shapeshifting

Lunatic

That lunar eclipse turned my brain into Spaghetti Junction last night. No sleep for the inspired. But no clear thoughts either. If I was to write a long (too long) post about my interwoven thought processes right now it would include these threads:

• Online business coaching is producing multi-levels of clones and if the only business they have is telling other people how to run their business telling people how to run their business, who is actually doing anything? Making anything? Creating anything? I see the need for business coaching and there is some incredibly inspiring, fresh stuff out there but ohmygod sometimes it's like standing in a hall of mirrors. Of course I'm not an entrepreneur and I don't need to read any of it but when it's good, it's good. I like good now. Good's cool. Cloning isn't.

• Some of us may have no urge to take over the world but we still want to be part of it. We still want to have left some small positive imprint. And look, Bindu has been reading my mind.

• 

• Being a catalyst for positive change among your immediate circle is a wonderful thing. The common ground you probably share will mean your interpretation of something is more likely to spark change than would the words of someone living an entirely different life. Why throw a whole lot of seeds on stoney ground when you can watch them thrive in your own back garden? I have been inspired to make real change by a number of close friends recently. Even though I've known for years that what they say is true, it took their voice and perspective to bring it home to me.

• Building an emotional immune system (my kind of parenting).

• Age ain't nothin' but a number. Voicing my trepidation of turning 50 in two years has made me realise that the number is simply a marker of how long I've been here. It in no way defines who I am while I'm here. I could as easily label myself as having arrived at 09.30 GMT. Who cares right? But I do think that in my mind it signifies an age at which I really should have grown up. And that's what I'm aiming for. Maturity. A smidgeon of wisdom from the many lessons I've lived through. Less manic intensity. Waaaay more serenity (no, not that one). Serenity is what I've always hoped I'd find when I grew up; I guess the unnamed project is a way for me to get there.

• I love the flavour. I'd forgotten just how much. Next year, now I know to pick before they flower, I'll be harvesting my own.

• Tasha Beagle has been rehomed bringing my charges down to three. And, with so much less to do now (there were seven dogs when I started, three have been rehomed and one passed away) I'm only going to visit them once a month. I have been given three Tuesdays a month to do something else. That's good.

• Megan Matthieson

• Restless. I'm restless. I'm getting that 'throw everything up in the air and see where it lands' feeling. I do not know if or when I'll act on that feeling. I do not know what I'd like to see in that new arrangement. I just have a feeling that there is space for something else. Something outward-facing and important to me. Something real and gritty and true.

• It may be wrapped in something imagined and shiny but still true.

• Thursday night is yoga night.

• The project...it is unnamed.

• Awesomised conversation and laughter with Susannah at Cafe Lucca. Also, standing at one of the busiest corners in Bath while she pokes her upper arm and shouts,"I mean, what the F*CK is THIS?" much to the amusement of me and many passers-by. @photobird...keeping it real.(N.B. It's perfectly normal triceps, in case you're concerned.)

• Dreaming of teaching people to fly by firing them out of massive cannons. I tried it, it was AWEsome.

 

 See? Scrambled. Good, but scrambled.

 

x

 

For the love of it

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

~ William Morris

This quote is so well-known I hardly need to write it out. I could have just referenced it and you'd all have been nodding your heads but what the heck...I like the look of it. And it's useful. Double whammy on the Morrisometer.

It kept coming into my head yesterday as I thought more about my posts this week and even more about your great responses. I thought about how this theory applies to life and how encompassing the terms 'useful' and 'beautiful' can be.

For example...my constant bitching to myself about how I need more time to do what I want and how I'm useless and disorganised and lazy and effing endlessly interrupted...is that beautiful? I'll tell you now, it's UGLY. Is it useful? Oh don't make me laugh; it's a downward spiral into the legendary Vortex of Suck and it makes nothing better. It inspires only worse feelings.

I'm not going to rehash the details here - it seems many of you know where I'm coming from anyway - but yesterday evening I thought,"That's it. It stops. If I want to do something positive for me and my family I need to forget about making a few quid online (and never doing it) and focus on the quality of our lives. If anyone knows that this is not about money, it's me."

That's a beautiful concept. That's a useful concept.

I'm also loving the comments made by Jennlui and Tracie about 'tiny' work and tiny chances to work. As I've said, I'm not good at that. I like to zone out and drift but maybe I just need to give the tiny idea a go. No pressure. I'm all about the no pressure now. I get enough pressure elsewhere.

I want to do something for the love of it.

This exact time last year: sunshine, barefeet, chalk & water painting on the well cover. That would be nice this weekend.

 

x

A not-so-clean slate

 
What is it about this time of year that makes us so keen to detox our bodies, our homes, our lives? Even as I attempt to avoid new year fever, I'm feeling that pull, the urge to just wipe clean the old slate and start over.

I'm not talking about a figurative lick of paint either. I mean, scraping my mental landscape clean of all the stories and assumptions and 'facts' around and with which I navigate life. What would self-inflicted, middle-term amnesia look like? Feel like?

Imagine, for example, you were a person who completely believed in astrology. You religiously read the forecasts, descriptions and advice for Sagittarius and then, decades on, you discover that the date you think you'd been born...? Wrong. You're a Virgo. (As a parent who adopted from China, I don't take the topic of inaccurate birth dates lightly, I'm just using it as a simple metaphor.)

Anyway, it looks appealing to me. If a tad impractical.

I just made the mistake (?) of looking back through my blog archives to see if I really do always sound bleak and miserable at this time of year. Along the way I started dipping into random posts and I think I'd prefer the bleak and miserable. So many posts saying,"Hey I've had an AWEsome idea...this is totally it...I found The Thing...I have A Great Plan."

Ahem.

New year can appear to hand us a clean slate but it's not easy. Those past hopes, wishes and visions can stick to us with guilt and shame and fear of failure. Unless we forgive ourselves for not seeing them through - or maybe just realise that it doesn't really matter and not getting your Etsy store off the ground three years running does not make you a bad person - we will become more and more stuck in our own emotional swamp, while our belief in our ability to get out of it slowly fades.

Depressing? Sure. Truthful? For me it is and I know it is for many of you, but given that we're not about to get our memories wiped, what do we do?

• Gratitude, appreciation for what we already have in our lives, that's good.
• Appreciating the things you have achieved (I bet there are loads), that's also good.
• Quietly taking a teeny step forwards and feeling a sense of achievement for that. Good.
• Releasing the pressure we put on ourselves to measure up to people we admire. Niiiiiice.
• Asking a trusted friend or loved one what it is that they think you're good at. And accepting their answer as a truth.

I think five things to do is enough to think about for me today. Can you think of any more?