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 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.

Land & Sea

For the land, the sea is beautiful; for the sea, the land is beautiful!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

Easing in...

Normally I give quite a lot of thought to my word for the next year in the months leading up to the end of a year. November, coinciding as it does with the drawing in of the season here in the Northern hemisphere and my Birthday, is usually a time of reflection and introspection and I make a point of thinking about what I'd like in the year to come and how to express that in just one word.

Last year it didn't enter my mind. 2013 was a busy year. A very busy year. I was so wrapped up in busy-ness that the final quarter of 2013 passed in a blur. Lots and lots of doing, not very much reflecting or introspecting, and hardly anything that didn't have the label "work" or "chore" attached. I produced journals galore, filled to bursting with notes - all work related. Travelled far and wide, for work - my one planned social trip for the end of the year, thwarted by a last minute travel snag. Even my photographs were almost exclusively taken at work, of work, for clients. Frankly, boring. It's true what they say about Jack. I was Jack.

I popped out of the end of this and spun into Christmas and the end of the year and then the start of the new year completely unprepared on all, including the word, fronts. I moved around, I saw people, I came home, I fell ill... the days blurred. I emerged, blinking and it is a week into January. I feel like I am playing catch up.

Just before we stopped for the holidays though, a group of colleagues and I spent an hour of our final meeting together each creating a vision-board collage for the year to come. We did it in the time-honoured way... by framing it mentally and then very quickly flicking through a pile of magazines and pulling out images and words, trying not to over-think or consciously choose but to let them choose us, before arranging and gluing them on a poster-board and sharing our initial thoughts on what they represented with each other. I can be a bit of skeptic about some of these "profound" activities being crammed into business meeting agendas but I've found this rapid-fire graphic visioning practice quite useful in the past and was again struck by how powerful a visual technique can be for revealing what words sometimes just don't make as clear on their own. What emerged for me is in the top picture. I was very interested in how they turned out across the group (different motivations and aspirations reflected very clearly in each person's board) and afterwards thought how apt it was that the only picture I'd taken of mine was taken against (and in contrast to) a grotty hotel carpet.

When I finally started to think about my word for 2014 last week, there were several that floated to the fore. Nourish, flourish, bloom, savour, even luxuriate, all tried out. All good words and definitely what I'm hoping for in the year to come but none of them quite right. I think what they collectively suggest is a desire for continued expansion and growth but not in the form of frenetic, hugely challenging, mostly exhausting and often anxiety provoking movement and change (which is what this past year's been all about), but rather a slowing down to allow for something deeper to evolve and something more soul-full and un-rushed to emerge; a gentler pace, inner and outer space to breathe and stretch and feed myself well - literally and metaphorically, simple but abundant pleasures, meaningful connections, calm and confidence and contentment on the inside that matches what I project on the outside. And then it came. The word. Ease.

Ease. Like a sigh.

Like the feeling I always enjoy when I spend time consciously, slowly and deeply, savouring every moment - either alone or alongside loved ones... Ease.

It conjures for me the whisper of wind through grass and trees, the shush of ocean waves on the shore, and the soft scrunch of bare toes on beach sand. Dynamic but gentle: a sense and rhythm of ease.

Wouldn't it be great if I could experience that even in the midst of my everyday everydayness with its ongoing busyness, challenges, grotty hotels carpets and all? So that's what I'll be seeking, learning to create, focussing on establishing....

When I looked it up in the dictionary this is what I found:

Ease [eez]
Noun
1. freedom from labour, pain, or physical annoyance; tranquil rest; comfort
2. freedom from concern, anxiety, or solicitude; a quiet state of mind: to be at ease
3. freedom from difficulty or great effort; facility
4. freedom from financial need; plenty
5. freedom from stiffness, constraint, or formality; unaffectedness: ease of manner

Verb (used with object), eased, eas·ing.
6. to free from anxiety or care
7. to mitigate, lighten, or lessen
8. to release from pressure, tension, or the like
9. to move or shift with great care
10. to render less difficult; facilitate

Synonyms
1. repose, contentment, effortlessness. Ease, comfort refer to a sense of relaxation or of well-being. Ease implies a relaxed condition with an absence of effort or pressure: a life of ease. Comfort suggests a sense of well-being, along with ease, which produces a quiet happiness and contentment. 2. tranquillity, serenity, calmness, peace. 5. naturalness, informality. 6. comfort, relieve, disburden, soothe. 7. alleviate, assuage, allay, abate.

And when I look at my vision board again I see it there too, in so many forms. Calling to me.

Ease. Like a sigh.

Yes, thank you. That will do nicely.

And so the year begins for me. Today. Happy New Year!

Sea, tea and St Ives

This is what this little jaunt looked like... I think I could live here.

I'm certainly tempted to go back in future for some of this. Inspired by this. And this. And this. It was incredible. SO much art.

And just a short drive away, one of the most breath-taking theatre venues ever.

And if you happen to be in town, I highly recommend the lemon meringue tart and banana&honey&cinnamon breakfast smoothie here (they'll teach you to surf too). And anything, absolutely anything, on the menu here. Just about every place in town (well certainly those we tried) serves wonderful fresh food and has beautiful views.

You know, there's a lot to be said for the barter system - I enjoyed all this and some really good company in exchange for a bit of coaching, some writing and an already-and-unconditionally-given truckload of moral support. I think my lovely friend got the short end of the deal here. But I'm thankful. It was great. And I'm thinking barter may be the way to go... it doesn't feel like work. It feels like love.

In the meantime

It has been about a month since I returned to the UK. A long month. A short month. Strange how elastic time feels for me at the moment.

I went away to find space. And I did. Both internally and externally, there was expansion. As a result, so much has changed. Is changing. I'm still processing a lot of this but it's fair to say that as my sabbatical draws to an end, things have been set in motion that mean life-after-sabbatical will be very different. I'm trusting that it will be better, fuller, richer - in all the ways that are important to me - but I know that it will certainly be much harder before that is true.

In the meantime, life continues, not quite normal and yet, in some ways, very. It's good to be back in familiar space and I need to be here to make the changes and make them stick. But it's not all a good thing. It's been disturbing and unpleasant to feel the tug back into the sludgier aspects of the everyday I left behind.

There are many reasons for this and I was naive to think it would not happen. Actually, I didn't think about it at all. It did not occur to me. That was a mistake. I've realised that it will be a project in itself to preserve the clarity. To deal with the practicalities whilst keeping a sense of the possible. To hold the space and, at the same time, narrow the focus. And to do it alone.

Escaping the city with a friend, even for a few short days, has helped. She too is going through some significant personal and professional changes and needed some space and support. So we went south. To the sea. We walked, we talked, we plotted and planned. We ate good food, we soaked in the art and we breathed in the salt. We stared at the horizon and we watched the gulls dive and soar against a deep and very unBritishlyblue sky, which showed itself on more than one day in three, something that I took as a sign in itself. We worked together in the sunshine to draft ideas for her projects into something slightly more concrete. It was good.

As for me... I sat there, with my toes in the sand and the sun on my shoulders and I was reminded not to let go. Not to let the fear overcome me. To keep hold of my heart and to maintain the momentum. However hard it gets... in the meantime.

Waterfront wandering...

Still one of my favourite places to potter around on a sunny day... tucked into the bay under Table Mountain: part international working harbour, part trendy tourist hangout, always plenty to see. And the very best frozen yoghurt south of the equator.

Sabbatical skies (three)

I could never stay long enough on the shore, the tang of the untainted, fresh and free sea air was like a cool, quieting thought.

Helen Keller

(1880-1968)

Spending my week here... in one of those seafront apartments, visiting one of my lovely aunts. The apartment is up high and has a view like a living painting - ever-changing and absolutely beautiful. But even more amazing is what's inside the apartment.

My aunt is someone who fills some of my earliest, and some of my most recent, creative memories. She is an artist and a nurturer of artistic spirit: a skilled and experienced educator who has always valued and made time for creative pursuits and encouraged her daughters and nieces to do the same. Over the years she's supported our dreams, honoured our achievements, helped us stitch up the pieces of our broken hearts, and believed in us even when we were unable to believe in ourselves. And always, no matter what, art's been the way we've processed the stuff we're working through together.  Art as therapy. Art as celebration. Art as soulfood. Art for pleasure and art for pain. No emotion or medium has been unexplored.

These days she expresses herself by creating the most amazing quilts; quilts that tell personal stories and are exquisite artworks wrought in fabric, designed with talent and sewn with love. And she does it here, in this apartment overlooking the bay. The place is a jewel-box of beautiful fabrics, works in progress, inspirational materials and creative energy. I love it. And I love spending time there, with her.

It's going to be a good week.


[photographs taken by my sister on a recent drive around the coast]

Rob's beach

Wave watching

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Henry David Thoreau

(1817-1862)

I never, ever, tire of it. 

Bizarrely, it grounds me.  Like nothing else.

Gentle days and soft greys...

Everything that ever walked or crawled on the face of the earth, swum the depths of the ocean or soared through the skies left its imprint here.

Robert M. Fresco

(1930)

Walking the shores of the Indian Ocean... warm air, warm water... warm heart! Leaving our footprints alongside those of the birds, the fishermen, their dogs and the hippo.


*picture, middle right - adult male sibling foot alongside adult male/female hippo spoor. Not something one often encounters at the beach.

Expansion and contraction

It’s a weird sensation, being relieved of pressure that was so much a part of the everyday that now it’s finally lifted, I’m feeling freer than I have in many, many years but am also strangely unnerved by the weightlessness, by the lack of boundaries.

As I move through these first days of my sabbatical leave, surrounded by the beauty of African landscapes; distant horizons and those huge skies I’ve craved; pure air that smells of heat and salt; the hum of breezes through grass, singing crickets and the shush of the sea; stars that go on and on… and in the company of people who allow me to just be amongst them without expectation of daily performance, I find that I am moving between moments of deep elation and undeniable trepidation.

I want to dance and float and bounce and sing and laugh out-loud. I’m not really known as a dancy, floaty, bouncy, singy, laugh-out-loud kind of a girl. Not because I don’t feel these things (or even do them) but because I'm most true to myself in this way on the inside, or when I’m alone, or with the very few individuals who get close enough to see past the reserve. If ever there was a time and place to be like this though, inside or out, it must surely be now? I feel sometimes completely high on the freedom of the weeks that stretch ahead and the pleasure of the here and now. It’s intoxicating.

And still, I’m held back by something that doesn’t completely trust this state yet and is unsure how to use it best, or to surrender to it. I feel ill-equipped now to deal with the properly integrated, dancing girl, although I know that the purpose of this exercise is precisely to (re)discover her. I find my eyes filling with tears because the emotion is just too big to be contained – relief, gratitude, love, calm, contentment, anticipation, excitement… they all race through me. And also, fear. It creeps up on me, takes a bite out of the experience and makes me shrink back. I worry about things that should not be of concern right now, things I cannot control or change - people I’ve left behind, what the distant future holds… the responsibility of using this freedom most responsibly and wisely. I find these things surfacing and inhibiting my ability to be fully, unreservedly and joyfully in the moment.

Or is it just habit? I have been operating under sway of my Peg persona for so long now that she’s reluctant to let go and the others are struggling to take their turn. The cautious reservation and focus that has been necessary to drive me through the past few years, and especially the final six months, has become deeply ingrained and it’s surely natural that only a week and a bit after landing on this side of the Equator, I’m still bound to some extent by these habits? By a need for them to feel normal, until the boundaries of normal redraw themselves and I adjust to those? I don’t want normal to be normal anymore but the change feels strange and yes, scary. I don’t know. I’m trying to just go with it. Observing myself. Attempting not to over-analyse (although it is in my nature to be future-focused and meaning-seeking and I cannot deny that either so I’m not over-analysing the need to over-analyse) and just see where the tides of thought and feeling take me. I am looking out, beyond myself. And I am looking in, within myself. And both of those seem right.

I can say that, after a blissful week in the African bush, yesterday walking along the shoreline in the sunshine, watching a pod of playful dolphin and a surfer swim by just beyond the breakers, and the banana and cinnamon waffle I enjoyed (when a salad might have been the more sensible choice) were all moments that left me feeling nothing but happy, expanded and expansive. My other alter-egos all came just a little bit closer to the surface, and it was good to feel them there, uncurling and stretching awake. Peg had to let go and let her sisters out for while.

I’m sure they’ll be coming out to play more and more…. they never can resist the dolphins!

When I can't be there...

...photographs and memories keep them close.