We are what we are

For better and worse

Hello all,

In the last newsletter I wrote about being ill over the last few weeks and trying to be all zen and accepting the bug, and surrendering to all that is! I had moments when I really pulled that off. 

But still on Wednesday I found myself sobbing with my neighbour that ‘I just wish I wasn’t how I am.’ I wished I was someone different. I wished I was not the kind of person who gets every cold going and sinks into a pit for a month. I wished I wasn’t the kind of person who gets depressed. I wished I wasn't the kind of person who swings so high and low. I wished I was a steady, normal, person, who didn’t seem to make life so difficult all the time. 

Sometimes I wish I could iron myself out into a flat line. But then I remember that a flat line is the sign of death. 

And so I had a good cry, Gary* listened and nodded and made me dinner (he is on a batch cooking, money saving mission and is doing great) and I cuddled his dogs and the next day I woke up feeling well. Not pretend, ‘not as bad as I was’ well but proper well. Thank God. I needed the cry and the friend. 

And then for a few hours I was full of the joys of spring, everything felt possible again! Words flowed! By 4pm I’d crashed. 

Today I’m back at my desk, somewhere in the middle. A mountain of work to do, a blue sky out my window and a gentle acceptance that I seem to go through these cycles. 

My highs are high, my lows are low. I get very tired. Stuff impacts me, and sometimes that’s gorgeous and sometimes it’s a sh*t show. 

So be it. 

I am what I am.

We all are.

I have a friend who is fiery and it can get her into trouble. She wishes sometimes she could be more diplomatic but her fire is her energy, it stops her from tolerating things that are wrong and it always tells the truth. At its best her fire is a glorious thing.

I have another friend who thinks she is boring but her steadiness is her gift. She is always there. She remembers birthdays. She checks in. She is a rock for everyone in her life. She might not feel like she is the life and soul of the party but she is the soft place that people can go to land.

We all are what we are. And I guess that part of life is learning to accept and love ourselves and each other, in all our mess and beauty.

In the Autumn I went for a walk with Gary. The leaves were the most astonishing reds and golds and we were picking up leaves and looking at the intricate patterns on them. 

‘We can never make anything as beautiful as Nature,’ I said. 

He replied: ‘Darling, we are nature.’ 

And that stayed in my head. 

We are nature.

It reminded me of that Ram Dass quote that some of you might know: ‘When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.’

So I am wonky, tired, cold-prone tree who is twisting towards the sun.

I am nature.

And so are you.

OTHER THINGS I’VE BEEN LOOKING AT 

Thank you G for this spiritual approach to having a bad day - listen with the audio on. Very funny.

Thank you Sheila for this video with Frankie and Grace stars talking about women’s friendships. Jane Fonda is a friend stalker, apparently.

Happy birthday to Dolly Parton whose favourite phrase is ‘I’d rather wear out than rust out!’ What a woman.

What else? I read a Facebook post by writer Daniel Pinchbeck - about how New York has lost its soul. I wonder if city life is losing its appeal post pandemic. The prices, the constant hustle, the lack of space… I have certainly had times where I think what’s it all for? Why did I buy into this cramped and expensive way of life? Does the emperor have no clothes? But then I look out the window at the chip shop, go across to the cafe and say hi to Kem and Harry and work alongside Gary and Susan and my sister pops in and I know there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be right now. Speaking of which I liked this shared from the school of life:

And I also liked this from the School of Life’s Insta page: ‘It is friendship that often offers us the real route to the pleasures that Romanticism associates with love.’ And ‘In a better world, our most serious goal would not be to locate one special lover with whom to replace all other humans, but to put our intelligence and energy into identifying and nurturing a circle of true friends.’

This is an article about people feeling less ambitious. I wasn’t ambitious enough to read it the whole way through but I do like the writer and will come back to it. A real shift is happening in what we are valuing and what we want from life, I think.

I wrote in the last letter about Cariad Lloyd’s gorgeous book about grief. In it she talks about how our formal funerals are the product of the Victorian era, which was a reaction to the Georgian era. Apparently in Georgian England death was so common - they’d had a cholera epidemic that wiped out 50,000 people - there no place to put the bodies. Five corpses were put into each grave and with a bit of bad weather, bodies could literally start poking out from the ground! It was chaos! So then the Victorians came in and thought, we’ll sort this out. Put some order into things. They built huge out of city cemeteries and brought in the whole wear black, mournful music stuff, which we still do. But some people are rebelling now with congregants dancing to Another One Bites the Dust.

In other news: the dinner date is dead! People say it’s awkward, expensive and the whole ‘who should pay?’ thing is a gender role minefield. Apparently people are going swimming together instead! What?! Apparently you just get your body out there at the beginning in a ‘this is who I am, take it or leave it’ way. Fair play!

And look how much it costs to be single!

And there is going to be a movie version of Are you There God? It’s me Margaret, the Judy Blume classic. She reckons it’s better than the book.

This song is astonishing. Do watch to the end.

Also, here is another song that I love and which brings me great comfort.

Ok that’s it for today. Thank you for reading and being there.

Hope to see someone of you for a scribble tomorrow.

Love xx