I begin to think
about what I can resolve to do and about what I have resolved to do in previous
years and never did.
It’s all got to
start in the heart – and that is where my problems lie. I try to change an
outside thing and hope that the heart catches on. If it begins in the right place,
in the heart, it will work its way out.
I’m not entirely
sure I want to go poking about with my insides – my thoughts, my feelings and
emotions. It frightens me. The worms are best left undisturbed in the tin.
But.
I am discovering I’m
not indestructible. Winter, life-wise, is coming. Daylight hours, life-wise are,
are short. I want to live well while I am still living and not merely survive
or exist. How does a person live well? What does it even mean?
The fridge magnet
has the answer. “Live like someone left the gate open.”
I spend too much
time fretting about what might come through the open gate – something that
spoils life’s flower bed or stomps over life’s manicured lawn.
The gate left open
is for walking through. It’s about having adventures and taking risks rather
than playing sate.
Of course, it all
takes courage and as I look into my heart I wonder if I have enough.
Thursday’s writing class was about renewal, or recovery
or rebirth. There was just the four of us. Four of us sat around the table,
pens busy.
Last year, or the year before that, or maybe many years
ago, a friend and I didn’t so much as make a resolution, nothing official,
nothing that required a hand on the Bible and a solemn declaration – just musing
really. We thought it would be a good idea to do something new, something we
had never done before, an adventure into the unknown, if you will. It wasn’t a
communal thing we planned to do together, just something on our own.
I am very proud to say that I did three things. Three
things doesn’t sound a lot but for a person who has built her life-house in a
rut, that’s a lot. Maybe I wouldn’t have
done the three things if I hadn’t retired. I fight a hermit gene. Sometimes I
win. Sometimes I lose.
Knitting – I joined
a knitting group called Knitter-Natters. My husband assures me that there is
another group called “Stitching and Bitching”. I used to knit a lot. Most of
what I wore, once upon a time was home made. I knitted and I sewed. In some
ways it’s not a new thing.
I’m loving being part of the group though I don’t natter
much. It takes me a while to settle in with new people. I have knitted a
variety of scarves over the last few months and I have been to more wool-fests
that my bank account can deal with. I bought a sock kit. I have never knitted
socks before or used a set of double pointed needles.
“Can I make a suggestion…?” said one of the ladies and the
needles were tamed.
Art – There
have been times when I have looked at a landscape and wished I could paint it.
Yes, I paint with words and what I produce sometimes is stunning.
A friend contacted me to invite me to an art class he was
planning to run. We had met through poetry
events that stumbled through graveyards and forests.
Art was beaten out of me at school. It was in the days of
still life. I shifted over to a more craft based class and spent a year making
a fibre-glass tray. It turned out that I was allergic to fibre-glass. Hands
swelling and turning red and itchy did not do me any favours. So, yes, art and
I had a dodgy past.
We fell in love – art and I. I discovered colour and texture and marvelled
at the world as if I had just opened my eyes. Forget about still life –
although a mug and lemon turned out fine.
I loved it. The bank account coughed up for paint and paper and a host
of art related stuff. Between knitting and painting the housework never got
done.
Walking – What’s
new about this is who I’m walking with. The Scottish Waterways Trust has recently
started up their winter walks. They are not long journeys, an hour and a half,
with a tea break in the middle.
I don’t often walk in company. I have a fitbit which
kicks me out of the house to notch up steps, so I do walk often. Sometimes in
the New Year we plan to get a dog and dogs need walks.
The lads and lasses at the Waterways Trust plan out the
routes. Getting people outside and into nature is a good thing. We are, as a
species, becoming less and less at home in nature, and, sadly, more and more suspicious
of it. All the remedies for all the ills we experience come in small bottles
filled with pills. Nature has the better cure.
The walkers are all shapes and sizes. There’s no rewards
for first up the hill. Things are out there to touched and handled, to be
picked up and smelled. Last time there
was a tree trunk, fallen over, that just had to be walked along while someone
held out a hand to keep you balanced. Kid’s stuff? Playing? Yes, it is. As
adults we have become far too sensible and some of us have taken a road with
too few risks. It is good to rediscover the adventurer is us all.
My three things. I have made new friends through doing
them. I have also connected with myself in a way I didn’t expect.
The hermit gene has taken, perhaps, a fatal blow.
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