Another dip of the toe into the whirlpool of time. Normal service will not necessarily be resumed soon.
July 2023
I am back at home, and sitting on the sofa with the back doors open. This ridiculous house has one room to live in, and that room has no windows. French doors open or shut. That’s your choice, all the nuance there is in the construction of the hutches for the units of production, these days. I am as close to tears as makes no mind.
I am finding a way to create a new place. I am aware that I am gifted a huge amount of time alone, and that I can surreptitiously use this to overthrow the existing order. I begin the first entry in the journal that will disappear behind time.
‘Give me new work to do, Lord. Direct my steps in the desert’
The title came to me in prayer and meditation. I make no apology for it, but equally, I can’t begin to explain it. I have no idea what it means.
The resources I need have been on hand for years, the only true resource not available has been self. The power of faith has been lacking. In the metaphorical silence of an empty nest - it is purely metaphorical, my world is full of unnecessary and unwanted noise - I have a chance to explore another world, which I have resolutely refused to do. So today, under the cover of time, I am beginning to do it.
In the liminal space of decades, I meet the elder me, the woman who is full of years, and sits rocking peacefully, wrapped in wool and meditation, praying without ceasing. To get there, I need to pray now, daily, without self. In doing so, I meet the middle me, the ‘hen wife’ as Rebecca Schiller calls her.1 The joyous gardener, grower and crafter. She prays while she works and quietly, in the background, she pays great attention to her health. For how shall we plant an orchard, if we cannot lift a spade? So without ado, she takes herself to walk and swim, and eat only good things. She takes a little good advice from women who have studied medicine, and a great deal more from those who have studied nature.
For how shall we plant an orchard, if we cannot lift a spade?
Making
I am considering how I chase myself away from the world, in a deep dive into self sufficiency, back to the land-ery, Carla Emery and John Seymour-ity. I need to create anything I can. Wine and laundry detergent, cheese and knitting wool. I am spinning fleece. Maybe I can hand make hay? My world must be full of industry and expression, and if I keep creating and telling, it will all be good.
The onslaught of the medical profession is intense. I have diabetes, gallstones, high cholesterol. Everyone wants to give me a tablet or make an incision. What kind of life is this? Monitoring everything, little plastic devices I manipulate to track blood sugar, blood pressure, blood oxygen - the business of being ill is making me feel ill. I need to get back to real food, real life, and health.
August
I become ill with a virus and the dark, hot humid weather brings me low. I call in sick to the part time job I have on a nearby farm, where I monitor quality and safety in holiday lets. I knit socks and start sourdough. One evening, I have walked up to the pony’s shelter to spray her with the Avon Skin-so-Soft which is the only bug deterrent she will tolerate. Standing with her at dusk, the world falls into place.
Resignation #1
I cry at God and the moon, why must we have to think of money, housing, and provision for a potential old age, which may never be? I try to envisage a state of mind where I accept our current situation, my state pension (due now in 2 years or so). Where I accept that the field is ours for another decade, and I simply throw my all into it. How perfectly liberating that could be. I begin to just show up. I work for three hours one day, four the next, just working, not thinking. Laborare est Orare. To work is to pray. My school motto.
The Seagulls Have Landed
I come face to face with penury, and simultaneously the deep desire to move somewhere much further away from people. People I admire for their peaceful, simple lives all seem to start from a place where they are out of debt, and in space. We are caught, trapped, surrounded. At night, the gulls who occupy the factory rooftops are disturbed and fly howling and braying around the estates. It’s hot, and sleeping is already a challenge.
During the day, each time a dog barks, all the dogs bark. Ralph’s hearing is too good. He barks with every dog in the parish. I shut him in his crate and close the door on the already stifling room. He barks at seagulls.
The Test
I make a startling discovery in the Bible. Asking for direction is actually getting ahead of the game. In fact, in renewing your mind, testing everything you do against God’s perfect purposes, you will discern direction.2 I find this hard to understand, but in any case begin to try to do it. The actions I believed righteous, I find meaningless and without reference.
I’m browsing the instagram account of someone whose work and life are inspirational to me. I don’t know what she believes. But all the threads of her life - nurturing, growing, rearing, mothering, spinning, weaving, making, feeding - every single one slides smoothly through the filter of the test.
As if all the resources had been here all along. As if the only one lacking was my willing self.
Resignation #2
At the end of the month, I am at work, and in a meeting with several people. The owner has quite blatantly been training a [cheaper] replacement for my role, now that all the important groundwork has been done. She accuses me of something I didn’t even begin to do. I open my mouth to dispute her recall of events, but she holds her hand up, palm outwards to silence me.
That is the end of that.
All the work that I have now, aside from the land, is online - a virtual support role for a beautiful charity, all aligned and run by conscious, thoughtful people. With this and with hope, I have little choice but to just keep going.
December 19th, 2023
Change is happening, though not perhaps as I envisaged, but the details belong in a new story.
Rebecca Schiller, Earthed (Elliott and Thompson Limited 2021)
Romans 12:2
I think it was Candice Brathwaite who was saying recently, something about “many can acquire but few can maintain”. She talked about how sometimes we need to stop thinking of growth and just use this stage to get really, really good at (and with) what we already do and have. This essay reminded me of that. Not asking for direction right now. Looking again at what is here and fully utilising it. Or something.
This is lovely. It felt somewhat like music to me. Thank you for sharing. 💜