Memory Wipe

OK, that’s it! I am going to employ a large man to take a bat to my head! I’m hoping for full blown amnesia here.

Let me explain. I run a book group. I used to work in a bookshop and essentially books have been the biggest part of my life.   But lately I’ve noticed something sad. It’s very rare that I pick up a book now and think I’m reading something new. Something that causes an intake of breath. Makes me want to climb into the book and walk with the characters.

So bring on the man with the bat. I can go back to when I learnt to read and have the first moments of real pure joy at reading.

Folded Smile

My folded smile holds miles of dreams broken and wishes taken.

I am like so many more who hide their true face behind a door.

To hear the creak of that opening door will bring a fear,

that nevermore the love of one can be retained.

We all sit silent with masks upon us

waiting for a pilgrim to see beyond

One who does not mind, who sees behind

and wants to see for evermore.

Photos

For Christmas from my family I got a camera and it’s gotten me thinking about why we love taking photos so much.

Our perspective of the world and how we view it seems to us so personal that we think that we can never share it. That no one will ever understand and this scares us. We want and need someone to understand.

So we take photos, to show the world how we see things. To allow others to see into our souls.

Welcome to mine.

Dad

A small child when holding a father’s hand will look up and see her strength. The person she knows will kiss her knees when she falls over, will carry her across the big puddles and read her bedtimes stories.  As we grow though, our impression changes, we start to see their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses and we question our belief in them, in the power they had to make everything all right.

But the other day I was watching the West Wing, and The President of the United States is standing with his daughter waiting to walk her down the aisle.  The supposedly the most powerful man in the world, in tears because he is about to give his daughter away.

And it was in that moment that I saw that fathers don’t become weaker as we get older, they in fact become stronger, because they allow us to see their vulnerable side, they show us their love in a more open way and bless us by allowing us more and more into their hearts. Something that takes the most amazing strength because they know it will show they are not our knights in shinning armour anymore and that they are not perfect.

But it shows us something else, how capable of love one person can be. For in the moment when a father gives a daughter away, or any moment when a tear rolls down a fathers cheek because he is so full of pride and love he cannot express it, he is showing us that his love is more powerful than anything we can imagine and that in allowing us to see his weaknesses, he is also revealing his strength.

I love you Dad, Happy (belated) Father’s Day.

Stirs the Blood, Stirs the Soul

As adults we live our lives in small pieces. When we grow up most of us lose our ability to see the big picture because we are trying too hard to see the big picture.

Children instinctively know how to see what needs to be seen, but the older we get, the more our heads get filled with the monster that is knowledge.

It’s an odd monster, a monster that loves you and hates you in equal measure. Without it we would never grow, but with it we can be tainted.

With luck and sometimes by looking into our child’s heart, we can get back our ability to see the big picture again and get back what we need. And there are moments in our lives when we really need that, need to access that part of us that believes unconditionally in the Easter Bunny and in Santa Claus. The part that allows us to believe that our imaginations have power and can make our dreams come true. It takes nothing to have your blood stirred, your soul awakened to it’s true purpose.

My soul is often sat waiting for that inspiration, patiently it sits on a bench overlooking the past, peering to the future, trying to see, trying to catch the wave of illumination that will carry me to where I need to be next.

Sometimes for me it is music, songs like the one above, that connect me to source again. Sometimes it is seeing love between two people. Sometimes it is a sad scene in a movie or watching someone who still believes, who hasn’t allowed their true nature to be tainted.

More and more I endeavour to get back that feeling, to be passionate about life again. For it is in our truly passionate moments that we see how our lives are meant to be played out.

When I really want to get to that place in my soul I go to the highlands. I have been lucky enough to hear bagpipes as they are meant to be played, from a mountaintop. Nothing is more haunting and more spiritual and it is in a moment that like that, that my blood is stirred and my soul is alive.

So whatever it takes for you to feel alive, to feel that passion, I urge you to do it.  If we all took our souls to their highest place for just one hour a week, imagine what new worlds might come to pass.

Living Doll!

Got myself a crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll
Got to do my best to please her, just ’cause she’s a livingdoll
Got a roving eye and that is why she satisfies my soul
Got the one and only walking talking, living doll

Take a look at her hair, it’s real
And if you don’t believe what I say, just feel
I’m gonna lock her up in a trunk
So no big hunk can steal her away from me

Got myself a crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll
Got to do my best to please her, just ’cause she’s a livingdoll
Got a roving eye and that is why she satisfies my soul
Got the one and only walking talking, living doll

Well, take a look at her hair, it’s real
And if you don’t believe what I say, just feel
Gonna lock her up in a trunk
So no big hunk can steal her away from me

Got myself a crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll
Got to do my best to please her, just ’cause she’s a livingdoll
Got a roving eye and that is why she satisfies my soul
Got the one and only walking talking, living doll

So I blame them, I blame Cliff Richard and the Young Ones for all the Katie Price’s of the world. All those women whose makeup ensures that their skin never sees the light of day.  Those whose skin has reached cosmetic saturation. The girls who are enlarging it, reducing it, or just plain tucking it in.

It’s bad enough that it was number one in 1959, but then the Young Ones put their punk oar in and made it ‘cool’ again in 1986.

And what is with wanting to lock her up in a trunk? Where is this imaginary big hunk that is coming to steal her away?   That is just creepy.

I think a punishment is in order. They of them should be made to tour again. Having to sing the song, over and over and over again.

So here is my challenge to you. Let’s make it number one again. Get your computers out, go on itunes and download it. Download till your fingers bleed.

If God is looking down on me, they will be made to do it all in drag and I will be the one who gets to trowel on the makeup.

So look out Cliff, Vyvyan, Rick, Neil and Mike, I’m coming for you. Oh, for all those not old enough to remember, the 1986 version was the first ever Comic Relief single.

Comic Relief

Fog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6gcFmNE6VM

If you follow the link above you will see the trailer for the 1980’s movie by John Carpenter, The Fog.  Nothing scared me more when I first watched it, in fact even now it still makes me chill.

Driving through the fog the other day I realised that it is because of our imaginations that fog scares us so.  When it swirls around us, our minds put evil and monsters in it because of what we can’t see, because we are blind to the surroundings that hold us steady in the here in now. Without familiar things to remind us where, who and what we are, we lose ourselves and our fears become pronounced.

Sometimes my life feels like that, that I’m standing in a field and the fog is sinking, covering my body, dampening my senses, grounding me in my fears. Worrying about what would happen if I put my hand out, into the fog, into the unknown?

I’m so ingrained with negative feelings that are fed from so many different areas of our world, I can’t help but think the negative thoughts, have the negative feelings, letting the fog rule my life. All those fears, all those imaginings, all in my head. But I’ve chosen it. I choose to see the negative, I choose to be afraid.

But what if I stand in the fog, in my fears and ignore all the negative things that I think? What if I decide that I can put my hand into the fog and take nothing but good things from it? That my imagination now only sees the good, the positive and the love that lives in the fog. That I can put my hand out into the fog and not feel fear, not think of the negative, but take from it the good things that I want and know that the fog is really just a place of  positivity and love. Imagine that. Never again thinking that bad things are in the future that you can’t see. Just imagining the good.

I challenge you to do just that. Imagine you are standing in a field with fog all around you and putting your hand out to the fog, closing your fist around something that you want, pulling it back into your life and knowing in your gut that it is good.  Knowing in your gut that it is positive.  When you allow yourself to see the good and release the negative, then the fog will lift and love will be left.

I wish you joy, peace and a positive future of your own making.

Grateful

So it”s not going to be possible for me to walk the Appalachian Trail this year.

It would be a lie to say that I’m not disappointed, but here’s the thing, I actually am in a way grateful.

I have never been a patient person (no fake gasps of surprise please), and have secretly always wanted a lesson in patience. I think the time may have come for me to learn to wait.

There are so many things that I have gained by even daring to think about walking the AT and I am grateful for all of them.  The main gain has been this blog and finding out that I love writing.

So I will wait a year and go next March. In the meantime, I’m going to do lots of walking trips (anyone welcome to join me), and learn some things for the trail next year.

Maybe by the time next year rolls around, I will found someone to walk with me.

Remember to Love

The soul is a simple thing, a beautiful thing that sometimes is made of glass.  We get lost, we forget that we are made from God and we forget Love, the most important thing in the world.

How can we possibly forget Love? Yet we do, we forget that we came from Love, that we will return to Love and that our job in the middle is to learn to experience Love, whether we create it, or whether it comes from somewhere else.

When we forget Love our souls feel to us as if they are made of glass and the hammer is waiting to fall.  In those moments we need to remember Love.

When you are walking away from Love, you are walking away from the nature of the universe.  So make a decision to walk towards and accept what Love has to offer.

I see my soul as wings that I wear on my back and in the last little while they have been mostly definitely been made of glass.  I had forgotten about Love, the way it turns the glass into feathers and allows me to fly.

Revolution in my Head Part 2

Think hard now, when was the last time you said or did something that wasn’t influenced by the opinions of the voices in your head or your worries about what other people will think?  I’ll bet it was a while ago. Maybe never.

This whole week for me has been about that. What do I really think about things? Am I doing this to please someone else? What would I really say?  Because we are so used to listening to the criticisms and voices in our heads that we have forgotten what we really think, what we really believe.

You don’t mean it to be that way, it is just part of the human condition. We start off with our parents telling us how to behave and think and we follow that till we move on to our friends and work colleagues and lets not forget the media and what it spouts at us.

So today I want you to take five minutes and listen to your mind, really listen. What voice amongst all the rest is actually yours, is actually what you believe?

Revolution in my Head.

The revolution in my head is making some pretty big walls crash to the ground.  It’s like I’ve been encased in stone, in an oubliette of  my own making, where my habits and copied thoughts kept me from seeing the ladder to the door, kept me from imagining a sledgehammer to pound the barriers to the ground.

Infinity of Snow

Someone asked me recently why I was so obsessed with snow.  It has taken me a while to think this one out.  The answer came last night when I was standing on the platform waiting for the train and it started Snowing again.   Not the small flakes that flutter prettily to the ground, but the big ones that get stuck on your eyelashes, sting your skin and will lay a foot on the ground in half an hour.

I stood for a while just staring into the sky with the Snow splashing on my face and all I could see was the flakes falling and nothing else. It seemed like I was looking into infinity, into nothingness.  My mind wandered to that most amazing of facts that no two Snowflakes are the same and so in effect I was looking into infinity.

So the answer to the questions is… that Snow represents for me endless possibilities, endless ways of being, of looking at the world.

Remember that the next time you are stuck in a rut, or losing hope.  If no two Snowflakes are the same then change is not just possible it is inevitable.

Be the Snowflake.

Archangel

He can feel it, the place in the sand where his wings would have brushed it, dug into it.  Of course his wings are gone, ripped from him as a punishment.  He has almost forgotten why they were.

He hasn’t sat on this beach since the very beginning of his time of breathing, smelling and fearing with the humans.  It was hundreds of years ago and now his mind is clouded with the endless thoughts and emotions that seep off those around him and creep into his mind like roots digging in the ground.

When he first fell he sat here every year, waiting for his redemption to come.  He soon learnt that snow doesn’t fall on a beach in the southern hemisphere on Christmas day very often, if at all and a sinking realisation came over him that he was stuck with the mortals, maybe forever.

Time passed so differently for mortals, so slowly and his imortality played a tune in his soul every minute, over and over reminding him of his eternal dismemberment from god.

The world became his classroom. Lessons in human living.  How he hated them at first.  Their weakness, their stench, their constant need to be told how wonderful they were.  Why did they need each other so? What was so important about their need for love from another being?  Couldn’t they understand that the universe had been made for them to experience?

He used to walk around the world, through the colourful markets, sit in the  meeting places, the churches and just watch them and try to fathom them and why they were so foreign to him.  Why they were so ignorant.

On one of these wandering days he came across a girl sitting crying on the dirt floor of a back room in a house.  He watched her for a bit before deciding to ask her why she was bothering with the tears when the world belonged to her.  For a full minute she stared at him before running at him, clenching her fists and proceeded to hit him, again and again and again.

When she had stopped hitting him, she sat on the floor again and spoke to him, but not just to him but to the heart that was beating in his chest. The heart that until now he had ignored.

“Archangel. Yes, I know what you are. I see things that others cannot.  How can you judge my tears?  How can you tell me that the world is mine when I sit on a dirt floor waiting for hunger to take my life.  What good is telling me the world is mine when I cannot eat it, get warmth from it. Will it come and take me in it’s arms and tell me it loves me?  No it won’t and you do nothing but mock me by telling me that it is mine.”

His next breath in was sharp in his chest, for he realised what he had been blind to all along.  They didn’t know that the world and indeed the universe were created for them, for the plethora of experience.  In that moment he understood that that was how his penance was really to be played out.  Losing his wings was just a way to show his heart how to behave.  How to beat.  How to experience love the way it was meant to be experienced, through the eyes of mortality.

He took her in his arms and explained that if she truly understood that God was in her and that she could have his love and power whenever she wanted. All she had to do was allow him access to everything, every experience.  If she allowed the source of all things to experience what being a human was all about through her – including her pain – then the world could indeed be hers.   His words sunk into her soul and suddenly she knew how to be the person she was wanting to be.

He told her to tell this to other people, to tell as many as she could.

After he left her, he did the same.  Going to marketplaces and churches, homes and meeting places and telling them what he had told her.  Some believed him and some not.  But after telling his message for a long time it finally started being told back to him and realised that maybe now he understood the real reason for his being on earth.

He went back and sat on the beach and watched the waves.  He was not really expecting snow to fall, but he sat there anyway.  As the day drifted on towards dusk a few flakes of snow started to fall on to the sand.  More and more fell and he felt his back start to twitch and strain.  Bigger snowflakes started to fall and as they hit him they turned into to feathers lining up along his back until he could spread his wings wide and take flight once more.

He floated for a while watching the waves from his new viewpoint and realised how wonderful the world was now that he had seen it with the eyes of a mortal.  Flying into the sky he made a covenant with himself that he would never let his human heart stop beating in his chest as a reminder of how magic it was to be human.

Snow!

If you know me but at all, you will know about my obsession with the white stuff.  SNOW!!! Magic, that’s what it is to me. I love watching it fall, I love seeing it sitting on the ground, I love playing in it.  You know that feeling that you get when you hear a song on the radio that makes your soul fly up with the angels and makes you feel like anything is possible? That is what snow does to my soul.   I know I will be the only person walking on the Appalachian Trail who will be praying for snow.

This is by way of a thank you to wordpress for letting it snow!!

Love Letters

Found in a box recently whilst clearing out my stuff to get ready to do the Appalachian Trail, the first love letters I ever received.  Holding them in my hand reminded me of how the written word can move us.

Suddenly I was fuzzy haired teenager again, thinking a million different thoughts and dreaming of her perfect man.

And then it all became clear, why I’ve been having such trouble with writing my blog lately. I need the feel of pen to paper. To see the ink sink into the surface and change from being a liquid to making thoughts solid.

I guess that’s one of the reasons why we are so intrigued by ancient texts, by parchment found hidden in caves, first editions by much-loved authors. We like to imagine someone sitting at a loved and worn writing desk and imparting their thoughts to a piece of paper that may still be around hundreds of years later.

To feel that connection, to be able to step back in to their moment with them and have our minds swamped by the excitement of knowing that we are there with them in the second that the ink hit’s the paper. Maybe some of that creative force will rub off on us, maybe we can experience that moment in time.

It seems wrong to tap away on a keyboard, to give a machine the power all that energy.  So pen and ink it will have to be for me from now on and then keying it in later.  A thought occurs though, what on earth am I going to do if I decide to write a book?

Rain

The sound of falling rain hitting leaves is so sublime as to defy explanation.  It makes me feel like the world is inside my veins.  As if my soul is falling on those leaves and leaving behind a part of me that is imprinted on the world forever.

If you want to have that feeling then join me on my walk.

Mr Wolf

We all played the game when we were children called ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf’. Someone turns their back to the group and tries to catch the them out moving towards him. Trying to keep as still as possible so that Mr Wolf can’t see you moving.

Until fairly recently my life had been one big game of Mr Wolf. Trying to move without him catching me.  I’ve been frozen in a moment, stuck in quicksand, yet at the same time trying to creep forward. But always knowing Mr Wolf was watching and being too sacred to run towards him.

Now I’m running, and being bold about it, but it makes for some scary moments, that leave me breathless and sometimes terrified.

My mind is fighting against it constantly, wanting to freeze again and be safe, but my heart and soul know it’s time to run towards the guy with the teeth.

It takes a lot of contemplating to allow yourself to approach Mr Wolf and to not be afraid any more.

So I’m going to walk the Appalachian Trail. 2100 Miles. Lots of time to contemplate.  So that Mr Wolf knows I’m moving on, I’m not stuck in that moment anymore and his days of being numero uno are numbered.

Stephen Katz

So I think a little explanation is needed for the title of my blog.  When Bill Bryson walked the Appalachian Trail he sent out a letter with his Xmas cards asking people if they would like to walk the AT with him and the one person who replied was Stephen Katz.  (I have done the same. See the page called an invitation.)

From the minute Katz makes his first appearance in the book ‘A Walk in the Woods’ he captivates us with his sardonic one liners and fantastic observations about Bryson’s comments.  In particular when they meet other people, his ability to get straight to their obvious shortcomings is nothing short of mischevious and  marvelous at the same time.

Because Katz and Bryson walked at different paces, Bryson was nearly always ahead of Katz and was constantly waiting or going back to look for Katz. It is in fact pivotal to the way the AT works that people look after each other in many different ways.

I am more than slightly regretful that I won’t have my own Katz on the AT as I am very rarely sardonic or witty, unless by accident.  All applicants for the job of sarcastic, sardonic and wit on tap please apply.

My walk is dedicated to Stephen and Bill without whom I would be staying at home warm and comfy on my sofa….  Nah, I’d rather do the walk. At least then I can say I shit in the woods.

Weight Debate

Ok so I’m no tiny dancer. I will not be getting out the tutu any time soon.  My bottom has it’s own time zone.

That is who I am and most of the time I am OK about it and I’ll confess that’s one of the reasons I’m doing the Appalachian Trail so I can get back my 18-year-old body.  I understand that it may have already gone where I can’t find it, but you can but try.

Why the fat talk? Well  in the UK at the moment there is a lot of discussion about whether fatism should be made illegal.  I have had my fair share of this.  Just last week someone leant out of his car window (crappy little Ford Cortina so really he had a nerve) and called me a fat b***h! My reply was funny but not repeatable, also to do with his own size issues.

People look me up and down all the time as if to say, go on give the cakes a break. I have also had a few ‘really you?’ comments from people about me doing the AT. You can see them thinking, ‘don’t you think you are a little on the porky side?’

The situation where it stings the most is when people talk to me as if my extra poundage is taking up space where my brain cells should be.  As if being a fatty means that you must be stupid.

I also have the extra ‘stupid’ factor because I’m top-heavy and men especially think this means that your breasts is where your brain is, being cushioned and not quite able to hear what’s going on and so they speak very loudly and slowly into them.

My solace comes from the fact that having lived my life with people treating me this way means that I am better for it. I’m stronger, I am more open-minded and I am prepared to brave things that most people wouldn’t and as a consequence I’ve seen  more and experienced more than most people ever had.

So my advice to people on the receiving end of fatism is to remember that at least you are not them! They are ones who should really be pitied because they are the ones who are ignorant and as a result miss out on so many things.

Take pride in being different and give two fingers to the people who mock you for it. I guarantee your life will be more interesting than theirs.

Firefly

 

How sweetly a full moon sits in the sky. With a gentleness the sun can only envy it gives it’s light like a firefly and weaves from our souls a feeling of magic and longing for the unknown.  Oh how I longed to be an astronaut when I was a child. I didn’t just want to go the moon. I was sure I would travel way off into the universe, see other worlds.

Now I’m imagining how good the moon will look from the Appalachian Trail. With no ambient light it will no longer be a firefly’s bum, but God playing with a torch.  To be able to see the sea of tranquillity clearly and feel like you can just step off this planet on to the moon.

That’s what I’m most looking forward to, those magic moments when you are alone with just you and the universe staring at each other. It will be worth all the hardships for those moments.

 

Bears

 

Can’t you see it? My foot protruding from a bear’s mouth.  Trying to write my will whilst be digested.  My cell phone ringing in my pocket, from inside said bear.  Want to know why I’m having these visions? It’s because a lot of people have commented on the various ways I might die on the Appalachian Trail.  So for all those that are curious about the many ways to die on the AT, here’s the list.

Let’s start with snakes. There are a lot of snakes and some of these snakes are attracted to warm bodies. So you could conceivably wake up in the middle of the night and wonder why you suddenly have an extra leg.

How about the many diseases that you can catch?  Lyme disease, brucellosis, giardia, hanta viruses and the list goes on.

Then the animals, how about them? Wolves for example. Getting chewed on by a wolf can’t be much fun.  What about the usually cute furry ones who go from that to  crazy rabid running at you trying to bite your leg off.  And of course the most entertaining Bear.  Brown, Black, take your pick.  Either way it’s going to be a code brown situation.

I guess the most undoubtedly dangerous animal is the human being.  The sound of duelling banjos has become my theme tune.  Hummed in my ear by anybody who happens to be passing.

None of this matters to me when I remember that there are children who do much harder things every day.  For some just staying on the planet today is a miracle.  There are others who take care of older or younger siblings, sacrificing a lot of normal childhood experiences.

So when I’m on the Appalachian Trail pissed off by the rain running down my back for the hundredth time, face down in a puddle or trying not to smell attractive to bears. (You always smell attractive to bears.) I will remember that there are reasons why I’m there.  Children who deserve to have a better life and I hope that you will help make that possible by donating to Children in Need while I’m walking.  Even better, check that comfort zone at the door and come with me.  Hey you might get eaten by bears, but at least you won’t be bored.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey

 

 

Scotland

Every day I am lucky enough to cross the Forth Rail Bridge on the train to get to and from work.  A couple of nights ago I saw something magnificent.  It was dusk and the sky was bruised with clouds, giving the illusion that the sea, the land and the sky were all a deep blue. It was as though a child had taken one of those magic paintbrushes and swept it across the Forth.  Scotland’s landscape is like that. It exudes a power and a beauty all its own as if it’s saying to the world, ‘look. I’m taking majesty one step further. ‘

In fact everything about Scotland is majestic.  I’m an outsider in this land, but I call it home.  I’ve never lived anywhere that has not only caught my imagination, but has brainwashed it into thinking there is no other place I could ever consider living again.

My first visit was about 7 years ago now and my heart was lost standing on the shores of Loch Ness.  When people think of Loch Ness they automatically go to a large amphibious creature who has been part of folklore for centuries.  My heart wasn’t lost to her, it was lost to the beauty of the Loch and it’s surroundings.  Mountains that are different colours at different times of the day and year.  Sometimes burnt by the gorse that grows everywhere and other times rust coloured.  Loch’s that have a depth that no one can measure.  Maybe that’s why it’s easy to believe in Nessie,  a creature hidden in time as well as water.

And then there are Scotland’s capital cities. I do mean cities.  I’ve always thought of Glasgow and Edinburgh sharing being the capital, each in their different way. 

Edinburgh with its closes and alleyways.  Hidden pasts and commercial present.  The Oxford bar and Leith Walk.  Rankin and Welsh. So many contrasts and excitements and yet soothing.  A friend recently called it the most comfortable city in the world to live in. 

Glasgow is more about the music, not just in the bars and clubs, but on the streets as well. An orchestra of people trying to make their particular sound and rhythm heard above the rest. 

My heart has now been drowned in the Loch that is Scotland.  It sits in the depths, never to surface.

This blog was made possible by the lovely people at Balfour Creations. Thank you.

Clouds

Clouds are lazy creatures.  Hanging in the sky waiting for their next instruction from the wind.  Smoothing themselves across the blue like strands of ribbon or the leftovers of God’s giant powder-puff after she’s put her makeup on in the morning.   Sometimes they seem like lots of sheep, queueing to get into heaven.  One of the best books to come out in the last few years is The Cloudspotter’s Guide and the companion The Cloud Collector’s Handbook, which has a cloud on each page and you can tick them off as you see them.

It’s the perfect thing to take on the Appalachian Trail.  Not only do you have the time, you are climbing hills and strolling through valleys and seeing so many different climates,  you are bound to see many different cloud formations.

I flew a lot as a child and I always imagined people living in the clouds in transparent cities.  In my mind I was always stepping magically through the bulkhead of the plane, out on to the wing and skipping over the clouds to meet the creatures who inhabited them.

I loved that time in my life, when my imagination was my truest companion. I loved that feeling you get when your imagination takes over.  It makes everything seem possible.

Why do we leave behind that feeling that we have as children that anything is possible? It would serve us so well as adults if we just remembered that anything is possible.

Do you think that the person who first shaped the wheel saw the end result being the car?  It’s our imaginations and our belief in the possibilities of life that have bought us this far.  All you need to do is believe in infinite possibilities. 

Imagine, someone, somewhere out there right now is imagining a way for us to feed the whole world in an instant, or cure AIDS/HIV or even cancer.  If you choose, you can be that person.  Just open your mind and let the infinite flow in.

Secrets

Churches keep their secrets hidden piecemeal burned inside their bricks. Confessions and sorrows, ecstasies and promises, all kept within the walls of buildings that were consecrated by men hundreds of years ago.

Those rust, copper and sand coloured bricks have heard my secrets, fears, prayers and sheltered my heart. Ingrained in them are my memories.

Me as a small person running barefoot down the aisle.  Burying my soul in the coffin of a friend.  Weeping with the promise of the future that newlyweds bring. 

Churches have listened silently to my outpourings of expression that could never possibly be said or written in ink, but are whispered to the walls. 

Sometimes churches are cold and smelling of incense. The echo of an organ bouncing off the walls.  Week old flowers in chipped vases.  Strange though it may be, it all means home to me, to a child raised in these old buildings.

Walking in the woods is like being in a church. There a kind of  silence that only a holy place has. Not complete silence, but the kind that comes from respect of your surroundings.   Trees that have been growing longer than you have and animals hidden away.  Water running in the distance, wind and rain bruising the leaves.

Holy places are where you find them.  It only needs your soul to tell you what is worthy of holiness to you.  Perhaps holiness is in your lover’s arms or in the chair where you nurse your child.  Maybe it’s on top of a mountain or buried underneath with the glowworms and stalactites.  

If you can find a holy place and you feel safe, calm and whole, then it can refresh your soul and when you go back to the ordinary you can more easily find holiness in anything.

Tunnels

Tunnels, my life is tunnels.  I’m constantly tunneling from one day to the next. Trying to keep the previous days memories safe in the bag that’s tied to my waist and being dragged behind me in the mud.

Some nights the tunnels are evenly dug, other nights there are roof collapses and scares that I will get to the next day not remembering the things I want to.

I often think of Mole’s home under the ground, so cozy and warm and what would happen if I stayed in the tunnels and set up home? I guess that’s what a coma is like, not being able or wanting to break through that last layer of dirt to the see the eye level grass and dirt, feel the sun and wind brushing your face.

But it’s so cozy in your home underground, so safe.  So why leave? A roaring fire and a warm blanket. A glass of your favourite tipple.  No worries to worry you.  All you would need is a decent library  and a dog to sit by your side.

Sometimes the real world can be overly harsh and the temptation to exist cosseted and warm in a safe haven of your own making must be enormous. But then you remember about beauty, love, dipping your toes in the ocean.  Feeling the skin of a lovers hand beneath your fingers and all the wonderful pleasures that life has to offer.

You want to scratch your fingernails down to nothing to break through that last bit of earth, into the light, into a new day and see what life has to offer.  No matter what that might be.  To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, ‘Life itself is the first, the greatest of the arts and for it all the other arts seem to be but a preparation.’

Stephan’s Quintet

A dance of galaxies,

A play of light and life,

We dream of other worlds,

Possibility is all we need.

http://spacefellowship.com/2009/09/13/picture-of-the-day-stephans-quintet/

Book of Lost Things

Today I received the most wonderful gift. A publisher sent me a copy of a new book ‘Lost Lore’ by Una McGovern and Paul Jenner.

It’s a celebration of traditional wisdom’s that are no longer widely used. It’s a beautiful book and got me thinking about how many traditional ways of doing things there are that we have abandoned in favour of convenience and speed.

I wonder about the wisdom of that (I know I’m not the first) and whether we should be returning to a more conventional lifestyle.

When you have to learn how to do things the hard way you have the pleasure of  ‘a job well done.’  Myself, I’m impatient and I get impatient with that and would like to learn to do a few things the hard way.

So here is my pledge, for every two weeks on the walk. I will learn a lost art or to do something the traditional way.

Whether it be telling the time by using the sun or navigating by the stars.  Making bread or making fire.  I am going to be searching for people along the way who might teach me things, but also I would like suggestions from you, dear reader, about you might like me to learn.

Before I go I will post a list of things I’m going to learn and then if you are thinking about walking with me you could choose which one you might like to learn yourself.

My thought is that when I learn to do new things, I learn new things about myself.

Link: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=6592802

Toot Toot Peep Peep

When I was thirteen years old my mother bought a white Morris Minor called Blossom. Thus began my love affair with cars.  She was the car I learnt to drive in (I know it was illegal).  No mean feat because you had to double the clutch a lot  to get her to respond.

Blossom was rusty, the floorboards kept threatening to fall out, she leaked and there was copious other things wrong with her. But I loved her. Being a Morris she was simple to fix and my mother took her engine out and fixed her herself.

You might say that since then I have become a bit Toad of Toad Hall in my response to seeing a car I like. My eyes glaze over and all I can think is Toot Toot, Peep Peep.

So here is my dilemma.  I now know that we need stop using cars where possible for so many different reasons. And I don’t mean until a gas free car becomes freely available. I mean forever.

Here are the many reasons to leave the car behind.

• Walking is good for you. Not just your body, but your mind as well.
• You see things out walking that you miss driving at 30MPH.
• It’s good for rebuilding communities. People interact more when they are walking around. You see what’s going on in your community.
• You might meet someone who will change your life. A lover or just a friend.
• You learn things every time you walk somewhere, see something you hadn’t seen before, even if’s it the same route you walk every day.  Today on my way to work I saw a job advertised in a shop window.   I wouldn’t have seen that from a car.
• Nature is the best reason. At the moment in the mornings the starlings are playing on the Meadows in Edinburgh. They are amazing to watch.

So many more reasons that there are too many to name.

Part of my doing the Appalachian Trail is to encourage people to give up their cars even if it’s just for one day a week.  But deep inside of me I will still stand and watch glassy eyed when a pretty car goes past and my mind will be going Toot toot, Peep peep.

The Toby

Here is a short story I have written. Hope you enjoy.

He bent down to pick up a flower and when he stood up he turned to look at me.  Tall, tall, tall with curly black hair, a fedora perched on top. He stepped toward me and I noticed his movements were haltingly deliberate, almost robotic. His shoes left very even marks in the wet grass.

Bending down and putting his nose very close to mine, he stared into my eyes like a dog stares intently at a bone. His eyes were a deep black with flecks of gold. He Breathed into my mouth “Who are you? You are small.”

My feet were suddenly made of stone and my mouth dropped open as I tried to speak, but all that came out was a spit bubble.

“Are you dumb?” he asked. A faltering “No” tumbled out of my mouth, followed quickly by “What are you?”

I had meant to say who and thought trouble wasn’t too far behind. Instead he answered “I am a Toby.”

“Wa, wha, what is a Toby?” I stuttered.

“A Toby is a name for a Dream Jumbler.”

“A Dream Jumbler?”

“Someone who jumbles dreams.”

Suddenly his arm came out from behind his back to reveal long gangly fingers on the ends of enormous palms. Two of these fingers proceeded to pinch the back of my hand hard and with that he jumped back startled.

“You are a real!” He shouted.

“I am real, yes.” I said rubbing my hand.

“Not a dream child?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Never did I meet a real before. Never did I touch one before.”

Again the fingers appeared and this time his forefinger was scraped over my cheek as though he was checking me for dust.  He inspected the end of his finger and closely inspected my face.

“You are not made of clay?”

“No are you?”

“No, but why are you not made of clay?”

“Real people are made of skin and bones and blood and lots of things in- between.”

“But that’s what Toby’s are made of.”

“Well I guess Toby’s are people too.”

“Or maybe people are Tobys!”

A giggle started in me then which built slowly into a big laugh and I laughed for a few minutes with my head in my hands sat on the grass and then I noticed that the Toby was laughing too. It was  the silent kind denoted by shaking shoulders.  When we had stopped laughing I plucked up the courage to ask – “What’s a Dream Jumbler?”

With a raised eyebrow he bent down and pulled me up from the grass and peered into my eyes again and in a very serious voice said “Reals are not meant to dream only their dreams. They is meant to have their dreams mixed up with other people’s.”

“Why?”

“If reals only dreamt about their lives or about what they thought was possible, there would be no tomorrows.”

“Huh?”

“Reals have to imagine to have tomorrows and dreams is how they get extra imagination. You is a child and children’s have lots of imagination, but adults have to give their extra imagination to the child that comes after. They needs to have their dreams jumbled to help them get new imaginations.”

“Imagination isn’t just there?”

“Some is but the rest is helped with dream jumbling. We even jumble with animals and reals. Dream jumbling makes sure that adults see other people’s inside mind and that makes their imaginations work better. The best imaginations come from jumbling with animals or children. You know how adults invent things or have super clever ideas about space and things?”

“Like the big bang theory or vacuum cleaners?”

“Yes, those things come from dream jumbling.”

“Dreams are very important then?”

“Dreams make reals brains work. Dreams make funnies, make art, make airplanes, make all sorts of everything come true.”

Then he shook my hand and said “I have to go now, the sun is going down. It was amazing to meet a real.”

I lifted my head to see him fade in front of me like mist and he was gone like a dream when you wake in the morning.

Keep a notebook beside your bed.

Nerk

Ok, I confess, I’m a Nerk!

For those wondering, a Nerk is a cross between a geek and a nerd.

A geek is obsessed with something, usually technology, sci-fi television, movies, etc.

A nerd is a loner who pursues purely intellectual pursuits or has one particular area of interest.

The cross produces someone like me. I love my sci-fi, love technology and I am obsessed with something, doing the Appalachian Trail and raising as much money as I can for my charities.

As a consequence I am constantly looking for new ways to let people know about my little walk. I am sure I am now annoying every single person who knows me with my constant chat about what I need for the walk and what kind of technology is out there that I could use.

At the moment I am having to blog, tweet and facebook about my walk  in the local coffee shop because I don’t have a laptop.   I am trying to get the Gadget Show to get interested in being my official gadget sponsor, cause let’s face it if a gadget can last with me for six months on the trail – it can survive anything.

Bill Bryson and Stephen Katz took no gadgets with them on the trail, but I’m taking as much as I can. Here is the little list of things I am hoping to take.

Digital Video Camera

GPS (with tracker that you can watch on the net)

Digital Camera (By the way the credit for the amazing photo on my home page goes to my Dad!)

Solar Charger

Blackberry (or equivalent, a girl got to blog, download video, etc.)

Ipod – For music but also audio books. I’m hoping to take the complete works of Bill with me.

And I am sure there are things I haven’t thought of yet.  Suggestions please.

All of this is because the more people who know about what I’m doing, the more money will go to my charities. In case you haven’t checked them out, click the links on the homepage.

Bird’s Eye View

I was watching birds playing on a wire and wondering if that is as fun as it looks. Sitting there all lined up, chatting to each other about the weather, worms and the state of their nests. The younger birds flying around each other, getting told off by the mums.

Later in the day they might go and look for food and shelter in a tree if it’s raining.  Apart from the occasional run in with a bird of prey, and worrying about whether the feathers they have lined their nests with will be warm enough, their lives don’t get much more complicated than that. Strangely enough, they seem to like it.

I have been lately emptying my own nest of unnecessary feathers. I find more and more that possessions are no longer something I want.  What can I do with them? Can I use them to make myself feel better. Unlikely.  Are they going to aid me in conversations I will have with people? No. Will they be there to hold my hand in the hard times, and to celebrate in the good? No.

What we have forgotten is, that that is what we have each other for. Possessions will never replace that.  And the more possessions we put in our lives, the more we move away from being who we really are.

Be thankful and take to the wing!

Just a Poem

Lock in your soul,

catch tears in a bowl,

Put goodbye on the never never,

Emotions on a tether.

Blessings are a prayer,

How many times in a year,

I put the rain on hold,

Till my soul is wrapped in gold.

A Child’s Eyes – Children In Need

It’s taken me a few days to settle in my mind what I wanted to say about how important a child’s happiness is.

It came to me what to say when I was watching a little girl trying out her arms and legs, seeing which way they worked best. The different ways of  walking.

Watching her watching a bird and assessing how it flies. Using her pushchair as a climbing frame, continuously chatting to herself, to her imagination. That is how it should be, a natural free way of learning how the world works. What her personality might be like.

So I put a question to the world. Why aren’t we doing everything in our power to make sure that every child has the chance to test all these things? The chance to be a child?

Children In Need are doing just that.  Simple really. Click the link below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/aboutus/whoyouvehelped.shtml

My Love Story – National Literacy Trust

Ironically there are no words to explain how I feel about books.  But I will give it a try.

Jesus was my first literary companion, the bible being the book of choice in our household.  Next was an enormous book the same size as me, full of fairies and adventures.

Memories of mum and I sitting on her bed reading Owl at Home and laughing until our sides hurt and we needed a hankie. Then a bad patch with reading and a while of struggling with words, gurning over sentences.

When this had passed I was left with such a desire to cosume every piece of written word I could get my hands on. It has become my passion, my job, my life.

There are so many amazing stories, so many wonderful characters. What can you say about a mouse who brandishes a sword, wears a plumed hat and is more than vain.  Yet when a character is well designed, belief is never an issue, imagination is all that is important.

With my sheets over my head or home alone after school, I read the books that had been disallowed. I read in the bath, on the way to school, when I should have been studying and every moment in between. My favourite discussions to this day are about books.

When I decided to walk the Appalachian Trail, I wanted to do something positive that would help other people as well and I can’t imagine a better way to do that than to ensure that people get all the help they can learning to read, because I know that without books, my life would be hollow.

The National Literacy Trust have so many amazing programs that help people with reading that I can think of no better charity for me to support and I hope you will to.

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/nltprojects/index.html

A Shelf

I have a shelf that goes everywhere with me. It’s a food catcher, a pillow, an affliction (as one friends calls it), but mostly just ever present.

The other day I was walking to work and someone of the male persuasion was so busy staring, he walked into a fence! So it can be entertaining. It does mean however that most forms of exercise are out of the question. Running is a no, unless I’m happy for there to be to two large dents in my face. Cycling also no, well that’s just way too distracting for drivers. Aerobics, no (see running). But walking is a yes! And I love it.

I do my own form of walking which I call little old lady walking or LOLW for short. This means it takes me twice the time to walk places as the average joe. A lot of this is not due to slow walking but of my stopping every ten feet or so to look at a flower, pat a cat or watch a bird whose name I can’t remember. I accept that there may not be many cats to pat on the Appalachian Trail, but it will not stop LOLW as there will be birds I have never seen, animals I’ve never met that may encourage me to try that running thing out, flowers, streams, the list goes on.

This is a warning. If you decide to walk with me, please be aware that this will not change on the AT. I will still want to stop and look at every little thing. Take some film, a photo and write a new blog. Maybe I should extend my visa to a year?

Hairdo

It was a translucent day yesterday, bought on by very little sleep. I keep wondering if I appear see through to the people I’m serving because my mind feels like that. Sleep is one of those commodities we take for granted until it’s absent and we can’t function.

One of the true pleasures of the AT is that you have to stop every day about 4 o’clock. You try and pitch your tent without swearing too often, spill various food stuffs on the ground whilst making your dinner which will attract bears and then have a wash with very little water. By the time you’ve used your tongue as a diswasher and discovered you’ve hammered one of the tent pegs through a pile of dog shit which is now generously fragrancing the interior of the tent you are more than ready for bed.

Due to the many miles that you’ve just walked, you forget the smell (both the dog shit and your underarms) and the thought of a bear licking your toes in the middle of the night and fall immediately into the best nights sleep you have ever had in your life.

I promise that somewhere in all of that I will try and blog before I fall asleep, but if you log onto my site and find a lot of  letters in no particular order, it means I’ve fallen asleep with my fingers wrapped around the keyboard. Like a monkey trying to emulate shakespeare.

I might get up feeling amazing after that great night’s sleep, but there is a problem. When I wake in the mornings my hair looks like Dolly Parton has been using me as a hairdressing experimentation device. How do I stop the other campers from needing long term pshyciatric care after they’ve seen it? Suggestions please.

Addictive Earth

It’s addictive isn’t it. This place we call earth. The way it provides us with dreams and desires.

Most people have asked me why the Appalachian Trail? Why walk 2100 miles? It seems such a long way for no reason. Only it’s not for no reason. I had come to a place in my life where I needed to make a choice. I could either sit on my bum and wait for life to come to me, or I could go and get it. So I guess now I’m playing a rather long-winded game of fetch.

From the first few pages into ‘A Walk in the Woods’, I knew I wanted to walk the AT. And about six months ago something changed in me and I decided that wants are for sideline sitters. Doing is where it’s at.

It’s sort of about hope as well. By doing this I’m giving myself back the hope that I’d lost. Odd thing is that you don’t really notice that hope is gone until it’s been gone for some time.

My dawning realisation is that it’s necessary to life. I’m not talking about the kind of hope that leaves you feeling empty. I’m talking about the kind that gives you peace, just from feeling it. The hope of a sunny day, that your favourite song will be next on the radio or that the team you love will win their next game.  The hope of a child.  Innocent hope.

My wish in doing the AT is that I will inspire people to do something for themselves to rediscover their innocent hope, because when you do, it’s the best feeling in the world. It’s totally corny to say this, but if I can do it, anyone can.

Mask

I’ve been lucky enough to hold in myhand a beautiful ancient mask in six puzzle like pieces held together with bits of string. Saturday I felt like that mask, only it’s my soul being held together with bits of string.  Sometimes I wonder how long it will go on and then I see something that makes me smile when I’m walking home from work and suddenly i’m all the puzzle pieces melted back together.

I had one of those melting back together experiences sat on the train coming home on Saturday.  Listening to her rythmical sounds, like a cow chewing her cud, watching the coast fall behind me. The cravasses in the coastline, a man sitting on a bench right on the edge of the cliffs.  It reminded me of all the wonderful things I will get to experience on my walk, all the benches in remote places I will get to sit on and once again I think how lucky I am.

Back Garden Tent

I’ve slept in a tent all this week. I’m on holiday at my parents house in the highlands and near enough to all my family was here, so I was banished to the garden.
A banishment which I have been grateful for.
Honestly it’s been a while since I’ve slept in a tent and I wondered whether my memories were true to the experience.

My first night I was so tired, I couldn’t appreciate the experience properly, woke up at 9 the next morning with the light streaming in.
The second night I lay in the tent and listened to the trees rustling, creaking and groaning their tales of flowers and birds.
The snuffling of a cat investigating the smell of the foreign object plopped into the middle of it’s territory, the hour bells from a nearby church sounded 11 o’clock and the wind caressed the sound back and forth through across the fields.
Most nights I lie in my bed straining for sleep but not this night, the sound of the leaves was an amazing lullaby.
At 1.30am I woke needing the loo and when I left the tent, warm air blew around my legs. I stood on the grass and let the wind blow around me before going inside.
When I came back outside and crawled back into my sleeping bag the wind was howling and it flicked and whisked my tent. I’ll admit it, I was scared and my thoughts went the AT and how much more there is to be scard of.
Even so listening to the world from the view point of a tent, is incomparable. The world is never closer and more important and I cannot wait to lie in my tent every night on the AT and listen to it continuing around me.