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.
Now and again I would suddenly feel, Oh wow, I’m here by myself, scary. Other times, I would feel, wow, make the most of it, appreciate it, soak up as much as possible. Still other times, it felt natural to be there, like a second home.
But like my month alone on the boat, two weeks was enough. I looked forward to the next adventure we could do together. I did go out one evening and have a mojito and a pizza, recreating an experience from last time, but in general it is my husband who provides the fun; I can be overly serious and work- ish.
Compared to the worst moments of our year of travel, I didn’t get super low or terribly panicky; maybe being alone I just had to keep myself together, five and a half weeks, almost six, was quite a long time. If I felt funny sometimes I still made myself get up, wash myself, wash my clothes, the bare minimum. I had a couple of minor slumps in the middle but in general I kept my mood up by having my mission, writing, and having a daily list and an overall to do list.
Often I would give myself something to do, e.g. go to a new cafe someone had recommended, go to the ATM, or a job such as get my train ticket printed. Because things in India tend to take longer and be more complicated, completing a relatively small task results in a burst of satisfaction seemingly out of all proportion to the task itself. I also rode the dialectic between being content to not do much, as always, and the fact that does anxiety stop me doing more.
Wedding season commenced, with music playing every night, and very loud brass band processions. One of the owners of the guesthouse invited us all to his daughter’s wedding (see pictures above.) I went with my Italian neighbours. As you can see, it was a beautiful experience.
I maintained good boundaries and I didn’t have any issues. But I was also aware of not saying no to everything. I did let a man, a Brahmin, take my hand and give me a very accurate mental and physical assessment. And one evening a man at a street stall stopped me, he asked me the usual questions about where I was from etc. We talked about Aloo Baba, then he said, ‘Actually I stopped you because I was going to flirt with you, but then I saw your face and that you have such good energy, you are a good person.’
‘You know what Aloo Baba says,’ I said, ‘Control looking, Every woman my mother my sister.’
‘They Aloo Baba rules,’ he said, ‘I have my own rules, ‘Beauty is for looking not for touching.’’
‘Well that works just as well,’ I said.
Late morning one day I was just getting up, I heard the sound of bins being moved and assumed it was the cleaning staff. Then I heard the sound of monkeys running about outside the rooms and a scream from my neighbour. I went out, she was standing outside her door with her skirt ripped all the way down the front, but luckily no injuries to her skin. She had come down the stairs and probably startled them and inadvertently blocked their escape route.
As before, there were always cows at the rubbish dump near the guesthouse. Towards the end of my stay cows always seemed to be licking each other, getting the bits they couldn’t reach themselves. It looked cute and I would stand there watching them. One day I was at the rubbish dump staring at the cows when one of the staff from the guesthouse came up behind me. ‘That is cow,’ he said, laughing. I never minded the way that being a foreigner meant sometimes being a source of amusement for locals.
There were always people around to chat to if I felt like it; at the rooftop restaurant at the guesthouse, at the coffee place, at the chai stall, or just out and about. Just as before, it felt like a place where people of all nationalities meet and connect with each other. I met people from Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Argentina, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Holland, USA, UK, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, Jordan, Georgia, and from India I met, as well as lots of people from Pushkar, a lovely family from near Hampi, and a Baba from Rishikesh, we swapped phone numbers.
One morning I was sitting in a cafe, a woman came in, there were no empty tables so I invited her to sit with me. We connected and had a good chat. She was my age, married but travelling by herself like me, from Australia. ‘It’s so good to talk,’ she said. She was going to Varanasi next so I shared some information about it. ‘See, you’re never alone, not really,’ she said.
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. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill
Straightaway we loved DaLat. All of a sudden there were old buildings, full of character, old shops and old flats above shops. Apparently there was a tacit agreement from both sides not to bomb Da Lat during the American/Vietnam War hence all the old buildings. It made us realise the contrast with where we’d been before, that all the new, boxy, functional buildings were new buildings built after the war.
There were street food stalls with great big pans of eggs, some looked like chicken eggs, some were small like quail eggs, and big pans of stew or noodle soup. There were grills with tortillas on, with egg poured on to cook omelettes on top of the tortillas. In the street were stalls with piles of scarves, and furry hats with ears on and ear flaps with long furry scarves attached, like kids hats. It was a big change of temperature, again.
From the window of the taxi we saw lots of hair dressers and shops selling cool looking vintage clothes, and tried to remember where we were relative to our guesthouse. It was such a relief to be in DaLat, it was as if we’d left the bad behind in Nha Trang, immediately we both felt better even just driving through.
Ours was a family run hotel, we tried the wrong one at first, we knew it was wrong as it looked too posh, but both had similar names something like My Dream and Dream Hotel both with dream in the name anyway. Ours was a small homely guesthouse run by a well dressed woman with nice waved hair. In the reception were two little dogs.
Our room was in some ways old fashioned with a big wooden wardrobe and a sideboard, and in some ways modern with black and silver flock wallpaper. In the room we were aware of the change in climate; the room smelled very slightly damp, and a bit of mildew when we opened the wardrobe. In the wardrobe, and in a neat folded pile at the bottom of the stairs, were the thick synthetic blankets that were so popular in Nepal and which we’d seen elsewhere too, in Pushkar. I always like to know there’s another blanket, just in case.
Again we were reminded of the difference in tolerance for noise between us from the UK and people in South East Asia generally. Across the road from our guesthouse was a van parked outside which beeped all day, apparently no one complained.
I continued watching Atypical on Netflix which I’d started on the train to Nha Trang. The show is about a teen with autism, in one of the episodes I saw in DaLat he goes to stay at a friend’s house for the first time. His friend has done his best but we see the unfamiliar environment through the main character’s eyes; there’s a waving cat, (the gold cats originally from Japan and China with beckoning paws), an aromatherapy diffuser glowing a colour and puffing out visible scent, and a gold and noisy halogen heater. All these things loom large and become too much for him to cope with.
The next day I saw a waving cat just like the one in Atypical. And on the stairs of our guesthouse was the very same aromatherapy diffuser, the same style but in a different colour…
Mind you, as it turned out, there were waving cats everywhere. One day we sat at an Italian vegetarian cafe, we had vegan cookies and tea. On the sofa next to me sat a real small orange cat, who let me stroke them and purred. In the window of a shop across the road was a waving cat positioned at such an angle that we were facing each other both at matching angles, me turned slightly towards the real cat, the waving cat turned slightly towards me, so that it seemed to be waving directly at me.
I can’t remember if we meditated in Nha Trang or not but we did in Hue and we did in DaLat. In DaLat I found that meditation was helpful for my anxiety. In meditation I felt my anxiety change to excitement, or maybe I was able to reinterpret the anxiety as excitement and to change fear into possibility or excitement; rather than fear of the future, excitement about life’s unknown possibilities. In meditation I was distracted by wanting to think about to my do list. With great effort I dragged myself away from that and asked myself, Why do I want to do this? The answer: because I’m anxious. But beyond anxiety, there was calm, and in meditation I was able to access that, the calm that is always with us.
For every meditation in DaLat I sat on the end of the bed facing the window with my eyes open. There was a pair of silvery white curtains, a net curtain, and a slight gap where I could see out unhindered. Outside the window wasn’t much of a view. I could see two electricity wires. In meditation these represented free will and fate, or free will and possibilities, or ‘you’ and ‘environment.’ I thought about how molecules bond. About how if you raise your frequency you attract ‘better’ things or at least you attract a match.
The mind tries everything- the past, the future, guilt, ‘shoulds,’ things to do, but if you step back from that and let it go you realise that in order to have peace that’s all you have to do: Not do anything the mind is telling you to, or not then anyway. Most of it is not practical or possible, you can’t go into past, for example, so just experience peace, without thoughts. Choose not to think about it. Even if it is practical or possible you can’t do when sitting. Deal with stuff in its present moment when the time arises. Or not…
I thought of what someone (Peter Klopp) had said on WordPress, about light and shadow. He had said, ‘The brighter the light the darker the shadow.’ This was different; people say, the darkness lets the light in, know suffering to know happiness etc. But this seemed to be saying that if you have a bright light, you have a dark shadow as well, as a kind of balance or side effect, something that has to be managed, or accepted maybe. It resonated strongly with me and was strangely comforting even though I felt like I didn’t understand it fully.
In meditation I often thought about Atypical, that’s okay I thought, at least I’m not thinking about stuff I’m anxious about. I felt a pain in one arm and the centre of my chest. I thought about heart attacks, and the tarot man in Thailand telling me I needed to look after my heart. Both my granddads died of heart attacks, I hoped that’d be how I went, easy, one in his arm chair, one at the pool side at the swimming pool.
We are animals that have become conscious. We know we’re alive and that we’re going to die. It’s not ‘spiritual’ or new age or complicated. It’s just if you realise, really realise, I’m a being, I’ve got a life, I’m here, wow, it’s going to end, I don’t know when; then that’s so exciting! Is that waking up/enlightenment? And maybe that’s why people in the East seem to enjoy themselves more, because they are okay with death, whereas we in the West tend to push it away. Oasis in Nepal saying matter of factly, ‘So I die, I die, they be sad for a couple of weeks.’ People of all ages in Vietnam and Cambodia dancing and exercising and socialising simply and cheaply, our Thai friend always laughing and joking…
I began to see the benefits of yoga and meditation, after the low period in Nha Trang. Even my arms felt a little different. I used to do loads of yoga and arm exercises at Sea Win in Kerala relative to now or before now although at the time I didn’t think it was that much/very good.
Just like hitting x number of followers, I look forward to it but when it comes it doesn’t actually do anything. Or when I was one stone lighter, yes I was pleased but I don’t think I ever felt I was there, I always wanted to be thinner, I never felt my body was perfect. Although, I didn’t have a sense of it being wrong, even before that, just kind of neutral. I could wear all these clothes, buy stuff on eBay, anything fitted and felt good, but it didn’t really do anything, I knew it was just a surface thing.
Thank you very much for reading!
About me
Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else. Went travelling with my husband for a year, mostly in India. Here are my India highlights. Now back in the UK, living on a narrowboat and writing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appear regularly on this blog.
The next day the guesthouse woman very kindly walked me to an open supermarket, Circle K, waited for me whilst I shopped, and then walked me to an open pharmacy. I paid attention so as to learn the way, she pointed out the sign to the hotel alley; I took note of a place selling car oil, a corner with a closed shop, an outdoor gym, and a big bright blue building- a military school, she said. She told me that she opened the guesthouse ten years ago so that her son and daughter could learn English. At the pharmacy she translated so I could get some medicine for Anthony. On the ground in between the pharmacy and the guesthouse were multicoloured shiny pieces of paper from Tet, rough squares like cut up homemade children’s decorations, like confetti.
All around were big new buildings, high rise blocks, dense housing, hotels and offices. One further away building had a spiral bit like Tokyo, like Phnom Penh and amongst all these a tiny old traditional house like a pagoda with a triangle roof, surrounded on all sides by these upstarts. It reminded me of the book The Little House, where a dear little once loved house in the country becomes surrounded by busy roads and new buildings and is forgotten. The house falls into sadness and disrepair, until one day someone falls in love with it and moves it out of the city and lovingly restores it.
Even though it was unlikely, we got scared that Anthony might have malaria. We were more scared about health now we were not in India. After seven months there altogether, India was more familiar, and many more people spoke English. But I just thought, there’s loads of ex pats and foreigners in Hanoi, what do they do, and looked up online, found a hospital popular with Westerners and saved the details. They were open twenty four hours and had an ambulance service. Then I felt better, which is probably why people say to research and note down the details of local hospitals and doctors when travelling.
The family cooked us rice and vegetables, brought up on a tray to our room, huge bowls of steamed rice and lots of lovely fresh chunky vegetables; broccoli, carrots and cauliflower. It was healthy but very plain, maybe the sauces etc had meat in them. Once we had noodles with bits of meat in which we had to leave.
The second day I went to a big supermarket we’d found online, alone, I took so long crossing the road that people stopped and asked if I wanted a taxi. I was anxious, not used to going out alone, anxious about Anthony, and about making decisions- even simple ones like what to buy to eat. A man in the queue behind me actually packed up my bags for me, he didn’t speak any English. It was so nice of him. Back at the guesthouse I asked if they could make us tea, they brought it up in pretty china cups, it felt like such an achievement to ask and get, and we had French stick from the supermarket and oranges with it.
Our guesthouse was down an alleyway, with other houses either side. On the opposite side of the alley were chicken cages, one presumably belonging to the guesthouse, the other to the house next door. The first cage was two tier with no floor, just criss crossed steel bars that I thought looked uncomfortable for their feet. I saw a big plump brown hen sitting down. The hen had a red comb and looked healthy enough. I stood in front, pushed down my sorrow and sent them some love. I told myself the eggs in our supermarkets or the KFC chickens are no better, probably worse off. Sometimes you hear stories of workers in intensive farm settings or slaughterhouses torturing birds (and animals) for fun. Not here, these belonged to the family. The next cage had a solid floor with dirt on it not bars, plus lots of fresh greens and a feeder of corn. lt looked like it had a second tier but it was actually a perch, which chickens like. Better, good, in comparison to the first one.
One day when I was returning to the guesthouse I saw a small fawn and cream coloured cat sitting on the roof of the chicken hut eating some meat. I called to it but it ran away, startled. The next day I was at the desk speaking to the man. In the alley outside the chicken huts was a little handbag sized dog on a chain beside a cardboard box. Later I saw the dog and the cat both inside the box, the dog chained, the cat free, the cat smooching the dog. ‘Friends,’ I said to the man.
Anthony felt slightly better and fed up with being in the room, and we both went to Circle K to eat. It was a small supermarket with a few tables at one end beside the freezers and the drinks cabinets, and served a few simple dishes as well as coffee and tea. I was impressed that it provided a cheap place for people to sit down and eat or even have a beer. We ordered plain noodles and Thai ice tea, one of each kind, one green and one brown, the tea tasted strange to us, and I who will drink and eat anything ended up having both of them.
We walked up to the main road, after Circle K, past new and half built buildings, one covered in mesh, like the buildings in Sihanoukeville. There was no building going on thankfully, presumably due to Tet. When I went out alone, I orientated myself by the big tall new buildings beyond the main road, many with neon names, some snazzy and done, some just a metal frame shell but still kind of beautiful, and beyond them, the pink sky.
On day four Anthony was getting better and I felt comfortable going for a walk and leaving him for longer. I did a few loops of our local area, past a smart looking college with inspirational quotes on boards; ‘Be someone you’d look up to,’ ‘Go wherever you want,’ ‘Question the answer,’ ‘Why ask why.’ There was a nice little coffee place nearby. I had seen it the day before but it was closing. I went for a walk down to the main road with the huge new buildings, and off down a side street, with old buildings, washing hung up, the balcony and rooftops caged in. I went down another road, looking to see what was open, everything still closed, except the same little coffee place from the back. This was day four, Saturday, Tet started on Tue, and aside from Circle K this was the only one, and this the only proper coffee cafe.
My coffee came in a dear little brown earthenware cup and saucer with a metal percolator on top- a metal ‘saucer’ on top of the cup, on top of that a metal cup with a lid, perfect to draw, if I could draw. It dripped out one drop at a time, an exercise in patience. Coffee with sugar, the tiny coffee cold by the time it had gone through but still nice. They also gave me a glass of water, it was a hot day and I drank half before I remembered I shouldn’t drink the water and spat the last mouthful back discreetly. I sat outside, the garden area had a brown wooden fence, brown tables and chairs. Each table had a big square umbrella sunshade, much bigger than the table and chairs, that would really cover everyone even with seats spread out. I saw a white butterfly, red flags and crazy wires. A thread from my black scarf got caught on my bracelet and I made it into an imperfect bracelet, finger knitting, one loose end, mis-tied. I asked if they had cake. No. We have fruit. Fruit salad? No, just fruit. No then. They came back, we can do fruit salad, fifteen mins. I shouldn’t have complicated it, but I had fruit at home and imagined them just bringing fruit, but then of course it would have been prepared? Control freak… Or not; they brought me chopped fruit covered in mayonnaise, I ate it all. When I told Anthony later he said, ‘You ate it?’! ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘I just thought of Waldorf salad. Afterwards they asked me, we have never made fruit salad before, was it okay? Usually I would just say yes, but then I thought what if another Westerner came and asked for fruit salad and got that, so I said, it was very nice, but for Westerners, it’s okay to do it without sauce, just fruit. Which may well have been what they would have given me had I said nothing… probably everyone was more confused by the end.
Later the same day we went out together to see if anywhere else was open, or if not to go to Circle K for noodles, or my place for coffee and fruit salad. A restaurant/cafe looked like it might be opening, there was a super cute puppy poking through the fence, and a man in the garden. We used the translate app on the phone to ask if it was open later, No, he said. A Vietnamese family walked past, using sign language, empty hands, we said to each other nowhere open, ‘Coffee?’ They asked. ‘Yes, anything,’ I said. They beckoned to us to follow. We just followed them and went where they showed us. We followed them all the way around the block again, them looking around and showing us which way, past bushes and plants in wide shallow stone pots on the pavement, past a woman’s garden with bonsai and lily pads, and coriander, the smell delicious. They took us to somewhere we hadn’t noticed but had probably walked past. We said thank you, and went in.
A woman greeted us warmly and said she could make us noodles, which were served nicely in a white bowl on a big white plate. Beauty in simplicity; my coffee earlier with its tiny apparatus on top of the tiny cup, and the necessary patience. The instant noodles made beautiful with coriander; beside the white bowl a little leaf green oval dish with two pieces of lime to squeeze. Chilli sauce, chop sticks, a spoon, and coffee and tea. The glow from the people’s kindness who had taken us there and the friendliness of the woman, and the relief of Anthony getting better. We made a list of all the Netflix shows we watched on the trip and tried to remember where we were when we watched them; some powerful place links such as watching Wild Wild Country (about Osho) in Kerala then coming across Oshos guesthouse, some we struggled to remember where we were when we saw them, we stayed in so many places… Link to blog about everywhere we stayed on the year long trip. Link to Everything we watched on Netflix blog
I wished I’d done better- done better shopping, gone out alone more, gone to the ATM by myself, done all the booking, been more capable, made decisions, not leant on Anthony at all, been in total charge when he was ill- but I didn’t, my mind disintegrating under stress plus not used to it. But as they say in AA, all you can do is ‘Do the next right thing.’
Thank you very much for reading
About the author
Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else. With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India. Here are my India highlights. Now back in the UK, living on a narrowboat, and writing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appear regularly on this blog.
On the day of the journey from Koh Rong to Siem Reap I woke up feeling a bit sorry for myself, with a bit of a chest infection and the prospect of a twelve hour bus journey ahead that night.
As usual I was a bit anxious packing and checking and rechecking my bag, I have some OCD. I wasn’t as anxious as usual about needing a wee, I think the more buses we’ve done, the more it’s been okay, they always stop, we’re always okay, that has gotten me used to it.
Indian sleeper buses have singles down one side, doubles down the other. This bus had doubles down both sides. This meant that the corridor was very narrow and the sleeper compartments were very cosy. Still, it was nice and clean, with a pillow and a good heavy cotton blanket each.
The walls at the ends between the sleeper compartments were open for the last bit at the top, meaning you weren’t totally private from your neighbours. We heard our young neighbours chatting excitedly and sending pictures to their mums, before they settled down to watch separate things on separate devices. One of them had downloaded several films and I think they were disappointed when their friend said actually I’ll watch my own thing instead.
We didn’t watch anything together either though. We sat/lay top to tail for more space. As soon as we got into our space I felt myself relax, and I spent a long time just sitting and noticing and enjoying that feeling.
Every now and again I had to deal with coughing/trying not to cough, AC doesn’t help with that, whilst not drinking more than miniscule amounts of water, and sucking sweets. I did lie down and sleep for some of it although it was a bit squashed even for me (I am short). Once we stopped for the loo, and then the bus arrived two hours ahead of schedule, at 6am.
We hung out at the hotel cafe and had breakfast while we waited for our room to be ready. We’d thought we might have to wait hours, but it was ready surprisingly fast.
The mattresses of South East Asia are not known for being always comfortable for soft Westerners. So to arrive after a long night journey in a room that is clean, with white sheets, duvet, four squishy pillows, two cushions and a comfy mattress. Oh, and hot water. And towels. Well, it’s a little slice of heaven.
There’s even a 7/11 nearby where I bought myself a facepack for some pampering. I might even get myself a massage before we go, now my cough is getting better. Siem Reap is lively and interesting, with pretty lights and good places to eat. I have a writing desk in the room and a good work ethic. Next stop Vietnam!
Thank you very much for reading
For actual photos of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony
Yes to everything: ThailandPart Two (very rough draft chapter for book)
I’d even thought of saying to M about the anthem (in Thailand they play the national anthem in public places and everyone stands up), and certainly I’d vowed to be more aware of my surroundings… But lost in conversation with M I didn’t notice the anthem and everyone standing up. M and I were at a cafe upstairs, my husband had gone downstairs to find a shop, he said he could see us just chatting away, totally oblivious.
I dragged myself away from the feeling of burning shame, it was an accident, I was totally absorbed in conversation. I decided to let myself off, we were at train station with backpacks, we would have looked like we’d just arrived and didn’t know. I was actually looking at language learning with M, trying to do my best to be a good tourist! I do have to focus on things, I struggle to read a menu whilst someone is talking to me, or to talk and pay attention to directions. I can be engaged in conversation and completely oblivious to what’s going on around me. Good for the person and the conversation, can cause occasional glitches, like this one.
As well as panic buying snacks from the 7/11 for the journey, packets of crisps, pastries and something chocolatey called Euro Rolls, we went to eat a meal before getting on the train. In the restaurant we met a young British man, he said of Thailand, ‘It feels safe; I didn’t think I would but I do.’
Is this how I felt in India? But then to come to Thailand and realise that maybe I didn’t? Or is it just that Thailand provides such an elevated level of comfort? Was this our reward for five months of India? And for thinking India was fine, which it was, but Thailand, oh my God I felt so safe, so easy, so at ease…
It’s like its all laid on for tourists. They even make the beds for you on the train. The seats are soft anyway and then they put a mattress on top and then they put the sheet on. There’s a lovely blanket in a bag, white with square raised bits, like a towel but soft, warm to the touch, it holds the warmth of your body and is big enough to really wrap yourself in and cover your feet right up.
The upper beds are a bit smaller, but the lower ones are almost big enough for two. So cosy, plenty of space, and there was even three little mini metal pegs that fold out from the wall to hang your stuff on.
The train was full of Westerners and we met a nice Irish man who was travelling with his wife and young son. A lovely friendly woman member of staff taught us Thai and took our orders for breakfast.
As usual I was too excited to sleep, and sat up writing in my little cubicle long after M and my husband had gone to sleep.
The train arrived early the next morning, and after a coach, a ferry and a taxi, we arrived in Haad Rin, Koh Phangan.
There were lots of healthy looking dogs of all different breeds, medium-small, fluffy, Golden Retriever types, but many with a ridge, even small fluffy dogs that were not like Ridgebacks at all. We saw a woman on a white bicycle with two dogs balanced on her lap/the handlebars, and two dogs in metal crate like side car. Dogs sat on the top of the two tier round white tables that were often outside shops.
We saw what looked to us like a giant cat stretched out long and fluffy on a table. We saw a woman entering a shop, pick up cat, squeeze it to her and kiss it, she did this three times. Where we were staying we saw cats held like babies, being carried back to staff’s room, ‘My cat.’ One sturdy, whiteish, one orange with bright eyes, one Siamese with a collar with a plastic bow and a name tag; all well fed and healthy. The orange cat visited us for an hour while we played cards and was fed banana cake left over from the train, all we had. At night we often heard the meowing and fighting of the various cats.
Most of the staff were from Myanmar/Burma, we should have learned Burmese not Thai. One of the staff sounded like a cockney. ‘I copy Danny Dyer, he’s my favourite actor,’ he said, and he and my husband discussed Danny Dyer films. One of the staff showed me their tattoo, ‘It means freedom, I used not to have freedom, but now I do.’ We played pool with one of the Burmese reps, he coached me and M.
We went to the party beach: little plastic buckets of alcohol and mixers with straws, loads of handwritten signs on neon card saying f***ing and c***. Is that what we sound like? We went to the Cactus Bar: a group of Burmese men and boys did amazing fire club displays, twirling, throwing them to each other, they were really good. The trees nearby were covered in lights flowing down, and when we went for a walk on the beach it all looked very nice. There were people doing UV body painting, sitting in the sand in front of big colourfully decorated screens. Beach sellers came round with fake flower garlands, light up ears, inexplicable toy monkeys in bright neon colours, and even more mysterious, Connect 4. All the bar staff were from Burma, our barman showed us pictures of his girlfriend who was from Belgium. The music was a mix of ‘inappropriate given there were little kids present;’ good; and cheesy- they played YMCA in the middle of it all. An old black dog wandered about the dance floor. The staff organised balloon games and a terrifying looking but actually okay game of fire limbo with the little kids. We had cocktails, the menu making a pretty list, Mai Tai and Butterfly and Black Russian; Sex on the Beach and Tequila Sunrise.
Waiting for 2am, our agreed time, feeling tired… At the table next to me, a woman’s foot, no nail polish, half buried in the sand. The sand so soft it felt unreal, as if shipped in, but couldn’t be, the beach is so big. Seeing my blue ring, like the room in Chennai, thinking, ‘Every moment on earth is a blessing,’ simultaneously noticing a light out at sea, one of the boats, ‘Every moment you’re alive is a blessing.’ Lots of lights but I picked just one.
There was a swimming pool where we were staying but it was often busy. We found a swimming pool further along the beach, up some steps, part of a restaurant and rooms resort that was practically empty. We ate at the restaurant and asked if we could use the pool, which was usually deserted.
Walking along the beach to the pool, monsoon clouds, the sea all different colours, green, dark blue, pale blue in patches. The beach was full of driftwood, one piece was big, worn pale, with lots of branches, beautiful. There were piles of small pieces of darker driftwood, gathered ready to burn. Lots of broken glass including terrifying broken bottles, jagged ends up, and old coconuts, dark brown coconut leaves huge like branches, and plastic bottles.
The swimming pool below the restaurant was surrounded by fake boulders, and the complex was done out like a fake temple. Grey fake stone doors led to toilets outside near the pool. There was a sink outside, in the open air. The water came out of the tap warm; there was always one or two white blossoms in the sink and standing there you looked down at the beach and the sea. There was an outside shower with a faux stone mermaid; I used to always think someone was standing there as I swam.
The three of us went swimming together, practicing strokes, doing tricks and just enjoying the water totally unselfconsciously. Family at its best are people you can just be yourself with, and be forgiven.
What do you do when everyone else is drinking cocktails, you ordered iced coffee cos you have a blog to write? Take a sip. When they can’t drink theirs and offer to you, even though you ordered iced coffee cos you have a blog to write? Take a bit more than a sip, even though don’t really want to, but don’t finish them. (Like the potion!) Return to room when all back, start blog, and keep writing until it’s the end, after everyone else asleep…
Lying on my back after yoga. ‘Why do I feel so bad about everything?’ White light above me. ‘It’s your programming.’
Tired after working hard on blog and posting it. Took a walk break by myself, to decompress, relax my body before sitting, and socialising, at dinner. On the beach. ‘Enjoying yourself can be its own religion.’ I thought of my husband. Day off tomorrow. I got back to room, my husband was listening to this song on YouTube, ‘Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think; Enjoy yourself,while you’re still in the pink; Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think!’
I thought I’d try, maybe get a short skirt and a top, or a dress, to wear in Thailand at least. The man in the shop didn’t seem all that friendly, and then when I picked something up and asked to try it on he shook his head and said no, meaning that it wouldn’t fit. I picked up a couple of other items. How about this? How about this? No, no, he said half laughing. It didn’t even seem like he would even let me try anything on, so I left. Okay, I thought, this is one of those not so nice experiences, but let’s not make it worse than it is.
On the way back there was an, albeit more expensive shop, with a friendly Burmese shop assistant and a European manager. I had a brief look and then said, have you got stuff to fit me, and told her what had happened, oh no, that’s mean, no, we have European sizes, come tomorrow. I couldn’t face doing anything more that day.
Just before my husband left to take my step daughter back, we were having last minute anxieties about our booking choices, as we had a friend from the UK coming out after my step daughter went home and we wanted to make sure where we were staying was suitable as well as not too expensive. The more we thought about it the harder it seemed to be to make a decision. ‘First world problems, where to stay on this luxury island, and how much to spend per night, £10 or £12,’ my husband said, grounding us.
We booked a few more nights in the same place to give us some time, and decided to all go choose somewhere when they got back. The place where we were staying said we might have to move rooms for the extra bit, and asked us to come and choose the one we wanted. (We’d paid for a fan room, and been given an ac room, with the ac turned off. If they sold the ac room, we’d need to move.) The ac rooms were also bigger and nicer. In the middle of this, my husband’s taxi arrived and he had to go, leaving the final decision to me.
Ahh, anxiety, responsibility! I was shown around the fan rooms by Danny Dyer and picked one, the biggest. But when I got back to my room, I thought, did I check the beds properly? Our friend had a bad back, and so does my husband sometimes; what if the beds are uncomfortable? I went into a cold sweat. I lay on the bed, paralysed. I even cried. Then I stopped, I went for a walk; I remembered what I had decided: Be more aware, and if you haven’t, rectify it, if you can.
The first time I walked past the office. The second time I went in and asked could I just look at the rooms again, I was in a hurry before and I don’t know if I checked them properly. No problem, of course. Both sets of beds felt exactly the same; my decision was ok.
Back at the room I did a long, proper- as in mindful, into it deeply- yoga session, then healing, then accidental nap.
I beat myself up about not going swimming, ‘What have I even done today,’ but so tired, hence low mood, maybe PMS? I ask for time alone but it is dangerous. I pulled myself together and went for dinner. The onsite restaurant had little bells on each table to ring for service. I disliked doing this, but it only made it worse. I’d wait for someone to come, be fearful that no one was coming. Plus I often used the space for writing, which was fine, but meant that they didn’t always know if I wanted food or not. The next morning I was hopelessly self conscious at breakfast, loads of people near loud, I felt invisible, people pouring in, not ringing bell, confusion re ordered or not, who coming to take order…
It was a weird place to be alone, a party/couples/young people holiday place by myself for four days: a bit sad and lonely but safe, with the nice staff and an easy environment, and a good opportunity for writing, yoga, swimming, I told myself.
I spent the first night in a state of anxiety about spiders, having had one only a couple of nights before. I stayed out in the evening and kept the light off so I wouldn’t see anything. The second night I heard people coming back at 3am and being sick, and sick again in the morning. Even once my fear about spiders had subsided a bit I still couldn’t sleep.
The next day I tidied up and asked for the room to be cleaned, to reduce risk of spiders, writing in the restaurant while it was being done. A nice waiter told me about what its like during the Full Moon Party (the night my husband and friend would be back), more people come every day, this whole place full, kitchen forgets food orders… ahhh. ‘Crying, lost phones, we tell them, don’t take out, don’t take card, just take enough for how many drinks you have but…’ Not looking forward to that AT ALL.
Every day I made lists and stuck to them, yoga, sort out and take laundry, go for breakfast, write, swim, lunch, town, hair… Stick with the plan, the to do list, if not happy at least satisfied… Get up early, do yoga, collect laundry, tidy room, empty bins, go shopping, WordPress, yoga, hang up clothes, unpack stuff shoved in backpack while room cleaned, made space for J, breakfast, writing, walk, swim, writing, dinner…
To the swimming pool cafe, the wind and the rain got up whilst I was there, the staff rolled down the clear plastic at the sides of the covered but open sided ‘indoor’ eating area. I ordered french fries, got more than I could eat, and a pot of Liptons tea. There were a few other tourists, young Westerners, couples. I read my notes, organising my work, conceptualising it, feeling that it was okay. I had some social anxiety, which was better the next time I went, I ate lovely Pad Thai made specially for me with tofu, it was sunny and I ate it outside.
At the swimming pool, thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to be a successful writer and have a swimming pool. But I am writing every day and I am at a pool, which I have to myself. ‘I have everything already.’
Getting into being alone at the same time as looking forward to them coming.
Orange cat came by in the evening and was still there after I came back from dinner, as if keeping me company. I tried everything to sleep, all the exercises I know. The only thing that really helped me was thinking about the little orange cat sitting outside on the bench, like a talisman.
Two young Irish women who had looked after M on her last night, been dancing with her whilst we sat outside, chatted with me about travelling after breakfast one day and invited me for a drink in the evening. I’d said maybe, thinking I wouldn’t want to, then as the day wore on, thought why not? But when it came to it they were in a group with some young guys. I thought they wouldn’t want to see me, so I walked past, eyes down. ‘You’re not the kind of person people want to spend time with.’ Ringing in my thoughts. But I didn’t want to make small talk with a group of drunk people, I only wanted to chat soberly and with just them. I’m a control freak too, as well as not always being very nice.
I read a post on WordPress about, ‘You may have noticed how it’s easier to criticise yourself than have other people do it.’ That’s what ‘internalising the negative messages’ actually means. After twenty years in mental health I only just understood that.
Bethany Kays posted on her blog on WordPress about how it was much harder to be mindful without her husband present, about how she’d wanted some mindful photography alone time but found that she was afraid without him there and that was distracting. Bethany has real things to be afraid of, alligators, spooked wild horses, and uses a wheelchair. My fears were all in my mind, but still, I recognised the timing of this post.
DSFB had been getting very deep and I was struggling to absorb his message. I wish he would explain his philosophy more simply, I thought, and he did: ‘Try and be fulfilled; Be nice to people; Enjoy what’s in front of you.’
After two nights I realised I could watch Netflix. I mean I knew that, but I forget to enjoy myself, I think only of writing and anything that might need to be done, forgetting that in the evening I could watch something. I mean if my husband is there I’m with him so that’s taken care of, we’ll spend time together or watch something that he will have downloaded and organised for me.
Anyway, I spent the third and fourth evenings sitting out on the balcony with the cat, watching stuff on my tablet.
‘That looks like my kind of evening,’ my neighbour said returning to get ready to go out, looking as if she’d rather stay in, me with my feet propped up on the table. ‘I’ve even got a cat,’ I said. And the battery lasted right up until the end, then died seconds after it* finished.
I went to the office to see if we had to move rooms or not, she said yes. I quickly packed up, she’d said ten minutes. But I wasn’t sure we’d understood each other. I went back. ‘You can stay.’ Maybe she’d misunderstood me and thought I’d wanted to move, maybe she’d had a think and rearranged some bookings. I went back and unpacked again. The fan rooms we were offered were fine, but this was much better! I was so glad I checked. This was one of those times when I got it right. Packing, unpacking, back and forth to the office, I was very hot, but happy, and looking forward to them coming.
I went back to the shop that wouldn’t serve me and bought some gold hoop earrings. It was part pragmatism, it was the only place where I’d seen cheap earrings, and part wanting a do over. I didn’t want that every time I walked past or thought of that shop or that man it would be about that not so nice day. Now it was of him smiling as I paid for the earrings, me sitting on the little step outside, unwrapping them, putting them in, me happy with my new haircut and blow-dry, the first time I’d had my hair blow dried for months. Afterwards buying a pack of cigarettes and some strawberry coloured lipbalm from the 7/11. Returning home, ordering a beer- at not quite 12 o’clock- and taking it back to the balcony. Happily waiting for my husband and our friend to arrive, listening to Prince and co playing While my guitar gently weeps, putting on my pink lipbalm and my kohl from India, making mild smoky eyes…
(*Anne with and E two episodes second night. First night finished off last episode of Thirteen Reasons Why Season Two, and watched all the discussions afterwards. Apparently the awful stuff depicted is happening in American High Schools every day. I know my stepdaughter and her friends didn’t like it because they couldn’t believe things would be that bad and that relentlessly bad, because their school in London isn’t like that, or not as far as they know anyway. And that the legal stuff is accurate, without giving away spoilers.)
Thank you very much for reading
TRAVEL UPDATE
In Tokyo, having a very interesting time. I have met up with B, writer and fellow blogger I met via WordPress and we have been discussing the big questions! Here until Monday then back to India- and my husband!
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.
This week I have bought and drunk two kale and spinach smoothies. This would have been unheard of before now. I have always been very reluctant to even try vegetable juice, been vehemently anti food fads and super foods and so on and until recently I was fairly lax about eating properly. But I do not necessarily know what’s best. I used to be similarly dismissive of spirituality and religion, maintaining there was nothing whatsoever spiritual about me and that I didn’t believe in anything! I wonder now whether I should track back all the things I was sneery about as an angry young woman and cynical about as a grown up woman, and embrace them: starting with vegetable juice and moving onto, let’s see, success, money, forward planning, and miracles.
I went through a phase of being into the Law of Attraction and practicing The Secret but I could never get that excited about finding a parking space in a busy car park (partly because I would hate to have to reverse park into the one remaining space with a queue of cars behind me, parking not being my strong point), or visualising cheques in the mail. But I did and do believe in maintaining a level of serenity, openness and optimism which does inevitably make the day (and life) go better.
I’ve moved up a level now though. Recently I have been praying five times a day: in the morning before I go to work, at lunchtime, at the end of the working day before I go home, in the evening at home, and before bed. I kneel on the floor and say thank you and feel connected with God, and send distant healing to anyone on my list for the week. That’s it. And, oh my, what an effect it is having!
Everywhere, people seem so happy and friendly. At the swimming pool, I heard three lots of children having a really fun time with their parents, lots of laughter and no stress. In the supermarket a dad was having a laugh with his adolescent daughter, threatening to embarrass her by dancing, they were both laughing and caught my eye. The lights blew on my car and a man at a garage helped me for ages for free. My friend who has been very depressed suddenly shifted and sounded so full of change and light. I visited the university where I trained; I was glad to be able to tell my old tutor what I was doing and so touched when she said that every time she drives past the hospital where I got my first job, she thinks of me.
I had the bravery (re spiders) and the motivation to go up in the loft and get rid of stuff and tidy the house, I also had fun seeing friends, I did healing and writing, all effortlessly, seamlessly, as if this week was a microcosm of a perfect life. Shopping in the city and then going to a family barbecue, with none of my normal anxieties about time, getting everything done, getting ready, what to wear, what to say. It was all so easy, just sitting on the grass, chatting away, entertaining the kids so totally unselfconsciously then sitting with the adults later, no shyness, no blank spaces, no tiredness, just total ease… Home at 10pm, a quick tidy round and wash up without even thinking about it and certainly without any stress about getting things done.
Me and my husband both independently deciding that one evening was the evening to reconnect with each other, to ‘party’ (by which I mean a bottle of beer, a cigarette and an episode of something funny), but still, we were so happy with each other, taking a step out of the routine of the week which usually just revolves around cooking and eating and going to bed early enough to get through the next day. Thinking that evening how lovely everything is, how all this extra stuff keeps happening, all these things that I hadn’t even known I wanted but that have just been so nice, and that all this has happened since I started praying. I had this sense that it’s like my life will improve in ways I can’t even imagine. I can’t imagine, but God can… Immediately after I had this thought, my husband looked at his rota and said, ‘I don’t have to get up at 5am, I have to get up at 6am!’ I said, ‘so just when you thought life couldn’t get any better!’ Him, laughing, putting on a cool American accent, ‘Yep, it just keeps on getting better!’
The drawback with The Secret is that we are limited by our own imagination, you have to visualise it all yourself. This way (the prayer way) opens up possibilities I can’t even imagine.
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.
After last week’s post being more on the crazy side I had intended to balance that out with a more everyday post this week. I had planned to write a bit about everyday life here such as our utterly first world problems of how to keep all the restaurants happy (every day we have to walk past loads of restaurants who all want us to come and eat there so we operate a kind of rotation system…) Or what we talk about over dinner, mainly looking up random stuff on Wikipedia as it comes up and we realise we don’t know much about it: Kashmir, the New Zealand Government, the Indian almond tree, bats and do they ever sleep at night, the life cycle of the malaria parasite (complete with diagrams) and my favourite- the Indian house crow.
But as usual as soon as I decided that, I changed my mind and went with something else and so this week’s post is mainly a book review of Turtles all the way down by John Green. This is another Young Adult book by the author of The Fault in our Stars which was made into a film. I took a morning off work once to watch the film at home in my pyjamas accompanied only by a box of tissues. If you want a good cathartic cry I thoroughly recommend it. But I read the book first and cried a lot to that as well;
I’m a grenade
I lit up like a Christmas tree
are the lines that got me the most and which those of you who have sobbed along to the book or film might remember.
Turtles all the way down is about OCD. Afterwards I looked up John Green and mental health on the internet and found that he has OCD. After the huge success of The Fault in our Stars he felt the pressure of the follow up. He started and abandoned several novels (although he did ‘cannibalize some of them for parts,’ which I liked). Interestingly he said that having written a book doesn’t necessarily help you to write future books; each one is completely different.
During this period of trying to write he thought maybe coming off his meds might help release his creativity. It didn’t and in 2015 he got the most unwell he’d ever been. That is a point he makes, that his mental illness does not help his creativity, it hinders it. At his most unwell, his intrusive thoughts were so bad he couldn’t read a menu in a restaurant or construct a sentence.
So he wrote Turtles… about having really bad OCD and anxiety and also getting stuff done around it. The protagonist goes to school, does homework, see friends etc except for when she doesn’t. John Green had times in his life when he was unable to eat or read and just lay on the floor and drank Sprite. When he has to do press he takes a friend with him who answers the questions if he can’t. They relate a story of being in Brazil doing an interview when John Green lost consciousness or awareness for a few seconds, came to and said, I’m sorry I’m having a panic attack, and his friend took over for him.
Turtles all the way down spoiler alert
The book doesn’t really have a happy ending as such. It flashes forward to a future where although the protagonist has grown up, been to college, got a job and had children, she has remained ‘mentally ill’ and has at times been unable to care for her children and been hospitalised, but then come out again. This could be looked at as sad and as a reflection on the fact that John Green still has OCD and anxiety, it hasn’t ‘been cured’.
The fact that someone can live a successful life and at the same time be living with a mental health problem could be seen as sad (sad that they are still suffering or have times when they are suffering) and at the same time it is also encouraging (that a person can live a successful life despite having a mental health problem). As the book says, in life there aren’t any happy endings, it just carries on, some things get better and other things get worse.
Spoiler over
My favourite bit in the book (and the bit that encourages me the most because it finds a third way of thinking that isn’t black or white or either or and is more about acceptance than about pushing away) is where they talk about how cities used to always be built around a good strong river for transportation and industry. But in the book the protagonist’s best friend describes a city that was built around a river that wasn’t good or strong. But the city became a great city anyway.
‘You’re not the river,’ the friend says, ‘You’re the city.’
Travel update
We both got restless at the same time. My husband has booked trains (this involves trips to the train station with passports and the filling out of faded tiny print forms) and accommodation for a night away on Monday in a surprise (for me) destination!
Writing update
Having this section on the blog really helps me! This week I completed a draft of Goa Part Two (Anjuna, Arambol, Panaji) and my husband read it and gave me suggestions over dinner, which I noted down using paper and pen borrowed from the waiter. I started Kerala! Which is where we are now so feels ‘near’ and ‘easy,’ even though as we’ve been here since the end of April I have tons of material in notebooks and blogs to go through. Still, onwards and upwards…
Rachel 