Tag Archives: whirlwind

Breaking the Silence

Posted on by
2

It’s been a month since my last post. Life is such a whirlwind at the moment that I’m struggling to catch my breath. I mean, life’s always busy – despite my best intentions I don’t seem capable of living any other way – but having a new job that is ten times as busy as the last, in parallel with the often stressful process of planning a wedding (there’s nothing quite so thrilling – excuse the heavy sarcasm – as the feeling you get when your venue cancels on you three months after you sent the invites) is leaving precious little room for anything or anyone else (except of course my constant companion Guilt, who naturally manages to elbow his way into almost every situation).

But, tempting though it is to retreat into my head and bob up and down on the familiar sea of anxiety and worry (Guilt bobbing up and down beside me in his rubber ring), before drowning out the internal noise with crap TV and pointless social media staring (which, I won’t lie, I did a fair bit of in plucking up the courage to write this), I know in my heart that my best means of finding some clarity and peace of mind is through writing. Which is why, after several aborted attempts at updating this blog, I’ve finally sat down to do it. And also why I’ve taken the big decision to reassess my writing priorities, to take time out of screenplay writing and go back to what I love most: novel writing.

And what better way to get back into that than by attempting NaNoWriMo again in November? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done it before, how many first drafts of novels are languishing in the metaphorical drawer, dusty and undeveloped. And I’ve no reason to think this time will be any different. Given how crazy life is at the moment I’ve no reason to think I will even manage to complete it. I just know I want to do it, or try to do it, to get the creative juices flowing again – and drown out those hateful voices telling me that I’ll never be good enough.

download

Thought this was particularly appropriate given the circumstances. Come on NaNoWriMo, let’s get that crappy first draft underway..

Perfect Moments

Posted on by
Reply

In this recent post by Shakeclouds it was posited that the very notion of perfection can be damaging, especially when relating to the achievement of goals, because perfection itself it is such an elusive creature. And whilst I agree with that sentiment entirely, today I discovered that, every now and then in life, there ARE moments of pure and unadulterated perfection, it’s just that often we are so caught up in the whirlwind of our own existence and myriad pressures to perform at the optimum level that we fail to spot them.

What was this moment of pure joy and perfection? In actual fact it was the simplest moment of all. After taking the afternoon off work to pick up my Belgian ID card from the town hall, I came home early, set myself up at the breakfast bar with my laptop and selected the coffee house playlist on Spotify. Then, all of a sudden, the clouds outside parted and the whole apartment was flooded with sunlight.

It was, in that moment, so arrestingly beautiful that I just sat, focusing only on the lovely music and the beams of light coming into my living room, and I felt overwhelmingly grateful-not only for the music, the apartment or the sunshine, but for everyone and everything in my life. Having recently got engaged it isn’t hard for me to appreciate the positives at this point in time, but this was such a wonderful instance of stillness and appreciation that I felt moved to share in this blog; a rare moment of genuine mindfulness, a true oasis of calm. Such moments are not only perfect, they are as precious as the diamond I am lucky enough to now have on my finger. And I have a sneaking suspicion they don’t just hold the key to this crazy thing called life; they are its very essence.

image