I always hated my photo being taken, nevermind a selfie, but radical self-acceptance is proving to be a beautiful gift from me to me that shifts self-defeating thoughts like sanddunes. I’ve spent time in the company of some lovely women this week, we’ve talked writing, cooked food… Laughed. And perhaps these days have made me realise how, the more I accept all the facets of myself, the more I can sit with other women, hear their stories, and celebrate all…
A return to knitting. I’ve missed it, although I have to admit my commitment has been somewhat erratic over the years. There’s two things I’m very good at: socks and ponchos. The miniature and the giant. Everything else is pot luck really. When our van was broken into, they didn’t just take things of value but also any bags lying around, probably because they were in a rush and mistakenly thought there’d be cash hidden in the bags. One of…
I‘ve been thinking of the ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ mindset a lot lately, but honestly – I don’t think most women are afraid. Fuck. We give birth, or don’t. Which is equally as brave. We hold communities together, or set out solo across the world. We love so fucking hard for so many people without fear. What holds us back, what keeps us ‘in our place’ is guilt. Guilt that we shouldn’t be: so loud, so large,…
Life in the van is a dream. It allows the space to connect with nature, and myself, and to write. It’s all I want. It’s definitely not the life for everybody because there’s the less-luxurious, nomadic side to this minimalist lifestyle that wouldn’t suit a lot of people. But for me, this way of living is perfect, and yet still, sometimes accepting this is harder than it sounds. The ego wants to get in the way: now I have the…
Sometimes when I write, I imagine the one person in the world who will hate what I’m about to say, then I multiply that into a thousand voices. Then I stop writing and go have a cry. It’s the same with vanlife. Some people get it, others don’t. I realise I’ve given too much energy in the past to justifying myself to people who have no intention of understanding of me. Not any more. Live your life. You don’t need…
Building a daily yoga practice has been a long journey. Some days it’s simply a run and stretches to connect breath to body. My arms aren’t so strong and I need to be able to get my ass up on that surfboard, but both my body and I agree on this so we do the work. Still these days I have no interest in the language of shred, burn or sculpt when opening dialogue with my physical self. I wouldn’t…
I turned 43 this year. I’d read that mid-forties is a difficult time as it’s when the ageing process becomes more noticeable. Ha. Fuck that. This year I’m learning to surf, spent a week living on my own in the van in a forest in Slovenia, and learned to love & trust myself more than I ever have done in the past. Maybe to some these aren’t massive achievements. We’re not the same – all needing different things from life…
All we need is love ?. I agonised over these last lines for what felt like an eternity. I worried that finishing a poem on the word ‘love’ might be a bit soppy in this context. Then I figured there’s more that enough love to go round when we’re prepared to share it out. I suppose this is how I‘m trying to embrace that. …
The more I travel and evolve, the more boundaries become apparent. Not just the physical borders traversed, but those that exist in the internal landscape. And a dichotomy arises wherein, as I champion dismantling all physical borders, I am also coming to understand the necessity of having strong personal boundaries. Odd how our species appears to adore things the other way around. Anyway I cannot get enough of these bright azure European skies that sing of sun-kissed afternoons & swimming…