Running (wo)man

Jade sat at the side of the road and slowly undid the laces of her worn out shoes. Painfully pulling them free from her feet she turned them over in her hands and she saw holes in the sole.

“That’s why it hurt so much,” she thought, “because my sole had gone.”

Jade had been running for years because she thought she had to. She was doing what she was taught was right. She didn’t know anything else. So for years she had been chasing a shadow that could never be caught. Exhausted, Jade dropped the badly worn running shoes to the dusty ground. A cloud of dirt and smoke rose to greet her. She coughed and turned around to avoid the swirls of dust.

It was then that she looked up and saw a beautiful jewel filled city. The gems were of different colours and sizes and they were fixed in that space. They glinted in the sunlight. Jade shaded her eyes as she peered towards them.

In her life she had become used to shifting mirages so doubt filled her mind as she looked towards the bright lights. Nevertheless, shifting her weight forwards Jade attempted to stand.

Her feet really hurt. And her sole was almost torn to shreds.

“How did I never notice the pain?” she mused to herself. “Will I even be able to walk now?”

One painful step at a time Jade moved towards the city of gems. To her surprise it didn’t disappear or get smaller as she approached. The ground appeared to be cushioned as she repeated her steps in the new direction. Walking barefoot was a newfound freedom.

The discarded shoes were soon blown away by the desert wind.

The story goes that the shoes came to rest in the crevice of a hill many moons away where they were found one day by the dream Jade had been chasing. It was many years later that they had even noticed that their constant shadow was gone, so they turned back but it was too late for them, the only thing they found on their search was a pair of shoes with a worn out sole.

In the meantime Jade had settled into her new city life and found a gem that suited her. It wasn’t long that she even forgot about the times when she was forever running and chasing something that was trying to shake her off.

Her soul is healing now.

Places

There are some places in my mind that I thought were closed but unexpectedly they were torn open and it was a big surprise to my heart.

This evening I was going about my business in the normal manner of a busy woman – with about 10 things on my mind at the same time. I was juggling thoughts and future plans when suddenly I felt as if I had been hit by a ten ton breeze block.

Whilst I was reeling from the impact of this unanticipated memory I thought to myself “How did that happen?” I carried on driving and chatting while my brain raced into the past.

I thought I had forgotten it all. I hoped I had done what a friend told me she has done – put all her painful, sad or “can’t deal with” memories in the smallest Russian doll possible, then put that doll in progressively larger dolls until there is one of sufficient size to lock into a heavy chest; then that chest is bound with several chains that even Houdini would struggle with and cast into the deepest unreachable part of her mind. I can almost imagine a huge ‘Please do not touch’ sign plastered across the outermost barrier.

So, after doing all that, it would be putting it mildly to say I was a tad surprised that when I drove past a place this evening it conjured up magnificently vibrant Technicolor images, sounds and scents of a time that I thought had forever been buried in my past. It felt as if I were viewing a large screen showing a lost reel of my autobiography.

That physical space gave me pleasure tinged with sadness. Then the surprise washed me with a glow of delight because it had really been a magnificent time in my life. Momentarily I wondered why I had strived so hard to forget it but then I knew ... it was because it was so absolutely wonderful that I wanted to forget. That’s not quite as crazy as it may at first sound. The intensity of perfection and beauty that I experienced made it one of the special links in a chain of places that were like stepping stones from an island of torture into a land of freedom and peace.

That particular place - that I breezed past in the car - but that still lingers in my mind, was only associated with the purest pleasure. Even now as I relive the memory my eyes dash about in their sockets as I picture the scenes of happiness, my internal gaze is focused on that past time and ... that particular space when I was right there.

Being totally present in a moment and in a place is an outstanding feeling.

When joy is so complete it may seem impossible to replicate it. I think this is why I tried to erase that memory of that place from my mind.

Today I have realised that some places need time to become visible and positive signposts in my life. I didn’t know this would happen, however, without forethought I have discerned a shift towards acceptance of a clean and pure space for these memories in the forefront of my mind.

I am moving into new places.

Self sabotage

Sometimes it is possible to sabotage yourself by being too busy.

If you are too busy you cannot fit everything you want to do in the time that you have and you know that you will fail – it all – because nothing will ever be done to any degree of satisfaction.

This thought has been in my mind repeatedly as I go about my tasks over the past few days.

At times it seemed as though I was trying to fit five minutes of effort and achievement into a single minute: it would never work. I started one task and on the way to finishing it I concluded that before I did so I would just ... yes, I used those words in my head, ‘I would just...’ a fatal combination of words that mean the task in hand is going to be delayed while another one takes the priority slot.

This continued for about half an hour until I realised that I was standing with several things in my hand, unwilling to put any of them down, because they were all on their way to somewhere else. I had picked up small distractions on my way to the completion of my first job and now I was unable to finish the first job. In fact, to be fair and honest about it all, I barely remembered what I had started out with the intention of achieving.

I was stood with an odd assortment of things in my hand, wedged into my pockets and under my free arm.

After repeating this crazy procedure for three days I have realised that I need to set myself small tasks to complete and do them without distraction. One task done well is much better than five tasks all done badly.

I have taken off the mindset that directed me into sabotage overload and, with my blinkers on, I will focus on the task at hand. Sleep.

Goodnight.

(Did you get distracted reading this? ...)

Diary extracts from three years ago

Some people remind you that your story isn’t over.

Some people bring out a side of you that you never knew you had.

Some people surprise you, and once in a while you surprise yourself.

Every relationship is an experiment: you never know what you will get.

Relationships make you domesticated.

All relationships require compromise but you often get more, not less that you expected ... even though a relationship may change, there will always be a connection.

It is not required that you always know why you are here or what you believe in.

Marjorie H Morgan

2007

How clean is your ... rubbish?

Last night I emptied all the waste paper bins in the house and added them to the black bags full of rubbish to be put out for collection this morning. As I opened the door to put the bags out, along with the plastics and cans for recycling, I looked across the road and saw someone else doing exactly the same thing at the same time.

There we were, existing in our separate worlds, occasionally exchanging greetings when our eyes met in the daytime, yet at this moment we were joined in this banal activity. The bags and boxes were placed with uniform precision along the allotted area of the pavement. The street was full of similar deposits outside the houses of my neighbours. What we didn’t need or want was waiting to be disposed of. We left the rubbish in its designated waiting place knowing that the time for its complete removal would not be long. With the job complete and a glance up and down the street my neighbour and I both turned our backs and closed our doors.

As I am writing this up I can hear the refuse collection truck going up the street: my waste is now gone.

Sometimes we need to de-clutter our lives and throw out the rubbish. But what we must remember is that we must not go back and get it once we have thrown it out. Following the reasoning for discarding it in the first place we have to remember that it is no longer needed in our lives.

Can you imagine the spectacle of running up the road after the refuse collectors and insisting that they stop the truck and let you get in the back to search for your particular rubbish? Mmmm, not a pleasant image.

Yet sometimes, when we have already let things go from our lives, we still try to find a way to retrieve them even though we know that they have gone for good.

What would Kim and Aggie say?

Looking and seeing

Sometimes you don’t notice something until it’s gone.

Coming from a funeral this afternoon, I was driving home in a reflective mood as is normal on these occasions and as I rounded a familiar corner I noticed something was different. I saw a huge gap, with daylight shining at me from the other side of the road. I continue to move in the traffic and simultaneously I take a second glance, a quick look at the difference that had arrested my attention so rapidly moments before. As I scan the area I realise that since I passed there a few hours earlier there has been some serious physical effort put in in the area because a lot of pruning and a whole area of greenery have been removed.

I never mindfully registered the trees or bushes before, but now I know that they used to be there. I sense their absence.

In the few seconds that I was on this piece of road I was conscious of a totally new view. I saw a building that I had not previously noticed; I saw signs that earlier were invisible to me. It was as if I was in a new location.

This revelation made me promise myself to be more aware of everyday things in life and recognise and appreciate them before I realise that they have gone. It also made me smile as I realised that sometimes some things need to be removed so that we have space to see.

Space to see often reveals something that was previously hidden or obscured.

Sometimes you notice something different when something old and familiar is eradicated from its usual place.

Therefore each day I will … Keep looking. Keep seeing.

Piloting your own life

Days are always busy. We get busy just living, merely existing and making ends meet can take up all our energies. It can get to such a situation that we no longer have any time available for the small pleasures of life because we are so overrun with the repetitive and necessary tasks that make up 21^st century living. Working, paying bills, shopping, cooking, ironing, cleaning … after a while we can seem to be in a daze as we stumble through life always trying to catch up with something.

Managing resources, time and focus are all important as you become the pilot in your own life. You need to manage the small aspects of your life so that you can take the lead in your whole life.

It takes conscious effort to:

PLOT YOUR DESTINATION

MAINTAIN YOUR COURSE

HOLD FIRM TO YOUR CONVICTIONS

It is advisable to become the captain of your own life instead of getting lost in the trance that we sometimes accept as living. When you make the choice about your future you give yourself FREEDOM to be YOU.

This calls for consistency as you …

“Manage the small, seemingly insignificant things in order to direct more important matters of life.”

(Dave Pelzer, Moving Forward)

We have to have an AMBITION and … work towards it.

Follow the spider

The sudden jerky movement caught my eye and I turned around. There was a spider. Somehow it had reached the middle of the second tile in a group on five and I’d not noticed it already. But it was slipping. It moved upwards then slipped back to where it came from.

I decided to observe it.

For long minutes it did the same thing over and over. Climbing up, slipping back, climbing up and so on.

Then nothing. It is still. I am still. What now?

The spider suddenly changes direction. It starts to move horizontally to the right. It is making great progress. I sit there and think that it has made an error with all the climbing and slipping. I think it has lost its direction. I decided to watch for a while longer.

‘Wait,’ I think to myself, ‘that’s clever!’

The spider is going upwards again. It has found a better foothold on the grouting between the tiles and is again going in the direction it started on. Now it is going at a greater speed than before. It is back on track and going to the correct destination.

A smile crosses my lips. I’m impressed.

I sit and watch it some more.

It continues up but then, just between the third and fourth tile, it stops in its tracks. Has it given up I wonder? But no, it appears it is regaining its breath and strength. Then fully renewed it continues on its journey. Occasionally it stops again, but soon it’s on its way back up the tiles. At the top of the tiles, it appears to get a new burst of life and practically sprints along the edging in a dash of triumph. Success is achieved.