Soon we’ll be younger than we’ve ever been

Soon we’ll be younger than we’ve ever beeт

It’s the last day of June, the sky is deliciously grey outside, the nasturtiums on my balcony have flowered and my tummy is full of the very slow fermented buckwheat bread (with lashings of salty butter) I made over 2 days. The cat is fed, the kids’ still asleep so I thought I’d write a little June roundup.

I saw a very famous female actor (I can never remember famous peoples names) who’s in her late 60’s maybe 70’s say ‘I was so old when I was in my 30’s and now in my 60’s I feel the youngest I have ever been’, she was saying how she took everything so very seriously n her 30’s and the freedom and playfulness and freedom she has more and more of, every year, and it has been in my head ever since. For the last decade (I’ll be 40 in 6 months) I have had a lot of joy but a LOT of taking life very very seriously. This June marks 9 years of landing in the UK after escaping my ex, 9 years since starting my business and 9 years taking life very fucking seriously! 9 years which I am very proud of but also very ready to slow right down and enjoy what I made. This June is also the 1 year anniversary of us having our first home and a month where I was diagnosed with ADHD (not really a surprise) had total burnout/breakdown and took some time to feel and find some joy again.

So this June has been an experiment into finding what makes me feel younger and lighter and freer. I had a really beautiful June, I reclaimed the art of pottering. I used to love to just cook and potter and listen to music then I forgot how. Lost it in the muddle of working and living always at once, and never doing one or the other, so I put my phone away and reclaimed the art of pottering. The art of doing shit slowly. Of taking away things, not adding them. I canceled meetings and cooked slowly. I soaked beans, and made bread that took 2 days and remembered how we’ve been so tricked into instant gratification, we’ve forgotten how sweet the anticipation is. The sweet foreplay of mundanity, that they stole from us with next day delivery. So, I started ordering books from my local bookshop and waiting weeks for them to arrive and noticing how much more I notice when it’s finally in my hands. The weight of it, the picture of the cover, peeling the label off the back.

I started going for a morning swim, by myself, without my phone. Floating in a star in the water with the sun on my face like a happy baby, and realised how much there is to see when you look up. I saw so many fish in the sea, I saw a lady wearing high heels with a tiny dog with its hair in pigtails doing squats in the park, and I saw a man chasing his dog all around the beach trying to stay calm, and the smiles I shared with the 3 other people on the beach who were watching hime. I saw a very old man with his walking stick being helped down the beach to dip his toes in the sea and I realised that life can be so beautifully simple. That really all we want is to dip our feet in the sea, have time to potter and feel things and to share smiles with strangers and feel connection.

This month I also went away for a weekend because I decided that the story of, ‘I could never do that’ was one I made up, and hadnt revisited for a long time. So I asked for help (ouch) and my brother came and looked after my kid so I could go away to the most beautiful retreat (Nomada retreat - look it up)! And when I was there I remembered how much I love to be in nature, and how good breathing deep feels and how I say I hate yoga but actually it felt really fucking good and how I still love trying to flip into swimming pools as much as I did when I was young (I just needed to get my serious 30’s out the way to come back to it again). I also remembered that driving makes me feel so free and singing along in the car with friends is one of life's most joyful things. 

And then when I got home I picked up my brother and kid and went looking for waterfalls and I remembered that the formula is nearly the same for all these joyful nourishing things. It’s just, connection sprinkled with something very very simple and sensory. Family x nature. Friends x music. Me x food/breath/movement. It’s all so painfully simple really.

And lastly, this June I cut off all my hair and when I got home it rained and I stood on my terrace and felt the raindrops on my head and it was one of the nicest things I’ve felt for a while, just me and my hairless head and big juicy cool drops of rain.
Feeling (and certainly sharing) joy at the moment, with the world so so full of sadness feels conflicting but maybe, maybe it's more important than ever.

So here’s an old poem I write on joy:

On Joy (again)

They sold us ‘joy’
Ticketed and boxed up
Wrapped up and held just out of reach
They lured us in with 2.0’s and XXL’s and V I fucking P’s
They told us we were nearly there,
But I found joy for free
I found it in the red of her lips
Like the colour of a melted strawberry calippo on that trip
when I didn’t check my phone not even one little bit
I found it in the crunch of an apple and the way the sun dapples
The streets under the washing line with those fresh new sheets
that someone will slip into tonight
and with a smile remember that joy is ripe and ready to be plucked from every tree
They tried to sell it to me but I just remembered that joy is free
I found it in that pause he makes before he lies about his pack lunch, and I don’t know why
That feels like joy but it does, like when I cry and he wraps me up and says its alright
And it is because tomorrow I will find joy again, in the matching of colours, the smile of a dog, that first sip of
Water when I’m back from that jog I thought I couldn’t do, but I did.
They told me I could pay later for it and I nearly did until my track came on
So I threw back my head and kicked off
My shoes and remembered it doesn’t always take two to tango.
I found joy in the juice of the secret mango dripping
down my chin. I found it in no longer wanting to be thin.
In holding hands and taking breaths and talking less.
They sold us ‘joy’
With next day delivery
Told us that we wouldn’t have misery
If we got one more for him and one more for me
They tried to sell me joy But I found joy for free

Maybe joy is the fuel that keeps us strong enough to keep fighting. For ourselves, for each other, for the world. And maybe the more we live it and share it the more it spreads and the more we can do.

And the more we feel it the younger we become, and soon we’ll be younger than we’ve ever been.

Love always
Sal x