Well, there's a change of habit. I have spent an actual lifetime procrastinating and doing the important things last, when it's late and when it hurts (including my Tax Return - and that was just yesterday). And it's not as if I didn't do that a bit today. However, instead of going to an impro workshop which had been offered to me for free, I finally buckled down and did the work I had to do first. I almost fell off my chair. That's just not 'me'. Well, if I'm going to attach my sense of identity to something, is procrastination really where I want to be at? I'm not naive enough to think that's procrastination done with - I'm sure as I take each breath, one after the other, I'm procrastinating something. And it's not for nothing that I've started this blog at five past 11 - when I want to get it up by midnight.
Anna Levy gave me this little gift last week, though, by letting me host on the Tuesday rather than the Monday, meaning my work was done and I didn't sit with a stone in my belly throughout my hosting day. It's a feeling I've only had very rarely in my life, that lifting of the stone before the last minute. I'd like more, please. Lots more.
(An image search teaches me that when googling this word for images, it's very hard not to grossly patronised. This is one of the better ones).
This morning, I was delighted by a lady, Nicky, who spoke to me on the way down to the pond. We shared stories of dogs and childhood family attitudes, and others joined in too. We got quite deep (we'd left the dogs behind by then) but it was still all quite light and lovely. And I am still gently entertained by conversations held at different stages of undress.
As if to prove a point, the woman who came in next had, half an hour before, failed to recognise Nicky when she said hello because she was not naked, swimming costumed or lobster red. Just didn't register.
I was also delighted by this second lady's confirmation that the lifeguards have been leaving the temperature at 5 degrees on the board, even though it's lower. They like to encourage us to get in. We'd get in anyway, but I think it's funny that they've been bamboozling us.
On arriving, there was nobody in the pond. The water was still and blissfully serene. Green and welcoming. Calm and silky. We made splashes in the end, huffing and puffing with the cold. Only at first, though. By halfway round, or less, I am joining the water in its calm. I feel a wonderful, gentle wave of presence and of peace.
So thank you, Klaus, for an afternoon of playing, for a chance to play with lovely Juliet Stephens (and thank you, J, for your lovely comments). Thank you for a bike, complete with bag and pondy swimming gear, still waiting patiently at Tufnell Park when I got back, and for a very pleasant cycle up beloved Archway hill. I won't have to do it regularly after Monday. I'll be moving to the bottom of it, and I won't even need to navigate that junction much. No loss, the junction, but I shall always have affection for the hill.
Leftover liver. Almost goes without saying how grateful I am for that (but that's the point, isn't it - to say it). Juliet's view and comments on the blog, and Catherine's yesterday, really brought it back to me what this is about, or was, or will be. A way of focusing the mind on what is pleasing, a way of looking for the benefit and giftage in any experience, in any day.
It was going to be an intellectual study of gratitude too. Maybe it will become that. Maybe not. I may write down some themes in my Book of Terrible Ideas and flick them at my own face when I need a bit of a boost.
Tomorrow, I intend to swim quite late. I'll meet Rob at 1.30 in Old Street. Before that, I'll pack and sort and clean. After, work, yoga, home and then the launch into a proper itinerant lifestyle for two weeks. Here's to anti-procrastination, motivation, play. Here's to happiness. Here's to sleep.
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