Day 20: Eeeep

Sultry tiger face. Attractive algae. Fine contrast

Big breaths. Big boots. An incantation for a delightful time and for all the energies that are needed to be present in droves. An enigmatic post full of spirals and butterflies. 

And a tiger. 

Two photos of live animals in the water. 

The bobbing heads of cold, happy people.

May the tiger be present, and the cold-water swimmer, and the out there spirits that do listening and holding really well. And no expertise. None. Thanks. 

Day 19: In Honour of Dogs

Sisterly bliss

I'm wiggling in my seat because my girls have learnt 'stay' today. Only in the kitchen, with no distractions and some very stinky liver and a dose of boredom, but still, they will wait at one side of the kitchen until I call them. This is progress! They've been sitting for ages and they recently learnt to catch liver slivers in mid-air. Now they can wait and stay. We are advancing. 

Poster girl

That's not to say we've won in our relationship. Yet. We're working on it. They're still on lead walks at the moment, and they're desperate to fight each other, but that's not cool on the lead, so they're not allowed. When they're at home, they nibble rather than biting. When they're out, they bite the shit out of each other, bowl each other over, pin each other down. 

Mouse is a dab hand at the 40-mile-an-hour tail grab. Baba is more of a chest bump kind of a girl (Baba got beef. Mouse needs to use agility and cunning to match her, but she can). 

Mouse being cute as fuck with a little lap-sit

I'm learning that this level of intensity is not pure play, but also contains some serious pecking-order establishment, and while playing is to be encouraged, tearing a piece off each other isn't. We're working on it. 

I am grateful for their lovely bodies, their lean and lovely bellies, their soft ears and their almond eyes that gentle themselves as they relax. I'm grateful for the smell of them, even when it's a bit pungent and very dog. I love their responsiveness and I'm delighted that the phrase 'I can see you with my eyes!' gets them to stop doing whatever it is they're doing, like chewing my Peruvian ex-poncho rug or coming in to start another fight. 

Anyone for ears?

We're not out of the woods. I may still need to love these beauties and let them go where they can have more experienced care, more space, more time and perhaps a regular man in their life (Lord knows we could all do with a bit of that!) But I haven't given up on us yet. 

And if we do part, I wish for them to be loved as hard as I love them. I'm sure they will be. They are the most delightful pair. And if they are, and they are happier, we will always have shared this... play bows and belly rubs; learning together and failing at a few things; love, respect and affection. And ears. We can never forget ears. 

Day 18: Play!

Get Katy's book. It rocks.

Play, play play play, plaaaaay!

When it's good, it's really good, and yesterday, it was ace! I did a two-person improv workshop with Katy Schutte and it was fabulous. Check out Katy's very cool book, The Improviser's Way, which I have. She has a nose for the joyful, and the book reflects that. 

I got to play with my beloved improv partner, Simon Veal, king of believable, obvious (which is a fantastic thing) and inspired improvising, and someone it is a joy to be on stage alongside. 

Simon makes scenes feel like breathing lungs (also a good thing, just in case you weren't sure). Being in a scene with him is a spacious thing, a place where what needs to be said gets said; sometimes, it's a simple action that calls us back to something that was mentioned in passing earlier on, and that makes it suddenly significant and immensely pleasing. He's the master of simple specifics that make things real and he's a proper delight to play with.

Girl dogs busy being doe-eyed at their second home
while I'm away

It was also a gift to be in a room with a handful of other playing pairs and others who'd come bereft of their other, gathering nourishment to take home and feed to their improv partner or group. Some properly fabulous players. So pleasing to watch people who enjoy playing together. 

I'm staying with my marvellous cousin Ruth, who is 79. She's down to earth, creative, courageous and pragmatic. She gets on with things and and eats things up (sometimes the same things - she fashioned a groundbreaking casserole today to feed a small heap of guests and will eat it up tomorrow). 

This keeps popping up

She is also very funny indeed, generous and loved by all around her. She still swims in the Kenwood Ladies' Pond daily and walks for miles, fills endless black sacks with rubbish on the Parkland Walk and gives her time, love and money to anything she holds as important. I love and admire her. She can't hear it, but I do. 

The dating thing was so-so. Nowhere near as much fun as the play. I think there' s lesson in that. Stop being so fucking earnest, Claybourne; stop worrying, and play!

Day "17": Have a Carrot

I've got out of the habit of writing the blog, which is a shame, because I bloody love it. It's like taking communion. It's a little ritual that takes the spirit of whatever is into my body and makes it feel alive again. A ritual that reminds and one that nourishes. 

What a face! 

Rituals are perfect for that. It's not that the dance or prayer or laying out of candles MAKES a thing happen, nor that the ritual of burying a loved one means that the goodbye is any more complete than without it, but that the act of ritualising it makes the senses ready to receive what they need to. It's like sweeping the floor before guests come or laying out the red carpet. It's a language of its own. 


Today, I spent the day with the wonderful, magical, fucking lovely Tiu de Haan. She helped me buy a Very Smart Jacket and some respectable (and lovely) boots. I shall cut a finer figure thanks to her. 

My doggos at their home boarding place. Sweet little faces.
Handsome girls.

Tomorrow I do a workshop with the Fabulous Veal (my improv partner, Simon), led by Katy Schutte, who I know only through others who love her. I'm scexcited. I am rusty as an old bucket on the improv front, but looking forward to playing and not leading. Looking forward to learning and stretching a bit. And looking forward to having a go on Veal (in an improv way). 

And on Sunday, I'm doing a dating thing. Not so much to meet someone in an active way, but to put myself out there. I may not be 'ready', but I will be by the time the wheels get in motion. I'm thinking of this as cleaning the chain and checking that the pedals are on. Who knows what will come of that. 

It's good to be back, cocking about with words and pictures. It's good to be home. 

Day 16: It's not about you

I bloody love this face, I do

This is the thing I couldn't remember from the other day:

"It's not about you."

This came through loud and resolute, like a chant.

"It's not about you. You've got it all back to front. It's not about you."

It's an insistent voice that doesn't sound quite like mine.

Your feeling unfulfilled, unworthy or frustrated is just what is. It's not about you. 


Your feelings of joy and satisfaction, a heady rush of love or thrill of praise is just what is. It's not about you. Someone disappoints you and you feel betrayed and hurt; it's not about you. You let someone down and feel guilty; it's not about you. 

That's not fatalism or shirking of responsibility, but spiritual pragmatism. You still get to choose what you do, but lose the judgement, lose the shoulds and exhausting fucking standards. Just do what you need to do. It's not personal. It's not about you. That conviction is quite simply a waste of time and a huge distraction. 

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
in his youth

Pema Chödrön tells a story about her teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, conducting a wedding blessing. In it, he turns first to the bride and hits her repeatedly* over the head with a washi-washi - a sacred thingy that makes a shaky noise - and says "Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward" three times. Then to the groom he says "Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward" three times, also hitting him on the head in time with the words. And then to both of them: "Kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness, kindness."

 * And gently! I've just been reading about his provocative and quite upsetting behaviour so I felt the need to point this out. He was giving a blessing, not being a dick. Aaaand we're back to 'I'm being provocative on purpose and that just happens to involve me doing whatever I want for my own gratification" narcissists, as per Day 7: Ego Menagerie. 

And dressed as Elvis

 I joke about things being 'my next tattoo' but that, seriously, that is a reminder I need to hear every single day. That's a candidate for the backwards-written forehead tattoo, like the writing on an ambulance. Every time I look in the mirror, I need to remember this. My feeling bad today is not a measure of my worth in life, my success or my standing. It just is. My feeling good today, or having success, is also by the by. Move on. 


It's not just the Buddhists who say this (unless Rudyard Kipling was a massive secret Buddhist). This is from the poem 'If', which you'll find in full here. 

... If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;...

After a list of such wisdoms, it ends saying that if his son can do all of them, 'you'll be a man, my son.' You'll be a human being human. You'll be a person being real and fallible and wise. You'll be off the vicious hook you spend your time polishing and hanging off. Thanks RK. You were on the money.

Thanks, Rudyard Kipling, for your wise
words and your stunning eyebrows

So my holding back from doing things I want to do out of fear, or some sense of it being 'not my place' to do certain things, or because I don't think I'm good enough, is, frankly, a big old bag of shit. It's not personal. It's not about me. 

Somebody I thought I loved doesn't love me and it hurts. It's not about me. I don't love somebody who thought they loved me and that's painful for them. It's not about me. "Feel it, grieve it, love it, bless it. Just know that it's not about you."

Past traumas happened and made shapes in my life that I'm working to address, and right now, that feels tough. "Good. Well done. Keep going. It's not about you". 

I could waste my life on striving for perfection (and suffering from its lack) where it's not even possible to conceive of what perfection could possibly mean. "That's distraction. Be kind, make friends with that part of yourself that's hooked on that. Give it a lollipop  (made of juice and stevia and generic edible virtue of course) and a kiss on the forehead and send it out to jump on the trampoline for a few minutes till it feels better."

Except if you're me, and then it probably is because,
you know, I'm special. Gah!

In a culture where we're encourage to find out passion, make our mark, strive for our goals and be our own unique brand in everything we do, where we're suckled on individualism from the very start, topped up with comparison and fed a diet of consumer addiction to measure our worth and social standing, this is a hard sell, but it's also a massive relief.

This is permission to just feel it, whatever it is, and treat yourself with respect, to be the cell that joins with others to make up the minute pin-prick area of fingertip that's busy being shoved up a nose. It's not about you. Just keep going. It's not about you. 

And just in case you were wondering, it's not about YOU either.  

Day 15: Water Blessings

This post is dedicated to the river, to the fat flow of it, to the banks that hold it even after rains and to its cold welcome. Despite my 'getting in face', there's a bliss unlike any other about being received by this moving entity. It's a gift. It feels like coming home. 

Thank you SO MUCH, Lindsey, for making this your
Facebook cover photo. No, REALLY. 

I always forget to ask permission. My lovely friend Rina Golan teaches that you should always ask the water spirits for their blessing before stepping in, and in return they will carry away anything you don't need. 

Another lovely friend, Bridget Quinn, who visited me in London and came for a dip in the Ladies' Pond, said you must always put your head under, so the water can cleanse your hair and take away unwanted energies. We decided against today. The river was dark with field fun-off. Yesterday's rain was heavy. 

Checking on the water's roar

We were blessed with dancing raindrops and a distinctly yellowy, uplifting quality to the bright sunlight. It caught the contours of every delicate drop. It lit the leaves and made rainbows in the sky. 

After, a leafy walk with patient dogs, their (very pleasing) bodies alert with the smells of rabbits, tantalising pheasants just out of sight, but well within the reach of a nose and all kinds of concoctions carried on the wind, maybe miles away. 

If I may say so, there is only one way to start the day, and muddy or clear, temperate or fucking freezing, the water is that way. 

Day 14: Fighty Flow

I had a bit of an epiphany today in the car. At a red light, I wrote it on my hand. I was on my way to dance in Bristol (Natural Dance with the fabulous Leigh Tolson).  I sweated the writing right off my hand. It will come back. Or not. 


And the dance. Oh, the dance! I was greeted by Kath Jones and Ruth Blake, who danced me inside in unison. It was delightful. I wore my black 1920s tassel dress this evening, so I was swinging and bouncing and loving every second of it most of the night. 

Not quite that fighty. Also, I'm female

I had a proper fighty, physical dance with someone (I'd never spoken to him). It was really, really good. He was strong and so am I, and we danced and played with force and resistance and it felt sublime, refreshing and exhilarating. I still haven't spoken to him. 

I shared lots of dances tonight, most of them quite tender and playful. I've been absent from the class for three weeks missed it so much. Dancing with people is such nourishment for me and feels very easy at Leigh's. I missed the pure physicality of the dance and the immense DJing and killer space-holding that Leigh waps out every single time. 

I'm glowing, knackered and wide-eyed. But I wasn't going to miss another blog post.

Day 13: Missed

In many tower blocks, there is no floor 13. In many airlines don't have a row 13 either. Not they are officially superstitious, but that passengers have expressed a desire not to sit there, so they skip from 12 to 14.

Somewhat dramatic. I'm not this weird-eyed

I did not post yesterday (day 13). I don't think it was anything to do with bad luck, though the post that didn't make it into the world might disagree. I'm not missing it out, as such, but sitting it up on the shelf until the inevitable day when I'm feeling well prolific, or have too many topics to talk about. I'll retrospect it. If we're lucky, I'll travel through time. 


I'm feeling saucer-eyed with weird at the moment, and not quite where I want to be. Quite not. It's not an excuse - the point of this blog is to worship whatever is, to "bless what there is for being". What there was last night was sleep. What there is now is about to be the same. 

That's more like it

It is, though, a good time to write. When things are really that way out. When things look like they're in need of repair and they can't possibly be used until they're fixed. 

In fact, the usage is the 'fixing'. I suspect that when I properly accept this truth: that there is nothing to fix, nothing to shun, nothing to reject being with - then my life will take a very different shape. 

Not because 'things' will stop happening; not because perfection will finally have landed at my door, but because that's kind of the point. Shut-downness today: thank you. Challenge: take a seat. Irritation: can I interest you in a biscuit? (I never have the right biscuits for Irritation. This fact drives him mad). 

Once that's down, it's all just movement and dancing.

Day 12: Out of Body

I've spent quite a lot of today out of my body. It's a place I'm quite familiar with and one I feel like attempting to describe. 

Much too spooky

It's a bit like... have you ever been about to faint? There's a moment just before it happens - it probably already happening, in fact, but it feels like you're on the lip, just about to go - when you're aware of something being about happen in that body there, but you feel a slight detachment from the body in question. 


Sometimes time slows down and you have a little time to plan - to check for things not to fall onto, for example, or to make a note of where your phone is in case you need to call someone to come and help you. I realise that perhaps that's MY experience of fainting because I'm quite good at jumping up out of my flesh suit into a space just behind it. 

For me, it's like I'm standing on a low step just behind myself. I'm close enough to sense that person. If we were in a horror movie, the outside version of me would be nuzzling the corporeal one's neck, almost, and everyone would be feeling a little bit uncomfortable. 

What the fuck?

From the inside, it's a bit like looking through my own eyes through perspex. I can see out, but there's a separation. There's definitely a slightly grainy, slightly slow-moving quality to that out-thereness, and a difference in acoustics. 

It's meta, that's what it is. It's being aware of a constant meta-narrative of 'here this is, happening (so where am I?), trying to focus on the external and feeling drawn by something shiny and strong at the inside of my brain. A little bit of meta, wherever I am.

I've been calling myself back in by sensing specific body parts, especially lower ones (legs, feet, bottom on the seat etc), making sounds, and contracting a few muscles to see what changes. Making room inside my legs for that distant feeling to pour down and fill them up, and becoming curious about the sounds in my space. I haven't had a full reconnect yet, but I trust that it will come. 

If not, I'll take the advice I've been given and sit with that state like a guest or a person in a waiting room. There are different takes on this. Is it wise to sit with that part and have a cup of tea, or is that inviting it to stay for too long? Either way, it should feel accepted and easy - any sense of trying to banish it will only make it more determined. 

I'm going to a gig tonight. Looks like I have an unexpected guest. I wonder if it likes hip-hop. 

Day 11: Oversharing

This guy is part of the whole

Wow. My ego/fear/overwhelm voice is so strong that when I move close to something I want, it tells me I would be better off not in this world. It doesn't say 'than to do x'. It says 'the world would be better off without you'. It's pretty forceful. 

This, in this moment, is one of the things that is, and if I'm to be true to myself and to this challenge, I must worship it. I must thank it for showing up and shouting, and letting me know that I'm onto something. 

I must bow down in humility to all the work it's done to keep me from harm and I must take it by the hand (paw?) and show it that it's barking at shadows. 

There are other things here too - gratitude for lovely exchanges, for understanding, for all my needs being met. 

This one is like the party guest who's drunk too much and takes all the attention, whether that be in holding court with loud stories, crying into a bottle of gin in the kitchen or throwing up down the back of the sofa (where lots of people are sitting). Anything for attention. 

Pema Chödrön goes on and on (she'd agree) about nurturing unconditional friendship with the self. That means loving myself when I'm in the midst of listening to that destructive voice, when I'm facing real truths about things that need to change, when I'm standing up to old stories and when I'm breaking under them. 

Monsters have less substance than they
believe themselves to have

Just like in a relationship with another person, I can't wait until that person changes, realises I'm right or comes to me bathed in apology. I get to make the first move. I have to. It's a leap into the unknown. 

hearts and flowers? you're spoiling us

The love for that fallible friend has to come first and fully, as fully as is possible in this moment, and then it has to be watered and given Baby Bio and sung to sweetly. 

So here's to a loving lullaby tonight, a bit of heavy metal, maybe, or a chant. Here's to a song and a word of nurture and to a big old dose of heart (see below)

Here's to worshiping the what is that we don't want to be, and doing it with the same sacredness as the bits it's easy to love. 

Massive fucking heart. Thanks, Latto.

Day 10: Non-Blog Blog and Mermaids

This one looks a bit like a bed

This is not a blog. This is an afterthought. A beforethought. A beforebedthought. It's late, I'm tired and tomorrow I'm up early to do all the things before a river swim at 8.30 and a visit to a new place at 10.15 (better get my shit on after the frozen swim). There's been frost every morning for a good few days. It will be a shock to the system. I'm excited. 

I've spent a lot of the day writing a job application for a job I really want. I really, really do want it, so much so that it freaks me out. I've been freelance for more than eight years, but this job would trump the lot (lower case, people). 

This looks a bit like my belly.

So I'm applying. I'll do my best, I'll send the application and I'll let go of the outcome further than that (I want the fucker, ok!). I'm a sucker for an interview, though, so if nothing else, I hope I get that. 

And whatever happens, there it is, I've outed myself. I really really want something - specifically, I want to be able to say that I am the director of the Ministry of Stories.* Not for the sake of saying it (though it does have a ring to it) but because I believe in what they do, I think I could do the job well and I'd be proud to be involved with them. 

This looks ridiculous, and quite pleasing

So I wiggle in gratitude to the courage to put myself out there, to want something publicly and to risk ridicule from my imaginary jury if I don't get it. And for doing a blog despite doing crazy-eye. And for my bed, who is singing my name like sirens sing to sailors. I'm on my way. 

* I was desperate not to say that, because that really IS putting it out there, but that's kind of the point.

Day 9: Doggo Dance

I can't find a picture of them doing prawn, so here are some of
them doing hugging instead.

Today I am celebrating a back that makes me look like a liar... this morning I took about 5 minutes to stand up from my chair, this afternoon I was walking like a proper hiker and this evening twisting and stretching as we did impro games. 

I am DELIGHTED to be able to move again. I'm delighted now to be sitting on my sofa with a stretched out dog on either side of me, all legs. Like massive, hairy king prawns. With ears. 

I love that when they sleep, especially like that, their paws twitch, sometimes individual toes, and they do that semi-silent barky thing. You can see the diaphragm being activated for a proper bark, but all that comes out is a little whiney grunt. 

Face and leg biting = main job of dogs

I also love how they smack their doggy little lips when I stroke them, and how they bite each other's legs and make Chewbacca sounds, and how Baba makes a happy howl and rubs herself all over any boy dog she likes (I might do well to take a leaf out of her bold book).

These beauties are the source of so much stress and anxiety for me - they don't come back when I call them and sometimes run off - and the source of so much love, heart-softening and sweetness. 

You cute bastards.

I'm definitely not the best dog-mama out there, and I love them and do my best with them. We're finding our way together at the moment, and even when it's hard, I need to remember to appreciate their pleasing doggo bodies and their sweet affection. 

They are still scared of chairs and farts and my coat and sometimes me, even though I feed them. Even AS I feed them. But compared to how they were when I got them, they have definitely grown in confidence. Whatever happens, we have had quite a journey.

Thanks for the complexity of them. Thanks for the dance, doggos.