Preparing to launch

I listened to this audiobook this week and it enabled me to put some of the practical finishing touches to the project that's been brewing in me for a few months now - see next post.

My project is not about spending or not spending exclusively but that's an important dimension of it - conscious consumption.

Her ten point preparation list was especially helpful:

1. Why are you doing it?
2. Take inventory and declutter
3. Write 3 lists:

- Essentials
- Non-essentials - things you can't buy
- Approved shopping list - specific things you're allowed to buy

4. Unsubscribe from all shopping emails and sites
5. Set up a shopping ban savings account
6. Tell everyone - especially those you spend most time with - and pick an accountability person
7. Replace costly habits with free things to do
8. Pay attention to your triggers and change your reactions
9. Learn to live without (30 days) or become more resourceful
10. Appreciate what you have

♡

100 Day Project - Day Nineteen

A living drollery: now I will believe

That there are unicorns...

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

And if believing in unicorns was good enough for Shakespeare, who am I to question their existence?!

100 Day Project - Day Eighteen

And I just felt absolutely at one and it was a sense of awe and wonder. […] everything is interconnected and each little species, even though it may seem insignificant, has a role to play in this tapestry of life. […] Every single individual matters. Every single individual makes some impact on the planet every single day and we have a choice about what kind of difference we’re going to make.

Jane Goodall (also known as Dr Jane Goodall)

Connecting to the 10-year-old in myself today. She was so full of dreams. Saw few boundaries. Loved the world intensely and felt connected to it all – especially animals and the ocean. She wanted to be Jacques Cousteau or Jane Goodall or David Attenborough when she grew up. She was going to make a difference.

I’m not sure I’ve really done her proud.

I try to do my bit and I believe in individual agency through choice, but I’m not always convinced of the impact I have in the face of the destruction we’ve already caused and are continuing to wreak en masse. Today, on Earth Day, I especially reflect on that and am saddened by the fact that we even have a need for a day that reminds us to care for our planet and the creatures on it. In my heart of hearts, I feel every day should be Earth day.

Perhaps if I think of it as a day to celebrate Earth, and all those who did fulfil their 10-year-old dreams to celebrate and conserve it (and there are so many), that would be better. And, in support of all the 10-year-olds out there now who are also looking to their future horizons with hope and excitement as I was then, as well as the younger me who lives in me still, I have a duty not to give up.

Five of the many things I still dream of doing on behalf of my 10-year-old heart:

~ living close enough to nature again that I feel connected, every day
~ spending more time in the wilder places of the planet – jungles and oceans particularly – because they make my heart sing
~ seeing a turtle mass hatching and making sure as many of those little creatures make it to the sea as possible
~ supporting initiatives to reduce the negative impact I have on the world – recycling plastics, reducing my use of plastics, raising awareness and helping others in their endeavours to do the same
~ eating more consciously in support of the above and my general wellbeing

100 Day Project - Day Six

When there are many options open to you, and in my world there almost always are, how do you decide which direction to take or which thing to opt for? This question is my constant companion.

For some, even the question seems bizarre, let alone that it accompanies my every moment and precedes almost every move I make. To many people there’s always an obvious ‘right’ way and, rationally, no real problem with choosing it. These people have an ability to get the true power out of pro and con lists and see life’s crossroad moments in mostly binary terms. Direction is clear: there’s forwards or backwards, left or right, up or down. It’s simple. And then, having made the choice… off they go: moving determinedly down that path.

On some level, I’ve always envied them this world view and clarity. For me it’s seldom that obvious. In questionnaires that ask, “What’s you most used expression?” I always have to answer, “Well, it depends…”

For a long time, I felt broken. It seemed to me that everyone else had some secret I was not privy to. An internal setting for direction finding and decision making that I’d not found. On a large scale, why could I not identify my one true purpose, set a clear goal, and commit to moving from here to there? There were, and still are, so many things I enjoy. At a micro level, why was I not able to pick my favourite-favourite from the Quality Street tin or my top 5 songs or my top-5-anything?! I was pretty sure it wasn’t because I lacked opinions, or preferences or conviction, I have plenty of all of these. Too many sometimes. Too much, too many, lots of… these were my problems.

When I have to make “where to next?” decisions, I spend a lot of time pausing in the crossroads, surrounded by multiple paths, several of which usually look quite appealing to me. I will eventually pick one based on something that might seem quite arbitrary – a glimpse of something interesting around a far-off bend, or the fact that it just looks unlike a path I’ve walked before. Then of course once I head off down one route, there’s all that intriguing wild and uncharted territory, not on the path at all, that’s constantly calling my name. That usually tempts me more than anything and I do feel I’ve spent a lot of my life exploring and bumbling (often very happily) around in that space.

Now, more than half way through my life, I don’t feel broken anymore. I don’t feel lost. I do still struggle with the “where to next?” and “ how do I choose?” questions and I do feel a bit odd most of the time but I’m okay with that.

There are several things that it's helpful for me to remember at times like this:

~ I actually have a pretty good sense of direction and as long as I pause to take note of it, I really can’t get lost. Waylaid perhaps but, at worst, I can retrace my steps and choose another course. Or, just reorientate and keep going. I do seem to know, instinctively, where my true North is.
~ Maps can help but sometimes just forging my own path is more satisfying.
~ I enjoy the meander. I’m just not a straight-line-from-A-to-B sort of person. And that’s okay too.
~ Identifying, exploring and finding ways to accommodate all of my alter-egos makes a huge difference – multiple personalities, all me but each with different tastes and even different motivations!
~ My Nana’s words finally taking hold in me: “comparison is a waste of time and energy because everyone is different and there will always be people in a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ position relative to you”.
~ Lightbulb moment: who’s to decide what’s ‘better or worse’ relative to you, except you?!
~ I don’t need to choose a favourite-favourite. Of anything. There’s room for multiple favourites.
~ I’m not the only one. There are others like me and they’re not broken either. In fact, I’ve come across many of my favourite people in the world also wandering around in the undergrowth, off the path, with eclectic playlists and pockets full of mixed treasure.

All of this comes up for me now because I’m standing at a crossroads…

100 Day Project - Day Two

Today I was office-based, which is to say, working at home. The beauty of working at home, although it isn’t something I often take advantage of, is that I can organise my time around client work to include some play during daylight hours. Today that mostly involved making a ‘mess’. Creatively, of course.

I’ve been creating these little ring-binder journals for the past few years, born out of a need to combine visual and verbal journalling and use some of the tonnes of creative stash I’ve collected.

Let’s talk about the stash for a moment. I’m not just talking about the irresistible impulse I have to buy washi tape and stickers and all things stationery whenever I can but also whenever I travel, receive gifts, flip through magazines or even get junk mail, I have this habit of hoarding bits that visually appeal to me or are memory triggers. I’ve done it my whole life. And, as my life gets longer, that amounts to a LOT of stuff! Nothing is beyond being kept – I even have some pieces of dried paper towel that I once cleaned paint brushes on because I love the pattern that was created. A happy accident… too pretty to bin!

For a long time, I kept these bits in boxes and carried those boxes around with me whenever I moved; houses, cities, countries, continents… that stuff came along – decades’ worth. And, for an equally long time, I felt the guilt of collecting, storing and transporting all this “rubbish”.

But, not anymore. Time has taught me that being able to lay my hand on exactly the right bit of collage material when I need it or the perfect ribbon for a gift I’m wrapping, far outweighs the silliness of having held onto that tiny thing for years. Stash = Treasure! I believe that creatives everywhere will know what I mean.

The flipside of this is that I also don’t want to die like a hoarder, buried under a mountain of junk. And I don’t want to inflict it all on whoever it is that has to clear out my stuff when I’m gone. So… I have become more selective about what I buy and what I keep, I do go through it at intervals and cull (makes great bonfire fodder) and I actively try to recycle, upcycle, use it in some way. If it no longer sparks joy, it goes. If I still love it, it stays but not just to languish forever in a box. Some gets incorporated into arty projects but most is really not that worthy. Finally, circa 2010, enter conscious and consistent journal-page making.

These pages are not art, but each is a collage, a mini assemblage of ephemera I’ve gathered, or a collection of words – either my own handwritten musings or quotations and phrases gleaned elsewhere. I have about a dozen of these little A5 ring-binders full of pages of prettiness. It provides the perfect way for me to combine some of these bits into pages that either become the bottom layers for my journal musings or just a pleasing visual interlude between them. They too get sorted and culled every now and again, and it keeps it all manageable. The boxes are reduced, the collecting has purpose, and I have an easy creative outlet and an endless supply of space to blurt my insides out onto.

What I couldn’t have imagined when I started doing it is just how much I love these pages. I love making them and I love using them. They’re a place to play, to ponder and to wonder. To dream. I don’t often wallow and wail in these journals. My plain paper journal is where that tends to happen. These are a happy place.

So, that’s what I was doing today. I’ll be collecting some ideas for #the100dayproject in them and they may form the basis for some other things I make down the line. Today, just creating some new background pages with bits I’ve collected on my recent travels IS the thing.

100 Day Project - Day One

So many metaphors for a life: a journey, a tapestry, a garden, a roller-coaster ride, a painting, a jigsaw puzzle, or even (if you are Forrest Gump) a box of chocolates, to name but a few I can relate to. For me, most of the best offer something that’s consciously created and actively embarked upon; something that’s emergent, something that evolves, and something that holds at least a few surprises.

I’ve always found that spirals, journeys, mosaics, and collages work well for me.

Since my teens I’ve embraced spirals as a metaphor for time. Time that embodies the past, present and future all at once, multi-dimensional, and can be explored in several directions through mindful presence, dreaming and reflection. Time that allows us to experience the echo of a thing; an experience, a lesson, a person. An echo. Repetition, not the original but sometimes so loudly heard or keenly experienced that it can even feel like we are moving through the same terrain, although we never are. We never truly travel through the same place twice – either because we’re viewing it from a fractionally different perspective in time, or we are different since we were last there, or both. And spirals, because in my own experience there’s nothing perfectly linear about anything long-term we do that's worth doing, especially life – even if it has a clear beginning and end.

Spirals of course are also a version of pervasive organic fractals – an expanding and evolving symmetry. Beautiful!

Journeys, although sometimes they can feel like a cliché, are the ultimate metaphor for someone who is at an archetypal level, first & foremost, an explorer. I am.

Mosaics and collages? I find it appealing that something ultimately meaningful can emerge from pieces of broken, torn and sometimes even discarded bits. Sometimes the appeal lies in the similarities, sometimes in juxtapositions, sometimes in the pieces themselves, sometimes in the spaces between. They can contain contradictions, create cohesion, be simple or complex but there’s no doubt they were made, piece by piece. They emerge, they evolve and while there’s interest and texture in the close-up view – where one has to work to create them – it’s only really when we step back that their full beauty and significance can be seen. For me, it’s a profound creative process.

And all of this? Why the musing? It’s the impulse and inspiration behind my 100DayProject. As sustained creative endeavours go, for me, it’s a long one. So, I’m approaching it like life – as a journey, a mosaic, a collage. Sometimes I’ll be collecting materials, sometimes I’ll have my nose pressed up to the surface as I place the pieces, sometimes I’ll step back and have a look at the whole. Always, I’ll be dancing around that spiral.

View from Coach B...

If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.

Toni Morrison

(1931)

Friday again, and another week closer to the first day of my s.s.s.sab.b.atical. Only three working weeks to go now and I'm allowing myself to begin feeling truly excited about it. It's bubbling up and overflowing more and more and I find it hard not to wish the time away or do the occasional little breakout dance as I leave a particularly demotivating meeting thinking, "soon, very soon, I will not have to worry about all this...". I can't deny that I'm pleased to be escaping (and yes, it does feel like an escape) but don't like having to leave colleagues behind to tackle the challenges unsupported and it just feels quite insensitive to be openly looking forward to the date I go. So I keep it in (unless someone asks me directly) and I still have so much to do before I leave my desk behind for a while, that I can't afford to let go of the professional rigour just yet, tempting as it might be. I've been trying really hard to focus on staying present and tying remaining tasks up beautifully, so that I can leave it all neatly done or handed over. I'm starting to accept (or have to acknowledge at least) that there will always be more to do and that there are a couple of things on which I am dependent, and over which I have little or no influence (let alone control) that are looking likely to be delayed beyond my deadline date. This means that one or two items on my list might not be done in time, or not be as far progressed as I had hoped. I don't like this at all but it's the reality of collaborative working sometimes. I'm trying not to let my frustration with these things overshadow the amazing reality of the dream that's about to come true for me. 

Plan B (brave, bold and beautiful) is unfolding... 

A few issues have cropped up that I could do without having to deal with, and that I've not accounted for in the plan at all. This week, for example, I had a problem in my apartment, resulting in way too much time wasted spent on customer service calls and waiting in for plumbers. This is still not entirely resolved but progress is being made and I believe a flood has been averted. I've also been somewhat distracted by a nasty kidney infection, which has not stopped me from working but has had me feeling pretty blah. I didn't help by insisting that if I ignored it, it would just go away. It responded by digging in and shouting more loudly for attention with some quite severe discomfort, a temperature, fever, chills... general grottiness. I finally relented and now have muti to sort it out and to mask the pain properly in the meantime, so that's good.

My head is swirling with clichés about obstacles overcome making for better, richer experience and I know that clichés generally become clichés because they are true but I'd also not mind a little "plain sailing" type change, for a change. I'd like to be able to just enjoy it. Relish the excitement. Look to the new world.

Throughout the week, through the frustration and the irritation and the pain, the thing that's been singing out to me most clearly though is how, in three short weeks, my life is going to be different. That it's going to present opportunities to make permanent changes. That changes are already being felt. It's scary, no doubt. It will continue to be unpredictable in part, and almost certainly frustrating sometimes, but mostly, it's exciting. 

Different. Whatever the unknown brings, and however turbulent the change might be, that feels like a good thing. A great thing.

I'm surrendering to the wind.... 

I hope that wherever you are and whatever you're up to, you have a brilliant Friday and a lovely weekend! I'm going to start mine with a little breakout dance. With sing-along. On the outside (well, alone in my flat) and loudly (very!). Maybe to this old favourite.

Countdown commences...

When in doubt, choose change.

Lily Leung

Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again.

Bikram Choudhury

Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings.
You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you. 

C Joybell C

Six weeks from today my sabbatical begins. Six months (plus) to explore. To rest. To restore. To dream. To create... a new reality.

It's been a long gruelling year since the commitment to do this was made, the opportunity sought and the time granted. My heart is so ready. My head is a bit more nervous. Anything is possible. Anything is a very big space.

It's exhilarating. It's terrifying.

I can't wait.

Unmasking?

The most important kind of freedom is to be who you really are. You trade in your reality for a role, you give up your ability to feel and, in exchange, put on a mask.

Jim Morrison

(1943-1971)

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

Terry Pratchett

(1948)

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
Plato
(428 BC-348 BC)

Sometimes it's easy to wear a mask. Liberating even. It can be fun too. Like when I go to a fancy dress party or a masked ball or just behave slightly out of my usual character. There's something very freeing about being able to play a role, adopt a different persona, or explore a part of my personality that's not often revealed (although arguably the latter is more about showing an alternative face rather than putting on a strange mask). I don't do it often but when I do, I really enjoy it.

But then there's the other kind of mask. The one that's required in order to blend in, to get a job done, to keep what needs to stay inside, inside.

This kind of mask is not nearly as much fun to wear for too long. It's ultimately exhausting and cannot be maintained without doing some damage to the person underneath.

I think most would agree, including me, that masks like this are potentially dangerous and should be, if not altogether avoided, quickly set aside. The reality though is that sometimes they are necessary to move through the world. I don't live a life where I can afford to ignore all expectations and I haven't yet worked out exactly how to make a living in an environment where being entirely myself is valued. So every week, between Monday and Friday, I don the mask and I head out to earn my rent. I'm not bad at it either. I convince many and sometimes I even convince myself. Some days, good days, I'm fortunate and I still catch sight of a place where the real me and the professional me intersect and there is nothing sweeter than when that happens. Nothing sweeter. But it happens less and less and I'm starting to feel like the mask is wearing me.

I think I need to clarify that it's not an altogether ugly mask. And I don't say that just to defend my wearing of it. Objectively, I can see why it would be something that many would find appealing and for many more, no mask would be required at all to fulfill the role. It does good work, it gets stuff done, it brings something to the workplace that's useful and in some areas it even excels at doing so. I don't hate it completely. If I'm absolutely honest, there's a part of me that now finds the habit of wearing it and the protection it affords me easier to face than the vulnerability that not wearing it often involves.

But, spend eight hours or more every weekday in disguise and it's bound to start playing havoc with the psyche underneath. It's lonely for one thing. It drains the spirit and it starts to blur lines that should be more clearly drawn. It's now at the point where not wearing the mask, even outside of work, leaves me feeling exposed because I'm increasingly unused to not being behind it. So with or without it, I'm struggling. When I lie awake at night, anxious and angry, much of that anger is turned in on myself. For not being stronger, braver, more willing to compromise, less willing to compromise.

I know the realists in the world would say, just suck it up, paint on a smile if necessary and get on with it. That's life. Or, stop whining and have the courage to discard the mask and take what comes. And I am practiced enough at realism that I see their point. I do. But I am an idealist by nature. I am an optimist by nature. And I am tired, tired, tired of denying my core for the sake of pragmatism and to live in a cynical world. I'm losing myself.

They say the first step to making a change is identifying a goal. Knowing what you want. Knowing who you are and what strengths you bring to it. I do. And I do. But how much longer will I be able to hold on to that? I feel it slipping away.

I also know that the only person who can make a change is me. I'm realistic enough not to expect to be saved from the situation, or saved from myself. I've started to consider alternatives and I've started to explore some of these but I have concerns: I might have left it too late and I fear it might take longer than I have; I don't have the energy it requires; I am unsure I can manage it alone, and I am uncertain of all the steps to take from here to there. Maybe I should just be thankful for where I am and get on with it. Settle for a mask that isn't all that ugly. I have no idea. And I don't know how, in this state of neither here nor thereness to gain or maintain perspective.

Putting on the mask becomes harder and harder to do. Or is it easier and easier?

Either way, tomorrow's Monday... and that scares me.

I dreamt of sweet peas and a wall...

...both red. 

I could smell the sweetpeas (lovely!) and there was a rich warm glow off the wall. I remember thinking I'd like to paint a wall in my home red (I'd like one in deep peacock blue too) and that was it. I don't remember anything else. 

I wonder what it means.

Perhaps the sublimation of my anger into something less hostile but still red? Maybe something far more prosaic, given that I'll be moving home quite soon? I don't know. It had a good vibe though so I'll hold on to that and hope it wasn't one of those reverse meaning dreams. Like an upside down Tarot card.

[thank you Flickr Peeps for the perfect images to capture it]

What it really looks like...

...in this heart of mine. 

Not a lot of sparkle here today. It's dark and turbulent. A stormy space.

I'm trying hard to be calm and rational because I know that to rail at things I cannot influence or control just leaves me feeling bruised and no closer to the resolution I seek. I remind myself that things happen for reasons not always apparent at the time and often turn out to be for the better. I can point to many examples of this in my near and distant past to support my belief and optimism. I count my many, many blessings and I berate myself for petty selfishness when there are people out there going through much harder times, facing much tougher things and my little tantrums about idiotic fanatics and cretinous bureaucracies and dreams denied do nothing but make my heart rate soar and leave the world untouched. I try to keep things in perspective. I look for the light on the horizon and I try to move towards that, ignoring the dark clouds overhead and the rough seas around me.

I push to the outside, against the windows of my heart, where they can be seen and attract the same, all the hopeful thoughts and positive energy I can muster. But. Inside, in the tiny soundproof room I keep for moments like this, I'm alternately pacing the floor, ranting and waving my fists; lying curled in a small tight ball, crying like a child, or just staring into the dark... quiet and still and worn down. Frustration, anger, sadness, disappointment, despondency - that's what you'd see written on the walls of this room.

This has not been a great week for me or some of those I love and is about more than just the fact that a passport has not yet appeared, although that's a part of it. It's about:

~ the postponement of a dream - the friends I hoped to meet and the soulfood we hoped to share
~ the deep need I have for that right now - to connect, to create, to renew my energies
~ the prospect of facing new challenges without it - my batteries are running on empty
~ the commitments I cannot keep - and the people I care about that I must disappoint as a result
~ the disillusion of a heart - not just mine - that's loved for longer than it remembers and has been disappointed so badly that it has turned that love to dust
~ the insensitivity of an ego that does not look or cannot see past its own boundaries to the damage it inflicts on others, daily
~ the 9th of March - a day of bitter, hurtful memories and a new sadness of loss
~ the urge I have to draw the curtains - and to take up residence in that tiny room a while longer
~ the urge I have to stop - to just stop.

What it really looks like in this heart of mine... is not a pretty sight today. You might want to avert your eyes. I would not blame you. I want to avert mine. Or perhaps just focus on that strip of light on the horizon.

Next week will be better.

I hope you have a good weekend. I hope we all do.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

(1929-1968)

Blue sky wishes

The top photograph I took yesterday morning and the bottom one, my sister took a while ago. I always think of her when I see these wispy wings in the sky. Today, I'm thinking of her.

And today, into the beautiful blue sky that we share, I'm sending up a wish... to make another wish come true. I need my new passport to arrive this week or I will not be attending this. Something I have been looking forward to for almost a year.

It's not something I can control and I have not given up hope but I'm sending up a wish nevertheless... there's no harm in it, is there?

What are you wishing for this week?

Whatever it is, I hope it comes true.

And I'm wishing for you, a very happy Monday!

♥

What does it take...

...to be a writer? Or perhaps, more accurately... for me to consider myself a writer? To call myself a writer?

I write. A lot. I write for work, I write for pleasure. I correspond, I journal, I blog. I write reports, presentations, learning materials, newsletters, essays, online columns... sometimes even the occasional really bad poem or story. Fiction is not necessarily my forte and I tend not to share much of that. But words pour out of me. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of words. Daily.

I don't remember learning to read. I remember pretending to read out loud and making up the story from the pictures I was looking at, and then, I could read. I don't remember the process of learning to do it and now it feels like I've always been able to, in the same way as I cannot remember a time before I was able to walk or swim. But I clearly remember learning to write. Practicing the letters, joining them together into things that meant something and then into groups of things that meant something more. I remember discovering the freedom of being able to express myself through words on a page. And I've been writing ever since. 

So why is it that I find it so hard to think of myself as a writer? Let alone say it out loud? Writing a book is a dream that crystalised in my head when I was about fourteen and I received some encouragement from an English teacher who nurtured our words and helped us channel and craft our adolescent emotion and imagination into stories.  He made me believe that I might one day write and publish something other people would enjoy reading too and, ever since, I have had on my lifelist, write a book, be a writer.

Strangely, the fact that when I was at school I had my stories and poems published in the school magazine, was awarded prizes and asked to represent the school in writing competitions, did not count. When I was at University I wrote for the student newspaper, published newsletters for special interest groups, and had a story collected into a book along with some others by my peers. But that did not count. Does not count. I lost confidence in my ability and I struggled to say, I write. I am a writer. And I still do.

The dream was placed where dreams often are, in the distant future.

But this is the distant future. What am I waiting for? And what will it take? Those of you who've been sharing this space with me for a while know this about me - I have on my list for this year: 

• write a proper outline for my first book
• start writing the book

And several of you have actively and openly encouraged me to do it. Cheered me on and helped me dust off the dream. For that I cannot thank you enough. Just this morning, a lovely friend mentioned a character that she feels I should include in The Book. And there's where I come unstuck. Because as soon as I start to think about that, I start to hear this voice in my head say, Who do you think you are? A writer?! A Writer?!? Let's just say that this voice knows how to deliver a verbal sneer.  And it's crushing.

So I haven't written an outline. Most days I don't know what I want to write a book about. All my ideas feel paltry. I write notes, I gather thoughts, I read about writing, I throw down a few words and then delete them, I stall. And yet, the urge to write remains. Cannot be denied. And I don't want this to be one of those dreams that stays forever in the distant future. Something I might regret. I don't believe in regret.

So. A month ago, I joined a writing group. Eight people, some published, some not, but all with an interest in and a love of writing. We meet once every six weeks and, next week, I will be presenting my first piece for review. I'm terrified. Sick to my core terrified. But if I don't try, I'll never know if this is something I can do or not. Who knows what might come of it? Perhaps the books will emerge. Perhaps not. But I will be writing. And people will be reading it. And that's a start.

And then I think to myself, what does it take to be a writer? To consider myself a writer? To call myself a writer? The answer really is simple: writing, a published medium, a reader... 

I write. There's a button that says publish. You're here. You read. Writer, publisher, reader. Perhaps I am a writer after all? 

I am. I am a writer. I am a Writer. No, I am a writer. Big, capitalised labels scare me. But that's okay. I am a writer. For the moment, that works.

Now, about that outline...

Move quickly, keep smiling...

This may well be my mantra for the next few weeks. Watch for the blur as I pass through time and space at high speed...

I look at my diary for work between now and mid-March and short of developing some superpowers - teleportation or time-control would be great for starters - I am not sure how I am going to keep up and achieve all that I have to achieve. I have leave due to start towards the end of March, which I am very much looking forward to, but time telescopes towards that point quite frighteningly. A huge project that went dormant last year has suddenly been revived, far sooner than was anticipated and I am now committed to several other things already, which had me skating fairly rapidly anyway, and which I cannot abandon at this stage.  So I have to absorb the new, move faster, work harder.

I would like to take responsibility for all of this and say that it was just bad planning or time mismanagement on my part. That at least would allow me to rearrange and manage myself out of it. But no, these are commitments that have largely been made on my behalf. I had a difficult conversation yesterday with my boss and he agreed that the expectation was a little unrealistic (err, you think?) and said that he would have a look at it. In the meantime, he'd appreciate it if I "did what I could". Given the short time scales and the importance of the projects and lack of alternative resources, that really just means "do whatever it takes to get it done". Luckily I don't have children, or a partner, or (apparently) a need to stop for food or sleep... 

I should not complain. In the global economy of the moment, I am lucky to have a job, let alone one that is surely not going to be disappearing any time soon. I am fortunate to be in this position and I am very conscious of this. Also, working harder and longer means less time to browse bookshops or online or even be inclined to spend, so my frugal is fun campaign gains unexpected support. 

I have also enquired about taking advantage of long leave options available to us and am now planning a sabbatical in 2011 (I can take up to a year but am thinking 6 months is probably more realistic), during which time I intend to spend some weeks, if not months, volunteering on a turtle, dolphin or starfish conservation project or the like, somewhere warm and remote, so that I can wake up and go to sleep every day to the sight, sound and smell of the sea. I also anticipate spending some of it trying out something else workwise, and all of it re-evaluating what I want in the next phase of my life before I make any major changes. After that, who knows... perhaps a new role, perhaps not. Perhaps a new home, perhaps not. Perhaps a new country, perhaps not. That's the point of the exercise: to regain the perspective that I have completely lost about where I am, where I want to be and what I want to be doing there. It's time. And I need time and distance to achieve it.

And in pursuit of this goal, anything in the short term is manageable. Surely.

So this is what I will be telling myself over the next few weeks, while chanting my mantra:  Move quickly, keep smiling. Move quickly, keep smiling.

I might need reminding of this from time to time my friends. I might need reminding...

In the meantime, I hope you have a smiley day, wherever you are and whatever you are up to!

♥

Dream, dance, shimmer, swirl, twirl through 2010...

We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.

Author Unknown

There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.

Edwin Denby

(1903-1983)

Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance.

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.

Lee Ann Womack

(1966)

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Neil Gaiman

(1960)

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

Abraham Lincoln

(1809-1865)

In 2010, I wish for dreaming, dancing, twirling, whirling, creating, exploring, growing, glowing... For you. And for me. For us. Every day. One day at a time.

With love and light, K

♥

[Flickr beauties]

Hold my hand and we'll dance across the sand and into the light

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.

Agnes De Mille

(1905-1993)

We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive... and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.

D.H. Lawrence

(1885-1930)

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.

Robert Henri

(1865-1929)

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.

Kate Chopin

(1850-1904)

I dream sometimes very vividly and I know that it's considered a good idea to write down the fleeting details of a dream so that one can contemplate later what it is one's subconscious is trying to say. I try to do this more often than not. Sometimes though a dream I have is simultaneously vivid but unclear. The outstanding recollection is one of the emotions, sometimes very strong emotions or sensations, but only snippets of a storyline rather than something fully realised. Isn't that the wonder of dreaming?

In order to record these dreams too, I found several years ago that pictures sometimes serve me better than words and I started creating collages to capture them - just made very quickly with pictures torn from magazines or taken from the huge collection of pre-cut images I have in lots of little envelope folders (it's a compulsion I've had since I was a small child and is shared by my sister - I don't know why, but both of us do this. It's the same with quotations - I cannot stop myself. When I read or hear something that resonates with me, I write it down. I have a collection of thousands...). I still do these paper collages but I buy far fewer magazines now than I used to so I don't have as many to choose from that happen to fit the dream in question. Fortunately, now there's Flickr... source of so many gorgeous, evocative images.

This mosaic is one I made yesterday in response to such a dream. There was a man. A stranger but someone who I just knew I could trust. There was autumn light, and fairy lights, the beach and dancing... effortless swirling, swept-away-by-the-music dancing. I was a much better dancer than I am in real life because I floated. His shirt was crisp and smelt of soap and he held my hand as we walked (I was very conscious of that - I do miss holding hands) and I picked up feathers. The colours were all bluey greys and warm glowing chocolate shades. And that was it. Nothing more in the way of detail. But I woke up feeling all smily and soothed. Nothing profound or obscure in meaning here I don't think... just a sweet, gentle, wish fulfillment dream. But it was lovely. And this mosaic is how I'll remember it.

Perhaps it's time to start attending Tango classes again...

Or just dreaming more.

Happy Monday!
♥

[Thank you to these Flickr beauties for making it possible to capture and express this]

About everything and nothing at all

I'm swimming around here in a sea of stuff. Not drowning. But alternately treading water and swimming hard. It's keeping me busy.

I had a dream on Sunday night in which I found myself newly alone again (some of these break up dreams are still so vivid and brutally painful) and I was very upset. I decided (in the dream) that I was so sad, I'd take a bath, which always soothes me. I ran the bath and lay back in the water, all the way back. As it closed over my head, everything went quiet, it was peaceful, and I thought that I might just let myself stay there and drown. Yes, I know it's extreme but it seemed a perfectly reasonable reaction, in that way that dream rationale can make the bizarre seem normal and anything feasible. I waited for the water to fill my lungs, I was convinced it was the thing to do. I felt calm. And then I realised that I could breathe underwater. Foiled. So I just lay there for a while, breathing underwater, enjoying the relief of a silent space, and cried. I was crying still when I woke up but the peacefulness was what stayed with me for a while, not the pain. This is progress.

My waking hours are not very peaceful right now. Work is horrid and horribly busy. So not loving it. I don't shy away from hard work but I do shy away from hard people. And I do shy away from hard people controlling my work in a compromising way - to balance their own inadequacies and to compensate for their incompetency. And just because they can. However, my options seem limited. For now. Do I continue to take on the challenge (I'm up to it but it's demoralising and tiring) or do I try to create new options? And, if the latter, where do I find the time to do so? Or do I wait for the Universe to reveal new doors as she usually does, at her own pace? All I know for sure is that change is coming. I feel it in my marrow.

And there's change brewing in other areas of my life too. The signs are there. At the moment it's mostly about a high level of discomfort with where I am rather than a clear idea of where I'm going, and the anxiety and frustration associated with that. For some reason, instead of just waiting patiently for the wheel to turn, as I know it will, or for the answers to float to the surface, I churn and mull and ponder and rail. I'm not good at waiting. Not good at all. And this has been going on for months. I'm struck by the fact that my time is finite and weeks, months, years are passing in a blur. I don't want to waste them. But I don't seem able to still the inner turmoil. Or to strike out in a new direction. Or to identify a new direction to strike out in. So I twirl. On the spot. Dizzy and tired. I said to a friend recently that it feels a bit like I've got myself into the spin cycle of a washing machine. It's not a comfortable place to be. All this thrashing around in a confined space is quite exhausting. I need open waters. Or a metaphorical bath.

It's not all there is. There are moments, whole days occasionally, of relative contentment. Moments of clarity. My natural optimism surfaces and I know it will all be okay. I'm excited by the prospect of change and the twirling seems like fun. But then the spin cycle kicks in again and that inner certainty explodes into a zillion tiny droplets. More questions than answers.

• What do I need?
• What do I want?
• Am I happy?
• Am I unhappy?
• Is happiness a realistic expectation?
• How far away is it?
• Where's the chocolate?
• How do I get there?
• Am I so busy worrying, seeking, looking beyond... that I'm missing the point?
• Shall I have some tea?
• Enough?
• How do I embrace enoughness* completely?
• Aren't those shoes pretty?!
• How do I establish and maintain integrity (my mission for the year) in every cell of my being?
• Why does everything move so quickly?
• Why does everything move so slowly?

I think my dream was suggesting that if I can find a quiet space in my head, I will find peace, those answers. Some answers, at least. And that maybe letting go and even being underwater isn't as fatal an outcome as I might imagine. That I can already breathe there... Perhaps? But it isn't as easy to convince my waking self.

So, in the meantime, I keep swimming.

*I'm reading an excellent book, recommended by my brother, who gets it. Enough by John Naish.

[Flickr credits here. How did I ever process things without Flickr talents to provide my soul's images, I wonder?]

Brief journeys - over the horizon

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

(1835-1910)

I dreamt of sails and wings, the ocean. Of a horizon and a heart (my heart) opening up, taking off and flying towards it. Of landing. Calm waters, a quiet beach. I started off feeling a little melancholy, soared up through hope and happiness, and ended peacefully, at rest. And then I woke up.

When I opened my eyes in the dark it felt like I had just taken a journey. The images, sensations and emotions were vivid and strong. I felt calm and grounded. And that stayed with me throughout the day.

I love it when that happens.

Thank you lovely Flickr peeps for helping me capture it. A perfect dream sequence.