nature

A day of meetings

| Sheree

Today was a good day for forward planning.

It’s good when you can have meetings with other people, particularly women, and find that you are on the same page and one idea leads to the next and the next and then before you know it you have a full year planned out with activities and events.

What was good about today is that the meetings were not for personal gain but were plans to share the great outdoors with others, the less fortunate, who might not otherwise have these opportunities.

It’s a good day when you can share what you love with others.

Launch Event

| Sheree

I was invited to the launch event of an exhibition bring the book Lost Words by Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane to life at the Sill this week. I’d seen the book and have admired the images, but I hadn’t spent much time with the text.

The premise is that generations of children are growing up not knowing the names of things in nature, or being able to recognise them. That this knowledge has slipped out of existence and this book was created as a way of recapturing the magic, bringing these lost words back to life. Such words and natural living things as bramble, conker and fern.

I had the most enjoyable evening talking to fellow visitors as well as hearing some of the spells within the book being read aloud. It was inspiring so much so that I intended to link into the idea of lost words, and lost worlds as I return this weekend to the Sill to facilitate a storytelling session about the multicultural communities from ether past who lived and worked around Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.

Fern

Fern’s first form is furled,
Each frond fast as a fiddle-head.
Reach, roll and unfold follows.
Fern flares.
Now fern is fully fanned.

Robert MacFarlane

Sleepless in a Seaside Resort ( sort of)

| Sheree

your body aches
as comfort evades you
your mind rummages
around dark recesses
doubling back into wounds

sneaky drafts seep through window panes along with the cries of seagulls
eyes gritty and sore, moisture absent

when will it be morn?
when this charade can be over
for another night?
when you can drag your body
towards the light
your consciousness
compromised and dull?

but it’s the best you can do
after sleepless nights
under salty cold air

Monday Morning Blues

| Sheree

After a weekend of play and a disruptive night of sleep, Monday dawned eventually bright. But my energy levels were low. I could have clung on to some Monday blues if I allowed myself to as that would have been easier. It would have been so easy to not do the school run and stay in bed. Why is it you can finally sleep deeply after not being able to sleep all night, just when it’s time to get up? That bugs me that.

Anyway in the process and progress of getting the kid ready for school and straightening the house, my self kicked in and thought I needed to do something to shift the funk. To shift my energy into the light.

School run down and then down into the bay for a quick dip in the sea. The sun was shimmering on the dark metallic waves. Calm. But my nerve endings and flesh and skin and bones were screaming as I entered the sea. The cold bitter and painful. But my mind was alive and sharp and grateful. I was now awake and smiling.

Add to this, once I reached home, a quick change into my running gear. And this was major for me. I haven’t been able to run for a few months now, especially after my operation. I had it on my list to start in the new year, but fear has been holding me back. The fear of not so much the pain of running. But the fear that the pain might stop me from running consistently and far from now on.

It was like starting from zero again. Couch to 5K was my training of choice and off I went with the first run of week 1. Every step I took, I was conscious of my back but it made sure that I focused on my posture as this could make or break this habit. So I want to start as I mean to go on with the right posture that supports my back which means engaging and strengthening my core. I like the sound of that.

So moving into Monday afternoon, I still feel tired after little sleep last night but I also feel proud of myself after conquering a number of fears today by recognising them, acknowledging them and then doing the thing anyway.

Looking forward to a better sleep tonight. I think I deserve it.