lou: quietly

aspire

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:07:13 +0100

Self. Sense of self. Sense of potential of self by watching others and understanding that we are comprised of just the same flesh, bones and psyche as others who achieve all, and that the limits we impose are merely constructs, safety nets for our minds.

Don’t settle. At least, don’t settle if you don’t want to. If you do not aspire, there is no wrong in accepting. We all have different aspirations. But don’t dismiss those of us who refuse to settle.

Some people are always chasing wheels. Some people ride side by side. And some are incapable of riding a bike without pushing themselves to the absolute limit of physical and mental capabilities - if you can still walk when you get off you’ve not tried hard enough. Not about being first up the hill. Not about competitiveness. Not about beating the opposition into a pulp.

About self.

If you don’t stretch yourself, you’ll always stay the same shape. There’s nothing wrong with staying the same shape (as long as the shape is healthy and happy). But why scorn those who refuse to settle? No laurels to rest on, no heels to drag. Don’t want to stay the same, don’t want to open eyes and see the same thing every morning. Don’t want to always be at the back.

Don’t believe in god. Don’t believe in higher beings. Do believe that if a collision of fertility resulted in my having potential to do things which are fun, which are fearful, which stretch and push and allow me to grow, then it would be irresponsible to ignore. That’s my belief. It doesn’t need to be yours. But don’t dismiss mine.

I didn’t want to be shy any more so I worked on it and now I’m not as much. I didn’t want to worry all the time so I worked on it and now I don’t worry as much. I didn’t want to avoid making decisions for the rest of my life so I threw myself into situations where I had to and now I don’t avoid them any more. I used to be afraid of the dark. I worked on it and now I’m not.

What does that mean? It means not settling. It means not accepting. It means a lot of hard work, a lot of hard questions and harder answers. It means I will get on a plane despite being terrified and likely sitting white, tense and shaking for 8 hours. It means I will get on a bike and ride it fast because I am scared. It means pushing, sometimes relentlessly, to beat things into submission which are invisible to everyone but me.

I aspire to be a better person. Not because a book tells me, not because someone else told me I should, not because I am trying to prove anything to anyone else. It is as simple as ‘this bit is broken and so I will fix it’.

I don’t believe in mediocrity. I don’t believe there is a place for it in my world. I believe that if I’m going to get fit then I might as well be the fittest it’s possible for me to be. If I’m going to become more healthy then I’ll be the healthiest I can be. If I’m going to pay to go to a gig, I’m going to enjoy it intensely, and I’m not going to waste time reading a book which hasn’t grabbed me in the first chapter.

But most of all, I believe if a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, with full commitment and a little bit of enthusiasm.

Don’t kick my ass for doing it and I wont kick yours.

Prefer behind to in front of

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:20:00 +0100

Prefer behind to in front of

Does the power of the words always depend on the power of the...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:35:45 +0100

Does the power of the words always depend on the power of the person who wields them?

Unrecognisable

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:33:59 +0100

‘you’ve lost weight, I think’ he says. He hasn’t seen me for a week but it’s only a week. What about me looks different this week that was unnoticeable last?

I look in the mirror and my face is different. Slowly but surely the puffiness is melting away, leaving behind cheekbones and smiles. The wrinkles will come eventually - someone commented a while ago that being fat keeps the wrinkles away. Being my mothers daughter helps too.

I walk and my muscles change shape. I walk more, far more than I used to. Along pavements, through alleys, down steps and up again. My calf muscles are deconstructed, reconstructed again. Over and over and over. At first there was pain. Then it stopped. Then we went to the Lakes and we walked some more, through prettiness, and it transpires that exercise is not the answer to one particular legacy of being unwell. More pain, less pain again.

No pain, no gain.

I just choose not to box myself inside a gyms four walls to inflict it.

But of all the people who could finally notice, I am most proud of all that my boyfriend finally did.

A beautiful anachronism

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:26:46 +0100

A beautiful anachronism

Writing beauty

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:17:09 +0100

Should probably explain why this is here. I wanted somewhere to keep on writing. I wanted somewhere to be able to play. I wanted somewhere for me that no one was expecting anything wonderful from.

I wanted somewhere to make grammatical errors and shameless posts full of emotion and light and laughter without feeling judged and scrutinised.

I might talk about work. I might talk about weekends with my boyfriend. I might talk about riding my bike. I might talk about the things I over hear, or the snapshots in my mind that I click when I see something beautiful or challenging or different.

I want to write beauty. No small aspiration, then. But striving to be better seems to be doing me just fine these days, so why not shoot for the stars?

A timely reminder that sheep have been walking these paths for...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:42:56 +0100

A timely reminder that sheep have been walking these paths for far longer than we have.

Higher is happier

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:59:35 +0100

The short: We went away to the Lakes for the weekend to celebrate my birthday.

The long: The sun shone. And shone and shone and shone. We walked: we met two men along the first 1.5 mile stretch ambling along the bridleway running away from Wastwater in the vague direction of Nether Wasdale. He hailed from Blackpool. Said how lovely it was to hear a proper Lancashire accent again. Asked where we were headed and rued that once he would have been heading the same way but now 3 miles was about right. 42 years he’d lived in Cumbria, never deciding where to walk at the weekend until Friday night in the pub, but out every weekend, we assumed for 42 years.

We camped: Or rather we podded, slept inside the smell of pine, beneath starfields so intricate we struggled to find the familiar patterns of stars in amongst all the noise. Mars stood out - it always does. We fell asleep to the sound of a distant generator and of owls hooting, chatting across the valley, over our heads.

We ate and drank: micro-brewery ale recommended by the locals, ginger beer and ‘proper’ scampi, mixed with flapjack we forgot to take with us on the walk which nearly led to disaster along with a fly by visit to our favourite restaurant in the entire world. Zeferelli’s is the only restaurant we’d drive a 60 mile round trip in an evening for.

We gazed: at mountain ranges and still waters. At sun beams cascading down the side of folds in the screes, replacing water with light. At the campsite in front of our pod, perfectly formed, gently undulating, lusciously green and scattered with trees, handily placed for children to climb and safely fall out of, to be bedecked in wet towels and airing sleeping bags. At kayakers using 1 metre square pieces of material as mini sails to catch up with friends and at mountain ghylls gently trickling where once they had thundered. At orangey brown bracken which said Autumn and crocus and daffodil patches which said Spring.

We drove: down winding lanes in dark and light, splashing through potholes, reversing for farm traffic, negotiating the complicated and seemingly etiquette ridden dance of who has right of way on endless single track roads. Past road riders crucifying themselves with joy on Birker Fell. Through flat meadows, past reflective mirror estuaries and round and up hairpins covered in perfectly smooth newly laid tarmac.

We smelled: freshly baked bread and freshly brewed coffee. Meatfree sausages and onions frying in the morning. The bedewed grassy smell of camping and the smell of 3am when no one else is awake.

We found: each other. Serenity and soporific drifting. The edges of our fitness right now. The edges of the flex of my calf muscles. That I am definitely allergic to sunlight but that it doesn’t matter. That spf 20 suncream mixed with non deet insect repellant is about the best invention ever. That gruff man in climbing shop is not for melting but that most people really do respond well to a beaming smile given freely.

Not bad for under £100.