I fell in love with you and I cried: Chennai

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Blogging, Chennai, India, Motivation, writing

I fell in love with you and I cried: Chennai
(draft book chapter, part one, with a few extra details added for the blog)

(Kochi) The ride in the rickshaw from the train station to the guesthouse had been unpleasant, so we got a taxi on the way back thinking, why suffer if we don’t have to? We drove past parked up intricately painted trucks which looked like vintage fair ground vehicles; past a scooter with a man and a woman, her holding a tiny baby in her arms.

At the train station, again feeling comfortable, walking the length of the platform. I bought sweets, I said they were for cold/cough, the man showed me some herbal sweets, ginger or mint. I asked for twenty, a mixture, and he counted them out and wrapped them up neatly in a little parcel of newspaper held together with an elastic band.

At the train station restaurant we had masala dosa and vegetable biryani, this was mostly rice, but was nonetheless plain and delicious. Then another dosa to share, actually two, one each, as they came in twos as they sometimes do at the train stations and two more lots of chai tea. The waiters laughed but we wanted to eat well before getting on the train; we also bought samosas, banana balls and water from the station forecourt.

The train began its journey at the same station as us which meant we had no anxieties about people being in our seats. The train was the best one we had been on, as good as the Delhi to Goa one but brand new; it looked like it had never been used before and the seats still had that new plastic smell.

We were in 2 Tier AC (this means that the bunks are two high, not three, so everything feels a bit more spacious and the carriages, in my thus far limited experience, are smarter, with curtains at the compartments), a step up from our previous, daytime journey from Varkala to Kochi. The train left Kochi at around 7pm for a fifteen hour journey to Chennai. It was a good job we had eaten and bought food to bring on the train as no one came round with food, no samosas, no water, even.

First to get on after us was a young guy who had the bunk above my husband, he got straight up onto his bunk but the three of us talked for a while. He was a final year engineering student, he said that Indian parents want their children only to be engineers or doctors. He said sometimes parents decide when a baby is four months old or even before they are born what they are going to study. His parents were from Kerala but work in the UAE and he was brought up there up. He told us UAE is nicknamed Little Kerala as there’s so many people from Kerala there. We asked him if he had any pressure to get married, ‘Not yet,’ he said but his cousin who is a girl does, ‘She’s same age, at university like me, and wants to be a doctor.’ He talked about corruption and about politics and about the garbage problem. ‘As soon as I can, I’m getting out of this country,’ he said.

Later a man who had the bunk above me got on. He sat down next to my husband and we chatted for a bit. He lived in Kerala but was going to Chennai for a one week training course. He said he preferred Kerala for its climate and the nature, and said that Chennai would be hot. I asked him if he minded going, he said, ‘No not at all, it’s only one week.’

Then my husband and I watched Netflix, Orange is the new black, now finished, I’d like to get the book to find out how much is real, with the tablet and headphones, us both sitting on my husband’s bed and the man sitting on mine/ours (the lower bunks are also the seats for the people in the upper bunks until it is time for everyone to go to sleep).

Everyone got ready for bed (for me, this just meant undoing my bra, I wore comfy clothes and slept in them) and the man went up.
We each had two white cotton sheets, a pillow and a heavy woollen blanket, the ac makes it chilly and I folded my blanket double. The bed was firm but not really uncomfortable.

Someone closed the curtain to our cubicle and the lights were dimmed. It felt cosy, safe and peaceful. I think staff came and shone torch to check on us in the night. There was a guard asleep out near the sinks outside the loos. I think it felt okay to be with strangers because we’d chatted. I lay awake for a while, just enjoying the feeling. It was exciting. When I went to the loo, I counted the curtained cubicles to find way my way back to the correct bunk.

Woke up. The houses looked like Kanyakumari, which is also in Tamil Nadu, even though the two places are far apart (Tamil Nadu is a large state).

The palm trees were different to the ones in Kerala, some had shorter, floppier leaves and spiky trunks where the stubs of old leaves remained. Others were tall with very thin trunks and spiky punk hair like Dr Zeus trees and there were also low, bushy trees almost like English trees, like little hawthorn trees or big overgrown gorse bushes.

The train arrived later than expected, the man doing the training course said he had just enough time to get to the course for the starting time. No shower, no breakfast and going straight to a work course after an overnight train journey. He didn’t seem to mind at all, I thought about people in the UK, myself included and how we’d all complain if work expected us to do that.

The train station was big and busy, we found out where the prepaid taxi stand was and got a taxi to the guesthouse. Our friend from Chennai told us that Chennai was hot and dry and that where we were staying was busy, ‘You are staying in the real India.’

Our guesthouse was down a narrow alleyway off a busy main street, hectic with rickshaws and people. The guesthouse was tiled throughout with pretty green glass at the landing windows. Our room was small with no window but it was clean. We dumped our bags and went for breakfast- masala dosas- at a restaurant nearby that the guesthouse staff told us about, and then went for a wander of the local area.

We had finished our water on the train and spent a while looking around before realising we were overheated and thirsty. We stopped at a juice place and had fresh juice, salted peanuts and cold water and sat down for a while. Even so it felt good to be back in a dry heat, hotter but less humid, more like Delhi.

I washed loads of clothes and hung them in the bathroom, even though we had no proper window, just vents, they dried within a few hours, and didn’t smell, I was amazed. In Varkala during the monsoon it had been so difficult to get clothes dry.

I struggled with annoying WiFi, trying to do all the reviews I’d promised. Like postcards, only do if you really want to and don’t say you’ll do unless you’re sure. Now I only do if they especially ask and/or I make a good connection. I gave up and had a nap, often the best solution.

We went out for dinner at a different place, another local non touristy restaurant. Staff stood all around staring at us while we ate. It was a real lesson in overcoming the effects of self consciousness; eating rice with my fingers, being in the flow and not getting put off by six people watching us! The food served on yellow plastic plates again, like it was in Kanyakumari (must be a Tamil Nadu thing?). I had onion oothapam for the first time.

The night was warm and felt exciting and I didn’t want to go in for the night yet so we went to a little shop and bought 7Up and biscuits and cigarettes. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to smoke there (UK conditioning!). The hotel forecourt faced the alley but there wasn’t anywhere to sit, so we perched awkwardly on a little concrete step. One of the hotel staff got us some chairs and we sat down at the edge of the forecourt where it met the alley, and gave him a couple of cigarettes.

Opposite was a row of parked scooters. Three street dogs were squaring up and barking at each other; they were thick set with faces like Ridgebacks, sturdy, their bodies muscular and well covered. People went past, some said hello, we didn’t see any other Westerners. A older Indian man wearing a lungi and an Indian shirt, short sleeved with front pocket, walked passed us, greeted us and said, ‘Welcome to India.’

The wall opposite us was faded paint-peeled orange, tinged with blue. An orange cat sat on the wall. The cats in Chennai all seemed to be orange, not bright ginger tom colour but a paler orange. The colour of tiger milk, a drink my grandmother used to make me as a child, milk mixed with orange juice. A few feet below the cat was a little overhang roof of old blue corrugated metal. Beyond the wall the blue sky was tinged with yellow. The colours were warm and dusty, as if they’d been made out of chalk pastels. I gazed at the scene, wanting to remember, trying to soak it in, absorbing the colours through my pores.

‘Look,’ I said to my husband, ‘Isn’t it amazing, how the colours all go together; blue metal roof, orange wall with blue tinge, orange cat, blue-with-yellow-tinge sky.’
‘That isn’t the sky, that’s another building,’ he said. I looked again and saw that what I thought was sky was actually the wall of a big building in the background. It didn’t matter though.

A man came out of a door near where the cat was; he spoke to the cat as if telling it to get down, and walked off. The cat looked at him when he was speaking, stayed still for a few moments, then jumped down onto the blue roof, onto a parked scooter below, then from seat to seat along the length of the row of scooters, and disappeared from view.

Travel update

For nice pics see my husband’s Instagram travelswithanthony

We flew from Chennai to Bangkok on Sunday night, arriving early on Monday morning. We stayed two nights in Bangkok then got the over night train, then a ferry, then a taxi, to our place in Ko Phangan, where we are right now.

I realised that I can’t pack for Thailand, India and Japan and have a light backpack that will carry on (7kg) for Japan ( my ticket to Japan does not include checked in baggage unless I pay extra).

I admitted that many of my clothes had been bought while shopping as a recreational activity and when I felt fed up with my clothes and wanted to get something nice. I had such fun shopping in an Indian department store in Varkala; there were a lot more staff than in an equivalent UK shop, and I had three women helping me in the changing room. I so wanted to go shopping, get some new stuff, and buy something with the women, that I ended up getting things that weren’t quite right.

Also if I want a light backpack I can only carry what I need right now. I had some thick baggy trousers, they would have been good if we go up North when it’s chilly in the evenings in January or February but honestly, I can just buy again, they were cheap; it’s not worth straining myself carrying a heavy bag for that. It’s hard for me to waste stuff/money, having been brought up to be frugal. It helped to think of it in terms of that I paid for the experience…

So just pack bare essentials in terms of products/meds/miscellaneous, plus sarongs and vests for Thailand and a couple of nice dresses for Japan. The hotel cleaner in Chennai even asked if we had any stuff we were leaving that we could give him so that he can sell it for food, so that clinched it.

I am proud to report that my backpack weighed in at 6.1kg at Chennai airport. (Unfortunately my handbag might be weighed and added to that, if so I have a bit more work to do…) I can just pay extra for some check in luggage, but this kind of feels like a good task, and kinder on my body to travel light.

Writing update

I didn’t do much writing in Pondicherry even though we didn’t do that much there and I had time; the room was hot and stuffy, I felt a bit out of sorts, slightly funny tummy, and somewhat spiritually overwhelmed/absorbing everything from Chennai (to be continued…).

So I read people’s blogs and relaxed and barely did any writing, apart from handwriting observations and thoughts while/about being there.

We got back to Chennai Wednesday evening, feeling funny having not eaten properly all day, bananas, nuts, biscuits and crisps (as all restaurants were closed, will get to that next week) and didn’t do anything that night. I worked hard on Thursday but I still had lots to do on Friday. I got anxious.

I had some thoughts, Well it doesn’t matter if you don’t do it, Nothing matters, vs It’s a commitment you made to yourself, You aren’t doing anything else. Thinking I’m writing to order, from the head, rather than free flowing from the heart (I kept thinking about the cat on the wall, and the raindrops on the shutters (to be continued); the spiritual moments of Chennai that I so wanted to capture and was interested in.)

But writing a book has to involve a mixture of head and pure creative flow or it won’t ever get finished or edited. There was no internet in the room, and nowhere to charge my tablet downstairs where the internet was, so that slowed me up a bit, alternating between using and charging my tablet.

But I accepted that, and when at around ten pm India time I got it (last week’s Kochi chapter and blog) done and posted, I felt very happy; like I was honouring a commitment I had made to myself.

It was the same when I did the draft chapter on Kanyakumari for the blog, I spent the whole Friday on it and got stressed. It’s actually much longer than a normal blog so although it seems an easy cop out to just do the chapter as the blog, it is actually is a lot of words to deal with. (And for you to read. Next time (this time, Chennai) I’ll let myself do it in parts, or extracts. And do more in advance. (But I have rambled on in the writing update so it still ended up being long, sorry!)

I’m typing this bit on Saturday; interestingly I didn’t start with the cat (I did that on Sunday, but it was nothing really, I mean it was in the notebook just fine, it would have kept); I just started at the top and worked my way down, warming up to it, setting the scene and the mood, even for myself. I started from the last bit of notebook that wasn’t crossed out (meaning it had been typed up). As I finished for the day (on Saturday) I looked at where I am up to in the notebook: I am at the cat bit! How many times do I have to say, Trust the process.

Sunday afternoon, before Thailand, equal parts not wanting to write as excited and anxious re packing and just wanting to be with the feelings and the experience, vs when I look at my notebook I realise how much I have to write about Chennai, and I want to get on with it! (Let alone completing the Kerala chapter, and doing the additions and corrections to the already done chapters…)

I carried on writing this Chennai chapter at the airport on Sunday, then late Wednesday night on the train, late Thursday night in Ko Phangan, and Friday (today) morning and teatime, so this week was better, just.

In the garden in Bangkok on Monday late afternoon I sat and made many notes in my notebook, ready for the Thailand section, so the future is taking care of itself.

Unhelpful thoughts: Maybe a book is too hard, maybe I just want to be a blogger; the 2014 ones that I’ve been re-reading and reposting as part of Throwback Thursday were luminous, proper blogs; I wasn’t writing anything else so everything went into the blog.

Helpful thoughts: If you want to carry on like this (globetrotting, focussing on self realisation, living outside the matrix) then you’d better finish the book, sell it and make some money!

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

 

 

Throwback Thursday

Tags

anxiety, awareness, Blogging, healing, spirituality, writing

I used to go swimming a lot.  I looked up how to do front crawl and printed out tips from Dundee Arnhall swimming club (randomly) (thank you, they were great) which I used to read before getting into the pool and hold in my mind:  fingertips enter the water first, pull back towards your belly button with the flat of your hand…  Of course I never thought I was that good, unfairly comparing myself to club swimmers half my age in the neighbouring lanes.  I used to overdo it.  I often used to swim a mile (sixty-four lengths), would berate myself if I only did forty.  I remember once sticking to a routine of doing seventy, eighty lengths, even when my shoulder hurt deep inside.

As you can see I hadn’t yet gotten with the programme re veganism (think of the cows!)

But in between overdoing it in and out of work somehow a little bit of light and awareness managed to get through.

This is what happiness looks like  (First published in May 2014)

I called my sister.  My nephew answered and we had a good talk about ICT- his favourite subject, I did my best with my limited knowledge and gave him encouragement with regard to school as he struggles in some other subjects.  I spoke to my sister and invited myself to visit.  She put me off until half term which is a few weeks away but still, we have arranged a date.  We had a bit of a chat, it was nice, easy.

My husband and I got dressed up and went out for dinner.

I went swimming three times this week.  I bought nuts, seeds, dried fruit, herbal tea and vegetable juice.  I went a whole week without eating cheese.

My boss agreed for me to have a six month break from my therapy group.  Usually therapists get burned out and need a break from their patients but in this case I need a break from the other therapists.  Even though some of them were annoyed, I felt ecstatic, like a huge burden had been lifted from me.  I didn’t even feel guilty.  It gives me loads of extra time too.

I noticed the serendipitous little events and occurrences that make life that bit sweeter: arriving at the pool one day after work, hungry, I found a packet of crisps my stepdaughter had left in the car.  And exactly enough change to get a Snickers bar out of the vending machine (which shows that my healthy eating turnaround isn’t yet totally embedded).  The pool, normally so busy at that time of day, was half empty and the one or two swimmers I was sharing a lane with were polite and considerate, pulling over to allow me to overtake.

I texted a couple of friends to arrange meeting up.  Another friend called me out of the blue and we went out for a curry and to the cinema.  I got lost one day and went into a veterinary surgery to ask for directions and the receptionist very kindly printed out a map and directions for me.

I am training to be a healer and was invited to attend the organisation’s AGM.  It was on a Saturday morning and I was probably feeling neutral at best about attending a morning meeting on my day off.  When I got there I discovered the time had been changed and I was there an hour early.  I felt a little put out and considered just leaving but I stuck around with a group of other early people who complained about the organisation- proving that being a healer doesn’t necessarily guarantee continual sweetness and light.  After the meeting, another trainee who is further along than me was getting assessed and I had the opportunity to watch.  In the event I couldn’t hear what was going on and my teacher said, don’t feel like you have to stay, I know you were expecting to leave earlier.  I checked my phone; I had a couple of missed calls from my son, whom I had loosely arranged to meet up with after the meeting.  But I was drawn to stay and say goodbye to one of the examiners who had held my hand for a long time when we had been introduced and had said quietly to me, when it is your turn, you will pass, I have just assessed you.  So I waited until he was finished and afterwards he asked me to demonstrate on him.   He told me that I was very powerful and one of the best trainees he had ever encountered.  Sometimes obstacles are put in our way to test our commitment and if we remain committed, we are rewarded.

At work I did some healing as part of a staff wellbeing day.  I worked for two hours nonstop, nine people in total, with noticeable, powerful effects.  We were set up in the dining room and had such a queue of people that we went on into lunch and I was still standing there, eyes closed, arms outstretched, looking like I don’t know what when the maintenance department came in to have lunch.  Its official, I thought, the weirdest girl in school is now the weirdest woman at work.   Only now, no one seems to mind!

In Stephen King’s book On Writing he describes a phase he went through when he was drinking heavily and the whole family had to revolve around his work.  He said he used to have a huge leather desk that dominated the room.  Now he says he has a small desk in the corner of the room.  Life is not a support system for art, he says, it’s the other way around.  I didn’t fully understand when I first read it, now I think I do:  my life used to be tormented by my writing; always thinking about it, always thinking should I be at home writing, declining invitations.  I thought writing was The Thing but because it was so hard I used to wonder about and experiment with giving up completely as I said before.  Now I realise, Life is The Thing.  Writing is my own personal support system for life.  I live, I write it down to help me make sense of it.  I live a bit more.  It relaxes me, supports me, wipes away ridiculous worry thoughts and OCD by calming and focussing my mind, giving me clarity of purpose in my life.  That’s all it is.  That’s ALL??!!  Sounds pretty amazing really; I have a personal support system that can be bought for the price of a decent pen and a pad of paper.  Isn’t that better than winning the Booker Prize?

Like my spiritual journey, maybe I have been on a writing journey, pushing myself, experimenting.  As a child I wrote stories.  As a teenager I wrote poetry.  In my twenties I wrote a film script and a novel.  In my thirties I finally plucked up the courage to join a creative writing class and wrote everything:  all kinds of poems and stories, even a novella in a month.  I wrote and performed spoken word poetry and performance stories, learning everything by heart.  I wrote and had published several short stories of women’s erotica, culminating in putting on a launch event at a local sex shop.  Now in my forties, I wrote a therapy self help manual and a relationships guide with my husband before my most recent project, my spiritual memoir.  But it was all still with the overall aim of achieving some kind of end product.  Even my spiritual memoir, even though I found it very helpful and even though I kept thinking it was about something other than writing a book, it wasn’t until after it was finished that I realised: it was about something else, it was about living.  That’s what’s so great about blogging: The living comes first.                            

The rains

Tags

Blogging, India, Travel, writing

‘Even a plant that has died can come back to life during the rains.’ (Umesh, restaurant owner)

What’s on top

The monsoon is imminent.  One evening we actually felt cold and rued abandoning our fleeces, jumpers and warm socks in Delhi.  It has an effect on wildlife.  In the guesthouse we saw a biggish snake about to eat a very big frog, before being chased out.  There was another smaller snake in the guesthouse a couple of days ago, as it was being chased out it ran under another guest’s door and he had to be woken up to alert him.

I got a rickshaw into town one day, we later met the man and found he has a restaurant, a small local place at the other end of our road, near tiny shops and stalls where we bought bananas.  We promised to go and get breakfast there next week.  Exploring, trying out this new area was quite exciting and made us feel strangely enlivened, even though it isn’t at all far away.  My husband said that maybe it’s because we aren’t doing much, that a little bit of change has an effect.  A few days earlier, we had felt restless, and even went to look at some other guesthouses, before realising that where we are is still the best (for now anyway).

We’ve been in Kerala for a month but it was only a couple of days ago that I had a beer, for the first time since Goa and realised that alcohol is restricted in this state.  It is legal in bars and Government liquor stores but not in all restaurants.  My beer was served in a large mug and the can put discreetly under the table because of the police.  Sometimes groups of men come to the guesthouse and rent a room just for the evening to socialise and drink.

Rahul, who works at the guesthouse nine months out of twelve has gone back to his family in Assam, over 3,500 miles and a three day train journey away.  We used to chat to him every day, swapping language tips and photos of home and he and my husband played carrom together.  R, a guest from Switzerland who we had some interesting talks with has also left.  We and a permanent resident who works at the temple are the only guests now.

After two months of eating out for every meal, we’ve been enjoying making porridge in the guesthouse kitchen.  Oats and bananas are easily available with dried fruit and soya milk sold in some places. Cooking, even something so simple as porridge, has been very nice, and the porridge has tasted especially good, maybe because it’s a taste of home.

My favourite food to eat out at the moment is Gobi Manchurian,  cauliflower but not as you know it.  Battered and either ‘dry’ (deep fried with caramelised onions) or ‘with gravy’ (softer in a delicious rich sauce).  I wince at the thought of school dinner cauliflower and what the chefs here would think of that!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of yoga and experiencing little moments of ease and awareness; of being able to be kind to myself and flexible re my routine as well as get things done (something I really struggle with).  Also a sense of arriving in my own body, being happy with what I see and not comparing myself to others (another thing I struggle with).

Rain has meant a lovely Sunday afternoon type feeling, watching a film in the daytime as rain poured down outside.  When the film finished it had stopped raining, it was still light outside and we went out to eat.  As well as the sound of rain there’s the sound of hard green fruits hitting the tin roof at regular intervals and the almost incessant barking and/or howling of dogs.

What I’ve been watching

Partition (film)
Her (film)
Battlestar Galactica
Thirteen reasons why (Season one, I’m a late convert)

What I’ve been reading

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (about Partition)

(So basically Partition and the nature of consciousness, with a bit of High School misery thrown in.)

Writing update

I’ve worked really hard this week and completed a draft of Chapter One (actually more like chapters 1, 2, and 3).  This covers the period of how we got here:  Nothing to lose but our dignity (the idea); No half measures (the decluttering and giving up everything); The Matrix fights back (obstacles and temptations).  There’s still polishing and editing and probably some moving about to be done, but I am leaving it alone for now.

Yesterday I started work on Goa, which is where we went after Delhi.  It was really interesting reading my notes and blogs from that time.  I think I feel a lot stronger and more confident than I did then.

Today I just worked on this blog post.  Last week and this week I have ring fenced Friday only as the blog day and the rest of  the week for the book.  The good thing about this is that it separates the two nicely, especially as at the moment the book work is about previous months not where we are now.

It also ensures the book work gets done; writing the book is hard work and the blog is more fun.  It’s also written in the present tense and so seems more lively than the book.  Plus it allows me to change my opinions week by week.  I intend to complete the book, but I think in an ideal world I’d be a blogger rather than a book writer.  But maybe that’s just what I think this week.

The disadvantage of not starting the blog post until Friday is if like today I get distracted by talking and don’t start the blog until later then it’s a bit more pressure but hey, it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.

Thank you for reading

See you next week

Happy Birthday

Tags

Blogging, creativity, Getting started, India, Travel, writing

Today is my birthday, I am forty-eight years old.  Here is an ‘old person’s selfie;’ no proper attention paid to angle or pose, no filters, no editing, no makeup and no shame (or at least, not enough to stop me).

I like to have some quiet reflective time on my birthday.  This morning I got up early, did some yoga and then went for a long walk on the beach and thought about writing.  Or I thought about life and picked out the bits I wanted to write about.

What’s on top

I went for a long walk on the beach yesterday morning as well, and I have done some yoga every morning for the past few days.  Yesterday (and so far today) I have had no alcohol and no cigarettes.  I had fallen into bad holidaymaker habits this past week, which I cannot do for the whole year.

I knew my last post was exactly a week ago and I had already decided to do one today.  Then I thought that maybe I should do what I have so far resisted, due either to free spiritedness or pig headedness (as with many of my habits and decisions, it could be either), and sign up to the ‘consistency is key’ advice and post on a regular day every week.

I honestly did not know what day of the week it was today, not in the I don’t know what day it is, think for a second, then you do, type of way.  I mean I really didn’t know what day it was.  I had to remember the last time I knew what day it was, what day we left Hampi, what day my step-son arrived here in Arambol, and work it out from there.  I cannot remember the last time I had so completely lost track of what day it was.  It is Friday today so I shall, for the time being at least, post every Friday.  I may work on it earlier in the week and just finish it off on a Friday or I may write the whole thing on the day, depending on travel, time and internet access.

This will help me manage the demands of writing a book and writing a blog.  Having a once a week schedule is manageable and means I don’t have to fret about when was the last one, should I be doing another one, etc etc.  I remember reading somewhere that the more you can turn over to habit, rather than your own fluctuating motivations, interests and energies, the easier it is to get things done.

I feel like the blog will turn into more of an actual blog, rather than having to carry the full weight of any and all writing I do.  This has meant that not everything has been included as blogs are by nature a bit snappier, like short short stories.  Writing the book means that I can write about things that would otherwise be forgotten, and means that the blog can become slightly more chatty and personal.

If ever I think that maybe young people and their selfies are a bit narcissistic, I can just remember that writing about oneself and putting it on the internet potentially puts me in a glass house.  The blog is where I ask myself how I am and check in with myself.

It will also include a travel update and a writing update.  I will put the writing update at the end so it’s easy to skip.  It will be mainly of interest to other writers who are working on something and to people who are cheerleading me through the process of writing the book (thank you very much for your encouragement, it really does help!).

This will help me have a routine; I’d like to exercise in the morning, write in the afternoons and relax in the evening.  I do find no routine, drinking and smoking anytime, sort of fun but it’s easy to cop-out of getting anything done.  And how lucky am I, or rather, what a gift I have given to myself, to have a whole year where I can create a routine like that?  Or, to be on the more negative side, I chucked away my career and my three bedroom house so all that better have been worth it.  (Don’t worry, it totally is!)

Of course, alcohol, smoking, and general lack of confidence and self discipline can follow you almost everywhere.  I have not come here to run away from myself but I am fully aware that whatever it was about me that got in the way of me taking my writing seriously in England, can still get in the way here.

I can just about say this first month with my step-son out with us, is a holiday but not after that.  That said, I am sure there will be phases of falling off the wagon but I prefer to be clean living and with a routine and then fall off bigger occasionally, rather than a little every day.

Travel update:

We have been in Arambol for a week.  Beautiful beach like Agonda but a bit busier, with stalls and shops and alleyways to explore, and much nicer than Anjuna.  Tomorrow we go to Panaji the capital of Goa, for two nights before my step-son flies back to England and we leave Goa to go to Kerala for the monsoon.

Writing update:

It is going well.  I am working on Chapter Two, which is broadly our first month in India.  As usual I get anxious if I don’t write and yet still don’t write for several days at a time sometimes, but yesterday I spent quite a while on it and felt really good.

As long as I don’t get scared or overwhelmed by the length.  I think it’s helped that I have separated it into chapters, in different documents.  Chapter One, how we got here and some background.  My last book, whilst small, was all in one document and became an amorphous mass that would completely overwhelm me.  I remind myself, I wrote a dissertation, I wrote a few small books, I can do this.  Even if I hadn’t, I could just say it’s like lots of blogs strung together.  I have actually put all the India blogs into the chapter and am working around and into them, adding detail, expanding, linking.

A string of blogs is a good starting point but the writing style is different.  I realise that I can slow down, drill down into things, take my time, allow themes to develop.  I have begun by putting all my blogs and notes into chronological order whilst being flexible about some things being ordered by subject instead.  Things link to each other, for example:

Yesterday I thought there should be a food bit, about the different food we ate at different places (hopefully more interesting than it sounds).  Today on my walk I thought, I could do an animal section and then I came to ‘Dog Temple,’ there a sign with a dog’s face in a star, saying, ‘We welcome you,’ (It was an animal shelter).

Things call back to each other.  The people we met in Anjuna told me afterwards that they said to each other, ‘Shall we ask them if they want something to smoke,’ and the other said, ‘No they are too old,’ which made me laugh a lot.  Today, as I walked on the beach, a man stopped me and chatted to me, then at the end of the conversation asked me if I wanted to buy anything to smoke.  I politely declined saying I am being healthy right now but I was quite pleased anyway!  Especially as it was my birthday!

Thank you so much for reading, see you next week!

 

How to write

Tags

Am writing, amwriting, Blogging, creativity, Getting started, India, Travel, writing

Anyone who has ever had to write an essay for school, a dissertation for uni, a quarterly report for their boss, reply to an email you are not excited about, or write thank you letters as a child, knows how hard it can be to write.  To get motivated to write, to start writing, to have the confidence to begin.  For writers of blogs, short stories or books, procrastination and crippling self doubt can prevent us starting or completing projects.

But writing isn’t always hard.  If your boss sends you an email asking you a straightforward question- the answer to which will make you look good, or praises you for something, that can be easy to reply to immediately.  Likewise a text that makes you cross can initiate a defensive reply before you’ve even thought it through properly.

And sometimes, sometimes writing is easy:  Like this blog; when I have something to say, the words just fall out.  And I’ve been working on my book, and enjoying it.  Yes it is also hard, when it gets long and I am unsure of the order, realise I have repeated myself, have to move things around.  But when I am just writing, feeling well, feeling happy, and writing because I want to, well then that makes me so very, very happy.

Yesterday morning my husband and I had a walk on the beach then breakfast (a beautiful fruit salad) eaten looking out onto the beach.  Then I wrote for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon.  Later my husband read it, we talked, added notes and new ideas, then went out for dinner.  It was so perfect, I felt like one of those proper writers you read about who have a regular routine and everything or like Ian Fleming (writer of the James Bond books) who used to live in paradise in Hawaii and swim each morning before sitting down to write.

Okay so I am back…  ‘Don’t do your boom and bust,’ my husband said.  ‘I won’t,’ I said, ‘Look, I’m fine, I’m having a break, I’m not doing anything…  I’m sitting still…  (But I am super excited!).’  ‘I can tell,’ he said.

Here are some photos of my current living quarters:

I am making the most of the luxurious, quiet easiness, and the sea breeze, before Saturday night when we will be going on an eight-hour sleeper coach to Hampi, where it is 40°C.  Be brave, Rachel.

Thank you very much for reading.

PS, a word about money.  Our beach hut costs around £10 a night.  Cheaper ones are available at around £7-8, and hostels cost around £4 a night.  My step son’s return flight London to Delhi cost around £525, mine and my husband’s one way flights London to Delhi cost around £735.  This morning my husband and I had a nice breakfast in one of the nicer beach front restaurants for around £7.50.   Last night the three of us ate at a simpler, local place off the beach, we pigged out a bit and had more than we could eat, for about £11.

 

Not just a travel blog

Tags

escape the matrix, India, Minimalism, Travel, Voluntary simplicity

My new ‘About’ page/introduction for new readers:

Not just a travel blog.  Can get quite personal.  You have been warned!

Hello, my name is Rachel, welcome to my blog.

This is where I reveal my true thoughts and feelings.  This is a kind of coming out, to borrow words from a friend.

With my husband we have got rid of most of our possessions, sold the house and are travelling in South East Asia.

I do write about places I visit and put pictures up.  But I also just write about everything.

I’m more art than science; for me it’s about the experience rather than the thing itself.  It’s not about the travelling per se, rather the effect it has on me.

Thank you very much for reading

Books and stories by me

How to Find Heaven on Earth: love, spirituality and everyday life   The story of my ‘spiritual awakening’ available as paperback or ebook on amazon

Call off the Search: how I stopped seeking and found peace My second ‘spiritual journey’ book, published chapter by chapter on this blog beginning on 8th July 2017

So simple, so amazing: a journey into awareness My third book, published chapter by chapter on this blog, beginning on 17th July 2017

Short stories in women’s erotica anthologies available on Amazon

Make it Happy a short book about long term relationships available on Amazon

Self help for the suicidal, a workbook for people struggling with suicidal thoughts available on Amazon

How to write a blog

Tags

Blogging, Blogging inspiration, First blog, Getting started, How to write a blog, writing, Writing inspiration

I was talking with the lovely J at work about her starting a blog.  ‘It’s just the getting started’, she said, ‘When you’re faced with that blank page, how to start it…’

So I thought I’d write something about how I write.

Trust the process

Trust your own process, that is.  Like child raising, like life, another person’s advice can only take you so far.  You have to find your own way of doing it.  The most important thing is getting started.  Or rather, the most important thing is to start.

What to write about

Or, overcoming the fear of the blank page.  Things I suggested to J:  Use photographs.  Start with a photograph and write a few lines about it.  Take or find a photograph of a piece of furniture that you have restored and write about how you did it, or tell the story behind that piece of furniture.  If you see a skirt or an outfit you like, get a picture and write about it.  Make a note or take a photograph of any ideas you have or inspirations you see.  The more you do this, the more ideas will come.

Find your schedule

Lots of people blog every day, even multiple times a day.  I totally understand why that would be an attractive discipline/ strategy to have.  But for me personally I’d end up getting obsessed, exhausted and resentful about writing every day whether I felt like it, whether I had time or not.  (I realise people probably line up posts and schedule them.)  I also get that it means your post is more often in the WordPress Reader so more people are likely to see it, hence more followers.

However, I limit the number of daily bloggers I follow.  I just don’t need that much stuff to read, and I like to have a variety.  Some people who only post once a week or so, I am excited when a post from them pops up, it never becomes a chore to keep up and it doesn’t clog up my reader with more than I can manage to read.

Niche or not?

Back to J.  She wants to write a lifestyle/fashion blog, but more aimed at an older demographic.  I relayed some things I had learned from a post I read about whether to be niche or not, and the general feeling was that (again, like child rearing, like life) you might start your blog as one thing but find yourself wanting to write about something else one day, so it might be best not to impose rigid ideas or limits as you then might have a wobble when you feel like you are going off message.  The post also said that most readers prefer blogs where the blogger writes about everything and doesn’t just stick to a niche topic.

Be yourself (everyone else is taken)*

*Oscar Wilde

The most important message to stick with is to be true to yourself.  That’s the coherent thread that hangs all the posts of a person’s blog together, even if each one of their posts is different from the other.  Authenticity is all.  I love it when I feel that a blogger is really just being themselves.  To borrow a point from another blog about other bloggers, I don’t mind if I don’t agree with them or if they talk about things I am not interested in.  If they are authentically writing about their experiences, thoughts and ideas, and I like them as a person, then I will keep on reading.

Every post is different

Each of my last three posts was made differently.

For Update, I was aware that I hadn’t posted for two weeks.  Anxious thoughts circled in my mind.  Should I just write something?  Should I make myself a rule re writing more regularly?  Does not writing every day mean that I don’t take this blog and my writing seriously?  Do I want this blog and writing to become something, or not? What message am I sending to the universe, and myself, about my committment?

I batted back these thoughts.  I will not post unless I have something to say, and that something turns into something I am happy with.  But one afternoon, my husband was at work.  I was restless, ever so slightly unsettled, and ever so slightly bored, well as close to bored as I ever get.

So I got into bed, made myself comfy and cosy, and picked up my tablet.  It wasn’t like I had some brilliant idea or point to start with.  My head had been spinning about all the things we’d been doing.  I could just write kind of an update, I thought.  Maybe people want to know the cats are okay (or that I’m okay about the cats, and aren’t still crying about them).  My mum had sent me a photograph of one of the cats.  I had my new tattoos.  And so I started writing.  It made itself into something along the way.  When I had finished, not only was I pleased with what I had written, I also felt a whole lot better in myself.

For the Matrix post, the starting point was my friend’s email.  It was so good, I wanted to put it out there.  It explained things so well, but in a different way to how I do.  So I pasted that in, added a few notes and saved it.  I knew I needed to have my own material in it as well so that it wasn’t just a repost of his words.  Over the next few days, thoughts and ideas came and I scribbled them down in different places:  in my diary, on a To Do list, on my India packing list, on a paper bag on top of the pile at the bottom of the stairs.  I often do this, I can tolerate my notes being scattered across lots of different pieces of paper.  Until I can’t.  On Thursday I spent the evening with my husband then he went to bed and I thought, I’ll just gather all the pieces of paper and type the scribbles into the draft, just so that everything’s in one place, I can finish it properly tomorrow.  But I got into it and even though I hadn’t really felt like it I sat down and finished the post, which had become a long, muddled draft, and needed work, almost four hours worth as it turned out.  Proof reading was done between one and two am on Friday morning, so I am sorry if there are mistakes. (I don’t think there are.  Two things are mentioned twice, but that was deliberate.  It breaks normal rules re writing, but you know what they say about rules, and I really wanted to make sure I made my point.)

Like leaving a trail to follow, like giving yourself hooks, clues and rewards, which I actually don’t do almost as much as I now think it would be a good idea to, the pieces of paper chaos is a method.  I get my ideas down, they are not lost, whether I have them on the drive to work and scribble them in my diary in the car park before I rush into work, or in the two minutes waiting for the kettle to boil, or on the drive home, hence scribbles on the paper bag at the bottom of the stairs, captured before I even take my shoes off and go inside the house properly.

For this blog, I just woke up on Friday morning and almost straight away started having ideas.  I crept downstairs and got my tablet, put off my husband when he called me, pretending I was still sleepy, which I was, but I didn’t want to lose the ideas which were coming thick and fast.  About J, about my writing process, my thoughts and opinions as a reader.  Most of this blog was written in one draft in bed during that session, with a couple of additions that I scribbled on a notepad over breakfast.  Today was just editing.

Timing and scheduling

I’m more art than science.  When I first started blogging in 2014 a friend and fellow blogger asked me what time I posted.  ‘It tends to be on a Sunday afternoon’, I said, ‘when my husband is taking the kids back to London and I have the house to myself.’

‘That’s absolutely the worst time’, she said.

‘Well that’s what time I write it’, I said.

‘You can schedule them to post at a better time’, she said.  I have done that a couple of times when I first started regularly blogging again in summer 2017, but nowadays, when they are written, they are posted.  Yes, I do believe timing is everything and for me, whether it’s sensible or not, when it’s finished that is the time to post it.

Re technology

The past couple of  months I’ve been training myself to write blogs purely on my tablet (Samsung Galaxy), ready for going travelling. However, when I was writing an article, I started using the laptop again, and realised how much easier it was.  Then a fellow blogger wrote a post about getting a Chromebook.  My husband had already suggested that I get one of those, having kindly spent some time researching the best laptops for travelling bloggers, and now I am fully decided that that is what I will buy to take travelling.  I will take my tablet as well as a back up and because it takes good photographs.

Making connections

Everyone says WordPress and blogging is all about making connections with fellow bloggers and readers.  It is, but where to start?  When you go to search and it says, ‘Search billions of WordPress posts’, it can be a little daunting.  I can’t remember how I discovered all the different people who I follow.  The only words I ever remember typing into the search box are ‘veganism’ and ‘menstruation’.  As with the rest of the internet, one thing leads to another and eventually you come across people you are interested in.  I also only ever follow people I am genuinely interested in reading the posts of, and I only comment or press the like button of a post if I really do.  I just feel that the writing and my interactions with fellow readers and bloggers need to be genuine.  I kind of feel that if I stick to that I won’t go too far wrong.

Get to know and trust YOUR creative process

My ex boyfriend used to say that even if he knew the song in his head or half composed on his guitar wasn’t that good, he’d still finish it, ‘to keep the channel open’ he said.

I always have plenty to say, or rather, I don’t open a blank page until I do.  So there may be a gap of two weeks or more between posts.  During a recent two week gap my husband innocently commented that I hadn’t posted for a while, only to be met with me defensively explaining all the other things I had been doing instead.  ‘I wasn’t criticising’, he said.  It wasn’t his fault, I need to trust my own process so completely that I don’t feel even a flicker of anxiety if I don’t post anything for a couple of weeks.

Likewise, when they come, I need to write them down.  Which is why on Thursday night I went to bed at 2am, and why I started writing at 7.45 am Friday morning.

When I get like that, blogging at 2am, up with ideas at 7.45, I need to make the most of it.  In the past, I might have worried that I was going manic, not because I might actually go manic in the pure sense, but because I used to worry about everything.  What if the ideas don’t stop coming, what if I can’t do anything else?  But I know it’s not always going to be like that, which is reassuring because I can’t be writing at 2am and 7:45am every day. (Not right now anyway)

But then when it stops and I go two weeks without having any urges or urgent ideas to write about, I worry that it has gone forever and that I might never write again.

Well I used to anyway.  Right now, I trust the process.  I’m still conflicted about what it all means, what is the goal, what is the point, but I think it’s best not to dwell on any of those things and just write.

 

Thank you very much for reading.