Slipping Through the Cracks with Katherine May

When melting is not a disaster, but an art.

Today I sprinted from A to B, then from B to C. I was late for D, which made me late for E. I had to skip F altogether. I ran from F to G and I kept running until I ran out of letters. Or was it that I ran out of time before I got to where I needed to go?

But what if the most important thing we can do when running, is to trip? Or to melt, drip, slip, through the cracks in the floorboards, into another underground realm that operates at an altogether different pace.

I recently spoke with a cartographer of these mysterious temporal glitches. Her name is Katherine May, and she suggests that these moments of falling aren’t failures, but invitations. She christens this shadowy nook of uninvited stillness, ‘Wintering’

Wintering comes for all of us, whether we like it or not. It might arrive with illness, loss, or burnout, but it’s not a tragedy. It’s a natural, necessary cycle.

As we shed our leaves, perhaps give up on (or are forced to reconsider) goals, dreams, relationships - as we are forced to reconcile with our entire sense of self, something magical happens.

It’s in this quiet “UNPRODUCTIVE” (I can’t help but hear myself scream, such as I have been conditioned) time, that we do our most important work.

While wintering, we create our own gentle rhythm, find small joys, and reconsider who we are and what it means to be alive. Although it can feel static, much, perhaps EVERYTHING, has quietly changed.

This is what Katherine and I talked about on this weeks episode of The Overexamined Life. She’s awesome.