Front doors and back doors...
... for Knots in the String.
‘Open the front door and the back door of your mind. Allow thoughts to come and go. Just don’t serve them tea.’ Zen philosophy.
So simple...
But my mind is a rabbit warren. A labyrinth. A thousand-piece jigsaw with pieces all jostling to be put together into some meaningful pattern.
They say women can multi-task better than men.
Perhaps they can.
After all, it was always the women through history who kept the home-fires burning, who nurtured and grew a family and, when the men were off hunter-gathering, pillaging, serving their lords in some meaningless slaughter, they managed the humpies, houses and estates. Even, as history tells us, being mothers and monarchs all at once.
My mind gallops along as fast as anyone-else’s, so maybe I’m multi-tasking. All I know is that with time outdoors or with a practice such as gardening, embroidery, meditation, even swimming, I can slow the tempo. It allows my mind’s front and back doors to open and thoughts to drift through, hopefully without stopping.
So I appreciate the rich Virgin-blue of a forget-me-knot, or the acid yellow tint and delicate structure of hoop petticoat daffodils. I feel silk cloth or wool-felt beneath my fingers and hear the shush of fine silken thread as the needle pulls it through the fabric. I hear birds or waves during meditative times, but it’s a distant mantra, a harmony that serves to enhance rather than detract.
When swimming, I’m in a watery bubble where there is nothing but rhythm – no thoughts, just swimming. Me and the water, and white rippled sand. I float and close my eyes, and there’s the gentle tic-tic-tic which is the song of life beneath. Listen one day if you can, immerse your head right under and just sit there – it’s the most defining thing in the ocean. Humbling – like looking at a vast pricking, glittering heaven on a black velvet night and realising that you are just one mote of dust in all the universe and so really, what do your thoughts matter?
My kayak is also about rhythm – balancing the vessel on water, cutting through the wave or across the silken surface of a calm sea. Then it’s just port, starboard, port, starboard – the rolling of shoulders, the slight twist of the midriff … at peace. Pacific gulls soaring across a wave top, cormorants up-tailing and diving down, sometimes seals lying half on their backs, one flipper up like a sign that reads – Do Not Disturb. Dolphins – ah, dolphins. Those eyes – wise and all knowing. And the grin that says, ‘All’s well…’
Not a thought about ‘stuff’.
‘Stuff’ that races around our minds like Christmas crowds in a shopping centre.
I’m more than happy to open the front and back doors and let things pass through.
I always remember a close friend’s philosophy on summer flies: ‘Open the doors and windows and they’ll fly in. And out.’
Same thing, I guess…
My Time:
Two ballet classes a week currently.
An afternoon tea not just to celebrate the life of Her Late Majesty but to learn a small goldwork piece – the little design of which is a silhouette of the late Queen.
Childminding – a lesson in gentle naïvete and simplicity.
Walking, walking, walking with the terrier – beach walks, coastal walks, bush walks, street walk – with doors wide open.
At night – stitching with doors ajar…
Wordsmithing has taken place and it was really special to receive a compliment from highly respected essayist and commentator, Ramona Grigg, from Writer Everlasting
and The Constant Commoner
on Substack. I’ve found Ms. Grigg’s backstory, her words, her views so interesting and when I finally plucked up courage to comment on one of her posts, she took one of my comments and lifted me to the clouds and back with her response.
It’s strange, isn’t it, that complimentary words from writers, academics and readers mean more than one’s book sales? It’s validation for one’s creative vision and cerebral effort, I suppose. In addition, I can copy and paste compliments into a word doc and file them away in my memory box for posterity. The money from sales? In this day and age it vanishes.
Probably out the back door…
Reading:
As mentioned elsewhere, I finished The Offing by Benjamin Myers on audio. Thus far my personal Book of the Year. I’ve been so charmed by it that today I purchased a paperback copy of it to have forever. I also purchased a paperback copy of The Outermost House by Henry Beston which I’d had on Kindle. Sometimes there are books you just have to possess in your hands so you can refer back to pages and paras when there is a need. So it is with these two.
My next audiobook is Graham Norton’s The Lives and Loves of He Devil. He had me at Chapter One – Dogs. Now at Chapter Six - Men - and he’s had me in stitches!
Watching:
More of The Durrells. I’m re-watching because in their first release, I never actually saw all the series in their entirety, just bits and bobs. I’ve always been a huge fan of all Gerald Durrell’s books and his visionary philosophies, so watching this delightful spin-off is heart-warming.
Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig. STUNNING! I’m lusting after escapes where I can sink onto a window seat and write. This despite the fact that I actually have my own window seat with a view.
My seat is covered in a blue marle textured fabric and has plump camel and white striped cushions to lean against. Outside, the garden drifts through its seasons, currently spring with blues and yellows. In summer it will be greens and whites with large agapanthus blues and whites outside the windows. There’s the coast a 2-minute walk away and so I hear the breezes and the waves as I type.
Perhaps then, Toksvig’s escapes are just the grass being greener. What do you think?
Listening:
As an amusing step sideways, when I’m sick of the TV and want just music, I flip to Pop Desi on SBS Radio – I’ve actually found I really love contemporary Indian music. It’s kind of mesmeric.
I’ve also been listening to the podcast Rock Paper Swords – with Matthew Harffy and Steven A Mckay. Particularly the one with Bernard Cornwell who is one of my icons. Matthew and Steven feature many of the world’s historical fiction writers, so it’s great listening if you’re a fan of the genre.
AND, just so you know, I’m appearing on RPS with the chaps on the 7th October – just a heads up! And how cool and what an honour to appear only a week or so after the great BC! I warn you, it’s not at all a serious disembowelling of the craft and genre. I had fun.
So, as you can see, life goes on, doors close and more open. It’s the way of life. Didn’t a famous Austrian Mother Superior once say, ‘When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window?’
Talk next week?
Toodles…