I have decided that I ought to start putting trigger warnings on some on my posts. This is a difficult decision, because it feels like I am putting a ‘trigger warning’ on my life, which… feels quite alienating, honestly. But, also, I think people reading this who don’t know me in real life probably need the warnings.
So, trigger warning: this post mentions death and mortality more generally, and the death of my young child specifically. If you think this will upset you, it is probably best to skip this post.
So, that day finally arrived. The day when I couldn’t get a newsletter out on schedule. I’m both pleased that the interruption happened (it was inevitable) and proud that it took eight weeks before it did. That was quite a feat for me, honestly! From the beginning my plan has been to have posts in reserve for those weeks when I am unwell or struggling to write for other reasons, but I am still living hand to mouth for the moment.
Last Thursday I stumbled across this Note, with a screenshot of a Susie Dent ‘Word of the Day’ tweet. I doubled-checked and Susie didn’t post this on 4th July and so this word isn’t making a political point (as so many of her tweets are) about the previous UK government. Phew! As an inveterate ‘spuddler’ I would hate to feel I had anything in common with them.
Of course, this is an exaggeration. I do achieve all sorts of things. I think the problem is that my achievements seem so tiny in comparison to the enormous amount of effort I put in. I am not an efficient person for the most part, but I have long strived to be one.
When I created the name ‘Wondering Steps’ I wanted to accentuate the two strands of personality that I have running through my life: my tendency to daydream and wander, on the one hand, and, on the other, the pleasure I find in plans and structure. I have enjoyed creating timetables and routines, step-by-step plans and detailed lists (and lists of lists!) since I was in primary school. The dreamy side of me was evident even earlier, and these days it leaves me wasting hours, looking at the tiniest details of flowers, watching a butterfly fluttering along a hedge, scrolling through Twitter, wandering aimlessly down the aisles of Tesco. I ‘have to watch the river’: it might stop if I don’t!1 That Bing Crosby song has been in my head from the first time I heard it as a young child, and goodness knows where I heard it, because the music I grew up with was Jimi Hendrix and The Who. This is the soundtrack to my default mode network:
We’re busy doing nothing
Working the whole day through
Trying to find lots of things not to do.
Now, that final line is probably about trying to avoid work. This isn’t what I am doing. I spend time making ‘not to do’ lists, not because I don’t want to work, but because I have so many things I want to do that it would be impossible to do most of them in a lifetime.
Last week I listened to a podcast interviewing British writer Oliver Burkeman.2 I have enjoyed Burkeman’s writing3 for a while now, especially his most recent book, titled Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.4 This book is less depressing than it sounds, despite being about the brevity of the average human life (the four thousand weeks of the title). Confronting realities like this actually makes me feel less anxious and depressed. I think it is the clarity it brings.
For me, confronting painful realities, when I manage to summon the courage to do so, is grounding and energising. I remember a discussion with my former spiritual director in which she suggested I try writing a gratitude journal. Now, there is a wealth of evidence that a gratitude practice can have benefits, although possibly not the ‘gratitude journals’ most of us think of, but I chose C as my spiritual director partly because she was aware of the Enneagram (a personality model I like using), and I reminded her that, as a type 7 (the Enthusiast!), I found gratitude so incredibly easy to access (I really do!) that it wasn’t likely to bring me much spiritual growth. What I find more formidable, requiring more courage, is to detail all my challenges and weaknesses and failings. Once I have listed these, instead of feeling miserable and defeated, as perhaps you might expect, I feel grounded and strengthened. It forces me to have self-compassion, because the only thing I can do when I see the list is think ‘oh yes, I am a normal human being who is dealing with a whole load of shit, much of which I didn’t choose or cause’. I can see that I am flawed and limited, so it is completely normal that I still haven’t got the ironing done and still can’t speak fluent French and that my allotment is still a mess, or that my journals show me that I am still often struggling with the ‘same old, same old’ issues.
Our biggest limitation is that of time. We are, as Burkeman says ‘imprisoned by being finite humans in reality’ (FAREWELL podcast, 0:30:22). There is something about facing the stark reality of our mortality that focuses the mind. I’m currently writing this on the fourteenth anniversary of my oldest son being diagnosed with leukaemia at age six. The average human life span is four thousand weeks; William had under four hundred. And he lived every one with intensity. The nine months I spent with him in hospital was one of the best and worst periods of my life. I was determined to be honest with him to the best of my ability, without forcing the truth on him. I answered his questions when he asked them with truthfulness. It was heartbreaking, but also powerful. I don’t regret any of those moments of facing reality together, no matter how painful they were, and still are.
What I didn’t do during that time was live in denial. Okay, that isn’t strictly true - I definitely spent plenty of time daydreaming and zoning out. But it was a time when I knew exactly where I was, and understood the limits of my life and my children’s lives. My life and William’s shrunk to the size of a hospital cubicle. I faced reality over and over, with nurses wearing what seemed to be hazmat suits to administer one particular form of chemotherapy, with medical procedures that caused distress to my otherwise ‘give zero fucks’ child, with the knowledge that every day might be one of the last. I am sure that denial is a useful protective mechanism that we need to use at times, but when you know that the child you love so dearly is unlikely to be with you much longer, you soak up everything you can, the good and the bad. Denial protects you from pain, but it also shuts you off from pleasure, as well as from everything else that you value.
Paying attention to reality doesn’t mean focusing only on the material or the practical. It means trying to see clearly what is true. And truth can be found in abstractions as well as in the concrete world around us. It can be found in stories and in art, in love and in friendship, in beauty and in dreams. Truth, for me, has a resonance. When I am writing, no matter what the subject or form of the writing is, I am trying to fine tune both the ideas and/or story as well as the words and structure, in order to find that clear ring of resonance. I don’t manage it often. Frequently the tone is a little (or a lot) muddied. But when I get something that rings, it brings me that pleasure/pain that all worthwhile things bring.
This pleasure/pain is what I think of when I think of beauty and truth. This is what I find most meaningful in the world. And it can be found in all manner of places and relationships. In the Wondering Steps daily photographs that I post in Notes on Substack and in various other places, I am mostly showing my appreciation of the beauty in the world. But each Monday I also post a ‘Behind the scenes’ photograph, showing the ordinary daily life in which that beauty is found.
So, what does all this mean for me, for us? I think it means accepting the reality of our limited lives. Making conscious choices of what we will choose to do, and living with the discomfort of knowing that we will leave many valuable and important things undone. I won’t ever get to read all the books I want to read. This is distressing! But I am (slowly!) learning to accept this. In fact, Oliver Burkeman has written a wonderful essay on just this subject.
I also have a ‘not to do’ list. I suspect I got the idea from one of Burkeman’s books. I keep adding to it. I have a clear idea of what a meaningful life is for me, and I want to keep taking steps towards that, and not get too distracted by side-quests. At least, only go on side quests if I choose to. Rather than wander off track towards them, without counting the cost of doing so.
Another important part of this, for me, is knowing where my starting point is. You can’t take steps towards a goal, unless you know where you are situated right now. This may seem obvious to most people, but it hasn’t been obvious to me for most of my life. It has rarely been clear to me where my starting point was. I have such a fertile and vivid imagination that I can easily picture that I am actually starting from another point entirely. I plan a route to where I want to go, but I think I am starting in Oxford, when actually I’m setting off from Langport. Yes, the route is easier to plan from Oxford, but I’m not going to make any progress if I think I am on the A34 when in fact I’m actually battling through flood water to reach the A303. Knowing your reality helps you make more viable plans.
Last week my partner and I both decided that we needed to make budgets and get on top of our finances a bit better. I’ve had strict budgets for myself in the past, but have let this slide recently. As well as making a budget for now, I decided to make one for a year’s time, when some major life changes will happen. Oof. That was an eye-watering wake-up call! The stark reality triggered a few anxiety attacks, but, as in most cases, it is better to know the truth because then you can deal with it. I have a new plan now, one that takes this reality into account! I might get a boat…
So, where I am right now is taking way too long to write this post. It is long past my bedtime! I need to try to keep to my time-blocking next week in order to prevent this. Which brings me back to what led me to the Oliver Burkeman podcast in the first place: a Cal Newport Deep Questions podcast episode about time-blocking and whether it is, as Oliver feels it is for himself, oppressive. Time-blocking may be oppressive, but, as a now entrenched spuddler, I need the ‘brutally effective technique to make sure [I] don’t completely drown’ (Cal’s words in the podcast, 0:10:05). I probably need to read Cal’s book Slow Productivity again!
Anyway, I must go to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow, in which I have to
…keep the crickets cheerful
They're really a solemn bunch
Hustle, bustle
And only an hour for lunch!
Whatever else you do this weekend, take time to inspect the rainbows.
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Bye for now! Emma
Bing Crosby, ‘Busy doing nothing’, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Decca, 1949).
Clay Skipper, ‘The Reason You Can’t Ever Get Through Your To-Do List (with Oliver Burkeman)’, FAREWELL, podcast, episode 045, 6 June 2024 < https://shows.acast.com/647539893e871f00117b0e44/episodes/665f3087aa134f0012272c67? >
Oliver Burkeman’s website is here. Sign up for his newsletter The Imperfectionist on there.
His Guardian column is still available here.
And his books are available everywhere books are sold, including here and here (both affiliate links - feel free to google instead, or, even better, visit your local independent bookshop in person!)
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (Vintage, 2022). I didn’t think to reread the book before writing this newsletter, which now feels like a major oversight! I am planning to have a reread over the weekend though.
Emma you write so beautifully and this post is inspiring and thought-provoking. I love your beauty and truth photos! They speak to me of how valuable it is to share our vulnerabilities with others (in addition to our joys—those are important to share too). It helps people feel less alone. 💜
I totally resonate with the different parts you describe: the dreamer and the master planner. I now recognise them as my inner child and my inner warrior. Both can go into extremes and when they do, I think it's because my child needs some space and mothering, and my warrior a bit of loving and re-assurance. I also love seeing beauty in unexpected places, so I love your photos.