Why do I travel? Why not stay in one place and get to know every tiny bone & joint, every breath & sigh? Although for the first forty years of my life I remained pretty stationary, I’m coming to ask why the two (migration or settling) are considered mutually exclusive?Our culture loves polar opposites, loves making people choose one, or shoving someone into a box so we can better (but really just more easily) understand them. What about if sometimes…
I had a crisis of confidence on here a while ago… a lot of it was to do with how I’m perceived and the way we live. I was worried that posting about travel during a pandemic might annoy some people, I was worried I post too much for other people, I was worried that I might be misunderstood. Since being back in Wales, still in the van, and in a lockdown I’ve asked myself – what is it that…
Ceremony doesn’t have to be filled with theatrics. The simplest forms will often more than suffice. I woke early this morning feeling the calling of the land – it’s different to my usual need to be outdoors, and I’m learning to follow it, to listen, to accept.So I left on my bike and rode to the hills, rode until legs burned away all the nonsense and self-doubt, rode until I could feel the land and see her voice in my…
When all’s said and done living together in a small space will only work if you both practice acceptance – of the self, and each other. You need to grow a deeper awareness of your own faults, and perhaps less of an awareness of your partner’s ?. These days, arguments are short, sometimes sharp, always forgotten quickly. We’ve learned to move in synch, although this does mean that we manage #accidentalcouplewear more often than we’d like to admit.A old African…
Just be yourself.I wish people who said that understood how hard that can be. What is the ‘self’ anyway except a construct? Except a jumbled flood of experiences filtered through our water/flesh sacks and a brain we don’t ever fully understand the functionings of? My ‘self’ is a constantly evolving being. Some of this is almost imperceptible, some of it is conscious choosing – what is ‘organic’ growth and why do we expect it of anyone when the education system…
Lazy van mornings. Cooking breakfast for the hounds. Being back in Wales is making lockdown more real, perhaps because we’re more tuned into the cultural thinking here. Half of me feels totally disassociated from it all, the other half feels as if I’m absorbing too much of the worry and the anger and the stress. This can lead to catastrophising about future things I have no control over. When this happens I have a series of questions to ask myself:…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what kind of artist I am. Which seems ridiculous really – I’m a poet and novelist, a writer. But part of this is understanding how I network (fyi- I don’t); how I cope with rejection, and success; and also who engages with my work, who likes and feels an affinity with what I do.Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in chasing other people’s dreams of success without really questioning why I’m doing it,…
Can’t seem to shake this fug at the moment. It’s the strangest thing. Even as I know it will pass, it doesn’t seem to be waning. There are always highlights to the day though and today’s was this apple delivery right to the van door from our grandson. Collected fresh from his orchard. What a ray of light he is. He eats the entire apple – top to bottom, core and all – amazing.…
Is it ok to admit that I am afraid? That even as so many people feel able to share their connections with trees and the land, even as I now have also found the courage to speak about my own connections, I feel a certain amount of fear. This fear doesn’t come from being called mad, I left that place a long time ago, more these days I’m afraid of how deep the connection goes, that some days I could…
Lazy Sundays. Experimenting with hot turmeric coconut drinks (with heaps of maple syrup ??). Watching the downhill mountainbike racing at Maribor, Slovenia and remembering being there to see it live last May when the world was a very different place. Tiny living isn’t a hardship once I was prepared to let go of all the stuff I really didn’t need. It also allows for a slow, simplicity of life that I’d never dreamed possible in our culture that pathologically values…