Throwback Thursday

Tags

anxiety, creativity, relationships, spirituality, stress, Work, writing

What strikes me the most when reading these old posts is that I was trying to do too much; working full time in a demanding job, swimming several times a week, writing, spiritual seeking/meditation etc, trying to keep in touch with friends and family, and enjoying and being present for the relationship of my life with the love of my life.

Yes, creative people need time alone.  Yes, I had been used to solitude as a child and as a single parent with those lonely evenings and weekends.  Yes it was an adjustment living with someone.  But I think it would have been easier if I hadn’t been rushing around doing so much, if I had made some space and learned to prioritise the most important things and let go of the rest. 

I still have those tendencies (to overdo the busy-ness), but I am more aware of them.  Right now we are living and travelling together, and are with each other most of the time.   I can write when my husband is there, and I don’t worry about doing much else.

The possibility of ease (first published August 2014)

When the going’s good I find it almost impossible to imagine feeling down, low in energy or less than totally happy and supremely grateful for my life.  When things occasionally dip a little, I find it so hard to get out of and such a puzzle to work out how it happened.  That’s because I am a thinker, an over thinker, and it is not easy to think yourself out of a slump.  Easier to think yourself into more and more happiness, if one is already happy, like a snowball of prayer and gratitude and bliss…  When actually down, thinking is not the answer.  Waiting, or waiting with faith, is.  After a few days it comes to me: what it is that’s the matter, what I did or didn’t do to get me to this place.  Sometimes it’s PMT, sometimes I’m just tired.  This time, it was neglecting my need to be alone sometimes.

I prayed for my house to be filled with Love and I realised, it’s me who can fill it, God gives me the support and motivation to do so, but it’s me who actually does it.  When there’s any friction, it’s all the more noticeable because it’s such a happy house usually.  On the other side of friction there is learning, closeness and new insights.  But in the middle of friction is such confusion and muddy thinking that I couldn’t even write anything for a few weeks.  Now, however, I am bursting, I had to take the morning off work just to write down all the thoughts that were pouring out of me and to organise all the little scraps of paper with notes and ideas on.  But in the middle of friction, everything bad is magnified.  It is easy to become irritated and irritable, even whilst wondering fearfully about what is actually happening, where all the bliss went…

One day after work I stopped at the supermarket and instead of rushing home I paused in the car park for five minutes.  It was close to sunset and the sky was shot with yellow and gold, the clouds luminous at their edges.  The air was cool and warm at the same time.  I had bought myself a little tub of fresh olives and I leant against the car, eating them carefully so as not to spill any oil on myself, whilst looking at the big, open Norfolk sky and feeling the air on my skin.

I have just finished reading Whit by Iain Banks.  It is about a religious cult that tries to operate in the spaces, to be creative in all that they do, in order to be closer to God.  So they travel the most complicated or unusual way rather than just hopping on a train, because in those interstitial places, is where God is found.

In the supermarket car park that evening, I realised: Be Creative.  It doesn’t have to be at home.  I have Saturdays or Sundays most weeks to myself anyway, I also swim two or three times a week, I drive an hour each way to work five days a week, composing my thoughts, my writing.  Sometimes I pull over and write things down in my notebook.  I realise driving is not quite the same as being alone not having to do anything.  Reading Iain Banks, I realised I’ve always enjoyed interstitial time.  Like when I pull up at the pool and instead of going straight in I read for a while or just listen to something I’m enjoying on the radio.  Or when I pull over and park up for a nap during a long journey (or let’s face it, not that long, it’s just me, creating a little pocket of space, although the talcum powder footprints on the passenger door hint at something more exciting than just curling up on the back seat and dozing to The Archers).  Often it has revolved around food, especially ‘naughty’ food that I am happier not admitting to eating.  Smokers do it with cigarettes, I suppose, that little bit of semi forbidden or secret time.

Sometimes I’m a bit slow when it comes to realising things about myself.  In the middle of the friction time, I was chatting to a work colleague I hardly know, in a rare moment of sharing and we were both saying about how we struggle to get any time alone in the house, as our partners are usually home before us.  She told me the story of how the other day she had hoped and looked forward to an hour and a half at home, but what with being delayed at work, a phone call from her mum, and new neighbours deciding to pop round and introduce themselves, this time dwindled as she counted it down in her head until she was left with just five minutes.  I understood completely.  I said, but I feel so bad, I so longed for my man to come to live with me and now he’s here I’m talking about wanting time on my own.  She replied smartly, but you must do it, because otherwise you will get irritated.

But it still wasn’t until the olives in the car park a week or so later that I realised what had been the cause of my uncharacteristic irritation.
I will endeavour to make the most of the little spaces of time alone I get in the house, to use them for writing or reading or napping or whatever I want to, and appreciate them!  But I must also accept that they are rarer and learn to be flexible and to create little pockets of alone time outside of the house: really feel it when I go swimming, for example.  Go upstairs and nap or write even when I am not alone in the house.  Create a pocket of independence and stillness whatever and wherever.  It doesn’t take much.  An afternoon alone in the house to write once a week.  Ten minutes alone with a tub of olives and a pretty sky.  And then I am back, full of love.

Agonda beach

Tags

Agonda, Goa, India, Travel

We book one night ahead on booking.com then choose somewhere to move onto in person.  We got a taxi to Agonda from Colva (about an hour), we could have got a bus but I needed the  journey to be as fast and as comfortable as possible.  It was a wonderful journey, through small towns and villages, past tree covered mountains (possibly hills, but coming from super flat Norfolk, England, they look like mountains to me) and lots and lots of cows some with big curly horns (I love cows).  All the windows were down and the car was filled with a lovely breeze.

And then we were in Agonda.  Agonda and Colva are as different as Southwold and Great Yarmouth (for UK readers only sorry).  We arrived too early to check in (we had got up early to travel before it got really hot) so we went and sat in one of the many beach front bar/restaurants and had breakfast (toast and ginger tea).

Whearas in Colva and in Delhi I had been marooned in a hot hotel room during the hottest part of the day (which is most of the day, to be honest), here I realised I could be ‘outside’ (under shade) and with the breeze blowing in off the sea it was entirely bearable.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Earlier that day in the hot hotel room in Colva I had envisioned months of being shut in a room all day.  Good for writing productivity, but there are limits.  I had been very apprehensive of going to India, or anywhere in South East Asia, at this time.  Most people go to India between November and February, when it is not so hot.  But if we’re going to be out for a year, we are going to be in the hottest time at some point.  And we had to go when we could go, i.e. when the house sold, and with all the obstacles that the matrix seemed to put up I wasn’t inclined to wait a moment longer to leave.

Agonda is touristy, but in a palm trees, beautiful sandy beach, luxury holiday look kind of way.  The beach is long and framed at each end by green lush tree covered mountains (?hills).  Our beach hut had a veranda that was shaded and cool enough to sit out on even in the middle of the day.  The owner said, don’t worry that it’s hot inside in the day, at night it will be okay.  And it was.  It was the first time I had slept under a mosquito net.  We would have happily stayed there but it was fully booked, so my husband went off and found us an (even better!) place.  Up high, reached from some steps, more space in the room, and a big cool veranda shaded with palm trees.  And right on the beach.  We are staying here for two weeks.

I was so relieved to unpack (I am such a homebody, but can make myself at home easily too), and do things like cut my nails and wax my face and floss my teeth properly.  (I still haven’t shaved my legs yet though, if I put it off much longer I’ll need a lawnmower.)

The beach huts are amazing.  I had imagined beach huts like we get in English seaside towns, but these are more like wooden chalets, with proper washrooms and everything, and the incredible thing is that they aren’t allowed to stay here permanently so they get dismantled at the end of April.  I wondered how they go about that, do they label all the bits, or do they just know?  I struggle to remember how to put my tent up once a year.

I once wrote an utterly heartfelt review on Amazon for Eat Pray Love, my bible for many years.  I had read that book seven times, written notes in it, folded over almost every page…  I knew I was genuine, so when someone commented, ‘This review is as pretentious as the book itself,’ it only made me laugh rather than hurt my feelings.

The first day here I did a bit of yoga out on the veranda (too hot indoors), using a rug from in the room, and then without even thinking about it just dropped into meditation, sitting half against the door jamb, resting after a set of one of those super strong hip opener poses (sleeping swan, half pigeon?), pulling the ends of the rug so as to buffer my ankle bones from the wooden floor.  I adjusted my position to be straight against the wall, but otherwise I was right there, for quite a while, despite the fact that I haven’t meditated for ages.

This wasn’t meditation aimed at or coming from a religious or spiritual angle, although it would probably be best described by the Buddhist meditation ‘Just sitting’, because I did nothing other than just check in with myself, deep inside.  And what I noticed was fear.  Fearful breathing, anyway, which I took to mean there’s fear there, or that fear is the thing going on for me, deep inside.  I had recently, possibly even only the day before, read a blog post by Alexander Bell about how if you calm your breathing so it isn’t fearful, then you won’t feel fear.  Try as I might though, my breathing remained shallow, tight, almost painful, and seemed to get worse the more I focussed on it.  So I remembered what the post had said about if you have a pounding heartbeat, just observe it, and observing it will naturally calm it.  I didn’t have a pounding heartbeat, but I used this approach for my breathing, and eventually, at last, I broke through to a place where I felt at peace, no fear.  As often used to happen to me in meditation, images came to mind; me opening a door, only to drop down an empty lift shaft and arrive, on a seat, in a room, and then again, somewhere different.

We’ve done a lot of moving about, and I’m a real homebody as I said.  I’ve hardly even been on holiday, and coupled with the pre leaving stress, it’s not surprising there’s fear in me.  And of course I’ve been sick, but then tummies are emotional too aren’t they?

(Just in case I sound pretentious here, writing about doing yoga and meditating on a beach hut veranda in Goa, please know that I did this on the train from Norwich to Nottingham (the meditation) and yoga in any hotel room I’ve been in with work in the UK using a towel or a jumper.)

We’ve had three nights here, and each day I have got up at 6.30 or 7am, had a paddle and a walk on the beach, a walk to the shops before it gets too hot, before retreating to the balcony/indoors for a siesta until the evening.  This is much better than sleeping late as you get to experience more time outside.  Also the beach in the morning is amazing, with incredible (must be teachers) people doing yoga, it is awesome what they can do with their bodies.

For my part, a short walk in the waves and/or a few stretches in the afternoon is all I can manage at present.  Today is day seven of traveller’s diarrhoea and today my husband took a Tuk Tuk to Palolem to go to the chemist and came back with gut flora and strong antibiotics for me.  He has looked after me all the way through and apart from the first night in Delhi when I went out to buy fruit and this morning when I went to the very nearby shops to buy water, juice and crisps (rehydration, sugars and salts) and fresh local bananas (potassium), I haven’t done anything on my own.  I also haven’t always been that nice, and I am realising how much I hurt my husband’s feelings when I get annoyed about stuff he has or hasn’t said or done, when all he is doing is looking after me.  But I don’t often know until later what it is I am unhappy about, and then I struggle to express it.  I tend to come across as annoyed when in fact I am feeling overwhelmed or vulnerable, I just don’t like to admit it.

A couple of times recently, if I’d stopped and thought about it, I could have said, that’s a great idea but I can’t manage that just yet.  Or, actually, can you come with me, I’d rather not be on my own.  In that way I am literally like a chicken, they are prey animals, therefore they don’t show their vulnerabilities.  I don’t like to feel, let alone admit to, feelings of pressure/ inability to deliver, shame, or fear of abandonment.  In other ways I am like a child, if I get sad my tummy hurts more, and I’ll seek comfort and attention by describing my physical ailments.   We are both much worse and much better than we realise, is a Buddhist quote I read about becoming more aware of ourselves.  India has a lot to teach me, which is good, because I have a lot to learn.

My husband has just started doing a vlog, if you want to check it out here is the link.

Thank you very much for reading!

Lots of love

Rachel xxxx

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit

 

 

Living the Dream

Tags

Feminism, happiness, love, marriage, Netflix

‘I’m doing something for the first time,’ I said to my husband, ‘Guess what it is.’

‘You’re stewing apples,’ he said.

‘It’s not so much what I am actually doing, it’s about what I am doing.’  I said.

It was Friday morning and I was making something from a recipe that I had just read in a post on the internet.  I read it, and I thought, we have apples, we have oats, we have apple juice.  I can do it.  I can do it right now.

I have never done this before.  Funnily enough, a few days ago, I had been thinking that I did want to start doing this.  Lisa Anniesette posts some lovely looking recipes, but I have never once tried making them.  I don’t know what’s stopping me from actually trying to make Lisa’s or anyone else’s recipes.  Am I intimidated because the food looks so lovely, the photographs make everything look so glamorous, so that I somehow think that it isn’t for me?  Am I waiting for some mythical time in the future when I become the kind of person who makes things like that?  Or am I just too lazy to go and shop specially/shop for new things?  This is no one’s issue but my own but I decided that I wanted this to change.

Anyway, on Friday morning after writing the draft of my previous post, I was catching up on Behcets and Borderline posts, having realised that she hadn’t gone quiet, I hadn’t actually been following her, and I came across one with a recipe in.  No photo, just a recipe tacked quietly onto the end of a personal blog, with a little note saying, if you do try it, let me know how you get on.  Those few little words gave me all the encouragement I needed.

Of course food posts look nice, otherwise we wouldn’t want to make whatever it was.  (This isn’t a food post by the way.)  But no one ever puts pictures of themselves sobbing on Facebook (not usually anyway) and they don’t tend to post pictures of their houses looking a mess.

This is what my kitchen actually looked like on Friday morning when I came downstairs and started making the apple oaty breakfast:

See, no shame.  My friend and I used to joke about sending a realistic round robin letter (you know those Christmas letters people send out to everyone that only have the good things), about our kids truanting from school and getting arrested.

A few weeks ago a friend was telling me about a recently separated man she had just met.  He showed her pictures of the inside of his wife’s fridge, to show what a slob she was.  I thought, wow, that’s mean, I’d hate it if someone did that to me.  It seemed so personal.  Isn’t it a kind of slut shaming, but about housekeeping?  But then I thought, why should the woman be ashamed if the fridge is dirty?  Why her and not the man, and why feel ashamed, I mean, it’s only a dirty fridge, you haven’t hit a dog whilst speeding.

I had a day off on Friday and so did my husband.  Breakfast, cold left over Indian takeaway (my favourite) followed by the hot apple oaty breakfast which was very nice, even better cold the next day (today).  My husband played my favourite songs on the ipod.  Then we wrapped up warm and went to Lowestoft, had a walk on the beautiful beach and then went to the lovely new vegan deli VeGee to eat, drink and warm up.  A well dressed, well to do woman customer looked me up and down, looking at my clothes.  I really wanted to say to her, it’s okay, none of that stuff matters.  I didn’t mind at all.  Then home, a bit of yoga, then more quality time with my husband:  we watched (the original) Bladerunner:  The Director’s Cut* followed by BoJack Horseman.  It was one of the nicest days I have ever had.

This is what we listened to in the car, parked up, watching a seagull dancing on the ground and eating worms.  (The seagull, not us, we’re vegans)

* They implanted the replicants (conscious, emotion feeling ‘robots’ that the humans had built and enslaved) with a memory stream containing a history, a family, so that they’d be easier to control.  Spooky, huh?

 

Thank you for reading.

See yourself as beautiful (Warning: sexually explicit)

Tags

healing, love, marriage, sex

I’ve got a perfect body, though sometimes I forget

I’ve got a perfect body cause my eyelashes catch my sweat

(Regina Spektor)

We went a week without having sex after getting back from Marrakech.  The sex we had in Marrakech seemed to be some kind of unlock, releasing things/me.  It felt like healing had occurred.  When we had sex again my husband took me to another dimension.  It was as if I had been waiting, searching, all through the intervening years since the first sexual encounter, until now.  I feel like I finally worked out how my body works.  Or rather, like I finally remembered how it works.

Because I used to know, and then I forgot.  It became layered under peer pressure (actually from my female peers this was often anti not pro sex), my mother saying about me:  where is she, whoring around again.  Relationships, unrequited love.  There was no place, no mirror I could find that supported or reflected my own particular brand of feminism.

Anyway, this is a personal not a political blog so back to the other night, in bed with my husband:  He took me to another dimension.  I feel like I’m in a special place, I whispered.  And there we were, both tripped into somewhere else.  I often go somewhere else during sex but I often go there by myself:  drifting in and out of tried and tested fantasies that help me relax enough to come.  Like I’m avoiding just being  present.  But that night, I thought to myself:  here you are, having sex WITH MY HUSBAND.

WITH MY HUSBAND.  I realised, of course, we are designed so perfectly.  He puts his penis into my vagina, it touches me just there and I…  Yes, I come, I come.  Oh my God, I came and came, without stopping, one orgasm rolled into another, began as the previous one was ending, as if the sensation of one ending was enough to trigger the next one.  And even just laying there afterwards, the slightest brush, the slightest movement, the slightest thought started it all off again.

FYI we weren’t doing anything unusual, we were in the missionary position which is good for sensation and touching the right spots inside.  But like everything, sex is really a mind game.

Looking in the bathroom mirror I saw myself as beautiful.  For a few precious moments I understood why he doesn’t like me wearing any make up on my face.   He wants to see me.

 

 

 

Push where it moves

Tags

awareness, escape the matrix, Law of Attraction, marriage, relationships, spirituality, writing

I used to think this a lot when I was in the midst of searching for a ‘spiritual’ path and exploring ideas such as the law of attraction.  I used to think of finding the panel in the wall to push, or the right part of the bookcase to touch, to reveal a secret doorway or hidden room.  I also used to think of it in terms of go with the flow; if it’s coming easily, it’s the right path.  My husband says that if things are too hard then maybe you aren’t doing them the right way and would find it easier if you changed method.  This is the opposite of the ‘no pain, no gain; life is hard’ conditioning we are all subjected to.  But as one of the last bits of spiritual advice I listened to said:  look what the herd is doing and do the opposite.

But what does ‘push where it moves’ mean to me right now?  Because right now I don’t seem to have to push much at all.* I don’t even seem to have to ‘write’ anymore, it just comes.  And although I am not looking externally for signs and assistance (as I used to when I was first getting into all this stuff), they seem to be coming anyway:  coming out of the supermarket with no clue as to where I had parked the car, I see a shiny red car and remember walking past it on my way in.  Later the same day I park at the beach car park, look up and see a shiny red car parked next to me.  It had a parking ticket in the window facing me, which reminded me I needed to get one; I would certainly have forgot otherwise.  (The other week I parked at the train  station and although I remembered to buy a ticket, I left it in the machine and didn’t put it in my car.  Happily I did not get a penalty ticket.)

Maybe I don’t need to push where it moves anymore.  Maybe all I, or anyone, needs to do is to raise myself up to my highest vibration and let ‘it’/ the universe/me do the rest.  This is beautifully described here in an interview on Desert Island Discs with the violinist Nicola Benedetti.  This is such a great interview, I really recommmend listening to it, nothing to do with whether you know who she is or are into the music, it is just fascinating.  (I have written about this before in my book about my spiritual awakening, but this is what I was listening to on the day I drove to bathe in the North Norfolk sea in early January, as part of my commitment to the spiritual path.)

Also, although I wouldn’t have described it that way at the time, it is how I met my husband:  I had just done a swimathon which had meant ten weeks of training, towards the end swimming 160 lengths three times a week, so I was fit and healthy.  I was baking cakes all the time and writing women’s erotica.  I was going out all the time, including to weddings by myself, following the ‘never refuse an invitation’ advice, which meant, it was pre vegan days, eating a lot of pizza.  John told his friend about this new woman he had met who had brought him homemade cake and had her erotic stories for sale in Waterstones and his friend said, you might as well just marry her.

New motto:  All you have to do is nothing**

New little writerly rituals:  putting a song in and then listening to it as I proof read (not always successfully I know).

Anyway, for me now, ‘push where it moves’ means Jenga.  But why bother being gentle?  It’s going to fall anyway.  It’s really just about making something fall but other people taking the blame for it, or everyone making something fall but one person taking the fall.  And all the time you could just knock it down with one swipe of your hand anyway.  Or not build it in the first place.  Or build something else, a car, a house, a path.  Yes, a path:  straight or windy, zigzag, steep, broken…  But I don’t suppose that would make a very good Christmas game would it?

*Except to make myself do decorating/cleaning; of which I am proud to report that I have done two hours of today already, and so can happily justify being snuggled up in bed right now with the heater on, writing this ensconced in a pile of pillows and blankets.

**Except painting and cleaning, of course…

As good as it gets?*

Tags

gratitude, happiness, marriage, relationships

This is a photograph of me and my husband at our wedding party in 2013.**  The wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life, but really that is only helpful if it provides a foundation for now.  The best day of your life can be now, with special events serving as a reminder to have fun like that again.

Yesterday the cats woke me up, I was momentarily irritated until I saw that it was 8am.  I had gone to bed at 10pm so I had had loads of sleep.  I fed the cats, made a cup of tea and went back to bed with my tea and my tablet.  I looked up things about Thailand:  TEFL courses, animal sanctuaries, homeless westerners, women’s projects, ex pats, what to bring…   I ordered cute homemade baby clothes from Etsy for a work baby shower.  A man knocked at the door, a modern version of ‘any old iron’, and took the shell of the broken storage heater.  I answered the door with unbrushed hair and no bra.

I got up and ate breakfast:  a hot cross bun and a banana and more tea, then put on my painting clothes and the ipod and painted the skirting board, a second coat from the day before and a first coat on a new section.

I drank coffee.  I washed my face and got dressed.  I made a smoothie.  I went for a walk across the fields.  It was the tail end of the hurricane and it was very warm, warm enough for sunblock.

Whilst I was walking the idea and content of yesterday’s blog came to me.  I came home and called the council and asked for two new bins, ours are too small.  It was one of those jobs I’d thought I’d never get around to.  I wrote to a successful blogger to ask about a guest post.  I wrote my blog and posted it.

I painted the second coat of the new section.  I had a wash.  I went to the local grocery shop.  My husband came home from work.  We ate a late lunch together:  sos mix vegeburgers, butter beans, avocado, tomatoes.  More coffee.

We drove to Southwold and had a walk along the promenade.  It was very windy and the sea was rough but it was warm at the same time because of the hurricane.  We found a new cafe that was open late and had dinner there; the proprietor was extraordinarily chatty.

We drove home.   It was still only 7pm.  I made a couple of calls.  I did some yoga.  I looked up Russell Brand’s cafe.  I read some people’s blogs.  I was in bed by 11pm.

I had had plenty of time for everything.  I hadn’t felt rushed in any way.  I got ‘tasks’ done, I did exercise, I did writing and I had plenty of time for cuddling cats and messing about on the internet.  I felt relaxed and slow.  It felt as though there was no discernable difference between any of the things I did:  No, this is a chore; this is fun.  Everything just seemed to flow.

It’s on days like these that I really think, that’s it, I’ve cracked it.  I want to say thank you, or, well done, or just, ok, that was good.

*one of my favourite films

**We got married with no fuss, just two witnesses and the kids.  My husband’s family had a small party for us at their house.  I made the cake.

How to not have sex with your husband

Tags

awareness, erotica, love, marriage, relationships

 

Those of you that have read previous blogs will be aware that my husband and I have been experimenting with tearing ourselves away from wild and crazy sex and practising abstinence, karezza, or at least some measure of control.

Up until now this has largely taken the form of imposing rules on ourselves, not only about when and how much to have sex and orgasms, but also rules around behaviour, in order to ‘make it easier’.

Us being us, these rules fluctuate week to week and are frequently broken, but nonetheless, we have given it a go.  Things like no groping each other, no kissing, no spoon cuddling in bed, no getting naked, no looking at each other ‘like that’.

And then at the prescribed time, usually the weekend, we ‘switch it on’ or set ourselves free and turn, briefly, into sex maniacs again for 48 hours.  Well sometimes we do, sometimes we might be more restrained than that, but it is basically on or off.

And even though one of ‘our songs ‘ is called All Or Nothing, this approach didn’t actually work all that well for us.

Although we talked about it a lot, it wasn’t until we did things differently that we realised why, and more importantly, what might help it work in the future.

So the other night, we got into bed, it was the weekend but one of us had floated the idea of that not necessarily meaning we had to have sex, so neither of us were sure, although both were prepared to do it if the other one wanted to.  We ended up having a kiss and a cuddle and falling into a deep and refreshing sleep.

The next morning we woke up, kissed, cuddled and then talked:  my husband said, I feel like I am on the edge of a precipice.  I said, perhaps we should follow the American virgins* and only do it if we are really sure.  We also reflected on how nice it was, and how satisfying, to be intimate and affectionate, without having sex.  I realised then what I hadn’t liked about the ‘All Or Nothing’ approach:  the having to switch off and on my sexuality and my affection.  I want to be able to be warm and affectionate and to feel sexy and attractive, according to the mood and colour of the present moment, not the day on the calendar.  I think we can do this, and that a more natural approach will work better for us.

*This is in no way meant to offend any Americans, it was just me referring to True Love Waits and those kinds of movements, which we don’t really have, or don’t have to such an extent, in the UK.

 

The Time to Be Happy Is Now

Tags

awareness, marriage, reality, relationships, spirituality

So simple, so amazing: a journey into awareness

Chapter 13:  Time to Be Happy Is Now

I used to live life looking down, you taught me to look up.  I want to say thank you.  I love you.  I see you, I believe in you, and as long as we’re together there’s nothing we can’t do.  (Sense 8)

When I lived at our old house, the light bulb reflecting on the bathroom wall made an image of a tiny high window.  Thinking the worst, I thought it was a prison cell window.  I thought that perhaps I was in prison but didn’t realise it.  Maybe that was true.  But now, instead of looking ‘down’ or ‘backwards’, to something worse than my current situation, it’s the other way around.

From where I am right now, which is good anyway, I am seeing windows and doors everywhere, windows and doors to something even better.  Walking around the town I notice haylofts, alley ways with little gates, high lit up windows and huge wooden doors.

If self analysis and ruminating about the past is like trying to untangle a ball of wool that a kitten has played with*, then it suddenly dawned on me that I could just chuck it out and buy a fresh ball.  I could forget all my mother’s conditioning about recycling and not wasting and just go out and buy a new one.  Or even decide that I don’t like knitting after all and go and do something else.

*As I was thinking this, I saw a sparrow pecking one of those mirrors people have to help them reverse out of their driveways, it kept flying around to look behind, then back again to the front and pecking, totally futile.  A much better metaphor (than I could have made up) than the tangled ball of wool, for our endless introspection (re the past) and navel gazing.

Saturday morning in bed, talking, in the moment, really in the moment, so that we felt like two Gods looking down at what we had created.  Reviewing our lives, how we got here, what we gave to each other (money and security, fun and happiness).  What we mean to each other now that we don’t need anything.  Experimenting with the idea of letting each other go, to travel separately, to take a job in another country.  Even thinking the unthinkable, the possibility of separating:  Maybe my work is done here John said, we had a good run.  Is this how divorce happens, just an idea that gets spoken aloud?  Of course not:  you fight, and make each other unhappy.  We are not like that.

Long talk with John about setting ourselves free, e.g. selling the house, moving away from the kids:  what would you do if you only had one life?  Both felt tingly all over.  Looked up properties and jobs in Scotland just to get in the zone of putting it out there, that we are up for it…

Enjoying friendships more, finding friendships more satisfying, even though one might think the opposite would be true.  Realising that this world and most of the people in it are illusionary doesn’t lessen the pleasure I get from nature or good company.

I saw a black and white cat using a zebra crossing today, the woman in the car behind me saw it and laughed too.

Where is this book going to go?  Back to the beginning, with illumination.

This is what a good man looks like:

When I was still into healing and chakras**, John had a hernia operation.  He was quite poorly in the recovery and in severe pain.  Later I looked up the emotions associated with that area according to my chakra book: anger, resentment and frustration.  He said he ‘always holds it in’ and ‘is left with it’ (this is about difficult interactions with his children’s mother).  A hernia is a hole in the wall of the intestines.  So anger, resentment and frustration had literally burned a hole inside of him?!  I thought, right, maybe the cure would be to let her have it, to say all the things he never says?

Much later, when I told him all that, and suggested letting her have it, he said:  If that’s true, if that’s why I had the hernia and if that’s the cure, and if I had the choice between letting her have it both barrels, and having the hernia and this operation, well then I’d take the hernia, because I know how much my actions hurt her.

** I have shredded my healing logs, reflections, student journals and my certificates and registration card.  Why?  I realised I don’t know what it is I am doing; that people should probably heal themselves; that I should focus on myself; but above all, to make space for newness.