Writings from the Wherever

... from Nowhere

2012-01-26T08:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel as if I am nowhere: remote from all things, insignificant in this great universe.

Who am I? What is my purpose? Where should I be? Where am I going to? Questions roll around my mind as I walk my dog across fields that smell of cows and damp air, where crocuses push through, fooled by the embrace of a surprisingly warm winter.

I lean against a tree, bare and gnarled, stark against a grey sky. Kicking my feet in sodden mud, I wonder: what makes a person happy in life?

Is it enough to wake up each day and focus on finding something beautiful: golden sunrises, childish smiles, green fields, warm bread.

Is it enough to swing your legs out of bed and be thankful that you have the strength to walk, dance, speak, hold someone?

Oh to dance and hold someone each and every day…

Or is happiness more than that?

Sometimes I wonder if it comes with acknowledging that really we are just a finite object entwined entirely with the rest of the world, nothing more than a creation of nature, no different to a blade of grass, a patch of sky, an ant or a bird. To understand that this world we construct for ourselves, with all its complex needs, desires, wants and dreams, is not our core, but simply how we are fooled.

But then I ponder that to accept this is surely to accept that all our desires and dreams are ultimately nothing of any great substance and if that is so, why do they feel so all-consuming and real?

Perhaps it is simply the destination of nowhere in particular that brings me peace…

... from A Better World

2012-01-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning, pushed back the curtains and soaked up the view with a cup of coffee: winter reeds heavy with dew reflected onto still water as a slowly emerging sun cast its orange glow across every . single . little . thing.

Inside my heart glowed, too, and I felt warmed at the reality of a new day.

Little by little the boat became a hive of activity with dream-filled faces waking softly from their slumber to join me in the view. Coal was brought in, our fire topped up, the smell of coffee filled the air, cupcakes were baked in pyjamas and paints were joyfully splodged onto paper.

Some days, life is so painfully simple that it makes my heart skip a beat with pure joy.

Later, as the sun continued to push its way in and out of a sky weighed down with heavy clouds, I drove with my girl. We sang loudly, laughed heartily and appreciated the sight of a Cormorant spreading its wings majestically on a small patch of forgotten water. I smiled inside at the thought of how the tiniest things can bring so much pleasure to a day.

Then I turned on the news and heard tales of anger and hurt that sickened me to my stomach. I switched it off, but the words hung heavy, weighing me down. I feared that perhaps they would hold me there all day.

I don’t really make resolutions; life and habits evolve naturally for me, not on demand. But I do hope that with each passing year I have made further steps towards being a better person. I want to feel hat I have allowed myself to be filled with resentment and anger a little less, that I have tried to be neither cruel nor spiteful and that I have approached each day with openness and a kind heart.

But today I felt anger and sadness at the news I heard and I wondered ‘why? why dream of a better world, a better me? What is the point in trying to be kind when the world around us can be so cruel?’

At times I feel lost, desolate, pained, at the thought of a society so consumed by anger, greed and hate, that I forget all the wondrous moments and amazing people.

Sometimes I wonder ‘what can one person do to try and make this world a better place?’

All I can think of is to breathe through my anger, send positive thoughts for those living beings who have been so callously hurt and killed, and for the people who are so angry about everything and everyone that they are unable to feel love or compassion.

And I bake cakes in my pyjamas, appreciate the glow of a winter sun and do my very best to ensure my daughter grows up to love and care, because that is all we can do when we dream of a better world.

"During your practice of za-zen, do not speculate on good or evil. Do not attempt to stop your thoughts. Ask only this: Which is my own spirit?” ~ Rinzai Zen Master Bassui (1327–1387)

... from the Sky

2011-12-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

“Oh Mummy, isn’t the sky just beautiful today!”

I’m looking up and seeing cloud. Grey cloud. But suddenly, there it is, thin slivers of yellow breaking through like a shy smile, and just as I notice these small pockets of goodness my daughter sighs, “look at the gold mummy…”

And I realise that it’s me; it’s me that has put this in her, and as a mother I feel proud and good and wonderful.

Once upon a time ten years ago – or so – I was in a car with my then boss. The sky as we drove away from the office to a meeting was A M A Z I N G: great puffs of white outlined with pink, floating mesmerisingly along the treeline.

“Wow, look at that amazing sky”, I said in wonder.

“Are you serious?” he replied with a furrowed brow and curled lip.

Maybe that was one of the many moments I realised I was different. You see, I notice things. I notice trees that dance in Autumn winds. I sense the swaying movement of grass under my feet on a summer’s day. I feel the air of a coastal breeze deep, deep within. I’m always trying to take that moment of life and turn it into something beautiful, even when everything else is numb or empty or dead.

And I realise that this is what I can pass to my daughter, the most precious gift I think I have to offer: the ability to find joy in the simplest of things.

... from Solitude

2011-12-22T10:40:00.000-08:00

There are moments when no place can make me happier than solitude. Did I say that out loud? It seems I did, but of course I mean no malice with this statement, only that I am at one with myself.

In a previous life I found myself floating in great swathes of time where the world was mine and only mine, but in recent years the opportunities for solitude have lessened. And so now this happily-converted-family-girl grabs precious moments wherever she can.

Sometimes it is a state that can be achieved in the early morning perched on the front of my boat watching water birds…

Morning view

Or occasionally I might take myself off for a while at the top of a mountain…

Overlooking Bergen, Norway

Wherever it is, there must be an abundance of nature and perhaps a soft breeze dancing its way across my face, rushing itself through my limbs.

But Christmas… oh Christmas. The festive season means family and friends and crowds and buzz and all the things that make this quiet girl’s head crazy. Sometimes I see the sheer volume of the season working its way towards me like a big hulk of light that is overwhelming and suffocating; so much so that I have been known to disappear altogether at this time of year.

This time, though, this time I am embracing something that has at times been my enemy. I find myself enjoying pantomimes, dinners, drinks, laughter and raucousness and I realise that there has been a change in me for I am exploring the idea of home, of England, of what it means to be here: the things I love, the places I enjoy, the people who connect me to this space. I am thinking about what it is I miss whenever I find myself away and putting myself completely and wholly within those moments.

For me, solitude is satisfying, but even silence can at times be shared.

Wishing anyone who stops by a beautiful, connected and vibrant festive season.

Merry Christmas!

... from Friendship

2011-12-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

Age 8-9

It started with a Christmas card. I remember walking into the classroom and spying it sat neatly on my desk.

Even now she’s still so good at remembering to make people feel special. I’m always amazed that each time I go to her house there is a prettily wrapped gift on the side, or a card with a name. I don’t think she ever forgets a Birthday. I guess that inside my card there were words along the lines of ‘would you like to be my friend?’; we were only 8, afterall. Oh, the exciting prospect of a new friend, a real friend.

Back then life was all about dens in the bushes and dance-offs in the playground. It was all so innocent and my memories are cocooned in a yellowy late-summer haze where we ran round in peddle-pushers and lace-up pumps; I like it that way, too.

Age 11-12

We would spend hours writing songs together in notebooks before recording our words hunched over the tiny record player in the corner of her bedroom: one piece of vinyl with a minute or so of instrumental music played over and over alongside our voices, made its mark on the small tape-deck. How I cringed when she took that tape to school and played it in music class; I have always admired her fearless confidence.

I reminisce about how I would sit outside on the brick wall kicking my heels until she finished her lunch; it seemed unfair that our playtime should be made to wait because I had sandwiches and she hot meals. And how in awe I was of her mum who, after school, could be found lounging in her bikini enjoying the late afternoon sun or designing some fantastical dance outfit. After school at my house meant sausage casserole and a muddy dog walk.

We embraced our differences; we still do.

Age 22

And so our friendship weaved its way almost seamlessly through teenage angst, first love, lost love, jobs, travels, second love, careers, no love. There were letters typed when bored at my office job and posted off to her new exciting life in Blackpool. I have photos of her in my first flat when she came back to visit, she is wearing spectacles and I am reminded of how grown up and sophisticated she seemed to me.

I remember how she then returned to our hometown and then cried when I promptly ran off to Japan; I remember how she cries every single time I run off. But I always come back… to be at her side when she married, to be the first to hold her newborn daughter.

Now I am here again, and for that I am glad.

Summer 2011

We sit in her kitchen drinking tea and marvel at the life of a friendship, how one minute the most important thing between you is if your chosen fluorescent socks will complement each others at the school disco, and then suddenly you’re here going through marriage and childbirth, talking about dreams and compromises, school uniforms and no school, pasts and futures.

Suddenly I realise that our friendship is like a patchwork quilt with a million-and-one memories sewn into each square and somehow there isn’t a thought I have that doesn’t include her in some way, no matter how small.

“It’s like getting older just crept up on us, isn’t it?” she says.

now our children play...

And she’s right, because suddenly I am supporting her through something we could not have contemplated at eight-years-old and I realise that there is a deeper meaning to my being here. Static. It is because I am needed; to help out with the school run, to share wine, to offer a hug, and there is truly nowhere else I would rather be right now because our friendship of nearly 30 years, with all its ups and downs, assures me that this is right where I should be.

... from the Beach

2011-11-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

‘I am not supposed to be here’, I think silently as my feet sink into soft marshland. ‘This is not how it was meant to be.’ I wonder why fate has brought me here? washed up on this vast expanse of land covered in a fine layer of green moss.

Turning, I look back from where I am walking to and watch the sun, its last rays about to be consumed by the swaying arms of tall pine trees.

Tilting my head upwards towards the twilight sky I watch Cormorants silently swooping in mesmerising formations. A lone bird squawks piercingly until it reaches friends. The sky is a patchwork of greyish blues and lemon slivers that spread out above us like a fan. I don’t think it could ever have been more perfect.

“This is achingly beautiful, isn’t it?” I say.

He laughs at my crazy ways, but agrees wholeheartedly.

“Enchanting” I whisper silently as we walk onwards hand in hand.

We are walking towards the blue, piercing blue, even at this time of day, at this time of year, and the anticipation is building as we begin to near a gap in the dunes. I’m not sure what I am expecting, I hadn’t set out to expect anything, but then she begins to run, he begins to run; we all run. Laughing and whooping, hoping and believing in something magical, our feet pushing with force up and over the heavy bank of thick soft sand.

And then, there it is:

They run on, but I stand still. I want to absorb this: this beauty, this moment, this peace.

My heart is tingling, my body alive, my mind alert. This kind of euphoric feeling is as close as you can get to drugs, I swear. I think this is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen and I want to stay here forever, sleeping under the stars, resting silently with the birds.

But we should have been in Portugal. We should have been on that plane. We should have been in a cabin at the edge of the mountains. But one of our family members was sick, really sick, and we couldn’t leave her. So a last minute escape to the beach was hurriedly planned to aid her recovery and, rather surprisingly, it proved the perfect place to remind us that if you search for it, there is an abundance of beauty right on your doorstep and somehow, fate seems to know how to get us there.

and I'm pleased to say that our beloved
Milla is finally on the mend
after a really nasty incident.
Thanks for all your good wishes :-)

... from Time

2011-11-10T05:43:00.000-08:00

Time is something we cannot get back; we can’t buy it, freeze it or rewind it. It simply is, now, in this moment. And is it not time that makes life worth living? for time is life, isn't it?

Several things have made me think about my own relationship with time lately, primarily untimely death. If I were to die tomorrow what would it be – in that split second between breath and peacefulness – that I would wish for?

I would wish for time: to be with those I love, to laugh with girlfriends over wine, to stand in the shadow of a golden sunset holding hands, soaking up the soft sea breeze and those last beautiful droplets of a late summer’s day. I would want time to not just hear my daughter’s infectious laugh, but be within it, submerged.

Today I walked a local loop walk with my daughter and our dog; across fields, through the grounds of a farmhouse, over pretty canal bridges and along a peaceful towpath littered with the soggy fallen leaves of a disappearing Autumn. We talked, we admired, we collected leaves and berries, we shared a homemade bun, we climbed trees. But mostly we just breathed in the unseasonably warm day fully; the soft quietness of a fine mist, welcome patches of blue sky, an occasional bright sunray.

I thought: ‘I’m so glad I have time to hear the birds – I mean really hear them – time to listen to my heart. Time to listen to life.’

It wasn’t always this way, I didn’t always have time. Often I was buried in work or rushing about restlessly, filling my days with this and that, but then we decided to move onto a narrowboat. Not just because we fancied the idea of living on water, but because - for us - it was a lifestyle choice, and that lifestyle affords us what I believe to be the most precious element of life.

Time.

And for that I am grateful.

... from Autumn

2011-10-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

My daughter runs ahead, her face glows damp from the fine mist of rain that falls softly from a silent grey sky. She delights in the trees ~ usually plump with cascading green leaves ~ now standing stark against an empty world, stripped bare but for a smattering of brown leaves clinging helplessly at the top; their fate already written.

We are alone, others still tucked up snugly in their beds. The morning is, perhaps, dreary: Grey, damp, devoid of the chatterings and clatterings of summer picnics that normally spread themselves gleefully across this parkland. But to us, wrapped up in our waterproofs, our feet protected with bright wellies, we are warmed in the glow of a world turned burnt orange, deep red, radiant yellow, rusty brown.

Looking around I realise that I have been so sorrowful with anticipation of this turn of season that I came dangerously close to failing to breathe her in fully: this autumn, so full of warmth, radiance and grace. Suddenly I understand the potential of a new chapter, the opportunity to strip my own soul back a little, allow myself to be cocooned peacefully in her embrace.

To regenerate, rejuvenate.

But mostly I look at my daughter running gleefully in the breezy rain, oblivious to the supposed drabness the end of summer brings and I remember, again, to ensure the child in me is kept alive so that the woman in me can enjoy fully all this magnificent earth offers her.

“If we listen to the child who lives in our soul, our eyes will grow bright. If we do not lose contact with that child, we will not lose contact with life.” ~ Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.

Goodbye Summer, oh how we enjoyed you!

... from the Cut

2011-10-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Sunrise on the Waterways

Setting off early the fog is light and feathery on waters turned matte grey by mist. There is a slight frost laying thinly on the ground. I reach down to touch it with my shivering fingers to see if it is real, before I pick up the rope and jump aboard.

We are wrapped up in coats, hats and boots; sturdy boots that won’t slip as we jump on and off the boat, untying ropes and easing her bow slowly round with a pole so as not to wake our still-sleeping neighbours. We are captains of our ship, captains of the waterways, which are undoubtedly at their best when the rush of summer traffic has subsided, when early mornings are our own, interrupted only by the pretty chirpings of a blackbird as she perches on the ridge of a stone barn.

I work the lock gates silently, a passing jogger helping me to push. I wave my frozen hands – cold from the metal of my windlass – at my daughter and her friend through the window as they lounge in bed munching hot cheese on toast and chocolate muffins, overdosing on Winnie the Witch books. By the time I am waiting at the gate for our boat to pass through I am several metres above them; their pretty faces are now stuck to the window pane beaming their smiles up at me. I laugh before closing up the gate and running down the towpath to jump on the front.

The sun comes up, her warmth welcome, and the girls are finally coaxed out onto the deck where they feed passing ducks. By the time we moor up for the day at a peaceful spot across from open fields, the sun is so warm we change into flip-flops. I sit on the front of the boat while my daughter plays with sand on the towpath and bids hello to other boaters as they drift in and out. Mooring for lunch, mooring for afternoon tea, mooring just because.

I needed this.

To be reminded, once again, why we have chosen this way of life: for the freedom, the beauty, the nature at every turn.

I hang my handmade handbags in the window with bright signs saying “For Sale!” and feel like a wandering water gypsy from times-gone-by.

There is no better life for me - for us - I think to myself.

Cheers!

Writings from My Novel

2011-10-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

My novel is mostly set on a Greek island. It is about love, loss, passion, fear, taking chances and sharing both laughter and tears.

My novel is about life.

I suspect that there will be readers who will find it neither particularly profound, nor life-changing, but my hope is that it will offer the inspiration for adventure for at least some.

But the process of writing fiction is a curious one. You have to climb right on in there, into the mind and the body of your characters; feel them, know them, love them, hate them and of course, give them time to grow before your eyes.

This, to me, has been the strangest sensation.

When I wrote my first book it was relatively easy because it was about my life. I had the story! I knew the beginning, the middle and the end. All I had to do was get it down on paper.

There is a quote:

"If you know the whole story in advance, your novel is probably dead before you begin it. Give it some room to breathe, to change direction, to surprise you. Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure." ~ Tom Robbins.

And so, this is a new concept for me… to write not knowing exactly what might happen. I catch my characters doing surprising things that are out of my control and as I get further and further into their minds I realise that they can do things that I never could, they see things in a way that I have not.

I remember meeting an author friend and asking her about writing fiction: ‘Do you have a plan?’ I said, and she replied that no, not really, ‘I just kind of write and wait to see where the words take me.’ At the time I found this strange – how could that be? But now, here I am, deep in the pages of Chapter 9 and my senses are tingling, my hand scrawling furiously as if I simply cannot get the words down quick enough. They race along at lightening speed like the unrolling of a red carpet in my mind, down the 100 steps they go, so fast I can hardly catch them.

Sometimes I think it would be easier and quicker to write on the computer, but the romance is just not the same. To see my book growing before my eyes, reams of handwritten pages, the weight of the material-covered notebook in my hand, the soft thud of pages as I flick through it – there is nothing quite like it.

I hope to finish the first draft by the end of the year. I hope that it will be decent enough to share. I hope that my characters will be good (and sometimes a little bad), kind, passionate, exciting people who I can send off out into the world with the hope that they will help readers to identify with life.

Nothing more, Just life.

Writings at Twilight

2011-10-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

It’s a Friday night and I’ve just put my daughter to bed, but instead of reaching for a glass of wine I must instead start work on a travel feature with the obligatory looming deadline.

I pad around my boat for a while first, picking up the remnants of a day spent in my motherly role… felt-tips separated from their lids and lost on a journey into the sofa, dippy egg mashed into the dining room chair, a plastic horse that has decided to stray from the bridle path and into the thoroughfare – and then my foot.

There are days when I try to remember what it felt like to have all the time in the world to do just as I pleased, days when working a 9-5 seems like a pretty easy ride. I lament the fact that I never got to writing as much as I could when I had more time to do it. If I had put my mind to it I could have written five books during my twenties, I’m sure.

But then, the passing of time makes us richer in our ability to write and perhaps my writing is better now than it was then simply because I have more experience to spill into it, more passion, more insight – just more.

Perhaps it is the fact that I have to snatch dusky evenings and misty mornings away from the world – towards me – wrap these segments of landscape around my body, huddle beneath them and tap my fingers across the keyboard or scrawl messy lines in my notebook, that makes me write so much more than I did when I could?

Writing at twilight, that’s me. When the rush of the day has subsided, when the only sounds are that of my daughter and my dog breathing steadily… and my fingers gliding gently across the keyboard.

Writings from my Boat

2011-10-05T01:54:00.000-07:00

I am lying on a blanket, the warm sun beating down, the sky perfectly blue with just a smattering of soft white clouds. Propping myself up onto my elbows I watch my daughter and her friend skipping through the cornfield, a huge tree throwing its shadow perfectly across the scene. I look to my right and see a hedgerow overrun with bindweed, perfect white trumpet flowers with just a delicate hint of pink. Beyond is another cornfield.

This is my view. This is my garden.

Today I can’t imagine ever living in a house again. By house I mean a standard two up, two down on a faceless street in a heartless neighbourhood. I can’t imagine not feeling this free, this thankful each and every day for the natural world in which we live.

Later when my daughter goes to bed and her friend heads back to his boat, my husband and I share a ginger beer on our blanket and watch the ducks stretching their beautiful necks to grab hold of pieces of corn.

Today has been just about the most perfect day ever imaginable on a narrowboat. It is the days we dream of.

We stare at our boat, the front door flung open, the roof heavy with pink planters filled with lettuces and bright wild flowers, we see the sanctuary that surrounds our home, and we wonder ‘could we ever really leave?’

A perfect day, oh such a perfect day.

You can find out more about life on my narrowboat via the article I have just had printed in the Autumn issue of JUNO magazine, available to read online here: My Unconventional Floating Life, by Alice Griffin