New Year

We started our year braving brambles and ooze – scrambled climbs up steep hills to find treasure.

And right at the top, we found wind-swings and views – joy at seeing this year in together.

2012

This year I… (in no particular order)

Began the year with dried tears and new resolve. Flew to Jersey alone as I turned 30 and knew peace. Trod in the footsteps of my Grandmother and whispered the names of those I loved out to the sea. Made a secret wish.

Accidentally found a tree fort and sat in it with a new friend. Hurt a heart and sobbed with the shame and guilt of it.

Felt true fear at being told I almost certainly had an eye and brain tumour, and true relief at being told I definitely hadn’t. Surprised myself with coping and knew I could handle anything. Continued to prove myself right by handling many, many things.

Fell in love for really real for the very first time and went “Oh!”

Discovered what true happiness felt like and learnt the secret that it was something I could hold but not keep. Realised that now I knew its feeling I could squeeze it out of tiny moments all around me and did that, a lot.

Reassessed every experience of my adult life. Felt regret.

Found laughter had moved all the way into the front of my mouth and now tumbled out twice as easily.

Said less. Liked what I said more.

Ate home-made crème brûlée at midnight with my eyes closed. Was wined and dined.

Finally let go of something that was never meant to be.

Looked at strong hands on a railing under blue skies and knew nothing would ever be the same again.

Took all my clothes off to take photos to draw from and laughed until I cried.

Was told secrets and kept them.

Ditched self-bullshit and excuses and felt amazed at the peace it brought, despite it hurting like f*ck.

Enjoyed motherhood more than I ever had before. Made our little house shake with laughter and swell with shared imaginings.

Crept into a quiet bedroom in the dark, just to touch a tiny tousled head and feel the pull of love and gratitude in my stomach. Felt the same muscles twist with fear and panic at childhood illnesses that warranted neither.

Learnt what it is to miss someone and thought my heart would break with it. Thanked the stars for new technology.

Found an alien on a beach and married the sea. Soaked up every second of the best holiday I’d ever had.

Wept at the joy of a hundred preschoolers running to the Chariots of Fire theme.

Felt churning hatred at living alone and the fear it brings me. Felt beautiful. Faced crises with hands on hips. Crumpled. Got back up again.

Listened to my son’s speech morph from incomprehensible to something he could share with the world. Delighted in a hundred thousand things he said and thought my head would explode if I heard one more “Mummy?”

Felt an old enemy creep back and bring with it new friends. Remembered pain and what ‘tired’ can really mean. Became my own drill sergeant.

Helped my boy into his first school uniform. Washed many many more of the same.

Got cold and wet and walked hundreds of miles. Wondered at all the things that people that drive must miss out on seeing.

Adjusted to a world that now span and lurched. Discovered what it’s like to faint in front of a crowd full of people.

Made space rockets and castles and dens and robots and dinosaurs and pictures. Made a bed into a boat and a fireplace into a pirate cave.

Did nothing that resulted in renown, success, or worldly achievement and tried to be okay with this.

Fell in love with a sloth and two snails and nearly stole a cat.

Poured attention over faces, watched people and realised how much I love humankind.

Vowed not to quit and didn’t. Realised the value in making mistakes. Cried with frustration.

Saw the last remaining trees near my house chopped down or fenced off. Mourned the destruction of our bug wall. Longed for pastures a little greener.

Wrote letters, tried to nurture friendships, gave gifts and wished for the energy to do this twice as much. Witnessed someone I love get famous.

Phoned my mum to say “help” and realised how little I have ever done this. Spoke to sharply to her and hated myself for it. Loved my family harder than ever.

Watched my Dad say promises with eyes full of real love. Gained three step sisters. Felt deep awe and pride at my brother and my best friend finding their paths.

Lay awake at night worrying about money and the future. Counted my blessings over and over, looked for the positive and wrapped myself up in silver linings and realised how much better life feels when you do this.

Noticed more things than ever before but struggled to record them. Wished I had.

Hid too much.

Wished I’d asked people how they were more and kicked myself for not doing so. Hugged strangers.

Remembered the smell of hospitals and the feel of waiting room seats. Was made dizzy by medical talk. Felt grateful seeing the really big stuff ruled out. Braced myself for a new year of tests and elusive answers.

Was given beautiful gifts and treated with more kindness than I still feel I deserve. Vowed to be more worthy of it. Knew I could be better.

Took more photos and wrote more words in my head than I could ever include here but still wished I had more of them to show you.

Looked forward with trepidation but a strong heart and felt good.

Happy New Year xx

Sunday Scavenger Hunt

Wellies on, folks. Fetch clipboards and pens. Pack a bag with chocolate buttons to bribe them with half way round when they lose interest. Plan a route and make up your list of things you’re likely to see in your little space of the world (it’s a good feeling to get home with all the boxes ticked) and have a big pile of cake or the equivalent waiting back home to reward your grubby, small adventurers with.

Kai knows our neighbourhood pretty well so drew us a map of where he thought we should go. Getting him to draw his own version of our ‘treasure list’ helped to give him a mental map of the things we were looking for so he stood a better chance of remembering them on our way round (it also killed some time while I had a shower. Ha.)

We decided on a BONUS sheet too – good to add to if you reach a bit of the walk where you treasure items are a little unforthcoming. Ours was leaves of different colours, with spaces to stick down leaves of each colour as we spotted them (pack sellotape).

Next time I want to do a sounds list. Get them to listen for bird song, dogs barking, a car horn, the wind whooshing, wet branches dripping. I’d have liked to have had a list of a few more wildcards too – writing down the most interesting thing we saw that had been thrown away, writing down an unexpected sound we heard, or a word we saw written down. (*steers Kai past our urban graffitti*).

It was a beautiful morning for us. I hope you have as much fun as we did.

One hour, and one VERY illusive bug later (turns out bugs do NOT like damp November days) … RESULT.

Happy treasure hunting.

(NB. Not Hitler’s dog. FOUR DOGS. Four ticks. Yikes)

It’s funny how feeling small can make you feel so big

And she gazed at the sky and the sea, the land,

The waves and the caves and the golden sand,

She gazed and she gazed, amazed by it all,

And she said to the whale, “I feel so

small“

{From Julia Donaldson’s ‘The Snail and the Whale’ which we read at bedtime tonight,

with love from a consummate gazer, who found her own ‘golden sand’ today.}

Happy Weekend.

x

On Paying Attention

I’m making paying attention my own personal art form. I think if I can get really good at anything in life, I’d like it to be this.

And of all the things to teach me how, I’m finding not being well, and, more specifically, pain is the thing helping me to learn what mindfulness really means, that word I’ve come across in books sometimes but never really understood.

When the now hurts, or we don’t like it, it’s the easiest thing to try and escape from it. You sink yourself in the past, or in longings for things to be different, you make excuses, or you fantasise yourself into something else. Anything to make now Go Away. Or at other times the temptation is to do the opposite. You put your pain on like a cloak, wrapped around your head until you can’t see anything else, hiding everything else under it, becoming it.

None of these have ever really worked for me, never made anything better, although I’ve tried them all, over and over. All help you to endure in one way or another, but they don’t really give you strength, not really, and it’s all a strength game, this, that’s the thing we’re after in times of hurting, isn’t it? It is for me, what I really want through all this, strength to overcome, endure with some grace, I don’t know, but yes, strength please. And I’m learning what seems like an escape is often the thing that robs you of strength, not gives it, self-deceptions and avoidance and self-pity becoming fingernails under scabs that you didn’t even notice scratching.

When something hurts I’m learning the thing to do isn’t to pull away from now, but to rub your face in it. You don’t switch yourself off, you turn yourself UP. And you focus on everything in your now except for your pain.

On the really bad days, and today was one of them, I’m learning to make it my art form, a kind of slow dance of attention, moment to moment. It doesn’t make pain go away, but it helps it pass. It’s not easy, christ, I don’t want to pretend that it is. Sometimes I have to fight and fight to focus on anything other than the fact I’m hurting, and today I lost it for great long stretches, but it can be done, one tiny moment at a time. I’m getting better at it every day, I think. I hope.

And somewhere in all the little moments of paid attention, there is a really true release, a stillness of mind, and yes, strength. From seemingly nowhere it’s there. It’s like alchemy – I love it, the way I can somehow turn the tiny moments of everyday into that longed-for elixir. You find yourself drip-fed strength. Not loads, but enough. And the best thing is that once you’ve learned how, it makes the happy times better, too. You learn to give them they attention they deserve. Sometimes you start noticing tiny bits of happy you were always too distracted to notice before, but that were probably there all along. That’s the other thing I’m learning to syphon out of life, joy. Strength and joy. I reckon I could probably do anything with enough of them.

Today I didn’t manage much of anything impressive, but I did dance my slow dance of attention.

I let hot water run over my hands and for a few precious seconds I was nowhere but there. I noticed the pattern of birds in the sky, and the colour of peeling paint, and the shapes of leaves on the pavement, and the taste of my tea. I made myself spend a few minutes focusing on thick yarn under my fingers rather than on my sore fingers itself. And I laughed, lots. Because if you’re paying attention, when something is funny it’s REALLY funny. I’ve never laughed so much as I have lately.

Kai is my favourite. A moving, sensory picture book to pour over. I watch the way his face changes as he talks. I try to isolate every nerve on my knee that’s tingling with the weight of his head on my lap. I watch tiny bubbles pop on his back in the bath, and feel the shape of his limbs under the warm towel.

I didn’t do much today but I was very much here and here, it turns out, was full of good things.

Here’s to now. x

Breathe

I curl up in bed in the dark because I am weary and my very me kind of quiet, the kind that involves needing to lie very still because thinking and feeling places are a little concussed, and I listen to my asleep son breathe.

Because I am full of missing, I lie in the exact same place and position I was as I lay the night before with my forehead pressed up between the shoulder blades of my lover, letting the rise and fall of his breathe rock me to sleep. The memory of my one love’s breath mingle with the now sounds of my other love’s, and my own, till there is nothing to tell them apart and we are all together again in a long inhale exhale.

I think if love had a sound it would be something like the sound of breathing. Something rhythmic and life-full, made of ebb and flow and warmth.