world.

To me, ultramarine represents that pensiveness, that feeling of being lost in a train of thoughts and getting off at the wrong station. Meandering around your mind and discovering that things aren’t exactly as you believed, even within yourself. Even so, I feel so prone to overthinking and rehashing during this time. I want this time of stagnancy (so it feels—but I never stop moving really) to be solely for myself and my reflection. Yet, sometimes I allow my head to be held under by all the things that I try to work against. Namely, self doubt, general worrying, and feeling like I have to be doing a million things at once. The antidote? Unbeknownst to me.

[song of choice: Superheroes by Esthero]

So what next? Is it even possible to revel in misery and still enjoy a Montreal winter? Yes. In fact, I simultaneously love and hate winter. I’m writing this to you while I wait for my bus. First, it’s important to me that I emphasize that I’m only allowing myself a touch of misery. To allow oneself to be completely consumed in misery is miserable (obviously), but with only a bit of misery you can still have fun. I like to curse the ice that makes me slip, the snow that beats at my face, the cold that makes my toes numb. I laugh with myself for falling so much and I shake my head when my hands are frozen (AGAIN) because I won’t buy a new pair of gloves (I lost mine and keep expecting them to turn up again). But I love when my nose is cold, when I can layer till my heart's content, when I can wear a scarf like a blanket, when I can get some cold, biting fresh air while I wait for my chariot (the bus) to deliver me to my castle (my apartment building). Can you be blue and like it? Well I do! While I am nominally miserable because of the weather and missing my mom’s chili, I am also deeply pensive, hopeful for this year, and worrying a bit about everything.

[interlude music: something calm and classical! your pick]

To close, I am here sitting in a museum (the MMFA for my dear Montrealers). I came with my class and the class has come and gone and now I’m sitting on a bench and listening to classical music. Classical music always makes me think and feel still. I’m sitting in front of a painting called Ultramarine Blue by Ron Martin. Oh serendipity—I wish I had planned this! Despite the name, it’s not much like Klein’s. It is blue and the canvas is a square, but the strokes are visible and it’s messy.

It’s ultramarine, sure, but it’s also white in some places and darker blue in some places and lighter in others. The work is dynamic and consuming and mesmerizing. It doesn’t try to drown me like Klien’s; this work moves and grows and flows with me. This work is what I want to leave you with. Not a sense of drowning or weight, but rather levity. Life is so beautiful, snow is so beautiful, even (especially) being blue is beautiful. Beginning-of-the-year and January blues? Unavoidable. But I would say to embrace them. Welcome this time of stillness and chillness and wait with baited breath until the thaw. I hope to see you there.

Here is some unsolicited advice for you:

01/03– I think you should get a journal. It doesn’t have to be a diary per se, but you should have somewhere that you can write your thoughts and scribble a doodle or something like that.

01/18– This piece of advice is for Instagram only: You should change back to the square ratio. Immediately.

01/20– Going outside can be the difference between a horrendous day and an okay one. Hold my hand (metaphorically or literally if you know me) while we step outside together.

01/26– This is super duper corny I already know. But simply being grateful changes things. Even if the only thing you’re grateful for today is not slipping and breaking your neck on black ice, that is something. Also, call someone that loves you.

01/27– This one is for EVERYBODY. Take 5 or 10 or hell 45 minutes everyday to be creative. Scribble on your notes in class, draw on receipt paper during lunch break, or finally start that crochet/knitting project you’ve been putting off. Creativity is freedom and its radical we need more of it in general

01/27 cont.– You should have shawarma for dinner today, on me (but not really on me).

01/29– Today I made a meme. It really made me laugh and I want to empower you to make your own meme too.

02/01– Send me (and your other Black friends) 5 bucks this month! My Venmo is @evlogan111

02/04– This isn’t advice so much as it is a question: do you all genuinely wear hats? I feel similarly about hats as I do about gloves– that they are not entirely necessary for warmth.