Becca is Learning

You know how you have some friends that when they have book recommendations for you, you must listen? My friend Elaine gave me the most beautiful book over a coffee in Lammas Land last week, Janet Morley’s Advent anthology of poems, beautifully named, ‘Haphazard by Starlight’. 

In this book I am given a poem each day, which seem to (in this current period of illness and advent and pandemic) resonate so eerily. Though Ruth Fainlight’s ‘The Other’ is intended to be savoured on 6th Decemeber, I too am a little haphazard in my reading. Today it is a fortifying gift for patience and faith and I wanted to share it, hoping that it might be a gift to others also.

The Other

Whatever I find if I search will be wrong.

I must wait: sternest trial of all, to sit

Passive, receptive, and patient, empty

Of every demand and desire, until

That other, that being I never would have found 

Though I spent my whole life in the quest, will step

From the shadows, approach like a wild, awkward child.

And this will be the longest task: to attend,

To open myself. To still my energy

Is harder than to use it in any cause.

Yet sure she will only be revealed 

By pushing against the grain of my nature

That always yearns for choice. I feel it painful

And strong as a birth in which there is no pause.

I must hold myself back from every lure of action

To let her come closer, a wary smile on her face,

One arm lifted - to greet me or ward off attack

(I cannot decipher that uncertain gesture).

I must even control the pace of my breath

Until she has drawn her circle near enough

To capture the note of her faith reedy voice.

And then as in dreams, when a language unspoken

Since times before childhood is recalled

(When I was as timid as she, my forgotten sister -

Her presence my completion and reward),

I begin to understand, in fragments, the message

She waited so long to deliver. Loving her I shall learn

My own secret at last from the words of her song. 

Ruth Fainlight, ‘The Other’, in New and Collected Poems, Enitharmon Press, 2010

We’re all in a period of waiting right now. The futility of it- where we have to put one foot in front of the other in the almost knowledge that something new will come. For me, this is intensified in an ME relapse. I grow frustrated with my weary body to be stronger quicker. I relate to the Fainlight’s first stanza where she reconciles herself to giving up the search... my own parallel being that if I run before I can walk (literally and metaphorically) I prolong the wait in my efforts being rewarded with greater illness. 

The danger of blogging the sweet things happening in lockdown is that it all comes across as trying to lay a trite patch on a global tragedy. We are living in a truly awful time, and as we all try and cope with humour and optimism there is a danger on minimising the pain around us or our collective responsibility to respond with kindness, bravery and a measure of humility in giving up our preferences for the sake of others. 

And yet... Foundational to my faith is a belief in the exchange of life for death, hope for despair, beauty for brokenness. Like we’re seeing in the particularly flourishing natural world, rebirth springing from bleakness. There is still so much beauty around us.

When I got ill in 2013 my world completely shrunk. It contracted down to my small bedroom and life in the brief moments of consciousness where the brain fog and pain receded enough for me to come up for air: have a small conversation, take a shower, watch an episode of something.

Naturally that was no time for gratitude, but instead overwhelming grief. Similarly to now, I found myself in a liminality of suffering, with no idea of the scale nor duration. In my pain and tiredness I imagined the worst and that I had all but lost my life, and there was nothing to celebrate. Thankfulness would have been that inappropriate and trite patch on a tragedy. 

I slowly emerged. (I think I might still be emerging, but aren’t we all?) The spaces of air and respite got bigger (and smaller and bigger again- because that is how recovery works) and though my capacity for activity was still small, it grew. A friend took me OUT for a hot chocolate, and left my by a river to watch the ducks while she fetched the car (I couldn’t walk much further than 10m in those days). I felt like an old lady, and started to see ageing with a new grace and reverence. As I did those ducks, swimming along, being utterly beautiful simply by being ducks.

With hindsight I celebrate the utter dependency I endured. (At the time it was unbelievably excruciating and I fought it with all my might.) I was carried by my community, who literally fed and clothed me, who shopped for me, who washed my clothes, who ferried me to appointments that would ‘normally’ have taken less than five minutes to walk, who sat by my bed as I wept angry hurting tears, who made my bed, filled up hot water bottles for me, and who read me to sleep. I was so dependent and it was awful and yet... now also so astonishingly beautiful to me. (However much I still hate it when blips of illness and relapse make me dependent yet again.)

My previously vast and hungry ambitions shrunk to humble joys: going out for a coffee in a coffee shop, being able (as in well enough) to sit in the sun, being able to read, being able to watch a whole film in one sitting, having a bath, lasting a whole meal with friends sitting up at the table. 

As Joni Mitchell sang, “Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone”. Have those words ever been so true? I find myself making a post-lockdown list that is so resonant of the ‘Well List’ I kept on my phone to hope and dream of life returning to me: gathering with those we love, getting a haircut, going out for brunch, swimming in the sea. There is a beauty to noticing these pleasures, understanding what we truly value, and who and where we are at our best. 

Another beauty I see in amongst it all, available to those who are wise enough and able slow down enough to hear it whisper in our anxious ears, are the composed and courageous prophetic voices of those who have already been battling imposed incarceration long before it became a mainstream experience: the elderly, the poor, the ill, the imprisoned, the grief-stricken. I think of Tanya Marlow’s beautiful tweet where she celebrated being able to worship at church together with her family this Easter. These people who in ‘normal life’ are outside on the margins, but as it turns out, might have been stockpiling grace and wisdom for our communities for times such as these, and yet are. even more vulnerable in light of the pandemic. Those who are embodying the hope contained in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5, that sound so trite until you become acquainted with those hard won lessons of grace in suffering. 

First it was on a Tuesday, then it slipped to a Thursday, but now days are meaningless so I can pretty much do this weekly blog at the frequency that I want and then gaslight you by telling you that it’s been a week. I’m thinking about scratching a tally on my kitchen wall like they do in cartoons to scratch off the days in prison. Don’t tell my landlord. 

Here we are, still in lockdown, still with things to be thankful for. And somehow, the discipline of gratitude is all the more important for our survival. Alongside every other feeling that I seem to cram into each day. Don’t worry, I won’t start blogging ‘Ten things I’m anxious about Wednesday’ or ‘Ten things I cried about on Monday’. As my Mum told me SEVERAL times in the 90s, just because you can it doesn’t mean you should.

1. My new deckchair. My soundest lockdown investment so far. With one online purchase I have transformed my driveway into a beach! The driveway gets the best part of the afternoon sun, and I’ve upgraded from sitting on my doorstep. COSTA DEL DRIVEWAY, BABY. I have never felt more Grandad Frank, and I’m loving it. All I need is a ‘KISS ME QUICK’ cap and I’m good to go.

2. Driveway drop offs! On Wednesday I got driveway cake while I was lounging in my deckchair... a delivery of freshly baked cupcakes from Lex and Rhi! Who knew that heaven was a sunny driveway with a box of cakes? And on Tuesday another driveway drop off, from the Bell-Williamsons and Charlotte. My driveway has never seen so much social action. Don’t worry, all the exchanges were essential (kitchen roll, kale, etc) and we stayed 2m apart. It was dreamy. Sharing groceries in a driveway is the new going out for cocktails.

3. Our first online block week going so well. I don’t want to brag, but RLM students are the best bunch in the world, and I’m so lucky to get to teach them.

4. A week off! I thought taking a week off in lockdown would be depressing, but it’s not! It’s LOVELY. Apart from sleeping a lot (still recovering from the latest whack of ME), I have read for pleasure, called friends, wrestled weeds in the garden, and taken myself for bike rides. It’s been the gentlest staycation and I feel very content.

5. ‘Olive Again’ by Elizabeth Strout. This week’s novel, the sequel to ‘Olive Kitteridge’. I loved ‘Olive Kitteridge’, and I loved ‘Olive Again’ even more. I cannot recommend these books enough. I’d go as far as to call them contemporary classics. 

6. The MASSIVE parcel of chocolate that dreamy Maeve* sent me. She sent me a significant portion of a Hotel Chocolat store, and it has been the more luxurious companion to my Easter. I did very well at rationing it out at first... and then less well. I am left with ‘Chocolate Puddles’ and thinking of placing them in a ‘BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY’ frame. 

7. Sunshine. It changes everything. Including the colour of my skin.

8. A Glossier Skywash (eye make up) Easter parcel from my FABULOUS mum. The perfect accompaniment to a quarantini?

9. Bike rides. On well days I hop on my bike and cycle around a deserted Cambridge. It is an eery privilege, and a strange solemn joy. I am conscious that on beautiful days the city would be heaving with people, and instead the streets are empty. Landmarks that I would not normally get to stop and stare at are completely mine. It is a strange honour to get to know this city that is becoming my home in this way.

10. A new blog read! My friend Natasha has started a dreamy food blog. She’s working her way through Ottolenghi’s ‘Simple’, and I’m loving the Julie and Julia-ness of it all. Find it here.

Is it Thursday again already? I know, time flies when you’re in lockdown... SAID NO ONE EVER. Life is on hold, and yet somehow still is plodding forward. I write this blog at a *still light* 7.15 pm and April is now with us. There is still much (and sadly many) to grieve in this awful Corona pandemic, and yet I am struck that there is always an abundance for me to be thankful for...

1. Rachel Bennet. My amazing colleague since September finishes her role at Ridley this week. I am SO thankful for the last seven months of working with her. What a hero.

2. Sunshine! Oh this abundant light! Have we ever needed it more?

3. Light evenings and all those beautiful sunsets I’m seeing via instagram.

4. Decaf coffee. The grownup evening drink alternative to gin/wine/whisky, for when I need a bitter liquid treat but I also need to give my liver a rest/ration my stocks. I can’t help but think I should’ve panic bought some really posh dark chocolate to go with it though...

5. Fiona Bell-Williamson... my SPLENDID colleague who cycled me a delivery! And her husband, John, and my other colleague Charlotte! We had a really good social distancing meet up as goods were exchanged across my driveway!

6. Lex and Rhi. Again. I might just tattoo them to this list. They also delivered me supplies and are FAR MORE reliable than Ocado.

7. Our first virtual Pub Quiz! Unfortunately I lost, at my own expense. A tip for those doing them: don’t make the round that you write be able to score out of 60, when everyone else is going for ten question rounds. On the plus side, I did get my portrait done at the end (see above picture).

8. My first watch along! Because I am still learning (see blog title) it took a while to get off the ground, but Katy, Rhi, Lex and I, had a MARVELLOUS time watching Saved at the same time together and typing witticisms in the comments along the side. Technology is amazing, and so is Katy’s grasp of it!

9. Good paracetamol supplies. I’ve been quite ill (ME) in the last week, but I am well stocked, which I know makes me very lucky at the moment.

So last week I slipped and this long standing blog feature accidentally moved from a Tuesday to a Thursday. Though I don’t think it matters because who knows what day it is anymore. So I’ll stick with Thursdays for now. Let’s go...

1. Daffs from darlings. Alongside the essentials of toilet roll (18 rolls!!) and tonic, Rhi and Lex brought me daffs. I’ll probably name my firstborn child/cat after them now. Rhilexme?

2. This sunshine. It is so timely, such a gift.

3. The RLM (Ridley Lay Ministry) students. They all work in different contexts around the UK. and their ministries inspire me so much. I’m even more proud of them than ever. I probably have the best job in the world.

4. Oh go on then, the whole cracking Ridley community. What a bunch of utter heroes.

5. Zoom, making so much more possible right now from our different lockdown locations.

6. A house that is getting cleaner each day. I may even have a lawn of grass instead of weeds soon.

7. Friends and family. Because they are the most important thing I have to be worried about, thankful for, and buoyed along by at the moment. FYI, to other millennials... buying and sending your parents/grandparents an iPad can also be a gift to yourself.

8. My bike. As I get a bit stronger (I’ve been having a rough ME time) I’m hoping that it might be an ideal way to see the outside world from a social distance.

9. Cambridge Wine Merchants. They just delivered the ‘Stay at Home’ box to our door. I love it when supporting local businesses in hard times also results in wine. Other Cambridge locals can find them here.

10. The NHS. What amazing people we have working so bravely and generously. We are unbelievably lucky. Thanks team.

One of the interesting bi-products of this social distancing time has been using social media to be in touch with family and friends. Since Thursday I’ve been scheduling coffees and cocktails with people across the country and geographical distance is no longer dominant to the measure of closeness we are able to have: whether they’re in Cambridge or Newcastle is irrelevant as long as they are here with me via Zoom or FaceTime or WhatsApp. 

I’ve been so homesick for Durham in weeks prior to the Corona outbreak in the UK, and Cambridge has felt so far away. Interestingly, the technology hasn’t changed (yet) but in this pandemic our attitudes to how we socialise has suddenly meant that I can schedule in time with friends as though we had the same ease of meeting down the road at Flat White. I’ve had a pub quiz, gin with the grandparents, communion between Durham and Suffolk, a virtual watch along film with friends just the other side of Cambridge, played a quick FaceTime round of ‘Mr & Mrs’ with Mim, and had coffee with friends who I’d normally wait to be in the same city as to see them. 

It’s all very strange, and I still miss proximity with people who I want to hug or cook for or share the same bottle of wine with or laze next to on the couch. Yet this sense of closeness despite the miles gives me so much hope. I feel meaningfully connected with people, and I’m taught again, that in the face of fear and vulnerability love shines through. That we’re programmed to reach out and love more rather than less. That the relationships I’ve built are not simply based on a location, but that there is a stronger and more permanent glue that ties us together. 

Another beauty of it all for me is learning that in this time of indefinite locality, the relationships I’ve built in Cambridge are all the more meaningful. Offers of support and company tell me that though I may still feel new, the people I’ve met and grown to love also care for me. And that they’re generous, brave, kind and fun. 

Suddenly, it seems to be the right time to get on with this. BEING THANKFUL in the face of anxiety. And also, I’ve suddenly got a bit more time. So from my first day in self-isolation, here comes my first lockdown edition of ten things I’m thankful for:

1. Social media! We’ve been so aware of the ills of it for a while, and I’m still conscious that much of our panic is fed by our screens, but imagine social distancing without all the possibility of our social connection!

We are moving our teaching to Zoom, on Tuesday I ran a music round in our pub quiz WhatsApp group, and though my nearest and dearest are miles away I’m feeling all the more in love with them. It’s not the same, but there is a great breadth of ways that we might connect with one another and draw closer without sharing germs. I’ve got plans for virtual coffees or cocktails*, book groups, and watching films virtually-together. We could do virtual Taskmasters! Or bake alongs. 

2. My family and friends. I love you all so much. I am so lucky, and my heart is so full.

3. All the practical support people have offered. It’s invaluable. Spare beds, lifts, food packages, paracetamol supplies. 

4. The Ridley Hall community. What an ace bunch of people to work and worship alongside. They’re pretty wonderful and I’m so proud of them.

5. A last hurrah of a day out with Mum and Libby on Sunday. We did all the important last things to do if you’re going to be separated from each other and from the world for a bit: we hugged, drank wine, ate good food, and saw inspiring art. 

6. Luxury snacks. Because somehow being in a pandemic made me feel like I needed luxury items to hand. ‘Quarantinies’ or ‘lockdownies’ anyone? 

7. Books. Beautiful lovely books. My shelves are full of books that I didn’t need but that I’d bought because I’m an addict. It turns out my soul was stockpiling them for such a time as this.

8. Work to do from home. I’m lucky to love my work, and that a lot of it can be. done remotely. I think it helps this time feel a bit less futile, and I recognise that puts me in a privileged position. I may even get a good bit of thesis done!

9. Brave and beautiful examples of humanity. I’m so thankful for the people who inspire me to be more kind, more generous, more creative, or more brave in the face of a choice to be less or to be more. 

10. Some time to be slow. I’m really tired, and there is some opportunity here for me to clock up some much needed rest. 

It seems that we’re now at that awful point where we’re having to balance utter panic with pragmatism: not to take the Corona outbreak so seriously that we oscillate between being immobilised and panic buying, but yet also to be pragmatic about what we can do. To crack on with a real and difficult situation, where the stakes are potentially very high for us and those we love, and even for those we don’t love so much.

Self isolating scares me. The cut off from productivity and agency I think are my two biggest fears. Of course there’s being cut off from people, but for me I know that I worry more about the dependency that self-isolation conversely requires, especially in a new city. 

For me, it’s hard not to wrestle with all these ideas in light of ME. Lately I’ve been feeling like an 83 year old in a 33 year old’s body. Viruses are scary for the already chronically ill, because they represent a great shove down the mountain we’ve been working so hard at dragging ourselves up for years. And yet, as I wrestle, as I start talking to friends who are already self-isolating, it strikes me that I may also have some tools stored up for times such as these. I am, in fact, an expert at being housebound. This should go on my CV.

So here, is some public service blogging. Some tips for those who are novice at being ill and endlessly in the company of one.

Tip 1: Embrace it, don’t fight it. 

You get to choose your attitude. There is a lot to resist or fear, and yet this will not change the situation, nor will it make any self isolation go quicker.  So much of solitude and illness is a mental battle alongside a physical one, and so in grace and zen-like peaceability welcome this time with kindness. See what you might learn from it. Accept the unwanted gift of slowing down. Recognise that is will be tough, but know that it might also be rich. 

Tip 2: Podcasts and audiobooks.

Sometimes our minds are just too busy fighting their anxious battles to get them to be reasonable. In these times, and in times that I’ve found myself too poorly to watch TV or read, a gentle listen to something provides enough distraction for your busy tired brain whilst still allowing you to be horizontal with closed eyes.

My recommendations? Audiobooks-wise, I’ve loved listening to some classic literature that would take me a lot longer to get around to reading otherwise: the rather apt ‘100 Years of Solitude’ and ‘Love in a Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez have been highlights! More contemporary novels I’ve enjoyed lately are Ann Patchett’s ‘The Dutch House’ (read by Tom Hanks), Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s ‘Fleishman is in Trouble’, or good non-fiction by David Sedaris or Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ which are all the more brilliant for being read by the authors themselves.

My podcasts recommendations are thus: 

Everyone, start with the ‘Fortunately’ podcast with Fi Glover and Jane Garvey. Two brilliant friends having meandering and intellectually subversive conversation. It will be a good substitute for going for a coffee with your own besties.

For those who are especially anxious: listen to the Robcast (Rob Bell’s podcast). He will refocus you on things above and draw you closer to God. I binge listen to this in my own times of illness and crisis, and never get left in that same place by the end of a podcast. Similarly with Krista Tippett’s ‘On Being’ podcast, which not about overtly Christian spirituality for those who prefer that! (Though many Christians may claim that about Rob Bell).

Elizabeth Day’s ‘How to Fail’ for some gentle wisdom, ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd for some positive political commentary, ‘Literary Fiction’ for book lovers, and ‘The Guilty Feminist’ for feminism with a good range of comedic voices.  Also worth listening to Dolly Alderton’s ‘Love Stories’ podcast which isn’t current, but has the most beautiful back catalogue of interviews about love. 

For foodies: ‘Out to Lunch’ with Jay Rayner, ‘The Kitchen Cabinet’ and the ‘Off Menu’ podcast with Ed Gamble James Acaster (the Victoria Coren-Mitchell episode is one of my most re-listened to).

For those with an ‘offbeat’ sense of humour I liberally recommend the ‘Beef and Dairy Network Podcast’ and suggest that you start with episodes that feature the Beef Poet Laureate, Michael Banyan.

Also, binge watching TV helps, but in my experience it is good to make sure you have time away from screens. It somehow lifts you to look away a bit.

Tip 3: TREATS 

Surround yourself with gentle things that make you smile. For me? Lovely moisturisers, great smelling candles, poached eggs on toast, clean bedsheets, animals on the internet, good pyjamas, beautiful mugs, chocolate Brazil nuts, and overflowing bowls of satsumas. 

Tip 4: This too shall pass.

When you’re ill and isolated, you can lose all sense of time and perspective. There will be times when everything feels endlessly awful. In these times, remind yourself that this too will pass. This isn’t forever, summer is coming, and at some point Corona virus will feel as historic as swine flu. And hopefully that will fortify you.

The spiritual stuff:

Finally a word from wisdom in the Christian tradition. Feel free to stop reading. here, if this isn’t for you.

I am learning, slowly, and at times reluctantly, that the greatest gift throughout suffering is to worship. I think of Paul and Silas, unfairly imprisoned and worshiping in their cell, not knowing when or if they will be released from the futility and fear of it all. As they worship, the walls come down, and yet the stay where they are for the sake of the safety of their prison guard. It turns out that even though they were imprisoned, they were truly free with or without the walls.

Or as Anne Lamott puts it: “Look up! My pastor says you can trap bees on floor of jars without lids because they don't look up. They just walk around  and bump into glass. So look up. We're free”

The key to blogging is consistency. And an unashamed love of your own voice. I have one of those in abundance, but struggle with the other! Life is busy. It turns out that it is particularly so when you’re rounding up the end of term in college life. And so again, I missed my Tuesday cue to list ten things that I’m thankful for. But because there is so much to be thankful for, and practicing gratitude feels all the more poignant today in my post-election funk, I’m going for it.... even though I’m three days late.

1. A day with my Grandma and my Pete. They came to visit and we ate good food, cuddled and went shopping. They bought me pyjamas and books, which are pretty much the two best things I could ever be given. The books were a signed edition of ‘Olive, Again’ by Elizabeth Strout and my hero Anne Lamott’s latest book, ‘Almost Everything: Notes on Hope’, bought at the fabulous Heffer’s of Cambridge... a shop that my grandma took me to buy some of my first books at. I am so lucky to have such a brilliant Grandma and a brilliant Pete.

2. A Christmas tree IN THE POST! My lovely friends, Barbara-Anne and Jacky sent me a Christmas tree. It is twinkly and ingenious and filled my heart right up!

3. The Mill Road Winter Fair. The whole road gets pedestrianised and filled with Christmassy things, dancing and street food. I live on a COOL street. Plus, this year I got to spend it with Rachel and Anna and so it was heaven.

4. Christmas parties! I have been to TWO this week. This is another working-for-a-college perk: being in a community with people who do Christmas really well.

5. A good time with the rather impressive Sarah Dunlop shadowing her (and doing a bit myself) of teaching an MA module in reflective practice. 

6. A fresh load of contact lenses. I’d run out. This sounds mundane but I am genuinely very grateful. 

7. An evening at The Empress with wonderful wonderful Rachel Rosborough (the ACTUAL Vicar of Grantchester). Good win, good company and the campest and Christmassy-est pub in the whole world.

8. An evening at The Punter with Anna Rowlands. She visited and the angels sang. And we went to The Punter which is also in my (growing) collection of my best Cambridge pubs. 

9. Christmas food. And roasted sprouts, of which I am eating A LOT since I learnt that they are the best.

10. The right to vote. And those who fought for my right.

Sometimes Tuesday just rolls round and you weren’t ready for it, eh? Two weeks into getting back onto ‘Ten things I’m thankful for Tuesday’ and I miss one. Outrageous. Refunds available.

I had a good reason to miss it though. Other than the dog ate my homework. I was visiting fair Ferrara and the lovely Bubola family who live there. Back Monday evening (to a stonking cold Cambridge) and work work work.

So here we are, a little late. And because I love to wax lyrical about Italy and my loved ones, we’ll make it mostly Ferrara-themed.

1. My dear lovely old friend Laura (Kmipps). We are lucky to have had nearly twenty years of lovely friendship, and it is a rare and beautiful thing to have friends that you remember playing ‘Puppy in my Pockets’ with. I love her SO MUCH.

2. Her lovely husband Gabriele. We celebrated the launch of his latest game Hats (read about it and buy it here). What a clever and brilliant man. I even got to play test the prototype when it was called ‘Sunshine and Showers’.

3. Gregy. My three-and-a-half year old buddy who loves me and colouring (he says). I love him and colouring and playing with sticker books and singing ‘Animal Fair’ and racing trains and putting him to bed with books and lullabies.

4. Juliet. The baby. She is too scrummy. She filled up my cuddle tank. Is there anything more sacred then rocking a baby to sleep? What a bundle of utter gorgeousness.

5. Pizza. And pasta. With all the amazing cheeses: mozzarella, mascarpone, tallegio, gorgonzola, parmesan. I’ve eaten my yearly quota.

6. Italian Christmas markets. More baskets of baby Jesuses than you could imagine and extremely reasonably priced vin brule (mulled wine).

7. Big bushy Christmas trees with “tennis balls” (Gregy) on them.

8. Italian hot choclate. Which is pretty much melted chocolate. A good bit of sustenance between pizza and pasta.

And because I can’t not mention them (even though they’re English delights)...

9. MORE flowers. From dreamy Jess and James.  

10. Brownies in the post from the ever wonderful Sally Nash. 

Gah, I’ve had a poorly week this week. Maybe inevitable after a busy time in recent weeks. Maybe I jinxed it bye blogging. The silver lining of illness is always the outpouring of love that you get from your nearest and dearest. So I’ve still got stuff to be thankful for this week, despite it being of a more ‘life in the slow lane’ nature! Here we go...

1. A day with my mum. We went gentle and went to see Last Christmas. It’s not the cinematic Christmas excellence of Love Actually or The Holiday, but it is a nice (if not a little too literal) interpretation of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas (I gave you my heart)’ for an anti-Brexit and transplant-themed bit of Christmas cheer, told to the backdrop of George Michael’s greatest hits. Perfect for some mother daughter time. Plus, going to the cinema while everyone else is at work is a DREAM.

2. A visit from my wonderful Alice. We watched TWO Bridge Jones films and got snuggly with some roast butternut squash and sticky toffee puddings. Still going strong and putting the spark into our friendship of 22 years and counting. It’s not an official cure for ME but it didn’t hurt.

3. Flowers from Cathy. Which might be what I title my memoir. Honestly, can I suggest that everyone gets a Cathy in their lives? She is kind and generous and outrageously fabulous, and having my beautiful and colourful flowers from her in my house feels like the next best thing to having her here in person.

4.  Friends and family who love me and message me with love, prayers, and even send pictures of candles lit for me at Mirfield.

5. A new bike! An early Christmas present, I found a very nice bike on the old Facebook marketplace and now I shall be even more smug when I cycle anywhere.

6. Harry Potter audiobooks. My go to comfort listen when anything else requires too much me when I’m at my poorliest.

7. Central heating. Imagine being ill in the olden days?! Awful.

8. Friends with animals. I love my friends without animals too. And I’d love the friends that have animals even if they didn’t have animals. But I’ve had two occasions in the last week where I’ve been fed and looked after and then had cuddles with cats and dogs, which is just icing on top of the cake. 

9. Good podcasts. This week: Fortunately, The High Low, Out to Lunch with Jay Rayner, How to Fail, and Off Menu. All fabulous.

It’s back, about 56 Tuesdays since the last one, which buys me about 560 things to be thankful for. Of course I’ve been thankful for the past 56 Tuesdays without this little ditty of a discipline, but it is good to be back. The thing about an attitude of gratitude is that you have to dwell in some time of utter thankfulness for it to have the real impact. Beautifully, I’ve found myself so thankful in recent weeks and feeling the glow of gratitude spread throughout my body like a warming sip of whisky. It’s one of the feelings that nudged me towards picking up the blog again. For a while I didn’t feel like being thankful or vulnerable in public, and this post had got wearing to my soul. Happily, it’s time again to have a go at naming and noticing ten things that have warmed me up, in the hope that you might get a little warmer too.

1. My lovely Mum. She is still brilliant to me, but has been a little broken too in recent months, namely around her left wrist. Yesterday she had a plaster cast off, and things are on the mend. She has been a brave woman and I am proud of her... if not a little worried that she’ll go back to living 100mph straight away! 

2. A great weekend at #nymw19. My seminar went well and I had good coffee and conversations with excellent people. As I said in my blog, being with my tribe topped up my hope tank.

3. An excellent chauffeur to and from Birmingham. If you ever need a long distance taxi driver, PLEASE let me recommend Kayleigh Prince without ANY hesitation.

4. The Crown season 3. It’s what I did on my recovery day yesterday. Fabulous telly.

5. Good lip balm. I am keeping both Beauty Pie and Blistex afloat with my consumption at the moment. November is a bad lip skin season.

6. Belvita breakfast biscuits. I’m not officially sponsored, but they’re a good solution if mornings aren’t your friend.

7. Working at a college with a cat who is not opposed to you taking a 5 minute cuddle break as you’re passing through the quad.

8. An ‘on top of it’ laundry/sock drawer situation.

9. Hygge strategies for when it’s getting cold outside. Blankets, candles, books and wooly socks.

10. Pintu in north west India holding my book. This photo was sent to me last week and it makes me gladder than I could say.

It’d be remiss to have a go at blogging again and not tell you about the National Youth Ministry Weekend, wouldn’t it? A weekend of youth ministers across the UK (and beyond) meeting together under the fluorescent backdrop of Birmingham’s Resorts World. An unusual place of pilgrimage, amidst Cineworlds, Christina Aguilera concerts, Next Outlet stores and Wrap Chic. Whilst my soul was fed great nourishment, my body took in its yearly quota of fast food.

What a wonderful thing this weekend is, and no wonder the tickets sell out quicker than the Spice Girls dolls of my own youth. A modern youth ministry phenomena, put together by the excellent Youthscape bods.

It really is a special place and time. For me, it was particularly wonderful to come in much better health than my more fleeting visit last year (which I barely remember and nearly missed) and to come wearing my new Ridley Hall Youth Ministry hat*. The first day was an excellent gathering of those thinking about youth ministry from an academic perspective and then as Friday evening brought in the main event and the greater flock of practitioners, the energy levels somewhat cranked up!

One of the remarkable things about spending time with such a great gathering of youth ministers is just how much it fills up our hope tanks. Tweets and conversations echo the consensus that when we’re together we’re in our ‘tribe’. Despite it being the best vocation in the world, youth ministry really can be quite a lonely road. Normally you find us scattered on the edges of institutions, working bizarre hours and spending time with people mostly in the generations about and below us. We wrestle with everything: culture, theology, our practices, the pastoral beasts of our time, social media, challenging behaviour, consent forms and PCCs. And here amongst our tribe, we can take a collective deep breath in and out and speak fluently with each other in our strange hybrid language. No longer on the edges and right amongst our people.

For me there is always the joy to gather and catch up with some of the people who’ve shaped me most, been examples to me and cheered me along. People who’ve walked with me for years (I’ve been around so long now some could even claim decades), old colleagues, friends, partners in crime. And this year, like others, I’ve come home with more wonderful people in that circle.

I got to deliver a seminar on my favourite subject: Getting the church to (radically) listen to young people. I spoke about my research, about my ministry, about what I’ve learnt and what I’m still learning. I obviously talked about Paulo Freire and also my hunch that we might see something sacred in the midst of adolescence. I also got to share the platform (though not enough I fear) with Jon Sanders from Romsey Mill whose work I find so exciting and inspiring.

I also got to hear some great talks: both the audacious Natalie Collins and the ever excellent Lucie Shuker stand out for me. Two wonderful women that I get to call friends as well as teachers. And of course all of that other less formal learning you get to do over coffee and conversations.

So naturally, I’ve come home exhausted, yet inspired and encouraged by our motley crew. I’m especially excited by pioneering practitioners such as Jon Sanders and Levi Phillips, or those embarking on research and thinking so well about our practices as we seek to become more than we are.

And as this has become something of a speech, let me give a final thank you to my dreamy colleague, Kayleigh Prince, who chauffeured me so well (despite an extra foray into inner Birmingham on Sunday evening in the rain on my behalf) and ate McDonalds with me on both journeys .

Image by Martin Vorel on Stock Snap.

It’s been a little while since I last blogged. Over a year even! And what a year. While I dusted off my site and took a look around, brushing the cobwebs off of my Tumblr account, it was quite moving to think back to ‘year ago me’, surviving ME, writing writing writing at the PhD, living my normal Durham life amongst my familiar Durham people. This is the bittersweet beauty of writing, known to anyone who has stumbled across teenage diaries kept in boxes in back at parents’ houses in their childhood bedrooms.

When I was young I felt that I was not very good at a girl. I guess I felt this as the pressure to conform into prettiness and ‘femininity’ increased with age. I hated kiss chase in the playground, I wanted to play spies. Wearing makeup and dresses made me feel self-conscious. When I moved to high school, I wasn’t ready to give up running about in our breaks and invented a game called ‘the running game’ which led to an actual run-in with a toilet. Throughout my youth I was in and out of A&E being x-rayed for various incidents, after great experiments for climbing things, play-testing new game ideas, and basically going 100 miles an hour.

I was a really kind child. I wasn’t cool or savvy, and I didn’t know how to manage my great mane of frizzy hair. My heart got broken by friends who were better at being cool, and judged me for being chubby, silly, wearing the wrong kind of underwear, and not having boyfriends.

Thankfully I had a good team to cheer me on. My mum celebrated and defended my sense of humour and ‘zest for life’. My grandma told me stories of her childhood scrapes and climbing trees to read books rather than get involved with the running of the house, that as the only daughter, she was expected to get stuck in with. I had great youth leaders, who gave me opportunities for fun and play and leadership, while I was still letting my mum choose my clothes because I just wasn’t interested. Guide camps were a haven of being able to go away and get caked in mud and not care one iota about what I looked like the whole week while I learnt to build fires, storm lash tents, work as a team, and sing songs that were about nature and silliness (rather than the nineties and noughties pop songs that would otherwise be the soundtrack to my coming of age) loudly and unashamedly around a campfire with friends.

The strict policing of gender is such a problem of our age. It’s a problem for girls and young women because it limits their room to grow into the best versions of themselves. They are measured against a stick which is an inappropriate measure of worth, joy and flourishing, and too often find their marvellous selves falling short of these measures. 

This is why I’m so chuffed that my marvellous friend and great empowerer of women, Jenny Baker, has gathered a fab team to develop a new kickstarter venture, Out of the Box Cards. They are some fantastically designed cards for girls, with the vision to celebrate girls for ALL of their wonderful aspects of girl-hood... not just prettiness and princesses. This is what they say about themselves:

We often buy cards for our nieces, cousins, friends and sisters, but it's usually a depressing experience. The cards on offer for girls depict them as pink and pretty, they are always passive and posing. These cards imply that what’s important about you is your appearance; you need to conform and fit in.

Young women are under enormous pressure to conform to a very stereotypical femininity and they need wisdom and guts to navigate that and remain true to themselves. We don't want to contribute in any way to the message that what’s most important about them is their appearance or their size, even through a poor choice of birthday card. The girls we know are intelligent, creative, bold and full of potential. We want to celebrate all that's amazing about them, not put limits on who they are and what they might become.

So we're creating a range of cards, designed with girls in mind, that expand their horizons and assume they are adventurous, active and brave. When a girl receives an Out of the Box card, she'll know that someone believes in her and sees her potential. When you send an Out of the Box card, you're speaking affirmation into a girl's life and celebrating who she is. You're showing her a world outside the pink and fluffy box that society offers her.

Amazingly, before the deadline, they’ve already surpassed their original target of £7,500. That’s a lot of great support for this venture already, and means that they are good to go. However, as they say on their website, further donations enable them to achieve more with this project:

Exceeding our target will enable us to:

-commission a beautiful, bespoke website that delivers more of what we need without monthly fees. -launch our website with a wider range of card designs, and create even more during our first year, expanding the range beyond cards designed with girls in mind. -promote our cards more intentionally, rather than only relying on friends and family to spread the word (although you're our best advocates so we'd love you to keep doing that too!) -meet the extra costs in fulfilling all the additional pledges

I’m so excited by this, and so wanted to draw your attention to this too. If you’re inspired by this and glad that these wonderful women are doing something to offer an alternative way of encouraging the women in your life, do pledge some backing. It doesn't have to be a lot, if a lot of us are doing it... though if you’re inspired a lot and have a lot of excess cash, don’t let me put you off giving a heftier donation!

Also- watch this space. Once they’re live and kicking, they’ll need customers! Cast your thoughts over the women and girls in your life and think about this as another practical way in which you can cheer them on and celebrate them in all their fullness.

Visit their website here to pledge, learn more, watch their videos and see their first card designs.

Visit their Facebook page here to keep track and be able to share with your Facebook friends.

And here is their Twitter account if you want to engage and retweet their stuff here.

Image pinched from We Heart It over here.

1. Friends who care for me, feed me, witness my tears, watch crap telly with me, take me gently into the outside world.

2. Friends who understand when I flake out on them and take my cancelling plans with grace.

3. Friends with chronic illness who ‘get it’ and make this strange and isolated journey less lonely. 

4. Easy food when everything is effort. Breakfast biscuits, packed lunches, takeaways, M&S crumpets.

5. 4head sticks. I cannot recommend these enough. They can reach headache relief in a way that nothing else can. 

6. Taskmaster on Dave. It makes me smile when the world is ending.

7. Good podcasts for when the telly hurts my eyes and forehead: Fortunately, The Robcast, Boners of the Heart, The Beef and Dairy Network Podcast, The Guilty Feminist. 

8. Leggings and knitwear. 

9. Moisturiser to butter my face in for a bit of self care.