As if I wasn’t short of metaphor, it’s the morning after the deluge and the sun is glinting off rain-drenched fields… This is the scenery of my new outlook.
I’m in my new place but, somehow, an essence of me hasn’t quite caught up with the packing boxes and postal redirect. I don’t, of course, mean to be ungrateful – there’s much I feel hugely thankful for – opportunity, family, support, health and so forth.
And yet…
The eddies and undertows that, it turns out, were inexorably flushing me out high above the tideline of this particular beach are still swirling. It’s too soon – too difficult – to chart them. And, in any case, it’s the where are you now that matters most.
Here and now. It’s the only place – to overwork a metaphor – from which to calculate the vectors, plot the course, and set the sails.
Today, I’m navigating a route from existence towards living – by way of examination, actually doing what’s intended and, with a following wind, fetching up on the shores of purpose.
Phew, that’s quite enough of that nautical nonsense, but what does it really mean?
This is an out loud (or at least on-blog) commitment to take a step – every single day – towards finding the person I should be, who is living the one wild and precious life she deserves.
Quite clearly this involves paying better attention to the internal voices, and then knowing which ones are worth listening to and which ones are simply telling me to have another KitKat. And then, hearing the voice, knowing what it’s really saying and then, crucially, taking action.
It’s not just another acknowledgement that, important as self-care is, I don’t simply need to spend more time in savasana or inhaling something that smells of lavender. That’s, to hop back on the Good Ship Metaphor, simply setting the sails well and polishing the decks. Instead, whatever the storms and weevils in the flour, it’s about picking the right destination and heading there.
I’m sure it’s going to involve picking virtual fluff from my metaphorical belly button or Googling for apposite axiomata. Scroll on by if it’s tedious or verbose but, please, feel free to tell me to ‘get on with it’ as you go.
Every day (more or less) I’m going to tell you what’s on my mind and what I’m going to do about it.
What’s on my mind
I’m very pleased to have started (begun is half done, etc), I’d been turning over a way to do this for a while.
What I’m going to do
Keep going. I’ve already got a note for tomorrow’s! You lucky people.
A heart warming read, and a reference to one of my favourite poems! While you’re on the nautical, there’s also Ithtica:
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon- don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon- you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
the sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her, you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Translated by Edmund Keeley/ Phillip Sherrard
The poem is from http://www.cavafy.com
I salute you and wish you fair winds and safe anchorages.