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Hello Everyone, As I write this at my dining room table at home in London I can feel a certain cooling of the air, a certain edge to the breeze that has us know the summer months are shortly due to draw to a close and September and all its ‘new-school-year-ness’ will shortly be with us (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway). This summer has been so very different to the other twenty I’ve known living in the UK, with the usual carefreeness and ‘going on a sunny holiday’ excitement absent. And I realise, as I sit here and think about what September onwards will bring in our strange pandemic dictated times, it’s also missed the key ingredient of rest and regeneration that the pause of the summer months offered us in years gone by. After months of being mostly housebound I’ve wondered if I even needed a break over the summer? It’s felt a bit, well, indulgent. But my body has told me a very different story in the last few weeks and it’s been a story of how very much she needs rest and recuperation and time to just put stuff down. To down regulate my nervous system that’s been very activated over the last months (I now realise), to let go of the many, many things that have demanded my attention and focus in unexpected ways while navigating what has been our collective reality since Covid-19 reached out shores. And I’ve noticed how much I also resist the ‘doing nothing’ that’s very needed: a sense of feeling a bit guilty, always one quick admin thing that needs doing, how I’ve not quite turned on my out of office, feeling the obligation to still do for others. All the while deeply knowing what I need most at the moment. While a beach towel on white sands and dips in the Mediterranean won’t be happening for me this year, I’m making a practice of taking up what I know most rests me. Returning to old practices that slow time down, focusing on my sleep and nutrition, enjoying early morning solitary dogs walks, doing nothing with no agenda for the day. And while all of this has been with me, I came across this poem by Barbara Kingsolver, from her new book of poetry How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons): How to Do Absolutely Nothing Rent a house near the beach, or a cabin
but: Do not take your walking shoes.
Don’t take any clothing you’d wear
anyplace anyone would see you.
Don’t take your rechargeables.
Take Scrabble if you have to,
but not a dictionary and no
pencils for keeping score.
Don’t take a cookbook
or anything to cook.
A fishing pole, ok
but not the line,
hook, sinker,
leave it all.
Find out,
what’s
left. I’ve put the ‘Out of office’ on. See you in September.
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