It has been a long time it seems since I posted here, seven months in fact. There have been many reasons but much has been expressed in those much abused words ‘circumstances beyond my control’. Much has been health related and much has been about my bloody mindedness, which goes to show this woman has still much to learn.
The last few months have been as interesting as the rest but may lay claim as turning point, only time will tell. Following on from cottage and garden being flooding at the beginning of December and me having a mightily spectacular fall rather heavily on to concrete, there came the ‘delights’ of Bronchitis slipping in to bronchial pneumonia and a cough that has only very recently stopped punctuating every hour of day and night.
In to this mix came the usual appointments with neurologist and lots of scanning machines plus the many chairs in waiting rooms. All got a bit wearing and I am still to get any sort of sleep pattern that gives me sense of rest.
To top off the cake with a cherry on the top last week I saw my GP for our regular interchanges and mentioned something in passing…turns out that when I fell the beginning of December I manged to fracture my collarbone in two places which explains the burning pain in my neck and some of the explosive cracking I’ve experienced when coughing. Keeping everything mobile whilst putting as little stress on it is proving to be a ‘joy’, not, but tis time and patience that will let the fractures heal, a year to 18months physio and doctor think.
There have been moments when it has felt more than a little overwhelming but in truth this has really also been a time of real joy.
My broken colour bone is complicating all physical activity which didn't really need any further complication but I adapt and swear in equal measures and muddle along. Any major garden work is out of the question because the garden is still a swamp but plenty to attend to in and around the cottage which will not leave me bored for something to do.
The chaos inside is wholly spread across every room; you know the syndrome you move one thing and a dozen others need moving!
I have adopted a sticker system - Orange sticker is something that I am keeping - at present, I know this may well change in the coming months, then Red stickers for anything I might be able to sell, Green for recycling or re-purposing, Purple to give to friends or charities and finally everything that doesn't have one of these stickers on will have a metaphorical Black sticker for binning.
I still feel very uncomfortable about the binning one, not because I can't throw anything away but because of adding to landfill, however I know that to create positive space for moving on with my life this is essential.
I actually have to be careful not to just get rid of everything, as if I was physically a little more able I know I would be tempted to do. Hence having the other stickers to add thought to the process.
I have set a goal that in the coming year I will have downsized barring the furniture I use in the cottage at present to the real things I need to live a simple but productive life in a much smaller space than my small cottage offers at present
It's interesting to be working towards downsizing as radically as I have decided this needs to be… I am talking about living and creating in a space no bigger than 30 feet by 6ft 6ins and all of that space will need to be multifunctional to say the least :0)
You may wonder why I have chosen such arbitrary measurements, it sounds like living in a corridor! Well I suppose it could be seen as that but it’s definitely more akin to a Tardis as not only could that space offer me home but also a window on new worlds and new places very close to nature. The space I have in mind is a wee narrowboat. Not only a corridor but one made of steel!
This is neither whim nor fancy as the truth is I may well not want to move from this place I love and have worked hard to honour and bring to life, from the roofless wreck it was when I found it, but understand I need to move because of the now strain of a 120 foot long garden to care for is more than a struggle.
The plain truth is that looking after myself, my ‘wee family’ and a cottage, even as small as this one is seen to be by many, is beyond the energy or ability of my body.
Then there are the financial considerations made all the more precarious because of a government who sees ‘the undeserving poor’ = sick and disabled people, as an element of their big society to be pushed to the edge and if possible given a final shove to disappear beyond sight forever.
I don't say this in any defeated kind of way as though this growing awareness has been painful on many levels it has also been illuminating in such good ways that I really have found much joy in acknowledging to myself and to a few trusted others how much I need to change my living situation and what a mess the present one is in.
That any more intransigence on my part, I have come to feel, is not ‘just’ how it has to be because of A B or C but will slowly become wilful neglect on my part towards both the fabric of the cottage and the life / lives around the cottage in garden and hedgerows I have endeavoured to care for but also what could become all too easily the wilful neglect of myself.
What has slowly become apparent is that I am discovering a gift and sense of purpose I had not expected to find. On the practical side the idea of a narrowboat is not just about size, though if I do make that physical move it will be very much to the smaller end of the narrowboat fraternity. I do not see me swapping cottage for a 70ft all singing reflection of a ‘real’ home as some have become. Goodness knows being captain and crew on that amount of steel, even at between 2 and 4mph, could become a little more ‘exciting’ than I would wish to entertain.
A thirty foot narrowboat will offer me one level, in the main, living space plus level-ish towpaths for 'family' walks thus giving me means to explore a most beautiful area of the world up close... it may not be my own garden in sense of ownership but for me would certainly feel like a place I would be a steward of.
I can imagine becoming a seed bomber with soil balls wrapping wild flower seeds being added to the hedgerows, lemon verbena, mint and other herbs being planted near mooring points so that I and other boaters can pick salad leaves for the galley. A pair of secateurs, clippers and small folding saw always at the ready so that I may attend to overhanging branches and racing brambles on footpaths as I don't see that my life need be all about a steel box and its boundaries.
More profoundly I find myself feeling really drawn to the pared down way of living that a narrowboat life would involve and am coming to understand that even if I move to something else which takes me another five or more years to achieve that further simplifying and pinpointing the needs rather than the wants is the path to walk along in the coming days weeks and months.
I am not about to don sack cloth and ashes, go off to an ashram, in to a closed order of religious or into a hermits cave but I do know that to have a sense of sanctuary for the self I am now and will continue to become I need a pared down living space without the strictures of anyone else’s rules or self-imposed flagellation to impede or waylay the steady plod of my progress.
Much more importantly this 'steel sanctuary in nature' I have before me as beacon to light my way in this situation and signpost to what could become reality is means to remind myself that anywhere I live independently will still need my physical input, which will mean careful planning to use my energy well and gain help from others hands along the way.
Trying to tie up a narrowboat at the bottom of a lock, climb up some rather steep steel ladder to then winch a lock shut then open another, then leap aboard my boat to steady and steer it onwards is not something one person who is fit and healthy would be able to do up or down a flight of locks without being exhausted.
So the idea of ‘steel sanctuary in nature’ has helped me see more clearly once more that knowing and planning when there is need to ask and wait for help is there for my and others well being and safety as in truth that approach needs to be in place wherever I live.
A clarification and clear sighted acceptance is beginning to grow and as the fog dissipates I once again am embracing the reality for me that less really is more. That small living spaces have always given me more space and time for contemplation / in depth reading, whilst offering the immediate opportunity to know the Earth more closely by literally touching her soil with feet and hand as I walk in nature and nurture life in a pot.
Writing, weaving, playing with paint / pastels and print, sewing etc., as means to express some of what inspires me and leads me on in to further discovery is also a beacon that this pilgrim reaches out to and knows it is part of a life that feels heart and mind deep continuing to grow.
Seven months ago I wrote about memory here on this blog, something which I only know because I have just read that post and thought ‘Oh I still have that promise kept in my life’, a huge ray of light that has me sitting here with a broad smile writ large on my whole self.
The words I wrote seven months ago kind of thrilled me as I realised I can still write them as they are truth for the now as well as then.
It’s all too easy for me to say I live moment by moment and then forget it is what I do. Having physical and mental health differences through a life lived is surely the truth for everyone I suspect. However in my case that has been complicated, maybe I feel, enlarged for the better through ‘ill-health’.
As I work through this next year and the coloured stickers find their landing places, it can only be moment by moment but I also know that beacons, signposts and mooring points will all play their part.
That thoughts of narrowboat are about commissioning a narrowboat builder to build an off grid wee marvel, he has been found and conversation has started.
If this idea is to become concrete or should that be steel, it will mean selling cottage and living nomadically whist its built – in other words a step up from car and awning to van or shed… beware if you don’t use your shed a friend and two companions may arrive with fold out bed and chair plus wood stove suggesting a new use for it for a few months, cough. The only money I have is held in stone slate and mortar so purchasing another home has to involve selling the present one first.
Yes the nitty gritty of a life afloat will have challenges but I find a challenge something I need and at least at 2mph even I may manage to keep pace :0)
I will close with the words I wrote 7 months ago as they seem fitting to mark another step, another moment.
“I will stop purposely through each day to realign and centre myself with the Earth having my own rituals and rhythms that support and encourage me to continually be reminded that I made a promise to myself and another that it was going to be full participation or nothing and is a bedrock that has helped me to live as independently and focussed as I can.
Even when chaos reigns in a somewhat fried brain and well used body, cough; the holding of a string of beads and Earth petitions said, even if I more often than not need to read them rather than bring them forth from memory, lets me touch my heart to the Earth and know life is precious.”