Might I Suggest a Hammock?
Writer: Kammeron Polverari
It happens every year.
About this time, in the sagging gloom of mid-January, my brain shrivels up and retreats into a nest of its own. My creativity thins to a crisp and turns brittle like the last of the oak tree leaves skittering down the street. Still reeling from the consecutive battering of Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Year’s, I am, in short, exhausted.
This is very poor timing. While the rest of society dusts off their treadmills and buys brand new running shoes, I fall prostrate into my hammock and stare blank-brained into the bare trees overhead. While social media is aflurry with aspirations and inspiration for the new-year-new-you trend, my foot drags listlessly in the dirt beneath me. Back and forth. Forth and back. I don’t even have the gumption to push myself into a respectable rhythm. There is no momentum. I just hang there in my own space and in my own web of uselessness. Even the dogs are disappointed in me. They sigh and drop their heads back down between their paws.
Sure, I try different tactics to snap myself out of these doldrums. I go for a hike. I cook something delicious (sometimes). I watch a season of Alone (with envy). I read books by my favorite authors. Still, nothing comes. No ideas, no motivation, no eureka. And somehow, I always end up back in my hammock, foot dragging, rope creaking, dogs sighing.
Then a realization hits me: this is the time to rest. Winter is bald and bare and beautiful because it rests. And while I am not bald nor bare nor beautiful, I should rest, too. The trees withhold their leaves because they’re resting. The earth withholds her green grass and her flowers and flamboyance because she is resting. The beasts are resting, the insects, the gardens, the snakes, and all the world needs rest. Without it, Spring would be nominal. Summer would be a burden. Autumn would be heartbreaking.
Writers, too, need rest. Our creativity craves a season to simply sit in silence without guilt and without so much as a murmur of productivity panting on our necks. We need to recuperate. Rejuvenate. Replenish. Might I suggest a hammock? Might I suggest a long, blank stare into winter trees, a foot dragging in the dirt, and the gentle, reassuring creak of rope under the weight of your creative weariness? For without rest, our words may become nominal. Our stories may become a burden. And our passion for this thing we do may become heartbreaking.
Robert Frost once wrote that “one could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” I might also add that one could do worse than be a swinger of hammocks. So go ahead, writers. Rest. Temporarily embrace your mental apathy. Then rekindle, renew, and resurrect.
About the Writer
Kammeron Polverari was born and raised in both Carolinas, and while having lived in several far-flung places, she keeps coming home to Fairmont, North Carolina. She is currently on a personal quest to complete section hikes along the 1,175 mile Mountains to Sea Trail in North Carolina, and in the meantime teaches high school English and considers herself to be an avid hammock enthusiast. From the Fires Scattered There is a historical fiction novel that tells the hauntingly tragic story of the 1943 train wreck of the Tamiami Champion in Robeson County, North Carolina.