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.

Grace chooses me

Un-winged and naked, sorrow surrenders its crown to a throne called grace.

Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

Along with many others, one of the things I love about this time of year is reflecting on the year soon past and choosing a word to guide me in the year to come. It's one of those simple but profound rituals that I now relish. The word has power. It shapes and anchors and holds space for me throughout the year.

I normally spend quite a lot of time pondering the choice and allowing 'the one' float to the surface of a shortlist. This time it happened quite differently. The word chose me, swiftly and without much contemplation. Grace.

A lovely colleague of mine made this star and gifted it to me last week for Christmas. She said she'd chosen a word to engrave for each member of our team by thinking of us in turn and drawing a card from a pack she has. Each was bizarrely apt, ranging from resilience through courage and patience... none of which would have been just right for me. When she gave me mine though, that was it, word chosen. Or rather, it felt like it had chosen me.

For me grace embodies a combination of joy-filled ease, everyday finesse and conscious gratitude that I feel I need to be making space for in my life again, more deliberately. This feels like the word I need to help me encourage and embrace those things in this year ahead.

I also like the element of surrender suggested in the words she included with the gift. I'm happy to 'give up the struggle and allow the universe to participate in the creation of [my] life'. 2015 had many brights spots and was also a year of struggle. I'm ready for a year guided by grace. Thank you.

♡

Books and hearts and flowers...

... a few of my favourite things.

Vision...

I was playing around with a vision board this week. It's not quite finished yet but I'm liking what and how it's emerging. It's not that profound or even very surprising. Certainly not a work of art. It's just a device. Not even a very original one, I know, but it helps me to tune out some of the noise that clutters my thinking and to focus, for just a moment, on choosing the direction of flow. I find that helpful.

This is one I created about twelve years ago as part of a quick workshop exercise... 

It took all of about 20 minutes to do and I remember so clearly what each element meant to me, beyond the obvious representations. When I look at it now, it feels like all of it's become a reality. Some of it manifested in ways I would not have imagined, or even have chosen, but I cannot claim I didn't get what I asked for.

Riding a rainbow caterpillar...

Today I had one of those moments where I stood back mentally to look around the room and I was struck by how people were engaged and palpably enjoying themselves in an environment that I had helped create for them. Creativity and conversation and collaboration were all in the air. Not loud but visible and tangible. It flowed with ease around me. And I was at ease. I felt alive and actively tuned in but calm and contained all at the same time.

It was only a moment and then, I was back in my head - attentive, listening and gathering my thoughts; thinking about what we were going to do next; considering how I would frame that to maintain the energy and also move us on; calculating the time we still had to work together; planning to take action... but for that moment, I was still. And it felt good. Like Tango, when it works. That rare (for me) instant when it all comes together in what I describe to myself as "glide". Grounded but light and floating all at the same time. Ease.

Bizarrely, as I was reflecting on this on the train home, I felt tears surface. I'm not entirely sure what that was about. Maybe relief that it's still possible to find that space. Maybe a sense of how rare it is and how I much I missed it when it wasn't part of my working life for so long. Perhaps just reliving the pleasure of it. Maybe overwhelmed with how lucky and thankful I am that I get to do work I love. Possibly exhaustion heightening all the emotions disproportionately. Probably a combination of these.

Either way, when I was reviewing the event photographs this evening, I found this one on my phone of somebody's tabletop creation and it summed it up for me... riding a giant rainbow caterpillar with a big smile on my face. Easily. That's kinda how it felt. Weird, I know. But true.

And now it's the weekend! That makes me happy too.

Minding my P's & Q's

Dear Universe,

For all the talk around here about change and the excitement of that, I'm very conscious that there was much in the past year that I loved and would like to carry with me into the new year.

Amongst the best bits, these in particular stand out:

~ Picnics - beach picnics, forest picnics, garden picnics, car picnics, sofa picnics... barefoot picnics are my favourite. 

~ New destinations - near and far, exotic or not. I don't mind. Travel, travel, travel.

~ Time to be - to stare at horizons under big skies and just be - fully present in the moment.

~ Heart to hearts - with special, interesting and passionate people. People with heart. And soul.

~ Creative work - challenging, colourful, meaningful, creative work. LOTS of it!

~ Moments of discovery and wonder... may I never become too jaded to notice them. No matter how brief or tiny.

~ Conversation and companionship - good times with good people and good food is my preferred format.

~ Solitude - not loneliness.

~ Fun - reminders that sometimes it's good to just laugh and play. And opportunities to do so.

~ Sea and sunshine - it was pervasive and it made all the difference.

Thank you for all of these in 2012. Yes please to more in 2013... 

And thank you in advance.

You have heard my deepest heart and responded. I am grateful.

K xox

Five minute lovely list

~ Time to write - lists, musings, letters, thank you notes, blog posts. It's felt lacking recently. I've missed it.

~ Mobile phone Apps - oh my goodness, these little wonders really do make life (especially when on the road) easier and more fun. Some of my favourites of the moment are: Passbook (electronic tickets, boarding passes etc.), TripAdvisor and TripAdvisor City Guide (access to good travel info and recommendations on the move), Pixlromatic+ (fun for photographs), Genius Scan (enhances and creates pdf documents out of anything you photograph - especially useful for receipts, recipes and other text records you might like to make), SimpleMind+ (an uncomplicated but great little mind-mapping tool - I love it for quickly capturing ideas), Audible (Audiobooks. Something I've apparently never outgrown is the pleasure of having someone read to me. In the absence of a real someone to do this, audible brings me people like Stephen Fry, Richard Attenborough and a host of lovely narrators to do so. Love it!). If you have any App faves you'd like to share, please do... I'd love to try them out.

~ The White Company candles - delicious fragrances, beautiful, simple but luxurious packaging and very clean and long-burning. I have them at home and take a little one with me when I travel - it's like a sensory anchor. They make me very happy and there's one for every mood. My favourites are Seychelles, Wild Mint and Pine Cone but there really isn't a bad one.

~ Creative stash. More specifically... using it. In my mission to declutter and lighten my world of all the stuff that weighs me down, as well as to deliberately carve out more creative playtime, I've been sorting through my stash and am planning to have great fun using it up. I probably have enough to keep me going until about 2025!

~ Kindness - when it's aimed at me, it always takes me by surprise and manages to undo me.

A special stillness...

...found on an Autumn day, on the farm. Just the two of us, my sister and me. A rare treat.

Thankfulness, every day - Twenty Two

So here we are, on the brink of the last month of the year.... 

There are a couple of very busy weeks to go yet but I'm hoping then for a gradual winding down and an opportunity to reflect and gather my resources in time to enter the new year, restored.

In the meantime, I am thankful to have come this far - to have made it through to now. I began this year feeling somewhat depleted and, although there have been a few bright spots, overall it has been an even tougher one than the last. Which just goes to show that one can go on long beyond what feels like running on empty. That's a useful lesson and I am thankful for that. 

And thankful too, immeasurably, for those who have been alongside on the often rough journey of this year. For those who in myriad ways have stood by me, silent and supportive, or offering compassionate connection by reaching through and around and beyond the ether to touch their hearts to mine, even when I've had little or nothing to offer in return.

Encouraged by the ever lovely Lisa to contemplate the many, many things for which I am grateful over the course of this past month, I find that I reach the end of a difficult time, a little bit weary but enriched and full of thanks.

That's a good place to be.

Thankfulness, every day - Twenty One

A few days away... away from work, away from the city... disconnected.

Now that I'm back, I'm thankful for that mental, emotional and physical breathing space. Also thankful for the snow, which made everything feel calm and quiet and beautiful. And for that light on the horizon, literal and figurative...

Thankfulness, every day - Twenty

360 degree feedback received today after a wait of many months...

~ Thankful it's happened

~ Thankful it's over

~ Thankful for people who took the time to make their responses meaningful and constructive
~ Thankful that there was congruence between the results from personal and professional responders

~ Thankful I managed not to burst into tears when I read some of the comments - although for the first time in months, they'd have been mostly good, thankful tears

Thankfulness, every day - Nineteen

It has been cold this week. Frosty, icy, wintery (not autumnal) cold. I had to surrender this evening and turn on my heating. I'm sitting here now with a hot water bottle, wearing several layers of clothing, a small fleecy blanket wrapped around me, a cup of tea to hand and the radiators on, and I am still conscious of the chill. I know that I'll thaw and in a little while, I'll be feeling toasty.

On my way home tonight I passed several guys who sleep rough in the area and it struck me, as it always does at this time of year, how very fortunate I am not to have to live like that. 

I get quite grumpy in the cold. I am not a cold weather soul, and my body's not designed for it either. I've learnt how to arm myself against it and to get on regardless and I'm definitely more acclimatised now than when I first moved to wintery climes but I can't see myself ever fully embracing it. My heart shrivels, my body hurts, and I'm not much fun to be around. I've even been known to cry with discomfort and petulance in severely cold situations (like when I fell off a raft into a river of barely melted snow and ice and then had to sit in the bitter air on the boat for several hours before making landfall). I can't begin to imagine how I'd make it through a night outside in this weather, with only what these guys have available to deal with it, let alone an entire season. Maybe it would be character building but I suspect it would actually just do me in. I know their problems are often much greater than just getting through a cold night but that one thing alone puts my own situation so neatly into perspective.

I am so thankful for that reality check, for my hot water bottle (and the rest),  and that I have not had to find out the hard way how they make it through. And for charities like this.

Thankfulness, every day - Eighteen

Unexpected rainbows. Always thankful for those.

Thankfulness, every day - Seventeen

Time to breathe and take in the beauty. Today I'm thankful for that.

Thankfulness, every day - Sixteen

Today I'm grateful for an unexpectedly early finish, which resulted in a delicious unplanned hour on my sofa, reading a magazine and some catalogues, with a cup of tea, waiting for my evening to begin. There's the prospect of a lovely dinner ahead (cooked for me) and a movie (also enjoyed from the comfort of the sofa) but in the meantime, there was just that quiet hour, alone.

I honestly can't remember the last time I did this, aimless flicking and sipping - with nothing else I should have been doing, nothing else going through my head but, "oooh, that's pretty!"

What a sense of luxury there can be in a bubble of time spent in perfect, unremarkable, solitude.

Thankfulness, every day - Fifteen

Today I am thankful for having an opportunity to work with a lovely colleague, apply a bit of creative problem-solving to a situation and, although the bits don't necessarily fit neatly together like a jigsaw puzzle, create a beautiful, quite elegant solution nevertheless. 

It made me think of a mosaic. 

I love mosaics. Even more than jigsaw puzzles.

Thankfulness, every day - Fourteen

Is it just me that finds it harder and harder not to want to go to bed when it's already been dark for a couple of hours, even if that makes it 7pm? 

I'm certain I must have been, or am evolving towards, a life form designed to hibernate through the long dark nights. Especially after a very hard day at work all I can think of is warming up and then lying down with a book before drifting off to sleep as soon as possible after I walk through my front door. Usually things that need doing get in the way and I manage to stay up for several hours but every minute I'm thinking of how soon I can stop, have a relaxing bath and crawl under my duvet. Often insomnia strikes and I am left staring at the ceiling or pacing the floor but that doesn't take away the desire to sleep. I have never been a natural night owl.

Every now and again though I find that the combination of cold crisp air, bright lights and the buzz of shadowy people rushing past (in this case on their way to the shops, theatres or restaurants in the area) have such a vibrancy that I am re-energised by them and arrive home not wanting to curl up and sleep but to dance or paint or write into the small hours. Tonight was one of those. So I did.

What struck me as I pottered around at 2am is how I lucky I am to be able to do this. To do whatever I want, whether it's going to bed or not going to bed. I'm grateful for that.

Of course, now that it's nearly time to get ready and start the day, all I want to do is sleep...

Thankfulness, every day - Thirteen

Today I had a proposal approved for a project I'm really passionate about. It involves the design, planning and implementation of a developmental mentoring scheme and I am inordinately excited about it. It represents a step-change in the formal approach to personal and professional development for this organisation. We have some fantastic mentoring work going on informally and it's not something that's going to change the world, this programme, but it's something I hope will provide a useful framework and enable a few more great people to engage in meaningful, enriching partnerships from which they all stand to benefit, regardless of whether they participate as mentor or mentee. I so believe in the transformative potential and power of a good mentoring relationship, having been on both sides of the equation, that it delights me to be able to facilitate this for others. 

It's taken some time and required some manouvering to get it in front of them but response from the approving board to the proposal paper today was so positive and heartening.  It reminded me of why I became involved in my field in the first place and how much satisfaction there is to be had from it when people who have the choice to endorse or to obstruct an idea, take a leap of faith and get behind it.

It means a lot more work for me on top of an already jammed schedule but I'm energised in a way that I've not felt for a long time and it occurred to me as I walked home this evening how different my outlook is when there's an open road, a broad horizon and big sky ahead.

I'm so thankful for having been granted this new view, as opposed to the brick wall I've been staring at for ages now. It's a good way to start the week.

Thankfulness, every day - Twelve

Always thankful for reasons to eat chocolate cake and drink pinkglitteryheartbubbly. And there are a few this month...

♥

Thankfulness, every day - Eleven

This week I was asked by two friends entirely independently to help with their wedding invitations, favours and, as one put it, "the pretty stuff". How lovely! I'm thankful to have weddings to look forward to and really touched to be asked.