Dolce far niente

Not quite there yet, even though I did spend half an hour just lying on the grass in the garden of my family home looking at the clouds, like the man on the GEO cover. Doing nothing isn't easy for me. Hence my struggles with meditation, but I am getting better at it, though the phrase 'getting better at' surely must not be used in relation to meditation.

Relaxing with a book is different, second nature.

With a big part of my work being freelance, I always carry work with me and it is always on my mind, but luckily it doesn't feel like work most of the time, unless there is a deadline approaching fast or I feel stuck. I now have three weeks with no teaching, tour guiding, storytelling-assisting or arts admin, just the projects I am working on that are location-independent.

Being here makes me want to have a proper garden, something I could do where I live, to some extent, but so far it is limited to a few pots. I have been drinking lemon balm tea and water with lemon balm, and it may have shortened the lifespan of the cold sore I brought with me. All our meals feature something from my mom's garden, and we feed the outer leaves of lettuces to our neighbours' chickens.

I have done so much living the past three months, and my last few hours before catching the night bus to the airport were no different: I used to go to bed and set my alarm for midnight, but this time I was invited along to a concert, so despite my swollen painful lip I went, and I am so glad I did. It was We Banjo 3, and the gig was part of the Galway International Arts Festival. They were brilliant and so much fun. I bought their new album and drank brandy times three, perhaps my new favourite drink and cure-all. The ensuing journey was pleasantly tranquil and filled with memories and music from the night.

Drink the wild air

 Wool-dress-bikini-and-bare-legs weather (slippers made by my sister)

 A new book to look forward to

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air..."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

I've been following Ralph's advice. Some of the best swims of my life have happened in the last month or so. A couple of times I came into the office to find a printout with the tides on my desk; we have been timing our swims perfectly. Sometimes the evening light would add a golden-pink glow, and one afternoon the sea was wild and throwing us around, shaking out all the tension and mental clutter.

And I did get back to the easel (and the kitchen table for illustrations. I rarely use my desk. For illustrations I like to have everything piled on the kitchen table. I think I like looking at the vase of flowers and working in an environment of domesticity.). How I had missed painting. Life has been so full lately, in all the best ways, but I need to remind myself to feed every area, to maintain the equilibrium.

It has been warmer outside than in the house. I move back and forth between my blanket in the garden and indoors, where I am in the process of doing a summer clean before heading off for a visit home next week. Today my house seems even more dollhouse-like as usual as I have gained height (it really does happen) from an Alexander Technique session (thank you, Shane!). AT worked wonders for George Bernard Shaw, possibly adding years to his life, or so I am told. The best thing is you don't have to actively do anything, yet you notice a difference in how your body is aligned after imagining it lengthening and expanding. Whether I'll have the discipline to practise this regularly remains to be seen, as always...

 

What I need to get back to...

Completed artwork for this year's COLOURS Fringe Festival

Work-in-progress: A painting of our hometown for my sister and brother-in-law

...Making things. Last week my number one anxiety trigger was having neglected friendships and family; now it's not making enough time for art. For emergencies* a bath with Epsom salts and lemongrass oil, accompanied by a hot toddy (yes, at the end of June), will help. This was tied in with the desire to stay up late and draw, but my bed seems more appealing now after the bath, and I know I will give in. 

At the moment my brain doesn't feel very creative. My friend and partner in all kinds of creative endeavours Rab wrote a lovely piece this week on how playing with his kids gives his brain a rest, and a rested brain becomes "open to more ideas". On a related note, there was a fantastic live broadcast from the current Matisse exhibition in the Tate in the cinema recently. I loved the 'play' aspect to the creation of his exuberant  cut-outs, so poignant when considering that he made them when and because he was very ill and no longer able to paint. It makes so much sense, this final burst of colour and celebration of life and giving visual shape to memories (inventing a new medium in the process. There was also an interview with one of my heroines, Françoise Gilot... but I digress). The play-and-work and work-as-play topic keeps coming up for me, but it's time to put it into practice more often. Ideally any form of art-making feels like play. I certainly had fun creating the festival artwork!

* a slight exaggeration. I'm fine.

That was a long break...

The weeks are whizzing past me, and I am slowly working my way through an impossibly long To Do list. I haven't shown up here because various work projects have included a lot of time spent creating and managing websites and social media and volumes of e-mail, so when I wasn't working I wanted my eyes to look at green trees and the expanse of the sea, or anything that was not a screen.

There have been so many big and small changes - both in my work and my personal life, all positive for the last two months -, and I am still adjusting to the new rhythm. It continues to elude me how people who work full-time and have families look after themselves and keep their energy levels up. I seem to need a disproportionate amount of time to myself and an early night at least three times a week in order to function, and I am responsible for myself only. I know it's a HSP/introvert trait to be so easily overwhelmed, but there have been too many mornings (especially after working late and/or socialising) spent sitting around in a daze with aching muscles trying to muster the energy to step into the shower. I know a lot of people who would see that as luxury me-time they would kill for, but I just think of all the things I could be doing and the seconds ticking away.

Last week it struck me how much of the low-level everyday anxiety I have been feeling is fuelled by neglecting friendships and not phoning home enough, even when that neglect is not one-sided. So now I am surrounded by half-written letters and cards and e-mails in my draft folder. And of course I acutely feel my sister's absence after her three-month stay here. We had a little farewell party at my house, and Galway Bay put on a spectacular evening sky with a lot of pink and a rainbow. A friend took the photo above of us three sisters in the twilight, and due to the latter and also because I enlarged it from a small photo it physically possesses that blurry nostalgic quality that I have already imbued it with in my mind.

On a less emotional note, my inner minimalist is delighted with Dr. Bronner's liquid soap and its multitude of uses (I haven't tried it as toothpaste or for washing the dishes or laundering clothes yet, though all that and much more is possible). It had always been on my radar, but since I generally prefer soap bars, I never bought it until a couple of months ago. It works really well as a facial wash, and you don't need moisturiser afterwards. I love travelling light, so this, the smallest bottle, will serve as a one-in-all on future trips, and I will get a large bottle for at home. I was going to dedicate a whole post to this soap, but then India Knight reviewed it for the Sunday Times, so I will just quote her: "Come the apocalypse, you want a bottle of this about your person.". Yes!

Breakfast table book*

 

 

"Over the years Lucian's breakfast varied from pains au raisin to porridge to scrambled egg and toast, Sally and David always wanting to make sure he ate sufficiently and healthily, as he had a very sweet tooth. Lucian would often take a bar of home-made nougat from the shop's shelves as he walked in, sometimes jokingly slipping it into his pocket like a shoplifter. With a murderously sharp black-handled kitchen knife, he would slice it bit by bit, offering up slivers." 

(Greig, Geordie: Breakfast with Lucian, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2013, p.4)

While Breakfast with Lucian (a birthday present and perfect companion to this) is, of course, about so much more than what Lucian Freud used to have for breakfast, I admit that I am almost obsessively interested in these glimpses into people's habits and choices and the minutiae of everyday life. The internet may be awash with look-at-what-I-had-for-lunch-type photos and blog posts and facebook updates, and a certain cynicism has evolved in response to this, but both in fiction and non-fiction I am always pleased to see references to food or other domestic routines.

P.S.: My own breakfast varies, but my breakfast table tends to include multiple beverages, blueberries and coconut oil (the latter on toast and in coffee), and occasionally there is cava and roses - keeping the tradition of the Sektfrühstück going!

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*I did not actually read the book while having breakfast - mindfulness and all...

Tranquility

 

The response to what I pondered in my last post is shingles in my eye and a kidney infection. That's what I got for a lifestyle and tempo of said lifestyle this introvert was unable to maintain for long. Or maybe it had nothing to do with that, but was a delayed reaction to the upheaval of recent months. Whatever the reason, I obviously need to remind myself that one day every week must be a blank in my diary set aside for doing nothing (doing nothing may include reading, running, swimming, meditating, baking, cooking, organising and a whole lot of other doings, but I have to be on my own for most of it or in the company of someone similarly disposed).

I managed to continue with the teaching, as well as going on -relaxed, inspiring- day trips to beautiful corners of the world, so today was the first day I was able to work from home and take it easy. Stillness is in order, and it is easy to attain in a house filled with beautiful flowers, among them the sweet scent of hyacinths, and with my own little assistant-sister who just made me dinner.

As a soap bar enthusiast I always get ridiculously excited when I try out a new one, and this Brigid Soap with its intriguing ingredients is extra special because it was a gift from my older sister, who presented it to me in Brigit's Garden, with a touching explanation of why she had chosen it. My aura expertly cleared after using this in the shower, I am now sipping tea made with cayenne pepper and lemon and envisaging a wild Friday night bedtime of 8pm. This is exactly how I used to live.

Shades of pink

Early morning swim

 Easter baking

 Tiny sketch attempting to capture early morning light during swim

 Bouquet drying

 

Stopping to say hello to all my neighbours during a run with my sister

This must have been my longest absence here so far. A lot has happened since my last post, and maybe even more has not happened. I tend to be cryptic about these things here, but I will say that being dumped for the second time by the same person within 20 months is tough, even if it was always going to be a lurking possibility after getting back together. This time I am more resilient (it took two weeks of hell, and the turning point surprised me, as I saw months of the same ahead. So, as a good friend said, "more painful, but shorter". Everyone was so supportive, and I realised once again how blessed I am with the people in my life - I owe them all big time).

As the cliché goes, a lot of good came out of it all, some of it still so new and strange I hesitate to believe it. I am now trying to catch up on sleep lost to tormenting thoughts waking me between (always) 2 and 3am, going back to running and swimming in the cold cold sea - the latter is so much easier at 6am when you are not fully awake yet than during the day. I am still reading Tara Brach and doing lots of things I haven't done in years, saying yes to possibly too many of them (no drugs, Mama!), and the HSP/introvert me will surely protest very soon, but so far it's all good and all change.

Usually I like to keep my weekends mostly unstructured and need a lot of time alone, but now there are so many plans (and people!), and my calendar is beginning to resemble that of an outgoing bundle of energy, a term that looks completely alien to me as I type it. On Monday I am going to an event in the Hungarian Embassy, and it is these kind of out-of-my-comfort-zone happenings that are making me excited about what lies ahead and rewiring my brain no doubt. My financial worries haven't magically dissolved, and I need to get my act together very soon to be able to support myself and my plans for the future and go back to that endless To Do list, but I am less terrified of what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles only a short while ago.