Blog number 87
I’m having a rethink, courtesy of a broken arm.
Enforced rest, a brain that hasn’t been behaving in its usual way and a body not currently operational as I knew it, are causing me to stop. And in the stopping to ponder.
The kindness around me has continued unabated and my dog is delighted to find out who is calling for him each day, waiting eagerly at the garden gate to greet them. My house has been cleaned, baking delivered and this morning my friend chopped vegetables as I made them into dahl and beetroot soup. As we chopped and stirred I found myself telling her much that she didn’t know about my life: my son’s sweetness and anger, addiction and sorrow; my husband’s pain from injury, shame and illness; the crises and challenges which accompanied us for 6 of our less than 7 years together. It felt a lot even to me and I know my story! 7 years on from the final silence I am pausing.
Breathing
I am stopping to breathe. I am bringing my attention, right here right now, to the small dance within, the quiet dynamo residing in my heart. I am remembering this is what brings me home to myself, what makes it possible to know contentment and peace, to feel breathed rather than ‘a breather’.
Committing
I have clients for supervision and I co-facilitate a professional supervisors’ group; I support clients through their dying or grieving and hold creative practice groups for bereavement; I lead a Threshold singing group and promote threshold singing more widely; I hold some funerals and a few retreats; I offer spiritual care at a hospice every week and write this blog every 2 weeks. While running a home, caring for a dog, participating in community, maintaining friendships and seeing my beloved family in Germany. Despite daily spiritual practice, eating reasonably well (and I assure you being clean, washed and presentable!) I am possibly neglecting myself in order to fulfil the very commitments I myself set up. I think it is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
And breathe…
Flowing
When my husband was alive we used to find inspiration from the river -since we always lived beside one. In our relationship, for example, we held to the principle that things unsaid were like silt in the river of love. If we wanted the river to keep flowing, then we had to say the difficult things which were getting in the way of love flowing. We managed pretty well, love always flowed between us. It still does. I like structure, it makes me feel secure. He liked trusting in the flow of things (which I sometimes thought meant fling by the seat of his pants!). We learnt from the river that both things were needed: river banks no water – dry; water no banks – bog.
I want to learn to weave, have impromptu days at the seaside, write short stories. My creativity arises out of spaciousness, rest, dreaming, play, not pressure and busyness. I want some flow but true to form I need to structure in space in both my diary and my head. I need to stop making a lack of busyness mean I’m not worth much and cultivate a trust which breeds patience and peace.
Blogging
What does that mean for this blog?
It might mean that I’ll be less disciplined about it plopping into your inbox at 7.30 every other Saturday morning. Maybe it still will or maybe it will be after 3 weeks and a new poem I’ve written (by the seaside) arrives with you somewhere in between.
What I’d really like it to mean is that it becomes a more co-created venture, at least some of the time. 87 blogs with my voice and now I want to hear more from you, have a sense of building community. The structure is here, the river bed and banks, now can you help me encourage the river to flow? I’ve made an offer to you to guest blog several times but as none of you have taken me up on it, maybe it’s intimidating. I’m sure I’m not the only one with an “I’m not good enough” refrain playing in my head. So instead of a whole blog, maybe once a month or every now and then I suggest a theme – or even better the theme comes from you -and you send me a couple of hundred words, a poem, a picture, whatever you are moved to send, and I share a mosaic of offerings.
Or, and this one feels juicy to me, I send you a blog/newsletter once a month and once a month I hold a drop in writing group – free for monthly supporters, a coffee or two as a donation from others. We write together on a theme or issue arising, and afterwards you send me some of your writing which becomes the content of the second blog.
Or…or…
Opening
I am absolutely open to other ideas from you: what would you like? What would serve you as you navigate grief, think about your mortality, love your dear ones and travel through this precious though often unpredictably difficult life? If anything – maybe you’ve heard enough?
Please do write to me with ideas, suggestions, questions, themes, desires, anything else you’d like to express.
Responding – PLEASE
Please do write to me here.
I look forward so much to hearing from you.
With my love,
Nickie
Buy Me a Coffee
I have written 87 blogs now and for the last 50 plus many of you have gifted me through Buy Me a Coffee. I felt shy to ask you initially, but I cannot tell you how much it warms my heart to have £5 drop in here and another £5 or £10 there. You don’t pay me for my writing, you gift me for what I offer and to me it feels as if our shared currency is love. Thank you so much. I am open to receive your love any time you feel like sharing it! www.buymeacoffee.com/nickieaven