Everyday Measured in Seasons

How do you measure your life? How do you track a year? Is it from New Year, September, or from one holiday season to the next?

For years, my year began in September, shaped by school and university days, and ended in a very anxious stretch towards May, filled with exams and pressure. Later, I shifted to January, which felt like preparing for a sprinting race. I would gear up with plans and new goals, trying to make everything begin perfectly on the 1st of January. Naturally, they lasted only a few days before quietly falling away.

I found these ways of marking time increasingly stressful, too rigid and mechanical for something as fluid as life itself.

It was during a difficult year of grief that I found myself standing still. In that stillness, I began to notice the seasons more closely. Grief slowed everything down and I spent long periods simply watching from the window, noticing the changing landscape outside and the daily subtle changes to trees just in front of me that I never paid close attention to before. I began drawing what I saw, noticing how it shifted with each passing season. I also spent a lot of time walking familiar routes and started to see the changes in the hedgerows that happen day by day, changes I would have otherwise missed.

Nature holds both predictability and unpredictability in a way that feels deeply grounding. Its rhythms feel more honest, more natural than the structures we often place over our lives.

Of course, it is not always possible to step outside of schedules and live entirely by the seasons. But I’ve come to realise there are ways to create small anchors or moments in a day, a week, or a part of life where you can gently align yourself with what is happening in the natural world. These anchors don’t have to rely on always leaving the house. There are ways to bring the seasons indoors when you can’t get out, through small acts of growing, noticing light and shadows, arranging plants, or simply pausing to observe what is shifting outside your window.

In this space, you’ll find stories and reflections from the garden, ways to forage seasonally, ideas for using those finds in the kitchen and occasional recipes that celebrate the ingredients nature offers. It’s a way to notice the year, to feel the rhythm of days, and to connect to nature even when stepping outside isn’t an option.

For me, this approach has offered a wider view, something outside of the usual routines and a quieter sense of freedom within everyday life.

Over the coming posts, I’ll be exploring more ways these seasonal anchors can be found, how small acts of noticing and aligning with nature can shift the pace of a day, and how both indoor and outdoor practices can help you feel a little more in step with the year.

With warmth,

Halimah