Tag Archives: life

The Wall

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After an exhausting two weeks of trying – and mostly failing – to juggle the craziness of work royal visits/VIP events, NaNoWriMo and the fledgling weeks of the marathon training plan, this afternoon I’ve hit a wall. And not just any wall; a great big Berlin Wall sized wall, that’s virtually impossible to circumnavigate. I say virtually, because with the imminent arrival of my boyfriend’s entire sibling clan (currently en route from Devon on the Mega Bus in order to celebrate his birthday weekend – the first night of which starts tonight at the Booka Shade album launch party), I really have no choice but to suck up the tiredness and crack on with the fun. Needless to say for the next three days at least my word count for NaNowrimo is going to be looking pretty shoddy-not ideal after yesterday’s lack of writing due to the evening event with work, but what can you do? There are only so many hours in a day, and this week it’s been Work-1, Writing/training/sleep-0. Nevermind, once the fun has had its wicked way with me I’m sure the pendulum will swing back the other way and restore some much needed equilibrium-and hopefully also sleep..Zzz.

Bon voyage to a friend x

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This post is to wish my beautiful friend Sarah the very best of everything as she prepares to fly back to Australia tomorrow to resume the life she and her wonderful late boyfriend Paul had made together. I know she hates to be called ‘brave,’ and feels she has dealt with all that has happened over the past weeks and months as anyone would in the same circumstance, but nonetheless she has been an inspiration to me. Her warmth and humour have been a shining light in what has been an utterly dark time, not only for her but for her family, Paul’s family and all of their friends.  Paul’s passing was grossly unfair, an utter tragedy whose sadness knows no bounds. And yet as is always the case, out of this most horrendous of tragedies have sprung some small green shoots of hope. The outpouring of love for Paul has shown his beautiful spirit will live on forever, and I sincerely hope that Sarah feels the warmth of everyone’s affection shining on her every day of her life, as she most truly deserves. I wish you all the luck and love and happiness in the world gorgeous girl. Have a safe journey and soak up that Sydney sunshine for those of us you’re leaving behind. And always remember, physical distance is nothing, it’s what’s in your heart that counts. Which means wherever you are, Paul and all of us will be there too. xxxx

Grinning through the gloom

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Whether on a micro or a macro level, it’s an undeniable fact that life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. No matter how well we lay our plans, the boiler will always break just as we want a shower, the supper will always spoil when we have guests for supper, and giving the customer services team of our bank/mobile phone supplier/energy provider a ‘quick’ ring in our lunch hour will rarely, if ever, be either quick or satisfactorily resolved. It will always rain when we have no umbrella, our bosses will always walk up to our desk at just the moment we flick onto Facebook, and the chain on our bike will always come off when we’re at our most red-faced and unattractive (not to mention in the busiest part of town).

But whilst it sometimes feels like things are sent to thwart us, in reality they are just part of the rich tapestry of life. In some ways it can even be such unexpected occurrences that change the metaphorical direction in which we’re travelling, forcing us to take stock of a situation and re-evaluate it, then change the way we choose to deal with it.

Whatever the reason (or lack thereof) for things going wrong, dwelling on them isn’t going to solve anything. Provided those things aren’t matters of life and death, it’s probably safe to say that they will pass and we will emerge from whatever storm that descended upon us relatively unscathed. It is, of course, easier said than done that we can slap a smile on our faces and grin through the gloom in every circumstance, but if we can remember that this too shall pass we’re half way towards winning the battle.

Just B

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As today is my 32nd (gulp) birthday, I thought I’d entertain the idea that time travel was possible, and write a letter to the ‘Me’ of ten years ago:

Dear 22 year old Belle,

This is your older (and far wiser) self, writing to tell you a few things that might help you in the years to come.

Right now you are happy and believe you have found love, but things will take a turn for the worse four years from now. It will be the toughest time you will have faced up to that point, but it will be the making of you in ways you couldn’t previously conceive. You will find a strength you never knew you possessed, and you will discover what it is to be truly happy in your own skin, without the claustrophobic need for companionship you currently experience. One day, after your fragile heart has healed, you will meet someone with whom you can be entirely yourself, someone who treats you with a level of respect you never thought possible, who will show you what it feels like to be truly and unconditionally loved. Wait for that day in good faith, and trust that you need to experience the hard times to truly appreciate the amazing ones that will follow.

But enough on that, now a few words on your career: As your future self I feel duty-bound to tell you it seems possible you may never know what you want to be when you ‘grow up.’ You’ll drift from job to job and never quite feel you belong. The only constant in your life will be writing, and this is something you must do at every opportunity. Don’t doubt yourself or your ability, simply write and see where it leads you. Never give up, for it is only in persistence that success can be found.

Some general life advice: Don’t have regrets or harbour grudges; all they’ll do is eat you up inside. Instead please trust that things will happen as they should. ‘What’s for you won’t go by you’ is a phrase that you should heed. Love your family and your friends with all your heart. Be honest, open and sincere. Don’t let the bad times cancel out the good. Be adventurous, bold and brave. Love life and live it to the full, for every soul who didn’t have the chance to.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. Help people. Read widely. Travel the world. Make a difference. Believe in yourself. Live. Love. Pray. Be.

Yours,

32 year old Belle.

Why I will (sadly) never play the Dane

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This may well be my time of the month talking (they don’t call it ‘The Curse’ for nothing, boys. Sorry, too much information), but over the past couple of days I’ve found myself musing on the nature of ambition and, well, wondering how it is that somewhere along the way I managed to lose mine. Don’t get me wrong, I still have crazy dreams of writing a best-selling novel and retiring by the age of forty (forty five at a push) with millions in the bank. But back in the real world – the one where I have to work to earn money to put a roof over my head, avoid starvation and so forth – as my best friends forge ahead with their careers, so my drive to excel in the field in which I work has all but dried up.

Thinking back I’m not sure I ever was enormously ambitious in a wanting-to-set-up-my-own-company-and-be-a-CEO sort of way. I just had a quiet confidence that I would eventually establish a niche for myself and be happy. And, after a few blips along the way, I’m glad to report the happiness part is very much a feature of my life as it is today. The niche, however, has very much still to be carved and, much as I try to deny it, this is much to my chagrin.

There was, a few years back, a moment when I stood (metaphorically speaking) at a fork in the road and surveyed my options. The road on the left would take me further along the corporate path I was treading, with higher financial rewards but, in return, higher personal sacrifice. The road on the right would see me take an altogether more altruistic journey. Of course my moral compass won out and, on the whole, I don’t regret my decision. Working in the charity sector has its rewards – how many people can honestly say they care about what they do? – but it’s not without its limitations.

Next week I’ll turn thirty two – gulp – and yet I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, not really. What I do know, with depressing clarity, is how Montague Withnail felt when he said the following:

“It is the most shattering experience of a young man’s life, when one morning he awakes, and quite reasonably says to himself: I will never play the Dane.”

Through the eyes of a child

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At lunch time today I walked over to the river and sat down beside the water feature, which spurts jets of water intermittently out of the ground. As I watched, a little girl and a lady who was presumably either her mother or carer came over to look at the water feature. At first the girl, unsure what to expect, was hesitant to get close to it. But as soon as the water shot out of the ground she ran away, squealing with pleasure and clapping her hands. Moments later she was back in her original position, her gaze fixed intently on the spot where the water had originally exploded from. She did the same thing several times over before they eventually walked away, and during that time it struck me there’s a lot that adults can learn from children. Like, for example, the following:

  1. Delight in simple pleasuresChildren can derive pleasure from the simplest of things; a ladybird, a spurt of water, a feather on the ground. If adults took some time each day to appreciate little things in the same way, might it not alleviate some of the stress their busy lives create?
  2. Look at everything as if for the first timeThe older we get, the more of that childish wonder about the world we lose – wouldn’t it be nice if every day we tried to look at things we regard as ordinary and imagine it’s the first time we ever saw them? Not so ordinary now, right?
  3. Don’t waste time on things/people that/who bore youIf a child is given a toy to play with that isn’t very interesting to them, what do they do? Play with something else. Similarly, if a play partner doesn’t make the grade they’ll wander off and either find one that does or simply play alone. Why, then, do we adults put up with things and people that bore us?

Of course there are also many lessons children could learn from us (“Don’t throw your toys out of the pram” among them – didn’t we all learn THAT the hard way). Food for (childish) thought, anyway.

The weight of the world

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I don’t usually write poetry but today at lunch time I took myself off to Potters Fields to sit with the sadness I’m currently feeling for some people close to me, and out poured the following (pretty sure today’s post won’t meet the 200 minimum word quota I set myself but sometimes an artist must suffer for her work, and now is one such time):

The weight of the world

If heartbreak had a physical weight, this bench would have buckled years ago. So many came and went, sitting with their burdens when carrying them became too much to bear.

The late summer sun, whilst beautiful, seems now to taunt the hopeful souls who stroll and sit beneath it, catching the last rays before the seasons roll inexorably on.

Above the fading blooms two butterflies (who did not get the end of summer memo) frolic in the air, rising and falling on a breeze so faint it hardly stirs the blades of grass below.

Is this an end or a beginning? In some ways it is neither, but rather just a phase in the constantly shifting cycle of existence.

Why is it only humans want answers? Simple: Because the universe already knows.

(…and will you look at that, I’ve just broken the word count barrier).

Philippine Dream

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Today I have been mostly planning holidays. Well, one holiday to be specific, which has been booked on a carpe diem whim and is now shaping up to be something rather special. The catalyst for this trip was, as regular readers of this blog will know, the tragic passing away of a very special person who recently came into our lives. Now, in memory of his adventurous spirit, we are intending to have our very own adventure.

Starting in Hong Kong to celebrate the arrival of 2014, we’ll then fly to the Philippines where I’ll hopefully begin to tick off two items from my newly created bucket list; swimming with whale sharks and diving with sharks. We’re also going to do some trekking through rice terraces, visit a village that suspends its dead in coffins from the side of a cliff and, if time allows, also go to some bat caves and take a zip wire down from the highest bridge in the Philippines (a particularly tough challenge for me due to my fear of heights, but hell, why not. After all, you only live once).

I really couldn’t be more excited. It’s an opportunity to break away from the normal routine and recapture the essence of travelling that I miss so much in my everyday life. It will also no doubt give me a huge amount of inspiration for my writing – something that I’ve felt, much to my immense frustration, has been lacking in recent weeks. It may take a very (very) long time to pay this holiday off but I know it will be worth every penny. Life is for living and it is trips like this that make it feel so much more exhilarating.

Bucket List

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I’ve been hugely fortunate in my life to have already done some incredible things, among them: living in a mud hut by myself in Kenya; spending a week on a desert island in Borneo; going on safari in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania; taking in the wonder of Halong Bay in Vietnam by boat; diving with green turtles in Malaysia and watching the sun rise over the Taj Mahal. So when I decided to sit down today and write my bucket list, it’s fair to say the bar was already set extremely high.

Why write a bucket list? Because in two and a half weeks’ time I will be turning thirty two – an age that two of my friends who tragically passed away this year will now never grow older than. It’s a desperately sad and sobering experience when people the same age as you die. It brings a lot of things into sharp focus and makes you realise what’s really important and what’s of little or no significance at all. It also makes you want to squeeze every last drop out of life that you can, because heaven only knows when your time will be up too.

I’ve spent a long time coming up with this list. Whilst experiences and travelling make up most of it, I felt it was important to also have some personal life aspirations and altruistic goals thrown into the mix. I’m pleased as I read it back now to see that only one thing on the list (no.14) is about ownership of something, which should hopefully help me to achieve no.37…

And so, without further ado, I give you…Belle’s Bucket List:

  1. Swim with whale sharks in the Philippines
  2. Dive with sharks
  3. Complete a marathon
  4. Go to Las Vegas and fly over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter
  5. Go husky sledding, see the northern lights and stay in an ice hotel
  6. Go on a writing retreat
  7. Have a novel published
  8. Dance in Rio for Mardi Gras
  9. Trek Machu Picchu
  10. Go up, up and away in a hot air balloon in Burma
  11. Visit Tibet and Nepal
  12. Rave at Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock desert
  13. Volunteer on Christmas Day
  14. Own a house
  15. Learn a choreographed dance
  16. Stay in a hut on stilts over a tropical sea
  17. Hula in Hawaii
  18. Stay in at least five homestays in remote villages
  19. Read 100 Booker Prize-winning books
  20. Take a trip on the Orient Express
  21. Exchange wedding vows with someone I love
  22. Have someone call me “Mummy”
  23. Get back to nature in the Galapagos Islands
  24. Go on a cruise
  25. Canoe in the Amazon rainforest
  26. Float in the Dead Sea
  27. Party in New Orleans
  28. Give blood
  29. See a polar bear in the wild
  30. Ski in the Canadian Rockies
  31. Stay on a ranch and ride horses
  32. Go on a road trip
  33. See Ayers Rock
  34. Eat in a world class restaurant
  35. Be an extra in a film or TV series
  36. See the pyramids in Egypt
  37. Stop worrying about money
  38. Overcome anxiety and self-doubt
  39. Take a giant leap of faith
  40. Make someone feel less lonely

Winning at life

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You know those rare kinds of days when the universe seems suddenly to have aligned itself and all your hopes and dreams feel just that little bit closer to being realised? Well, today is one such day. Annoyingly I’m not yet in a position to be able to share all of the reasons for this sudden upturn of events. For now I can just say that positive changes are afoot, and that I feel excited about what the future holds for me and grateful for the good things that have come my way.

Other good things soon to come my way are two exciting birthday parties this weekend. Tonight we’re off to the Zoo Lates evening at the London Zoo to celebrate my colleague’s birthday (giraffe headband at the ready), and tomorrow it’s my good friend’s birthday party, for which he has decided to splash out and install three inflatable hot tubs in his garden so we can have an afternoon pool party. After last weekend’s course (which I loved every minute of but which, it must be said, was far from relaxing), I’m looking forward to letting my hair down and catching up with old friends in the glorious sunshine that’s finally decided to come out and play.

Apologies for the nauseating post but today I’m simply happy and I just wanted to share that.