Author: kathleenjowitt

Day 6: Memories are made of this

“True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.”— E.S. Bouton

Which memories from this year do you wish to keep with you always?

3267 features quite heavily:

A very early morning, chilly and excited, chugging up an all-but-deserted A3 at 25 miles per hour, with the silver birch trees casting long, long shadows in rose-gold light, serving coffee from a thermos in a rag-tag collection of plastic mugs. And the delighted grin of the lorry driver overtaking us, not quite believing his eyes.

The long drive to Cheltenham for the Bugatti La Vie En Bleu weekend, on a hot, sleepy, June day that stretched into a drowsy, perfect evening. The back of the bus to myself, wondering which particular rattling noise was the one that had everyone so – rattled. Standing on the back platform and smiling at the cars passing us. Eating salami and French bread in a layby. Listening for all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. Fish and chips in a pub, and watching the last rays of the sunset striking Bredon Hill.

And the next day: sitting in the bus, with scores of beautiful old cars screaming up the track behind us, and the smell of grass and oil and warm leatherette. Just for a moment, nobody on the bus to tell about how it was built in 1935, and ran in Paris until 1970 when my father bought it straight out of service, and how all the smokers had to stand on the back platform, so that was always packed and the saloon was always empty, how the spare seat in the cab is probably for an army officer in the event of the bus being requisitioned, and how the lever on the back platform is an emergency handbrake in case the driver collapses – but, at the moment, none of that. Happy people and hot coffee and this is what we are for.

Earlier in the year, trundling nervously around and around Woking park, determined to get the hang of cycling on two wheels, and, every time, passing a brilliant yellow crocus growing between the roots of a tree, and being startled by it every time.

Singing I Was Glad at Sarah and Rob’s wedding. Dancing to Call Me Maybe at Jim and Val’s. Laughing at Sarah’s inspired choice of postcard for me (we all had book covers; mine was The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism.)

Of late, pelting home from Evensong on my scooter, the pavements deserted and the air pleasantly chilly and the thrill of speed.

The interview for the job I didn’t get, which I think was the most enjoyable one I’ve ever had.

And this one: on the M25, Tony driving the in-laws’ car back to them after the move. A CD of hymns (from Ely, I think) on the stereo, a showery day. A rainbow over Heathrow, and planes flying over it, under it, through it, and then: Tell out, my soul, and the two of us putting in the pom pom pom pom, and smiling.

What was the greatest risk you took in 2013? What was the outcome?

I don’t know, yet. At least, I have my ideas about the greatest risk, but I won’t know the outcome until well into 2014. Perhaps longer.

This whole autumn was about risk. I had a choice of risks. Risking my career, risking my marriage, risking my sanity. (I’m not sure that’s hyperbole, either.)

I have a feeling that it looks from the outside as if I chose to risk my marriage rather than my career. I chose to keep doing my job. I chose to stay in Surrey while my husband moved to Cambridgeshire.

As it turned out, I got the mythical ‘something in head office’ and my job moved to London. As it turned out, I’m still in Surrey and he’s still in Cambridgeshire. We’re hanging on until April or May. All the while, it’s a risk.

I am happy in my own mind that it is a justified risk. I am pretty sure that chucking in my job and starting over again with temping in a new city would have been disastrous, for my mind and for my marriage. I am enjoying my new job and the associated prospects of career progression, although I haven’t yet adjusted to the length of the commute and the size of the workforce. I am happy with this risk. I don’t think I could have done anything better with what I had.

But.

But I still don’t know how it’s all going to turn out.

Day 4: Grieving

This past year, we have all experienced so much loss and experienced so much grief — in relationships, through sickness and death, from mental illness or abuse, because of finances, even due to the need for healthy change.

What have you lost, what are you grieving?

Today, the answer that is screaming to me is, Guildford. And by Guildford I mean the Guildford office, and by the Guildford office I mean the people in it. It has been three days at HQ, and today was the day that I finally got my head around the idea that I wasn’t going back to Guildford. (Which makes sense. I have previously worked at HQ for two consecutive days, but never three.)

I said I would miss them all horribly, and I am. The interesting thing is that when I said that, I had no conception of what missing people actually feels like. (Similarly, I said the commute would wear me out, and it is, and I had completely forgotten what fatigue is actually like.) I have been thinking things like, right about now somebody will be making a detailed plan for surviving a zombie apocalypse, and the rest of the team will be standing around pointing out the flaws in this. Stands the church clock at ten to three? And is Laura asking who wants tea?

I am playing with the idea that I am leaving, not losing, these people. I am remembering that moving on was necessary, and that it will have been what I needed to do.

I’m going to the pub with them next Friday, and then the Friday after that.

Going backwards – I am not grieving for the Woking flat. I might have expected to, had I known I’d leave it this year, but I’m not. It was four years of my life, four good years, but the end was sour, and exhausting. I do get a little twinge of nostalgia when I pass through Woking on the train, but I’ve moved on from there fairly painlessly.

And Melbury – my father’s too large, too crowded, too ruinous house. No, I don’t miss Melbury. Brigitte, gone to Nigel. She was going to be my bus, but I don’t need a bus. Nigel will look after her far better than any of the rest of us.

Other people’s grief: not mine to talk about, so I shan’t.

Way back at the beginning of the year: Cousin David, who will be resting in peace and rising in glory. That grief is done, and good things happened. Cousins I didn’t know. The assurance of the validity of my own spirituality.

Leaving, not losing. Loving and letting go.

Day 3: Listen to your heart

Each day for 31 days, I sat quietly for a few moments with my eyes closed and my hand on my heart and asked, “Heart: what do you need?”

Try this today. What does your heart have to tell you?

This is a very short answer. Usually I would keep this sort of exercise to my own paper journal, for fear of the entire internet showing up to laugh at me.

But I have been out drinking wine and eating chocolate with the church yuppies (well, we’re not yoof) and am feeling pleasantly melancholy and uninhibited, and here it is:

free

Apparently my heart didn’t think the answer needed to be a noun. Or to have capital letters. Nor am I really sure what it’s referring to. But there it is.

Possibilities include: the feeling I have of having been backed into a corner with regard to moving, career, etc; a long-running crush; attempting to do this exercise on the 1730 off London Waterloo.

Or it could be it’s none of those. I will find out. Or I won’t. We’ll see.

Day 2: Nourishment

The way we nourish ourselves determines our ability to shine our light in the world. And nourishment doesn’t just come in the form of food and drink and sunshine; it’s equally important to nourish your spirit.

What made your soul feel most nourished this year?

If I said, the sacrament, my parents would probably disown me, and I can’t help feeling it’s a bit of a smart-arse answer, and I am still not quite High enough to be entirely comfortable saying that. And yet it is true.

I have become particularly aware this year of the way my faith has changed over the past few years, the way it has become less about what I believe and more about just being there. And how by ‘just being there’ I mean both the actual physical turning up, and the intense conscious mindfulness that I attain for maybe ten seconds. How it requires less effort and more heart. How it is less defensive and more loving. And a lot of that is about there being something that is real and true even when my brain is not working or my heart feels dead. How, while everything is real, this is the most real thing of all.

Just being there. Sitting with myself. Getting to know myself. Unravelling the snarls and the tangles in my history and my present. Pulling the stones out before digging the manure in. Or something like that. I have explored a lot of The Fluent Self this year, and that’s helped a lot with all this. Being kinder to myself.

(And then of course I will always say: music. Specifically, singing, which helps me get inside things like nothing else. And interesting things have happened there, recently, but I think I’ll save them for the moment.)

Day 1: On your first day

It is the first day of December. It is the first day of Summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, but it may the first day of Winter where you are.

It is the first day of Reverb13.

How do you feel, on this first day, in your mind? In your body? In your heart? In your soul?

It is the first day of Advent. It is the first day of the year, and it is the first time that I have begun my year here.

This is how things look on the first day:

I am nervous. I have left the safe and familiar and am starting something new. I am tolerably confident that I can make a good job of this, but it is intimidating. At the same time, my mind is singing at an immense compliment that was paid me this morning. I’m also nervous about my solo this evening, or, rather, conscious of the fact that I will be nervous, when I get there.

I am tired. Sleepy. If I were to get into bed, I would fall asleep. My feet, too: I’m aware of having walked, yesterday. I’m pleasantly full, of Spanish cabbage soup, and sour cream and onion flavour Pringles. There is a blister on my left little toe, which is a little bit sore when I wiggle it. I’ve had my hair cut, and the back of my neck feels very exposed. It’s a bit chilly generally, actually, but I will be going out in half an hour. The sun is going down behind the houses opposite, and there is a streak of flame running between two layer of thick purple clouds. But I’m feeling well: at the moment, my body is working pretty well and I’m pleased with it.

My heart is a little apprehensive, too. It takes me (or so I believe) a long time to make friends. I know that I am going to miss my old colleagues. I fear that I will lose touch with them, and also that it will take me as long to get to make friends with the new ones as it did with the old. Both of these fears are unfounded, I think. I am not the same person I was when I joined the organisation; also, half the office seems to be trying to meet up with me for lunch. I am missing my husband, who is nearly a hundred miles away. My heart is trying to love everybody, which is wonderful, but sometimes tiring and sometimes painful.

And in the middle of all of this, my soul is remarkably calm. Ready. Expectant. Aware of progress having happened, and being about to happen, and at the same time accepting itself as is. We had this hymn this morning. The last verse still makes me cry.