Gathering Rosebuds

Life is precarious. It doesn’t matter how hard we work, or how carefully we plan, things will go wrong. A lot of the time we find ourselves surrounded by hassles and worries, or filled with boredom and tedium.  Sometimes it’s much worse – a severe accident, a life-threatening illness, or the untimely death of someone we love. So when we have glimpses of happiness, it is good to cherish and celebrate them.

Robert Herrick, 17^th century poet, urges us to make the most of the good times while we can:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying.

I’ve gathered a few fine rosebuds, this last week or so.

Last weekend was the big cycle ride from Carlisle to Liverpool (the reason for my two previous posts about cycling uphill).  Getting over Shap summit despite driving rain and a strong head wind was wonderful. Cruising the nine miles downhill to Kendal was even better. Exhilaration, feeling alive –all that and more.  Two rosebuds at least.

A bonus of distance cycling is that you can eat as much as you want, in fact you have to, to keep your energy up.  So slap-up breakfasts, mid-morning stops for double ice-creams and hot chocolate.  More rosebuds. Calories, who’s counting?

At the half way point, the entire family turned out to greet us. An evening with all my children and grandchildren, together in the same place.  A whole heap of rosebuds there.

This week Sue and I’ve been in Ireland, taking part in a GP conference in Kilkenny. Before that we had a couple of days over in the west, including a drive to Spanish Point, on County Clare’s Atlantic coastline.  Hard to believe it was midsummer’s day: wet, windy and cold. But it was beautiful, in a wild sort of way. We sat there for an hour or so, well wrapped up, eating apples and soda bread, watching four girls learning to surf, and listening to the waves breaking on the shore.

On the drive back the sun broke through the clouds, and I remembered Van Morrison’s wonderful song Coney Island. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVyZfCDdkTY So, with apologies to Van, here’s my final rosebud:

I look at the side of your face as the sunlight comes streaming through the window in the summer sunshine. And all the time coming from Spanish Point, I’m thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time.”

Gathered any rosebuds yourself recently?

Feeling Alive

In my last post I was wondering why I enjoy cycling uphill.  Thank you for all your blog and Facebook thoughts about this – including all those kindly people concerned about my sanity! 

I’ve been thinking more about it, not least after a recent ride in the wind and rain, when I ended up with numb feet, drenched right through to the skin – but feeling just great.  It’s not about achievement or performance, I’ve realised. It’s about feeling alive.  Being fully in the moment. In touch with my body and with the world around me. Engaging all my senses.

 It’s about immediate, direct, physical, sensuous reality.  Undoubtable existence. It’s about now.  Whatever happens later doesn’t matter.

 Maybe this is special for me because it is so different from what I do when I’m working. Work in the university, or in the surgery, involves brain stuff - intellect and emotion – but very little in the way of physical stuff.

 It resonates for me with Camus’s Sysiphus (who I posted about last year in Rolling Rocks), pushing his boulder up the mountain: ‘the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.’

When else do I feel alive, in such an immediate, heart filling  way?

• Hill walking – perhaps not surprising as it’s a similar thing to cycling uphill.  I have vivid and oddly enjoyable memories of climbing Snowdon with my friend Dave and (way back) getting stuck half way up Sca Fell Pike with my father, both in driving rain and howling gales. 
• Wild swimming – for me (but not for Sue!) a delightful, sensuous experience. Skinny dipping before dawn in the Pacific at Zipolite in Mexico; and in a secluded lake in Nigel’s Welsh woodland.  Did you see Alice Roberts’ wonderful documentary about it on BBC recently?
• Dancing to the late evening band at Campus
• Digging over the vegetable patch in our back garden, with a small child in a back carrier snuffling around my left ear.  
• And of course, personal activities known only to Sue and me.

Like our well-being recipes, what makes us feel alive will vary a lot from one person to the next.

 

Mary says being in the middle of her second pregnancy is doing it for her - she feels at one with herself, the baby inside her and the world around her.

 

What about you?  When do you feel fully alive? 

Cycling uphill

I’m in training for a family cycle ride from Carlisle to Liverpool.  After struggling along the Coast to Coast last year, I realised that I need to get to grips with cycling uphill.  Distance is not a problem. Downhill is a doddle.  But uphill is different – it hurts!

So on Sunday mornings you’ll often find me puffing and panting my way up Parbold Hill, about 15 miles north of Liverpool. It’s a mile or so of 15% gradient, which is a serious climb in anyone’s books.  It starts off steep enough. After a few corners, when you’ve reached the village church and convinced yourself you’re nearly at the top, you turn around another corner and – oh no, please no... but yes! – it gets even steeper. 

The first time I tried it, I thought I was going to die.  No, I tell a lie - I was sure I was going to die. My lungs were bursting, I was sweating (and swearing) and needed three or four stops before I finally made it, just about in one piece, to the top – where there is a great view across West Lancashire and Liverpool, assuming you have enough spare oxygen to keep your eyes working.

The next few times, I realised death was probably not an immediate threat.  I could get to the top of the hill as long as I didn’t mind stopping a couple of times on the way. Two weeks ago I got to the top with just one stop. I found going as slow as possible was the best way: it takes less energy and means I can keep going a bit longer. Last Sunday, somehow, I made it all the way up with no stops at all.

But even when I realised I could get to the top in one piece, I was thinking to myself  ‘Why on earth am I doing this? What is the point of choosing to put myself through so much pain and agony, when there is absolutely no need at all to do so?’ How does this square with my ‘Best is yet to be’ post, where I was writing about just being, and not needing to achieve so much any more? Why can’t I just be sitting at home watching cricket, or taking the dogs for a stroll?

Hmmmm.  It is a bit confusing.

Why do we sometimes choose to do difficult things, when we really don’t have to? 

Surely we have enough tough times in our lives without having to go and deliberately find ourselves some more.  Am I trying (in vain!) to preserve my alpha-male status? Or maybe it’s just a way of keeping boredom at bay.

But I don’t think so. It seems to me there something important about setting ourselves challenges to keep us ticking over, to keep us feeling alive. And I guess there’s a balance to be struck between being and doing.

What do you think?  Have you done tough things that you didn’t need to do?  And why did you do them?

20,000 hits

We've reached 20,000 hits today. Thank you all for your interest and support of this blog, it means such a lot.  

You are reading the posts from all over the world.  People from the UK and Spain are the main readers, followed by those of you logging in from the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Bahrain, Philippines and Germany.  There is even recent interest in Georgia and South Korea - it would be great to know how you came across our blog.

The most popular post is still Reaching Out. The next most read are Under the Banyan Tree, Wellbeing Recipes, Respect (thank you Sue),  the original Greetings and the recent Kindness of Strangers.

Thank you all!

Being Kind to Myself

My last post was all about why we are kind to strangers.  Thank you for all your wonderful responses!  

This one, as you will see, is all about being kind to ourselves.  Oddly, it’s something we often find more difficult to do.

Early on Monday morning I had an email from Australia, telling me that my brother Steve is back in hospital.  Probably nothing too serious, some tests to check things out. More news later......  Hmmmmm. 

I set off to work as usual, had a couple of meetings, then tried to concentrate on writing a research report.  By lunchtime I realised I just couldn’t get my head round it, and was making all sorts of silly mistakes. So I went out for a stroll to clear my head.

On the way I passed two colleagues.  I must have looked a bit shaky because they both stopped and asked me if I was OK.  A few years back I would have said ‘Yes thanks, I’m fine’ and carried on.  But I’ve realised that’s not a great way to proceed, so I said ‘No, not really’ and told them why.  I got warm words and a hug. Which was nice.

Instead of walking round the campus, I found myself heading for Costas Coffee. I bought a large hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, and a lemon drizzle muffin.  Back in my office I thought I would drink the chocolate and save the muffin for later.  But I didn’t, I scoffed the lot - and felt much, much better.

Cycling home in the rain (surprisingly enjoyable when you’ve got the right gear on) I detoured up the hill from Netherfield Road to St George’s Church. It’s a tough climb for me, and I’m always puffing and panting – but this time I managed to get to the top without stopping. And then, the pure pleasure of freewheeling down Everton Brow. 

Then it was off to my Tai Chi class in our local community centre.  As always it was a lovely session, five minutes of meditation followed by half an hour of  balancing, calming movement.

So, without really planning it, I found I’d created my own new well-being recipe for the day.  Human comfort, comfort food and drink, a bit of a physical challenge and then some deep relaxation.

Different things work for different people, but the basic message is the same. We need – and deserve – to look after ourselves, as well as looking after other people.  Kindness goes in all directions.

How would you have been kind to yourself, if you’d received that sort of worrying news?

P.S. I’m pleased to say that Steve is OK.  It turns out it was a minor hiccup rather than a major setback.  

The Kindness of Strangers

One summer when I was a student, my girlfriend and I were hitch-hiking through Italy. We found ourselves sitting in a cafe in Rome, feeling rather tired and bedraggled.  A woman at the next table leant across, said she was worried about how we were managing, and gave me a 50,000 lira note (worth about £20, a lot of money for students in those days). 

A random act of kindness.

Why on earth did she do that?  She didn’t know us, had never met us before, and would never see us again.  How odd!

There’s an obvious point in being kind to family and friends, because we care about them. There’s an obvious point in being kind to people we work with: it encourages colleagues to work harder, and makes our clients more satisfied. 

But why are we kind to people we don’t know, and have no particular contact with?

The writer Anne Herbert tells us to ‘practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty’, which sounds wonderful - but she doesn’t tell us why. 

Kindness to others is a big element of the major religions. It’s zakat, the fourth pillar of Islam; it’s central to Buddhism; and ‘loving your neighbour as yourself’ is at the heart of Christianity.

But that doesn’t explain random acts of kindness by people who live without a faith.   

Being kind to strangers is strange!

I ask Sue - the kindest person I know - why she is kind to strangers. Her immediate response is ‘Well, what goes around comes around’.  I know that’s one reason she enjoys offering house room for couch-surfers: the thought that people in Mexico, Australia or wherever will do the same for our children when they’re travelling around the world. It’s reciprocity, on a global scale.

Then she says, ‘Being kind doesn’t take extra energy’. It doesn’t cost anything to give someone a hug - although I suppose you might get a smack in the face if your hugging is just too random. She points me towards the Gentle Art of Blessing, by Pierre Praverand: all about wishing unrestricted good for others.  You can find a glimpse of Pierre’s words on  www.youtube.com/watch?v=WegAgepCYfo

She also tells me she’s read something about the hormone oxytocin, so I do some googling. It turns out that acts of kindness are often associated with emotional warmth, which produces oxytocin. Oxytocin helps to reduce blood pressure, and so protects our hearts. It may also reduce free radicals, and slow the ageing process.  So maybe being kind to others is good for our health, our well-becoming.  Interesting.

‘What goes around comes around.’  That certainly makes sense to me.

A few years ago I was sitting on a beach in southern Spain with one of my children. It had been raining non-stop for the past week, and when the sun finally came out we wanted to enjoy it. A young couple struggled past us, looking tired and bedraggled.  They were setting up camp at the far end of the beach, but all their kit was soaked.  After watching them for a while, I went over to say hello, and told them about the woman in the cafe in Rome. I gave them a 50 euro note, explaining how I was just passing the money on.  Maybe they will do the same, twenty years from now.

Why do you think we are kind to strangers?

What is the kindest thing a stranger has done for you?

What is the kindest thing you’ve done for a stranger?

The best is yet to be

Turning sixty has made me stop and think.   

I've been thinking about everything that’s happened in my life so far: the things I’ve done, the things I wish I’d done, and the things I wish I hadn’t done.  I'm aware that it’s getting to be a bit late to do much to change all that.  Time is beginning to run out. I've got a lot more past than future. I haven’t the energy I used to have. My body is starting to crumble, and I know that’s only going to get worse – tinnitus, restless legs, prostate problems, and now the dreaded bowel screening tests.  Eeugh!

Except it doesn’t feel like that to me.

It feels remarkably good.

That’s partly because I’ve got a wonderful family and lots of  good friends, who helped me celebrate my 60^th birthday in grand style.

And it’s partly because things have generally gone well for me in recent years.

But it’s more, much more than that. 

I'm coming to realise that I don’t have to try quite so hard any more. That it’s OK to take everything a bit easier.  That it’s fine to do less, and be more.

 The Victorian poet Robert Browning starts off his wonderful poem Rabbi Ben Ezra like this:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be...

He’s not talking about everything being a major success, or looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. He’s thinking about past failures, and how they really don’t matter – What I aspired to be/ And was not, comforts me.  It’s not a problem, he says, it’s OK to have made a pig’s ear of things.  

I know what he means. Whether things up to now have gone well, or not so well – or even if they’ve been disastrous - there is something reassuring about time moving on.  The past is in the past.  We can allow ourselves to leave it there. We don’t need to dwell on it. And we can look forward to different ways of being.

I’m confident that the next twenty years are going to be the best so far.  Growing old looks good to me. Not worrying about getting anywhere in particular, just enjoying being where I am.  Less hassle - and a lot more fun.    

I’m not naive about this. I know everything could go belly up, any time. Like it did for John Lennon – who ironically used Browning’s poem as the basis of one of his very last songs  ‘Grow old along with me’ (you can find it on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixKjpZ5a1o) - just a few months before he was shot.

But that’s not the point. Not at all.

It’s all about living hopefully.