Category: on writing

Self-transcendence

Posted in anxiety, favourite quotes, nature, on writing, reading, Running, solace, staying humble, staying true, UncategorizedTagged , , 2 Comments

If you are ever in need of an answer or feel a little lost in this great big world, go out there and hit the trails. Leave the Garmin at home and just get out there and be. Connect with nature. Listen to the whispers of breeze in the trees or the ramblings of the nearby stream. Eventually, you will find what you are looking for and perhaps, in time, you will find yourself as well.

 

The words I’ve quoted above come from the blog So what? I run.
(Read the whole post here.)
For me, they apply whether I’m walking or running.

Through the gate …

Because of my knee injury, it’s all about walking for me right now.
And I’m okay with that.

Past the vineyards …

It’s all about the connection with the world around me:
it’s vital.
It’s healing.

Past the reeds swaying in the wind …

And in the spirit of the quote above,
I’m posting today some photos from one of my favourite walks.

Past the hanging tyre …

You don’t need phones or apps or pedometers or fitbits.
You just need time to look,
to listen,
to breathe.

My hourglass

Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, favourite quotes, health, on writing, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged , Leave a comment

Slowly, it started to feel as if I had clawed my way back to something resembling a life. It was such a relief to know that I hadn’t finished changing — I wasn’t an hourglass that had timed out, all the grains fallen through. I wasn’t stuck, too soon the best I could ever be.

from ‘Inbetween Days’
by Vikki Wakefield*

Have you ever wondered if you’ve already achieved the best you can?
Have you ever thought that it’s all downhill from here?
If so, perhaps — like me — you will find these words comforting.
I like to think of the grains in my hourglass still trickling through slowly …
… not quite timing out.

*Note:
Vikki is a good friend of mine and fellow writer. Check out her website for more information.

The chef gets healthy

Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, cooking/baking, favourite quotes, health, life, on writing, reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged , 3 Comments

Other people’s words about … life

Cookbooks are all about food and cooking, right?
But here’s what I found in a cookbook I borrowed from the library recently:

I generally don’t get into the whole ‘life quote’ thing; I pop them in a basket with mason jars and hip-hop yoga. But there’s a snowboarder I follow on Instagram called Kevin Pearce … who listed the non-negotiables in his life and it really stuck with me. I adapted the list to suit my life, but the fundamentals are still the same. When I am disciplined about making time for these rules, I find everything else falls into place easily and I am a better person, inside and out. That’s a good thing, right?
Make space for this:

  • Start the day with exercise.
  • Do yoga or meditate (even just 5 minutes): morning, noon and night.
  • Eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  • Prepare food in advance so there’s no excuse to eat crap.
  • Drink lots of water, at least 2 litres a day.
  • Get outside, look around (not down at your screen) and listen.
  • Be present!
  • Take care of hygiene.
  • Read and learn something new every day.
  • Keep in touch with friends and family.
  • Lead with your heart and keep your mind close behind.
  • Remember that conscious breathing will always centre you.
  • Be appreciative and be patient.
  • Surround yourself with awesome, like-minded people.
  • Sleep and rest, as much as you feel you need.

from ‘The Chef Gets Healthy’
by Tobie and Georgia Puttock

I have to confess: the recipes in the cookbook didn’t do much for me. I like my carbs! (Tobie and Georgia have eschewed carbs in the name of health.)
But I loved Tobie’s list.
It’s a recipe for life, not just for food.
And, as with all the best recipes, you can adapt it and make your own.
It’s a starting-point, I think —
a good one, too.

Quote

Other people’s words about … loneliness

Posted in anxiety, favourite quotes, on writing, reading, Uncategorized, What I love about ...Tagged , 2 Comments

Jack realised then that his father had stopped smoking. He was profoundly impressed. It made him realise as other things had not how important this job was to Jerry. He felt that perhaps older people needed satisfactory jobs even more than young ones; they had narrower worlds. They needed hard edges, secure boundaries to their lives. Somehow this made Jerry seem remote: Jack had never felt this before.

He listened, grinned, joked, and all the time there was this unassuageable pain of loneliness in his heart. It wasn’t a boy’s loneliness any longer, but a man’s. He felt he might go through life with this longing, this sensation that there was a pit inside him, never to be filled. He faced up to it, looked at it carefully: it was like a kind of haunting, as irrational and inherently terrifying. Now he knew he had seen its traces on many faces. It was what made old people withdraw into themselves, peering out suspiciously through tiny windows at the world, as the reclusive pensioners of Towser’s house peered at him. it was not that they were defensive in their loneliness: it had changed them to a different kind of person, that was all.

From Ruth Park’s ‘Swords and Crown and Rings’

Ruth Park is most famous for her novel The Harp in the South. She also wrote a much-loved series for young children called the Muddle-Headed Wombat books. In my adolescence, I devoured her novel for young adults, Playing Beattie Bow.

I hadn’t read any of her other novels until I came across Swords and Crowns and Rings at my library. Written in 1977, it’s a wonderful read, full of observations and thoughts still relevant today.

This I love: this unassuageable pain of loneliness in his heart.

Words like that — they quicken your heart.

 

Other people’s words about … the sea

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The moonlight held all in bond, bleached and austere.
Jackie could hear, far away, the flat sea plodding in and out, dragging its pebbles after it.

From ‘Swords and Crowns and Rings’
by Ruth Park

Ruth Park wrote largely between 1950-90, yet her writing — its themes, characters, emotions, even its ‘Australian-ness’ — still rings true for me.

Note:
This is the first in an occasional series of quotes from writers writing about the sea.I live by the sea; I love the sea; and I set both of my books by the sea. Sea-themed quotes seem kind of appropriate!

Reading Elizabeth Taylor (again)

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Other people’s words

I’ve talked before about the writer Elizabeth Taylor: her pithy, devastating prose.

How’s this?

The town seemed to her to be England at its worst, full of people trying to enjoy themselves and not managing it for various reasons — perhaps chiefly those of the weather and the deeply-rooted dullness it had caused.

from ‘The Soul of Kindness‘
by Elizabeth Taylor

One sentence says so much, doesn’t it?

Reading Elizabeth Taylor

Posted in books, favourite quotes, life, on writing, reading, solace, staying true, Uncategorized, What I love about ...Tagged , , , 1 Comment

On the lonely horror of writing

At the thought of work, of the book he was writing, must finish, his stomach lurched, just as if he had come unexpectedly on something repellent. He was scared, too. Nowadays, he was so frightened of sitting down to work that he had to drive himself to grapple with it.

from ‘The Soul of Kindness‘
by Elizabeth Taylor

I love Elizabeth Taylor’s novels.

Her observations about people, (English) society and life are  acute, pithy and devastating.

Try her sometime!

 

Note:
Two people drew my attention to the writing of the English novelist, Elizabeth Taylor, who died in 1975. One was my mother, an inveterate and highly intelligent reader. The other was one of my favourite bloggers, Jane Brocket.