Further to my last entry I resolved to try to pace my time off a bit better than I have done. I’ve always had a difficult relationship with time off. When P was alive we would book time away and managed it together to make the most of the time we had, and fitting round ageing parents and hospital appointments and health generally. I would also save holiday time ‘just in case’, in case we needed to go to appointments or in case P was unwell.
Even after he died it took a while to adjust and then I didn’t really give a shit anyway and it was then diverted to mum and dad and the constant to and fro.
Latterly I have struggled to work out what to do with it and have tended to be a bit oblivious but have also ‘squirrelled’ it, again, ‘just in case’, just in case I get worn out or too demoralised to keep working and not wanting to take any sick leave.

Anyway, on a mission to be marginally more organised I booked this week off. As usual I did my head in with wondering what to do and oscillating between far north, far south, far east, near north, near south, or west even, mid, north or south. I persuade myself I’d rather stay home and do the garden or local stuff. It was cold and so camping felt like it might be miserable. And that’s the other thing, I miss the camper so much. It was easier to just go and easier to move on, a bit more protected.

To help anchor my oscillations I had tried to think of something to see or visit or do. I had come across Small is Beautiful nearly 40years ago working in NZ on a sister community to Findhorn. Not long afterwards I learnt about Resurgence. For a long time I have thought about going to Dartington Hall, and doing courses at Schumacher College. It hasn’t happened in the 30 years of considering it. In all that time I have always rested in the presence of Satish Kumar (although there is always a battle between my inner cynic and feeling of futility and the idealism).

Of course, all of these things join up in the end and make a bit more sense. The dots happen, seemingly randomly and then, we look back and see the links between them all … the threads weave together.

So, I saw he was giving a talk and knowing he wasn’t a spring chicken I thought I’d better stop thinking and do some doing. I bought the ticket and it gave me a focus but I still managed to be indecisive until the last minute.
And anxiety kicks in, the effort of going, the struggle to motivate, the safety of home, lack of impetus, of always having to generate forward motion on your own, the pointlessness of it all can be so suckingly seductive.

In the end it was a case of getting on with it and acknowledging all the anxieties, the anticipatory, the getting going, the setting off and relief of getting going and then the anxiety of having to deal with the next bit and so on. Sigh … so familiar but it can’t be turned off.
Interestingly, the heightened anxiety then turns the fear brain up and tunes in the radar to all the negative experiences and so as I drove south I passed close by Preston Infirmary and recalled all the visits with G and then his death there; and onwards and see a plane heading for John Lennon airport and remembering the rather desperate efforts that P and I made to get to a better climate to give him some brief winter respite, and then signs for Aintree and our visits there to participate in drug trials; and then down through the area G and I had a holiday and unexpectedly passing the cottage we stayed in and remembering how I’d cried when we got there because it was on a busy road junction (surprisingly not mentioned in the tourist literature … wouldn’t be able to get away with it today with online reviews) and our dog died whilst there. 

Anyway, I made it to the first campsite and met the lovely owner and connected with the history I had known of for so long there. And then I went on to my friend’s feeling I’d managed to achieve something. I was almost ready to quit whist ahead and make a run for home from there but kept on going and eventually made it to here. The sun shone, the campsite was quiet (at first), the owner was lovely, and the drifts of thrift and kidney vetch were glorious.