Eleven years old. In the back of my mum’s Morris traveller on our way to school, via picking up two children my mum got paid to do the school run for. My school had given out Charles and Diana Royal Wedding bookmarks. I had written ‘Don’t do it Di’ on all of mine. My mum and her friends, i.e. all the people I socialised with in my home life as I mainly hung around with adults, all thought Diana was a vulnerable young woman who was being taken as a breeder, and that it was sick, not romantic in any way.
However, this was not a view shared by most of the population of England in 1981 and when the two children my mum took to school were about to get into the car, my mum said ‘don’t let them see those’ (the written on bookmarks). There was no sense of any shame or it being a dirty little secret of ours; it was simply that these naive, brainwashed children wouldn’t be able to cope.
I inhabited a different world to that of my peers. At boarding school in 1982, me telling my disbelieving, ridiculing dorm about female circumcision (FGM used to be called that), them saying ‘girls can’t be circumcised Rachel’.They didn’t even know about nuclear weapons, The Bomb. ‘What, is there just one bomb Rachel?’ Oblivious, their parents obviously told them nothing, while I was getting out at weekends on false pretences to go on CND demonstrations, getting a coach from Norfolk, eating sandwiches, marching to Hyde Park.
Having surreal calm nightmares of being out in the garden, holding hands in a circle, waiting to be evaporated, hoping the end would be quick. Thinking of, even though I knew the government advice of the Protect and Survive pamphlet which was delivered to every home was pointless (CND did their own version, Protest and Survive), I still wondered late at night, should we stockpile, should we make a shelter in the cellar? But how long would it last, and what about all our friends? Wouldn’t it be better to all go together? We were so close to the American airbases- prime targets.
Thirteen years old. Walking to Greenham Common as part of the Star March, a women’s march, one of many from all round the country. In Luton the locals drove round and round in between our tents whilst were in bed inside them. There’s still a photo on my mum’s wall of me and a young punk woman called Rosie sitting in front of the Greenham Common fence.
At boarding school, lots of RAF children there. The headmaster used to call us after breakfast if we had any post, one day a fat packet of Animal Aid leaflets came for me. He said, ‘What’s that confounded girl up to now?!’ I gave out graphic photos of monkey head transplants to my peers.
Nothing’s changed really, I just pretend to fit in, that’s all.
I am not aiming for balance, or a balanced life, oh no, Elizabeth Gilbert says you cannot do that and I largely concur. I am aiming for a happy life subject to circumstances and a ‘spiritual’ life whatever the circumstances, indeed friction helps me grow. I am glad to be developing and all my life is helping me to do that (all my life as in all that’s going on in my life right now and all my life as in past, present and future). I fully know I may concentrate on one part sometimes and other parts other times and that life will show me what to do next.
Money: ‘Studying’ (aka obsessively binge watching) Shameless USA, reading about the Buy Nothing movement, hibernating, in order to get my finances under control. I didn’t set out to watch Shameless in order to do this, but I am sure it helped. Spend as little as possible. Who needs money when you’ve got words. Not being flippant about people who don’t have money for food, I just mean that I can cope with staying in etc because I have this to do.
Work: I got locked in my pattern again: I take on too much, get too tired, or in this case, there just was too much happening (lots of people leaving/off sick); me pretending to everyone including myself that it is okay and not accessing support. I end up feeling burned out, thinking I have to meet the every emotional, professional, advisory and every other need of everyone in my team whilst also doing a good job for my patients, other dept. duties, answering emails, thinking up new stuff, keeping one step ahead, keeping everyone happy… all of which is obviously ludicrously impossible.
The next thing that happens is that I start to get self conscious and paranoid, worrying about what everyone thinks of me, wondering if anything I do is any good, wishing I could start over again and be different- stop being shy, communicate better, stop avoiding the strong senior managers because I’m intimidated. I avoid criticism, I am scared of it so I avoid people, and that just makes everything worse…
To contradict what I just wrote, I have actually in many ways been more relaxed at work. I have stopped to chat. I have worked slowly. I have left things undone. I have chosen the fun things and put off the boring ones. I have cancelled things to make my week manageable. I have noticed that I usually go around on full pelt (resenting others who stop to chat!) and the busier I get, the more I take on; working up to the last minute so I am always late and stressed, as if I don’t deserve to take it easy and sit calmly in a room waiting for a meeting to start (I have done this at least once recently!). It’s going to be an adjustment…
So although tonight’s writing mission was mainly about dealing with work stress, and was more about writing as therapy than writing, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to finish this book: Don’t get distracted by the idea that you should be so ‘spiritual’ as to be above wanting or needing to do anything. This might be idealised as sitting on top of a mountain meditating but in practice becomes eating oven chips and cold baked beans and watching rubbish on Netflix*. A creative mind is like a border collie, remember…
*There is really great stuff on Netflix but it is definitely possible to waste time on it as well.
April 2020
Ah, the joy of burning out! Now that I’ve left it behind there are things I miss and value about that job: The feeling of working at the outer edges of my capabilities; the sheer creative freedom: being given big projects with little support and direction, and having a team to lead meant I could at least in part set the tone and direction of my department; the buzz of so much pressure, both external and from within myself. Finding creative ways to postitively engage patients and provide hope within a medium secure forensic setting was what I was good at and felt rewarding. Working in such a heartbreaking and violent setting meant that what we did felt really important, and the fact that we were there meant that we were strong. But ‘You can have it all, just maybe not all at the same time,’ and right now, working three days a week in an easier job, I have the time and space to keep on finishing my book.
I read Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s book Big Magic, about creativity. In it she mentions ‘those dreams where you dream you suddenly find another room or rooms in your house that you didn’t know you had’, and I thought, really, that’s a thing? I have those dreams regularly. I usually dream about the same flat, not one I have ever had in real life, but in my dreams I return to the same one over and over. It’s one of those old terraced houses divided into flats; messy, lots of other flats around. Each time I dream it, I rediscover a whole other set of rooms that are a bit neglected and that I have simply forgotten about. In the dream I wonder what to do with them, which room to sleep in, what to use the rooms for; I suddenly have all this extra space I don’t know what to do with.
I also have other dreams, where I open a bag of rubbish or I open a drawer and it’s filled with old cat food tins that haven’t been washed and have gone off and are filled with maggots. I have to somehow make myself quickly pick them up and get rid of them without looking at them otherwise I would be unable to do it. And I’ve let all the other rubbish pile up as well, I can’t understand it, the cat food tins or the rubbish, and I am appalled.
In real life I can let my car get very messy, tissues, wrappers, dust and stones. I am somewhat ashamed even though I still do it. So I thought the dream was about that, that I was ashamed of myself.
Worse still, I sometimes dream about caged animals that I have forgotten to look after, that I somehow inexplicably forgotten I had and that are mercifully still alive despite no food or water. I thought all these dreams were about shame, or at the very least, clattiness.
So when I continued reading and Elizabeth Gilbert went on to say that those dreams are all about ‘expansivenessand your life having more possibilities than you previously realised’, that was very pleasing to me. Especially as this was exactlywhat I had been feeling: the evening before I had gone out for dinner with two people that used to work in my team, young women on their first jobs, with me the manager of the team and their supervisor. I had the sweet and rare experience of hearing about what I was like (it had echoes of a child asking its mother what was I like tell me what I was like when I was little…) That was a few years ago so I have probably changed a lot but still, no one really tells you what you are like, you can only guess.
When I said that I thought that senior management preferred a man in my team to me because he’s always the same, always unemotional, always smartly dressed, and his car is neat and clean and mine is always messy they looked horrified. Your leadership, your direction, your care, you’re amazing how you get it all done, we were so lucky we had you for support, they both said. They reminded me of all the different tasks I do and the skills I have, and said that if I ever wanted or needed another job I’d have no problem getting one with the agency they work for. The agency pays more so I could work fewer hours. Listening to them, I felt all the possibilities, being able to do healing as well, expansiveness… When I used to just think about all the bad stuff- I am messy, senior management probably disapprove of me, without realising, I actually have skills! One of the women invited me to visit her in Sweden, a genuine invite, and hearing about her life there, how she’d moved there from Suffolk, was so interesting and inspiring and made it sound so easy.
It made it sound so easy to change your life.
On a more down to earth level, it took away my fear of redundancy, knowing there are plenty of jobs and the world is more than just my current workplace. It’s such an amazing gift, the gift of peace of mind, and a sign that I am in tune with the universe.
I realised I had it wrong: those dreams weren’t about my clattiness or my buried shames, they were about the hithererto unknown expansiveness and potential of my own life. I have nothing to be ashamed of. At worst, the unfed animals were a gentle chide or reminder about my sometimes neglected creative work…
Because although I am where I want to be writing wise anyway really, in terms of where I was this time last year and where I am now, undoubtedly I am an inconsistent and unfaithful bride to creativity. I certainly don’t have Liz Gilbert’s dedication and approach; I have other things, true, an absorbing career which is practically a vocation- can you have two vocations, can you have them at the same time? I suppose so, look at Nick Hornby and countless others.
This time last year (Christmas), I did a little review of life and I had an idea for something to write this year. Then I got waylaid in Buddhism and other seeking and beyond seeking, even considering that writing was behind me along with all the different religions I had burned through, because, I had decided: I am to cease all seeking behaviour, and writing is a seeking behaviour. And maybe it was, maybe it is, but isn’t talking, isn’t breathing, isn’t yoga, and who makes up the rules anyway?
***********
The thing that got me writing again after I had abandoned it, was writing a spoken word piece for a friend’s 50th Birthday party, (a night of anything goes performance.) She said it could be about anything, so I wrote a‘my spiritual journey’ thing,the only thing I felt able to write about. I wrote it while listening to Rufus Wainright’s song Go or go aheadon repeat,which he wrote after a crystal meth binge.
Liz G says creative inspiration can either come in a skin tingling rush or it can be quiet and you just get there by following your curiosity and clues and it leads you there. Or it can be like this… I read a book, it mentioned a dream, I listen to a song at just the right moment, I recall a dream, I write it down. And now I am in such a clear eyed clear minded place, isn’t this the perfect place from which to write a book?
Thank you very much for reading
Rachel Hill
About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in India and South East Asia. I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year.
Amanda Palmer (April 30, 1976 -) Art is what happens if you’re able to hold fast — with one angry, trembling hand — to your art-mirror, the one that reflects you, your trials, your thoughts, your audience, your insights, your attempts to try to figure out and express What It All Might Fucking Mean.
So all this work, all this reflection, all this personal development…
I think a lot about integration; about needing to integrate the everyday and the ‘spiritual’**. To integrate everything I have learned, my past and my present. But what is it that I am trying to do? Where am I trying to get to? So I asked myself, what would my fully integrated self look like? (And thereby, track backwards and work out how I would get there)
**I have gone off that word, but more on that later.
I have a- I don’t like the word brainstorm and I like the phrase ‘thought shower’ even less. So let’s say I have a look into the fantasy looking glass, a loose limbed daydream about all the possibilities…
What would my fully integrated self look like?
An acceptable weight, fit-ish but soft. (In The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold writes: It was the 1970s, aerobics was barely even a word, women and girls were meant to be soft, not hard.)
Nice hair. Make an appointment, and remake one for 2-3 months afterwards, instead of being locked into this rather childish habit of putting it off so that it ‘notices’ which actually means letting my hair look rubbish before I have it done.
No makeup. Or Clinique counter assistant chosen makeup.
Confident at work, doing a good job without being stressed out of my mind.
Ok with money (‘You deserve it’, ‘No, you deserve to be debt free’).
Relaxed about housework and day to day life/chores etc.
Regularly exploring the outer frontiers and having fun with my husband.
Writing or thinking about writing whilst being aware that it is the process not the product, because when I’m thinking about writing, I’m thinking about life. Or ‘at peace with how I do my writing’ but I don’t know if that’s possible- the tension and the analysis is all part of it, I feel.
A wardrobe I don’t have to think about. Everything I need- spare track pants, for example, that don’t trail on the floor, aren’t broken, that I like, that fit nicely and that feel nice, because I chose cotton and I tried them on first.
Do it right first time so I don’t have to think about this stuff day to day, so that I can spend my time and energy on: Being conscious of a ‘spiritual’ dimension to life; to love, to be here, to live, to face everything fully awake.
When nothing’s happening, to have a silent(-ish) mind.
All the above allows the below. Getting it together enables me, frees me, makes me strong enough, available enough, un-distracted enough and energetic enough to be what I want to be: A facilitator, a safe harbour, a healer. A person God would send to someone praying for help.
*April 2020:
I almost never wear any makeup, do my hair or go to the hairdresser’s. I do have plenty of sweatpants and a pair of thermal tights and a thermal long sleeve top (thank you Go Oudoors and M&S).
For the past almost two years I’ve been totally committed to writing a book and I’m editing it now. I still experience self doubt but I keep on going.
I don’t really get concerned about housework; yesterday I cleaned the shower and sink, but that was very unusual.
I feel pretty much anti consumerism and pretty much only buy what I actually need.
I have a part time, much easier job.
I don’t know what I weigh. I feel okay though.
I don’t do healing anymore but I am conscious of being calm and looking out for and supporting those who seem anxious or unhappy.
I’m still having lots of fun and still exploring the outer frontiers with my husband!
As for integrating it all, I have come to understand that, as my husband said the other day, ‘Your life is your Ashram.’
Thank you for reading
About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in India and South East Asia. I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year.
First published in July 2017. It doesn’t matter that it’s not really Thursday does it?
Sitting meditating:
Feeling roots coming up from the earth and wrapping themselves around me. At the same time the bones and muscles of my body turning themselves into vines. My whole body feeling more plant-like than animal-like.
And in my mind, beyond thoughts, I see a bird’s wing, at its edges iridescent rainbow layered feathers. And out beyond the edges of the bird’s wing, beyond everything, lies the sleek white edge of an aeroplane’s wing. And beyond that: nothing. And then, the why, the what: There is only the moment, you sitting there in the room- the wing enclosing all of it- and beyond it, nothing.
I had come up through the mind, through and beyond thoughts, not even interested in looking at the thoughts on the way; the past just a collection of thoughts after all, like a tangled ball of wool. If you are okay now what does it matter what happened in the past. Memories just seemed like a clump of thoughts, irrelevant, as I went beyond all that to the clean white surface of the aeroplane’s wing…
We are more than thoughts, and I passed through the complex workings of the mind to: Nothing. A bird’s wing closed around the experience, around me, around John, underneath the rainbow feathers a network of bones, complex and strong. Could fly but chooses not to, chooses to encircle, to be a protector instead. Bird’s wing chooses not to fly. Chooses to settle here.
You are a facilitator. Wanting to facilitate John for a change (he is usually the one who supports me as I work through stuff in my head). In life: you are a facilitator. Make life easier, and more peaceful. All I want is to be in touchwith this: my spiritual side. I don’t need to be or to do anything. We come here to remind our self who we really are, and then we go back to the day to day. Neither place is better or worse; it’s cyclical, in and out, like social-alone-together-apart.
Since then my mind has been much quieter. Cracks let the light in. A certain amount of friction, strife, variety and challenge creates learning, and keeps me ‘spiritual’. I am a safe harbour.
I have moved away from throwing myself too much into being something to make up for being me not being enough. I don’t need to go around ‘being a healer’ although I do healing and I like doing it, but I have a tendency to over schedule. And I feel there is something more than me just rushing around being me at work. There’s Me.
Rather than being a collection of labels or skills, being very open and flexible is nice. A facilitator. A safe harbour. Can do healing. Enjoys exploring the mind and ‘spirituality’. Tries to eat a mainly vegan diet. Complex and strong. Like nailing jelly to a wall, but describing self in an open way is nice…
About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in South East Asia, mainly India.
I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill
Rachel 