Good Morning!
Thank you for being here. ❤️
If you were really here though, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. Those brilliant words that were delivered to me in the night have disappeared. They were there, and then they weren’t, whooshed away over the sleepy suburban roofs and up to the stars for someone else to use. That’s not fair! C’mon, I had to make a coffee first! Oh for a typewriter right/write now. Then I could at least have the satisfaction of swooshing the carriage right (or is it a swipe left…?), whacking down the release lever, ripping out my last 18 drafts of nonsense, maliciously enjoying the sound of slicing off sheets of paper, the scrunching of words into tight balls of fallen crying trees, before hurling them viciously into the air watching the rejections land one after the other into a whole new creation called: “A Carpet of Unwanted Words”. I am sorry words. You were good enough. It was me. I couldn’t express you as you deserve to be expressed.
I’ve been contemplating lately how very reassuring it would be to have a book of “life instructions,” given unto my grasping little pink hand upon my bloody messy exit from the womb.
Here you go Jo. This is how it is. This is how you do it. Just follow the instructions, follow the clearly laid out path and it will all work out. Perfectly.
The instructions may have come in the form of a diary, embossed with flowers, stars and inspirational quotes. Each day would tell me exactly what has to be done so that I do it “right.” So that it all “works out.”
Or perhaps the life manual would be presented in recipe book style. Beginning with a list of ingredients required: 375 g butter, 1.5 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 6 eggs, 3 cups of plain flower, 1 tablespoon of baking powder. Followed by simple numbered steps: Step one - place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy. These steps will continue methodically until the final result comes out of the oven - one perfectly cooked and ready to go human. ME!
Most of us don’t get a life operating manual, tailor made bespoke special edition, given at birth though do we.
I dream of this illusory guide as I find myself in completely unchartered territory of late. Everything new, everything to be discovered and learnt. It’s exciting and also overwhelming at times. Not one part of my life has been left untouched by change. Literally right down to the last shitty detail - to compost, incinerate or macerate? That my dear, is the question. So I sit and ponder and work it all out without the instructions.
There are certainly plenty of people and institutions who will try to give you their version of “how you SHOULD live your life” as you unfurl your way along the path. Thou shalt do it this way. Thou shalt not do it that way. This way to hell, that way to heaven.
Instructions are everywhere these days.
On a recorded morning meditation I was invited to close my eyes. I was then informed to not close my eyes if I was driving.
My Miele vacuum cleaner instructions state: “do not use on people.” I can understand that could be tempting at times. Suck everything up that’s creating a mess in your life, bag it, and bin it.
I like instructions. I even read the operating manual for my new kettle. It was only 3 pages long. Well, you never know… It could have had a magic button which pours out a brew of life’s elixir.
At some point in your life though you realise that you do have to work it out for yourself. Perhaps the instructions turned out to be in another language you couldn’t understand or they led you down the road to hell or the ink faded over time and you could no longer see what the next step was.
So you start to create your own life instructions. You start the SEARCH.
Your bedside table, coffee table, welcome into my home table and dining table become covered with directions: Eckhart Tolle, Rumi, Paulo Coelho, “The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse”, Alan Watts, “The Secret” I know I know…, John O’Donohue oh such sweet relief, “The Four Agreements - A practical guide to personal transformation”, “The Five Agreements” Ahhh give me more agreements, transform me, transform me, Anne Lamott, Lonely Planet: Prague, Marianne Williamson, The Kama Sutra, “Non Violent Communication”, “Winnie the Pooh,” The Tao Te Ching, Ram Dass, The Untethered Soul, Dr Seuss, “How to take a breath” yep we even need a book for that these days.
You read. You soak it all up. The wonderful and enlightening, the soothing and guiding. It’s all amazing but…
then you feel like there must still be more to DO so you book into a warm jungle retreat filled with divorcees and green juices and jangling bracelets. You immerse yourself in a 5 day cross legged sitting meditation session limping out at the end on stiff legs and blinded by the light of day.
You do it all. All the things. You create your own life instructions.
But you can only accumulate so much knowledge. Knowledge is useless until it’s applied in real life settings. Until it becomes the way you live, not just the book on the table to impress your guests. It’s no use rushing home with the stress switch back on to cook dinner for the kids after your meditation session, or planning your afternoon mopping the floor session during Savasana.
You finally realise that life is the instruction itself.
That you have to not know where you’re going. So you can learn to trust.
That you have to stumble around in the dark, and fall so you can learn to see where the light is.
“Not knowing how near the Truth is,
People seek it far away- what a pity!
They are like him who, in the midst of water,
Cries in thirst so imploringly.” Hakuin
With love on the journey.
Jo xx
Oh for the swoosh of a typewriter and a floor littered with scrunched up paper!! I asked for a typewriter for my birthday. Did not get one 🤣
I’m done with life instructions now, I’m all for going off the edge of the map where there be dragons!! 💛
Thanks, Jo! I’ve read all those books too. I agree that somehow we were always here just to write our own. Our own book. Our own instructions. Our own life. Keep writing. Something tells me we’re all using the same damn pen! Bless you 🙏❤️