The pen that squashed my creative voice

I’ve been writing a morning journal for the last two months, by hand, using a pen and flowing ink and scrawling my spider-scrawl across a notebook. It’s part of my new morning ritual and it’s a vital part, it empties my head for the day ahead. Takes the top layer off the chatter, tames the monkey.

But there is something that is strange to me that I can’t quite understand, and that is what flows when I’m holding the pen, compared to what flows when I’m typing with the keyboard. It’s like two completely separate voices. So right now, I’ve decided to experiment with my morning ritual and layer in this second journaling exercise, this time on my laptop. See what comes. Surely, as it was hard enough to fill the paper when writing directly into my pad, this flow would be completely void of character, information or, well, anything really.

But strangely it seems that once again, my fingers, when dancing over those plastic keys, are more tapped into a creative aspect of my brain. Already I can feel a different voice speaking, or rather typing. Already I can feel creative juices starting to thaw and flow within my mind, they’re stretching and waking up after a long winter. And they weren’t there with the pen. This seems completely contrary to anything I read about the artist being connected to the physicality of the pen and the paper.

This reminds me of a seminar I was in earlier this week, about screen reading versus paper reading. There, the idea was that people are more comfortable reading in the format that they learnt to read in. So, most people over the age of, well, about 12, learnt to read and write using the pen and paper. So that is their default format when reading and processing information. But today kids are learning to read on tablets and computers, so their preferred learning and reading systems in the future are likely to be digitally based.

So why then, am I, most certainly a digital tourist, foreigner, alien, able to tap into a more creative voice (in my opinion) when on the keyboard? One that lies dormant and disinterested when I pick up the pen?

Maybe it’s because of the physicality of typing? I have always felt more comfortable expressing myself when moving.

Maybe it’s the speed of my mind, and my thoughts are more easily accessible when my hand can keep up with them.

I don’t know. It’s strange to me but I’m relieved that I can access it again. It feels like a release, meeting back up with an old friend.

And I was getting a little bored of listening to the action replay of my day in my journal, which the pen was affording me. This is much better.

Liverpool Street

Waiting on the platform, ice cold air snakes through my clothing.
Retreat to the corner of a snug coffee shop.
Balancing on a high wooden chair.
Fridge is humming. Something is humming.
Sweet and strong liquid and a trail of heat on the roof of my mouth.
Coffee breath.

Wake up world

This week has been all about getting up at 6.30am. It’s been much easier for some reason (must be hitting the right point in my sleep cycle to wake up). The big test was my Saturday morning. My blissful lie in morning. Well, it’s Saturday, and I’m up. I got up at 6.35 (5 minute lie in), came downstairs, wrote in my journal, and then I just had to get outside. The sun was rising, the sky lightening, and I wanted to go for a walk.

It’s so magical walking early in the morning. I’ve written about this previously, usually when I’m on my way to some exotic location and I have to be up early to get the bus to the airport. But today there was no ulterior motive. It was simply to enjoy the sunrise. Or to enjoy those first moments of the waking world, when there is no one around. Just me and the birds.

So I took a walk, around my neighbourhood. It’s still relatively new to me. I am used to walking the familiar routes between my road and the high street, the bus stop, the supermarkets. But I’ve never really walked further than a few streets over, so today I just walked, basically where my feet took me, but largely towards the sunrise.

It was a crisp and misty morning, so the sunrise was more of a gradual lightening and pinking of the sky. The mist gave a surreal but mysterious quality to my walk. The bird song was incredible, all sorts of squeaking and sqwarking as territories were claimed on electricity wires and eves of houses. I followed the maze of streets and then took a footpath along a path, discovering recreational grounds and churches, and allotments and graveyards. A couple alleys lead me deeper into a maze of older stone buildings. A few upstairs lights on, steam chuffing from house pipes, the world is waking up.

I was fascinated by the different types of houses, it’s a chance to really look at the buildings and take your time observing your surroundings. Interesting things in people’s front gardens, strange creeping plants along the side of the road. Bright red berries littered on the path, dew drops hanging heavy on bushes and branches.

The beautiful gift of a new day.

Gradually, as I walked, I could see the light blues and pinks emerge from the misty morning sky. The once very occasional whoosh of a car, and brief flicker of headlights in the mist, then became more of a constant rumble. The sounds of humanity were starting to drown out the sounds of birdsong. The moment was over, it was time for me to turn back down those alleys and head for home…

Early bird 2: Searching for the worm

It’s been my first week of attempting to get up early. In order to make this work, I know I need it to be a gradual process. Building a habit takes time (allegedly 21 days), and the last 7 days have been a challenge.

I decided to take it easy, not bursting straight into my ideal 6am, or “the” ideal 5am (shock, horror), and to just get up when the alarm goes off at 7am. You’d think it would be simple, but no, this was really hard.

I did OK for most of the week, it started slipping to 7.15 by the end. This is years and years of habit that I’m trying to unlearn.

Then came the weekend. I didn’t even think about the weekend. Saturday mornings, my most favourite time of the week. Lazily lying in bed with my husband, not feeling the need to do anything. It’s utter bliss. But no, in order to form a habit you need utter consistency, otherwise it’s almost impossible to trick your body/mind. This is where the link in the chain broke (apparently a new habit is a chain, and as soon as you break it, it’s like a broken link in the chain and you need to start again) – I got up both days at 8.30. And that was hard enough.

Still, once I was up it was easy. I come downstairs to my front room, probably the nicest room in our house (we’re renovating, look here for the blog on that!). The sunshine (when out) floods into this room in the early morning, which helps. Then I have my new morning ritual of 1. Making a cup of tea 2. Writing a page in my journal 3. Doing a ten minute meditation from the HeadSpace app. Well, number 3 didn’t happen during the week as usually after the tea and journal I’d hear the call from upstairs that the bathroom was free and to hurry up otherwise the bath would go cold (we only have a bath right now and only enough hot water for one go at it!). And so would follow the mad bath – clothes – breakfast dash before running out of the door for the bus. But this weekend has allowed me time to do point 3 and I feel amazing! It energized me, grounded me, and set me up for the day – and really shake off that morning-wakeup-lethargy spell that I’m always under in the morning.

So this is encouraging. I know that persevering with this is important. Perhaps the challenge this week has been that I’ve not woken early enough to do anything that I can receive instant reward from. I probably need at least 45 minutes on top of my normal wake up hours (and at least some time before other life forms start moving around the house) to reap the benefits.

So, despite the broken link, I am going to continue this week and attempt the 6.30 get up.

Early bird

I’ve got lots of plans for 2015, and due to a slightly obsessive planning streak I’ve undoubtedly been spending a disproportionate amount of time thinking about goals. I have three major ones for this year; the house (“Number 26”, which is such a big goal, I’ve decided to chronicle my adventure on it over here), nurturing my creative side by dancing more, learning to play my uke, and generally playing when I can, and running and evolving and running the New Year’s Resolution Club for 2015. But despite my big goals for the year, there is one elusive goal that has fluttered into my sights on more than one occasion and for some reason has always escaped me. The early rise.

I am most definitely not a morning person. But I would love to be one more than anything in the world. I’ve tried in the past to rise early but the call of the warm duvet suddenly turns up the dial on gravity and I am physically unable to swing my legs out of bed. It’s just never stuck. I am, instead, a night owl. Often staying up late into the night reading on my Kindle with my little light in the darkness, him on the pillow next to me groaning and rolling away “turn OFF that light”, as I retreat under the covers to keep reading…

I’ve planned all the things I’ll do in the morning. Time to meditate, time to stretch, time to dance or hoop, time to write, time to cook or prepare a breakfast (even just a boiled egg), time to enjoy getting ready in the morning, pack my bags, time to walk or cycle to work (rather than running to the bus). Time to get all those self-nurturing things done before I start my day. I do love the mornings when I am up, the serenity of it all. That beautiful stillness before the world properly wakes. And the sunrise.

So today I took a day off work, to get some of those things done that I don’t have time in the mornings to do, and I took one of my favourite strolls across the park to our local library. Here I piled books high into my arms before heading back to light the fire and settle down for a cosy afternoon. One of the books was Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold his Ferrari, as as I was flicking through the lessons, the book fell open at this page…

I’m taking it as a message. I can do this. I am going to beat the “Battle of the Bed” by putting my “Mind over Mattress” and, according to the “monk”, it will:

• Reduce my stress levels
• Give me more “me time” – doing the things I love (maybe NOT playing the uke or tap dancing!)
• Allow me to use my mind when it’s at it’s best (apparently!)

So the advice is to be patient – it doesn’t happen quickly – I need to give myself time, so I’m going to try this in February and see how it works out. It’s a new habit I need to allow to settle in. And it will be difficult and perhaps a little stressful, so I’m ready for that. I also have to be careful to not go to bed late, not read in bed, not eat after 8pm and not watch TV an hour before bed.

Phew. OK, here we go, the night owl is about to try and catch the worm….

Tales from Number 26. The roaring fire.

Baby, it’s cold outside. And inside. We moved into our new house just under 3 months ago, and there is a lot to do. It’s a project, a do-er upper, a one-day dream house. One of the reasons that we managed to secure a house with such potential on a fab street in our amazing city is because of all the work that needed doing. And that included a serious lack in central heating. So it’s been a fairly mild winter so far, we thought we’d got away with it, but the cold snap seems to be snap snapping at our heels at the moment, and the house is getting cold…

So, it was time to get the chimney sweep in, he came last week with his special sweep contraptions and cleared our two downstairs fireplaces, and then we hit the local junk shop to get ourselves kitted out with fire-building paraphernalia…

And since then we have been perfecting the roaring fire. With all the joy it brings. Chopping logs, drying logs, de-slugging logs. Building pyramids of kindling, stacking up the coals, getting the core temperature up, and then, watching it burn. It’s a beautiful, memorizing thing. We sit and watch it, literally for hours. The flames jumping and crackling up the chimney. That deep orange glow of the coals. And the beautiful heat that it brings with it, although not able to warm up the whole of the house, certainly makes our downstairs living room cosy. I can shut my eyes and feel the heat against my face, and transport myself to a sunny beach a million miles away, away from that cold snap and the long English winter.

Hibernation

It’s been forever since I last wrote a blog post. At least that’s how it feels. Nearly two months, I hang my head in shame. It’s not for lack of wanting to. I’ve thought about it a hundred times. There’s something happening. It’s winter. It’s dark, it’s cold, I’m slowing down and eating more. Wanting to curl up in a ball and hibernate.

I read an article saying that for some bizarre reason humans often feel the need to do EVEN MORE in the Autumn/Winter months (Northern Hemisphere!), it’s almost like a resistance to the seasonal change, an “up yours winter, I can keep going”, as we push harder at work, take on an evening class, rush around getting stuff done on the weekends.

We should, in fact, be listening to the seasons, and our bodies, and our minds. And hibernating. Or at least adapting accordingly (as much as I want to channel a hedgehog and curl up in a ball and sit under leaves at the bottom of the garden, I don’t think I’d get away with it).

So, for me, I’ve been getting home from work and relaxing, wrapping up in my blanket, putting my slippers on, eating the cosy food that warms me through, and having lovely hot baths before snuggling in bed. And. most importantly.. NOT FEELING GUILTY FOR DOING IT. At least pushing that guilt away when it comes.

So I’m trying.

Other things have been throwing a slight spanner in the works. On return from my most recent trip overseas, to the beautiful shores of North Carolina, I alighted the airport bus at a different stop on entering Oxford – why? We have moved house!!! Successfully whilst I was away (maximum kudos to husband, who will be able to hold it against me forever). So, we are in our new place (hurray!). And it’s a, er…. shall we say “do-er upper”. It is the single biggest reason that I have been shrouded in blogging silence for the past 2 months (honest). Well, that and the hibernation thing.

It’s a project. No central heating. No internet for a month (thank god that’s sorted now!). And pretty much every single room needs ripping out and replacing. Oh, and the garden was a jungle, which we have since massacred and discovered all sorts of interesting things in!

So welcome to our long term project. One that we’ll need to scrimp and save for. It’s super scary and super exciting and I expect it will become a reason for me to blog far more often as I work my way through my hibernation period….

Mum helping me tame the garden

Once the trees came down

I’m not digging any deeper!

Staring at the sea

Two days staring at the sea. Trying to read a book. Feet in the sand, wind in my hair.

With the morning come the dolphin pods, one, two, three. Arcing out of the water with their shiny grey fins.

As the sun makes it’s own arc from left to right of our ocean view, the water glitters in the bright sunshine, the wind bends the grass.

Today is filled with shell collecting, then painting on our wooden deck, then eating, then sandcastle building.

More staring at the sea. It’s addictive, it’s hypnotic. I see other humans doing it too.

With the evening come the pelicans, on their journey home from a busy day fishing. They pull back their wings and point their beaks at the ocean, a final plummet for a fishy snack.

The sky turns dusky blue, then orange, like it’s on fire, then pink and finally mauve.

Another day is done.

Dia de los muertos

Today I received an email through my work account, entitled “sad news”. That doesn’t happen very often, my heart started dropped as I scrolled the page. A colleague of mine, a wonderful, energetic, passionate young man with a fabulous zest for life and a young family, has died. No detail, of course, in the email, except that his family are asking for privacy as they mourn, and how we can send our condolences, and who we can contact if we need some support. It pushed the bottom out of my morning. The shock kicked in, the tears came, the head searching the heart for memories of our brief time together. I met him a couple times, those memories bright and full of joy in my mind. He was on the other side of the world living his very different life. He was a colleague, not really a friend, but in tragic times like this the wrapper of “colleague” falls quickly to the ground and I mourn him as a friend who I didn’t ever (or will ever) get a chance to really know.

Coincidentally today is also the day of my grandma’s funeral, back in the UK (I’m in the US on business at the moment). My grandma was an amazing wonder woman, living a full and fabulous life surrounded by family and joy, bringing all the fabulous things grandparents should into a grandchild’s life, right to the end, living to the ripe old age of 94 and exiting very peacefully just a couple weeks ago.

One of the inevitable things that comes with being longer on the planet is that death will start to dance around your feet more. People you hear of die, then people you know die, sometimes at a distance, but sometimes very close by. Over the last 4 years I’ve had a real education in death. From the extremely close and extremely tragic to the more distance and fleetingly sad, and pretty much everything in between. Death shakes you to the core, reminds you of your own short time on the planet, of the fragility of human life. It consumes you and plunges you underwater into a thick and intense place of emotions. But I also believe that it can teach us the greatest lessons about life, it’s cruelness, it’s beauty, it’s part of our condition, and the most important thing is to not fight it, but let it pull you down, be there, experience it, and when you are ready you will start the swim to the surface and take a deep breath of fresh air and it will taste different. Each death you encounter will change you, it should but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Celebrate the life that was there before, look for the lesson, if only that you are still on the planet, that you need to spend more time with the people you love, appreciate those in your world and take time to smell the roses.

Dia de los Muertos happens each year on 1st November, it feels to me like mine came a little early this year. A chance to celebrate those who have come and gone. I won’t forget those I’ve lost, whether close or far, but I also will celebrate the life that still continues. The world keeps spinning, it is a beautiful place.

New Orleans; my morning walk around the French Quarter

I woke up and it was still dark. Jet lag making me an early bird. Had an early breakfast of bacon, grits and fruit whilst the light came up. Then I took a walk around the French Quarter.

The heat was starting to build already, the air thick and humid, that humidity I love, a warm cloak, scented with flora but good old New Orleans, a few more steps and the acrid tinge of beer kicks in, passing a 24 hour bar, that zoo smell filling my nostrils.

I love New Orleans, I really do. For me it’s one of the most interesting cities I’ve been to. Shut your eyes and you feel like you are in South East Asia, the feeling of that heavy air on your skin, the intense sun baking your arms, the sounds of birds, the smells; sweet nature mixed with sour human. I know I’m on a swamp. It’s swampy. And I love that. But when you open your eyes your senses are assaulted. Neon, chinz, gothic railings, beaten wooden shutters, pastel houses, lush green creepers spilling over those balconies… half filled beer cups on street corners, left over from last nights’ frivolities (and EVERY night here has frivolities).

Each shop window (closed this early in the morning) is a window onto another world, colourful, sparkling curiosities peeking out from behind the glass. Galleries stacked with beautiful paintings sit alongside voodoo lounges, shimp dinners and ladies’ boutiques. It’s a smorgasboard.

So on my walk today I started taking photos with my phone. There were a lot of tourists (mostly American) taking photos with huge cameras and tripods and all sorts. But I suddenly realised I was too busy clicking… I wasn’t seeing, really enjoying the moment, so I put my phone in my back pocket and took time on my amble.

Then it popped into my head how wonderful it would be if my mum was with me now. She would love this place, this morning walk around this crazy magical town as it was just walking up. We’d amble together along the narrow streets, gazing at the beautiful old decaying buildings, each with their own story. Admiring the way the swamp still remains here, vivid green plants crawling up the walls, over the balconies, heavy dew in the air.

We’d look in those ornate windows with their eccentric displays, at multi-coloured jewels glinting in the morning sun, at the oddities in the voodoo shops, dolls and alligator claws and pots of potions. We’d hear the “clip clip clop” of an approaching horse, a man rides his horse and carriage by, he tips his hat, we’re transported back in time… I point at the gas lights, still burning on many of the corners.

We’d walk past the bright white cathedral by Jackson’s Square, blinded by the glare from the blazing sun that is already so hot. Looking down the line of fortune tellers, palm readers and tarot card mystiques lined up in front of the cathedral, we’d contemplate a reading… but instead we’d then decide to duck inside the cool Beginet Café to get our morning coffee and sugar dusted beignet instead and take a break from the kookiness of it all.

I really enjoy travelling solo, it allows spontaneity and it’s easy to be present when you are just with yourself and your thoughts. I do it more these days as work takes me to different places and I’m thankful for the opportunity. But I am starting to see more and more the joy of sharing places and experiences with those you love. One day mum, I would love to bring you to the French Quarter of New Orleans. If only for a morning walk and a beignet.