A Christmas list

13 things I have learned in the past fortnight:

1. Improvisation is not just something I do in the classroom or on stage. It’s life. 

2. Writing full-time is different to working full-time.

3. The less I achieve, the more breaks and treats I require.

4. When I relax, I am more creative. When I am creative, I am more relaxed.

5. Kindness and compassion can be self-administered.

6. I need air, light and movement every day. The shorter the day, the greater the need.

7. When my daily routine has stopped working, I can change it.

8. I am no longer a morning person.

9. Ten minutes of busy-minded meditation is still good.

10. There are some bits of Christmas I like. 

11. Christmas shopping is best done in 15-minute bursts, followed by 24-hour recovery periods.

12. If you leave an anxious dog alone with something shreddable, it can only end badly.

13. At a busy time of year, a list is good enough.

Seasonal greetings!

(ps from now on I will be posting from my new blog address here
Please join me.)
 

Stopping by woods

There's a little scrap of woods a stone's throw from my house. Scruffy, with pockets of litter - hemmed in by the backs of people's gardens, a clogged up drainage channel and new build houses, it's a place to walk the dog in the morning. Other people walk their dogs there, too, so it's as well to keep one eye on the ground.

It was a morning like any other. We were both in our own worlds. Me - composing a text message as I trailed along behind the dog, eyes flicking to the path ahead. The dog - tail up, following her nose. 

I could have missed it entirely, but something about the shimmering white light at the end of a path rarely taken by me or the dog stopped me in my tracks. Moth-like, I drew closer and at a certain point I saw them in all their glory: sunbeams - like something a child might draw with pencil and ruler – slanting through the trees. 

I stepped into the nearest beam of light and closed my eyes. I don't know why. Superstition, fancy, an imagined warmth. Nothing happened - no pot of gold, no unicorn galloping out of the trees - but for a fraction of time both seemed almost possible.

Of all the words that might capture this experience - so many now drained of meaning - there is one that my agnostic self hesitates to use; but standing in a sunbeam, right there on my suburban doorstep, the ever present thrum of A14 traffic as backdrop, I felt blessed. 

I rejoined the dog and having completed our short circuit, returned for one more look at at my sunbeams. Already the sun had moved on, only a ghostly trace remaining.