100 Day Project - Day Thirty Four

We are our choices.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I really love having options. Lots of paths to explore, a variety of things to do, choices to make from lots of possibilities. It’s one of the things that makes life juicy for me. I’m definitely a “variety is the spice of life” sorta girl.

This week I’ve been wondering if, even for me, there’s such a thing as too many choices, too much variety? I don’t know definitively. I’m mulling on it.

It’s not just about the freedom to choose but that it seems to me, being properly able to exercise that freedom requires options to choose from. No options, or only two, doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t want to live in a binary world. It would arguably be far easier to live in a simpler situation. Many alternatives bring challenges, for sure. But what would I lose without them? Diversity & complexity equate to richness for me.

So, I guess when I consider the alternative, less is not more for me.

Back into the messy, too-many-options fray I go then…

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 Eleven

Sitting at my desk this week, about to start some design work, and I was struck by both the delicious potential in the blank sheet in front of me and the thought that it’s never really a blank sheet I’m faced with. No matter how blank it looks, the perspective I bring to it is never without some existing intentions, influences, impressions…. So when, if ever, is a blank sheet really a blank sheet? When do we ever get to create something completely new and fresh? And does it matter?

I don’t know. There’s all this thinking that says that because in that moment we’re about to combine things in a way that only we can, bringing to it all that we are, that in itself makes it new and unique.

I see can the truth of that but I’m not convinced it’s enough for me some days. Most of what I do feels like an obvious and recognisable echo or evolution of something I’ve done before. Most days that’s fine and I enjoy the synthesis this represents. I’m quite good at synthesis.

Some days I long to create something completely different. I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly original thought. I don’t make leaps of creative thinking. Usually, I just accept that’s the way of things. Some days, I find it deeply disappointing.

I’m mostly future focused and I like to think I can use my imagination. I’m not as bound to reality or the tried & tested as some people and that means I can move into worlds of hypotheticals and experimentation and early adoption quite easily. Too easily sometimes. It’s in that world that dreams live, which sounds grand and lovely, but it’s not all good in that world. It’s in that world that worry and anxiety also live; it’s in that world that all the “could do, should do, must do” stuff lives; it’s in that world that risk lives, and it’s in that world that comparison lives. I’m definitely aware of how energy sapping and pointless all that stuff is. Been there, done that.

So, why even wonder about it? And where does my ego fit into all this? I suspect it’s leading the way in even asking the question. What’s the source of the disappointment? What’s the drive to create something new? Why does it matter to me that I feel I can’t?

In the early hours of this morning, as I was lying staring at my ceiling in the dark, it occurred to me. It’s about escape. Some days I’m just not bought into all the, “you are enough”, you have everything you need”, “whatever you do is unique because you are unique” stuff. I just want to escape. I want relief from all that. It feels heavy. At its most extreme, I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to do the things that I would do. I don’t want to live the life I’m living. Some days even the things that exist on the edge of what I do, the places where I’m stretching and growing into new territory in my spiral, don’t give me enough escape. Enough relief.

These are the moments I call my “small-bag-at-midnight-flit” moments, the times I fantasize about doing a runner, leaving it all behind, reinventing myself on a distant shore. Sometimes that urge is so strong it’s hard to describe. When it comes on on like that, it can take days for me to come back to reality.

Of course, rationally, I know that even if I did this, even it were possible, I still wouldn’t be creating someone entirely new. Wherever I go, I will be there. Parts of myself would be what I built the new me on. Parts of myself I really like. Parts of myself that have been hard-won. And what would I be shedding? Plenty that I would miss. Relationships, experiences, memories, lessons, scars, freckles, all the many layers that have been added on over time. The patina of life. The depths of it all. Nothing to draw on, nothing to synthesise. And synthesis is what I’m good at. The relief would be temporary and then I’d likely just be lost. Untethered. Alone. So maybe an echo and an evolution are fine.

And that blank page, that isn’t really blank… as good as it gets. And quite delicious really.

100 Day Project - Day Four

Maya Angelou would have been 90 this week. It was remarkable to see the out-pouring of respect and admiration for her on that anniversary. Not surprising but deeply moving and for me, still incredibly significant. In this time, when navigating being a person of integrity, a woman of integrity, is throwing up challenges both ongoing and new at every turn, strong role-models feel especially important. Maya Angelou embodied integrity. Heart driven but with a good head; compassionate and wise, she forged a path that is still leaving a wake. In my life and in the world.

I first discovered her writing when I was at university. She was not on the curriculum. Even on the most liberal campuses, early 80s South Africa did not actively encourage the study of women writers, unless it was Austen or Brontë, and certainly Black women were not even officially acknowledged as existing. In those days studying André Brink, under the tutelage of André Brink, was considered radical. But, there were plenty of works (many banned) doing the rounds unofficially. Along with discovering the music of Miriam Makeba and the joys of eating ice-cream for breakfast, reading Maya Angelou felt both incredibly subversive and like a home-coming to me. She’d not long since published The Heart of a Woman and I remember devouring a copy and being deeply moved by her story.

I remember sitting around at the home of one of my professors, for the first time in a racially mixed group of my peers, being served ‘special’ brownies that he’d made himself and discussing everything from the role of law and journalism in a state of emergency, the lyrics of Rodrigues, if wearing braids as a white-freckled-redheaded South African was appropriate, where to buy the cheapest red wine by the gallon (literally), and the role of Black women in the civil rights movement. Maya Angelou was with us in that moment and she is with us now.

Her life story was so different to mine and yet I did and still do hear my own heart in so much of her writing. She had the gift of expressing some universal experiences through the telling of her very individual story. That is just one of the ways she modelled, for me, how to be in the world. We all have a story to tell. They may not all land on a world stage or be told quite so eloquently but they’re all significant. Together, they add to and add up to the story of the world. I always think about what I’d like my bit of that mosaic to look like. Still working on it.

100 Day Project - Day Three

I’m really squirmy in front of a camera. Properly uncomfortable, bordering on phobic. And I’m really uncomfortable looking at photographs of myself. I know there are many who can relate to this and many who don’t get it at all. It’s hard to explain. It’s more than just the fact that I inherited my Dad’s skinny calves and funny knees and wonky teeth and that I don’t enjoy seeing the ravages of too much sun and the march of time on my skin. I don’t hate myself. I just really dislike having a lens turned on me. The scrutiny, even momentary, is excruciating for me.

When I was younger, I’d go out of my way to avoid having my photograph taken but, in the same way as I challenge my viscerally unpleasant reaction to heights, I’ve actively worked on this because I know it’s not rational. Not at all rational. And I believe there’s everything to be learnt in exploring these places of discomfort within ourselves.

I try to avoid standing on chairs or climbing ladders (my body doesn’t distinguish between 6 inches, 6 or 600 feet, in its reaction) but I love an aerial view, so I deal with my height phobia by confronting it and pushing through the dizzying fear and the roiling nausea to get up high. Often, I get help to guide me up or to distract me as I go so that I can make it to the top of a tower or scale the treetops without freezing or passing out. Sometimes I just can’t do it. But, when I can, when I make it up whatever it is and I’m able to avoid looking directly down, I enjoy the view. So worth it. Every time I do this, every time, it makes me feel a little stronger, a little braver. It doesn’t stop the physical discomfort, the mild panic going up or the fierce anxiety coming down, but I do learn about my boundaries every time and I do get to do and see the sort of things I would definitely regret if I didn’t try.

One of the most amazing height-related experiences recently was zip-lining through the Costa Rican cloud forests. The zip-lines themselves were a doddle. I loved the sensation of flying through the air once I was launched into space but climbing the platform towers and moving around on tiny shelves built into the tallest of trees almost made me faint and puke. Literally. Was it terrifying? Yes. Was it uncomfortable? Yes. Am I glad I did it? For sure. It was magical.

So, back to photographs. The fear of heights is far more understandable than the fear of being photographed or looking at images of myself. I don’t believe it sucks my soul and I love seeing photographs of other people and even having evidence that I was amongst them. So, I wondered what it was that made me turn away and experience an almost uncontrollable urge to run at the prospect of being photographed. I don’t think it was like that all my life but certainly in my late teens and early twenties, I remember feeling this acutely.

After some contemplation, I came to the conclusion that it’s not the act of being photographed that’s the problem. It doesn’t hurt and I don’t feel unsafe. It’s not even that I can’t bear what I look like when I see myself from outside. I have odd toes but only one head and most people would consider me quite normal-looking. I concluded that I dislike it not because of how I look but how I feel. And, having someone else pause to look explicitly too, whilst taking the photograph, intensifies that feeling.

I realised that I am almost always uncomfortable in my skin. Uncomfortable. Rarely in pain, seldom comfortable.

Don’t mistake me. My body functions well and is healthy, for which I’m so thankful. I don’t love living in a cold, grey climate but I have warm clothes - yay for thermal fabrics and layering. I found a lot of help with this when I discovered Ayurvedic approaches to health and understood my dosha’s needs better. I appreciate my senses and I enjoy what they offer. I practice being present through my senses and I revel in that. But still, I feel a distance between ‘me’ and the world I inhabit. My body creates a veil. For the most part I feel that it separates me from how I experience the world, rather than connects me directly to it. Like a filter I can’t pass through. Except in very rare moments. Very rare moments; the number of which, in my lifetime to date, I can count with only my fingers & toes. It’s weird, I know. But there it is.

I am much better about having my photograph taken now. I seldom run away. As long as it’s quick, I can hold my breath and it’s done. I invite myself to be more appreciative of the unremarkable ten-toes-one-headedness of myself when I see it and, sometimes, I even enjoy looking at one now. Usually because of how I felt when it was taken and how it reminds me of that.

This is a picture my sister took when we were swimming in the Pacific Ocean off Costa Rica and despite all the above-mentioned things that make me squirm, I love this picture.

I love it because of the memories it triggers of that magical day and the people I shared it with. I love it because we were having fun playing with some waterproof covers for our phones (witness air-bubble in bottom corner) and taking pictures in the water; a different perspective. I love it because we were bobbing out there for ages, chatting and laughing, and not once did I think of anything but being there. I love it because I didn’t know she was taking it and so I didn’t have the run-away feeling. But mostly I love it because, in that moment, I was completely IN the moment. In that moment, I was utterly happy in my skin. In that moment, I felt both unaware of my body and perfectly comfortable in it. I couldn’t tell where I ended and the water and air began. Weightless and warm. Connected and free. This is a state I very rarely experience and for me, and my out-of-whack Vata dosha, it’s bliss.

When I look at this photograph it conjures an echo of that moment and other moments like it. It also confronts me with the fact that what I experience every day is a low-level but deeply resonant hum of yearning for this. That is something I need to address.

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.