I had a plan to get back into writing blogs this year. Pick up my old weekly habit of putting together something photographic to share with you all, about what I’ve been up to, recently or long ago, something short and sweet but hopefully interesting.

That hasn’t happened. And the reason it hasn’t happened is because I’ve overcommitted myself to ‘fun things’ (read: fieldwork, which, disclaimer, is not always fun). I like doing. I like being outside and doing physical work, being creative, gathering data, experiencing life. I’m still trying to find the balance between ‘fun things’ and achieving my own goals, which is why this blog has been neglected, and why I’m pretty well exhausted right now.

I don’t want to say ‘burnt out’, because I’ve been there and this is not it, but it’s getting close. I haven’t had any downtime to rest and recover, to take space from what I’ve been doing and process it, so I can work on images and stories to share. It has been difficult for me to realise that I need a lot more downtime than I’ve been letting myself have. I’m an all-or-nothing, go big or go home kind of person, and I haven’t given much thought to the fact that I actually need the boring in-between times to get some creative work out. So to prevent the slide into burnout that I’m currently on, I’m making myself aware of what I need to keep to my goals – more downtime, more quiet, more headspace. More sleep.

I want to set a goal to write a blog every week again, but it won’t happen for a little while. I’m off to Chatham Island to work at Taiko Camp for a month – a different kind of work from what I’ve been doing. But I’m setting myself a goal to start writing bits, here and there, to pull together into blogs when I come back.

So this page will sit dormant for a while longer, but don’t worry – something’s brewing.