If lockdown has shown us anything, it’s that we should be – as Woolf says – 'kindly' with ourselves. 'If lockdown has shown us anything, it’s that we should be – as Woolf says – 'kindly' with ourselves.' Even at a time when to make it through a day emotionally unscathed should be an achievement, it can be easy to believe we should be doing more. This year of stasis has brought with it new, and peculiar, ambitions: should we be learning languages, writing novels, perfecting the rise of our sourdough loaves or renovating our homes? Social media trills as much with the success of others as it does the slumps we’ve been occupying. At the beginning of a new year that doesn’t feel like it will get going for at least a season, Woolf’s words feel pertinent again. I wrote them out a while ago, when I felt I needed the reminder. Green ink on a ripped-out corner from a lined A4 notepad, they wear the damage of water spills and crumples. These words sit on my desk, quite without ceremony. No need to hurry, no need to sparkle, no need to be anybody but oneself. Rather, I went to a short passage from A Room of One’s Own, her feminist polemic that was originally two lectures given at Girton College, Cambridge: Woolf’s is a pleasing list but it’s not what I turned to in the first dawn of 2021. 'Woolf’s determination feels wise and familiar after a tough 2020' Locked down for the next couple of months (at least), many of us will indeed “sit rather privately reading” for now. As for “not goading it to parties”, there aren’t any to go to.
New year sparkle quotes free#
To be free & kindly with myself” feels wise and familiar after a tough 2020. Instead, Woolf’s determination “Not to be tied. And while 'Veganuary' claims to be enjoying its biggest year ever, that’s probably more to do with the ongoing climate crisis than anything else. We've already spent the various lockdowns either cooking and eating better and nurturing a fitness regime, or giving up completely because, well, there’s been a global pandemic on.Ī quiet Christmas away from our families, without all the usual parties, has also meant there is less to atone this January.
To go out yes – but stay at home in spite of being asked.Īfter a year when nothing really went to plan, resolutions have been muted in 2021. Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read. To stop irritation by the assurance that nothing is worth irritation. To be free & kindly with myself, not goading it to parties: to sit rather privately reading in the studio. Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months the next lap of the year. On 2 January, 1931, she wrote in her diary: When it came to New Year’s Resolutions, Virginia Woolf’s were 90 years prescient.
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