It has been a very odd couple of weeks. Aside from being insanely busy with a thousand different projects, I’ve been feeling very introspective lately. It seems to happen once a year or so – almost like a mindful spring cleaning. I wrote on my music blog about why I walked away from my primary career, and it stirred up some toxic feelings.
To escape my own mind, I went for a walk with two of my favorite people: my wife, and my close friend and fellow creative named Sue. As soon as we left the car, I knew it was going to be a fantastic walk.
That’s right, there were sheep. Everywhere.
It’s lambing season, so the sheep were huddling around their babies as they grazed. It was incredibly calming to see nature at work and to be reminded that life is more than must-haves and to-do lists. Like many people, it’s easy for me to get caught up in the mess of adult responsibilities and forget why I do what I do in the first place.
I’ve said it before, but I’m just a Creative. I make things. I design patterns, I hand-dye yarn, I write music, I photograph the world around me, and I intensely appreciate the work of other Creatives. Sometimes I forget that I make to share and inspire, and get lost in the red tape of deadlines and schedules.
So, we walked. We discovered many things, and with each step I felt more like myself. I felt myself unclench a little more, every time I put one foot in front of the other.
We saw trees that bloom red in the spring – I later learned that these trees are probably crabapple trees; they are very hardy and can adapt to most soil conditions. This obviously means that I want a yard full of them someday. Walking through these trees felt like I was walking around in the fictional West Midlands town of Yaughton, as featured in the game Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
We crossed over the sheep fields and into the bright sunshine, among miles and miles of rapeseed farms.
Living in the London area, sometimes I forget how beautiful southeast England can be if you just give it a chance to shine. I’ve lived in many places, each with their own beauty, and there’s no exception here.
As we left the rapeseed fields and headed into the forest, we stopped for a snack (of course we did, this is me we’re talking about). I marvelled at this weird looking tree, that looks like it blew in one direction during a storm and never returned to it’s previous shape. There’s a life metaphor in there somewhere, about not recovering from some traumatic event – but I think there’s a different metaphor that says we are who we are because of how we’ve survived through life, and that’s what makes us beautiful and unique.
After we crossed through the forest, we turned right back towards the fields to make a loop back home. I decided that I have a desperate need to live in this house:
It’s just perfect, isn’t it? I don’t even think it’s a house, more of a fancy shed or small barn structure – in which case, I’ll use it as my creative studio and become a reclusive hermit that no one ever sees, except at local yarn shows.
As we wound our way back to the car, we stopped in the sheep fields again to quietly observe them in their habitat. The sun was high in the sky, I was thankful for the invention of deodorant, and these guys were chilling out in the shade.
I think it’s safe to say what I was thinking about…!
(Yarn. The answer is almost always yarn.)
