Today felt like spring and I spent most of it in the garden, tidying up, transplanting seedlings and admiring the spring flowers.
No social distancing was necessary between me and nature, which is just as well, as the robins kept breaking the 2 metre rule, hopping around my feet in search of worms.
And now I feel so much better after a day outside!
I bob along on a stream of days
which blend and blur and
disappear
into the past.
Days without shape.
My normally tight grasp
on the calendar
slips,
and I am prone to moments
of disorientation,
wondering
‘Should I be working today?’
‘Am I supposed to be in a meeting right now?’
‘What exactly did I do last weekend?’
The future is full of haze and mirage,
the horizon obscured by fog.
More than ever,
the only thing that seems real
is this one
peaceful
ever present
moment.
A parcel I ordered arrived today
full of vegetable seeds
and hope.
I am enjoying planning what I am going to grow this year and really looking forward to planting those seeds. Not yet though, it’s too cold. 🌨️
The first few
white buds
of snowdrops
emerge
from frozen ground,
as lengthening
hazel catkins bring
a touch of yellow
to the hedgerows.
The evening stretches out
just a little,
and on those days when
winter cold recedes
slightly,
the birds sing
a different song,
louder,
livelier,
a prelude to spring.
It takes a while after the shortest day before I start to notice the light returning, reflected in the first few snowdrops and the changes in birdsong.
Snow, frost and silvery light have been a feature of my local walks recently. Now we are back in lockdown I’m walking the same local routes daily, and feeling grateful to live in such a beautiful part of the world.
Come, see real
Bashō
flowers
of this painful world.
A selection of my favourate flower photos (and a fern) taken since March, either from my garden or taken on my daily local walk during lockdown.
Recently, I find myself paralyzed by uncertainty, weighed down by the weight of my own expectations.
These really are strange times. Even though here in the UK the lockdown is gradually lifting, there is so much uncertainty about what will happen next. With the virus, with the global economy, with life as we know it.
I am actually finding this stage harder to deal with than the full lockdown! So many ‘what ifs’. So many parts of life that might not get back to normal for a long, long time.
The strangeness of having family or friends to visit, so wonderful to see them, but they have to sit in the garden (in the rain on one occasion!) and I have to think twice about offering them a cup of tea.
The sense of almost-back-to-normal when I meet with friends for walks, and the difficulty of remembering to walk 2 metres apart when we have 3 months worth of catching up to do!
Skyping family and friends on the other side of the world and wondering when I’ll actually be able to see them again – could it be months? Years?
Hearing that I won’t be able to go back to the office 6-12 months. I really like working from home, and I normally work from home 3 days a week anyway, but I’m starting to feel a bit isolated without my weekly trips to the office to chat (I mean work).
Uncertainty and worry over work, the pandemic, the economy, the future…it is paralysing! It stops me from doing what I need to do and what I want to do.
It stops me from writing.
It stops me from painting.
It makes me agonise over decisions – or not make decisions at all.
It makes me want to lie on the sofa and scroll through the news AGAIN, as if the answer is there somewhere if only I scroll further.
The uncertainty is not going to go away anytime soon.
I’m the one who is going to have to change, to learn to live with it.
Adjust my expectations about what I can achieve during this time. Find a way to move forward, to make choices, even when I don’t know what is ahead. Enjoy what I can do instead of focusing on the things I can’t do. Simply enjoy the summer.
What about you? How are you coping?
Inspiration
seeps through
the cracks
like rain
on drought parched
soil.
Today, I sat down to do some work and I ended up taking a tour of some of my favourite blogs. I visited a Dutch garden filled with flowers and kindness, and followed the first post-lockdown journey of a canoe down Dutch canals. I read about walks in Lancashire, not far from where I live, photos of wide-open spaces, flowers and birds. I read about a coyote, emaciated and struggling in the desert in the USA, and the writer’s response to that struggle. I was taken step by step through the artistic process of collagraph printing meadow flowers and grasses (by an artist in Yorkshire whose courses I’d like to take when face to face courses eventually re-open).
I have been so busy recently that I have not had much time to visit these blogs, or to do lots of other unproductive (but enjoyable and inspiring) things. Actually, I don’t like the term ‘unproductive’. So many so-called unproductive things are actually the starting point for creative work.
I like the idea of ‘filling the well’ which comes from Julia Cameron’s excellent book ‘The Artist’s Way’.
In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well-stocked trout pond. We have to maintain this artistic ecosystem. If we don’t…our well is apt to become depleted, stagnant or blocked. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them – to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well. Filling the well involves the active pursuit of images to refresh our artistic reservoirs. In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you: think mystery, not mastery.
Julia Cameron
For me reading, walking, canoeing, being in nature, being with friends, gardening, cooking, listening to music, visiting a museum or art gallery, travel, walking on a beach, these are all ways to fill the well and get my creative juices flowing again.
How do you fill the well?
And now to do some actual work and tick something off my to-do list 😉
Career, work life balance and creativity coaching – my coaching website is now live!
The focus of the next few months for me is all about growing my coaching business, now that I have a little bit more time to take on more clients. I’m not sure if it’s the best time to be doing this, in the midst of a pandemic, but I’ll find out!
A favour
I would like to start to spread the word about my coaching services beyond my immediate networks.
If you know anyone who might be looking for a career change, wanting to improve their work life balance, to have more time for creative projects or generally looking for a new direction in life, then please could you share the link to the coaching website (www.sarahwisemancoaching.com) with them.
And of course, if you are interested in coaching, I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks very much!
I have been
lost
for words.
I have started so many blog posts recently but they just haven’t flowed. There is so much to say, yet the words get stuck.
In March I did my observed coaching assessment, I watched the pandemic spread as clients and coaches from around the world all entered lockdown at slightly different times, with slightly different rules. Coaching topics changed from things like ‘I’d like to get fitter’ or ‘how can I deal with x situation at work’, by week 2 of the assessment it was all about ‘how can I complete my work and homeschool my kids’, ‘ how can I make sure the underprivileged kids at the school I work in still get free school meals once the school closes, ‘what should I do now I can no longer run my business’. Staying centred enough to coach while being observed and assessed in the middle of all that was a challenge, somehow all 6 of us going through the assessment month all passed. What an achievement! At the end of it all I wanted to do was sleep.
And while all that was going on my work changed so I was full time working from home, only allowed out for one daily walk, and for essential shopping and healthcare.
Each day on my walk, it was as if spring had flicked a paintbrush overnight at the gardens, the verges and the woods. A splattering of colour at the beginning of March has turned into the full kaleidoscope of May.
And it is so peaceful here in the village. Hardly any cars on the roads, not as much noise as usual, fewer strimmers, lawnmowers, power tools, building work. The birds have taken over. This is what it must have been like pre-car, pre-industrial revolution, the soundtrack of most of human history. I love it. We have been lucky, the weather for most of the lockdown has been lovely and I’ve spent hours in the garden.
After the observed coaching month I then had to do a written exam, record a half hour coaching session for assessment, finish coursework. It’s all done now and hopefully I’ll graduate from the course at the end of May.
And now I have more time! Without really planning to, I’ve been painting. Experimenting with mixed media. Not really the kind of things I usually do, but I’m pleased with the results. So much fun to paint!
I had set today aside to start looking for more coaching clients. Instead I went for a longer daily walk than usual, pottered around the garden, finished my painting, wrote this. The goal of building my coaching business is important to me, but so is rest, relaxation, creativity. Attempting to find balance in the midst of a pandemic.
I hope you are keeping well and finding ways to cope with the situation we are all in. I know some of you have been writing through the last few months and I have enjoyed reading your posts.
It takes longer than usual
to reach the place
where there is just
movement,
birdsong,
and spring sunshine.
The calm beneath
the crisis
is here,
waiting.
Life in the Fresh Air 