📝 The Arrival of Spring
Change of season and a new chapter
If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit. — Banksy
Winter can feel quite long here in London—not just in the streets but also within us, in our imagination. It’s no coincidence that I resumed my writing and creative endeavours just after I started running again, following a long break due to a knee injury and several weeks of illness from a particularly nasty flu. This coincided, at the same time, with longer days, sun spells, and emerging blossoms. In short, with the Arrival of Spring.
If, like me, you’re an active person by nature, you may also find rest challenging. But rest—pause, downtime—is not just beneficial; it’s necessary.
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. — John Lubbock
2024 was an exciting year for us—but also an exhausting one. We traveled to so many places, across multiple countries, and once again made our way back—this time flying in the opposite direction—around the world to settle home in London. I can’t believe it’s now been exactly a year since we returned from our Kiwi adventures. Time flies.
At the end of last year and into the beginning of this one, I needed a long break—to pause, reset, and focus on my health. To rest, not to quit, as the quote atributed to Banksy puts it. I needed time to rebuild rituals and restore positive habits.
Now, with spring’s arrival, I feel that itch to create again. My energy has returned and I feel more awake, more connected, and very inspired to explore new creative paths. To stop for a while was okay, I tell myself—after all, we all move through creative seasons.
This is one of the quotes from the post I published about two years ago on this topic of the creative seasons, I need to keep reminding myself:
Careers, creative practices, life in general, are all made of cycles and seasons. Once we understand the temporary nature of things we can unlock a process to create more freely, or at least, to tame anxiety and understand that better times will come.
Today, although I feel more confident in my own thinking, I recognize how challenging downtimes can be—especially given my personality.
Here are some key attitudes and actions I’ve adopted (and continue to practice) to help me navigate the winter season:
Embrace the Season
Rest is good. It's okay not to be productive 100% of the time. This is something I keep re-learning.
Coming from a design career that constantly pushes us to produce, deliver, and meet relentless deadlines—a mindset ingrained since studying Architecture in uni—rest and pause can easily become sources of guilt. Our sense of identity, especially in our early adult years, was built around delivering constant outputs: ideas, projects, portfolios. Plus, our hyperproductive society doesn’t help either—everywhere you go on the internet these days, someone is trying to sell you the idea that you need to be productive.
But now, growing into my 30s, I see the truth more clearly: rest is just as important as doing. In fact, it’s essential if we want to operate at our best. Rest is when we recover, regenerate, and clear space for new ideas to emerge. Rest is like spring cleaning for the mind. There’s a biological reason we spend roughly a third of our lives sleeping—and why we need it daily. Rest is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.
Embracing downtime in the creative work allowed space to reconnect with other aspects of my life: visiting family more often, spending quality time with friends, moving my body and exercising more frequently, and focusing on my health. All of these have been essential in bringing me back to a mental state where I feel re-energised and ready to explore new creative paths again.
Strengthen Creative Partnerships
This one is all about accountability and motivation.
Austin Kleon talks about ‘finding a scenius’ instead of trying to be a genius—which means finding your creative tribe, the people you naturally connect with and who help spark ideas. He writes:
Creativity is always, in some sense, a collaboration—the result of a mind connected to other minds.
I recently came across the concept of Talking Drawings by Christoph Niemann and Nicholas Blechman, which inspired me to start a creative collaboration with a couple of friends. Their book is a brilliant visual conversation—witty, playful, and full of insights. (I’ll write more about this project as we make some progress in the next weeks.)
Working with others in creative partnerships is a powerful source of motivation, inspiration, and accountability. You want to show up for your collaborators in the best possible way, and that effort pushes you to explore new creative possibilities. At the same time, their perspectives and approaches become a source of inspiration—helping you see things in ways you hadn’t before.
Keep Filling the Well
Art is born in attention.—Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, reminds us of the importance of filling our inner well—that deep source of inspiration all artists draw from. And winter is the perfect time to do just that.
Stay active in your own way. Keep going to exhibitions. Keep reading. Keep feeding the spark.
Find an inspiring book companion. For me, recently it’s been Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul. There’s something deeply moving about reading about the lives and inner worlds of other artists. It’s inspiring. Their honesty, struggles, and reflections can help spark something in you—a contagious energy that inspires you back to explore further in your own work.
And, as is becoming a bit of a tradition, I’ve been re-reading selected chapters from Spring Cannot Be Cancelled by David Hockney and Martin Gayford, a book I’ve recommended a million times before. It’s a beautiful reminder to pay attention to the most ordinary little things, even a shadow—something that gives you this aesthetic thrill is marvellous. It enriches life.
It’s interesting, but I’ve only been aware—really aware—on a few occasions in my life of having started a new chapter. This past year, and especially the months since we came back to London, have felt like an in-between time. A pause. A rest. A transition into something else.
And now, with the arrival of spring, renewed energy, and another year ahead, it feels like it’s the perfect time to reconnect with that strange, higher power we call creativity. It feels good to be back.
Until the next time, soon. :)
✏️✨
Happy sketching!
Ana
It’s wonderful to see you back writing and sharing again, as your words have always made an impact and are truly cherished!
I am going to read some Hockney now, and welcome back :-)