I’m not sure why leap years don’t feel more special. Like, why isn’t it a bank holiday? Surely we could spare an extra little day once every 4 years? Create some rituals or traditions. A second pancake day maybe? A national duvet day to snuggle up while we push through the final weeks of winter? We’ve got four years to decide until the next one.
I started my new job this week. Last week I tried to cram in as many things as I could, how I had initially envisioned I would spend my days after being made redundant. You guessed it, I went swimming. I’ve been averaging 3 times a week but only went once. And none at all so far this week. I’ve been walking a lot more though and it’s got the same effect. Moving my body, in my own company, tuned in my surroundings and letting my brain wander. One day I went for a big long walk in the rain wearing my head to toe puffer coat. I’d taken it to the tailors to get the zip fixed after leaving it discarded gathering dust for weeks. Aiming for a nice long swim on Friday.
I sat in the lobby of the Hoxton and wrote last week’s newsletter. I love the low lighting and snuggling up on a well worn sofa. It’s a great place to people watch too. An intimate rendezvous here, an awkward date there. Other people like me tapping away on their laptops. I get easily distracted. I finished reading a book I loved. It’s been ages since a book has made me itchy and jittery to pick it straight back up as soon as I put it down. Sometimes when fiction is so good I’ll be lost in thought and remind myself to finish that TV show I’m watching. Then I realise it’s a book! But my little brain is so entangled in the plot I see it vividly in my mind. I went for lunch alone. No screens, just a notebook. I sat in a window seat so I could watch the world go by.
I went to The Tate to see the Capturing The Moment exhibition. I love being alone in galleries. I feel like it’s sometimes the only way I can really take everything in. My mind whirred over thoughts of what defines a moment and the ways memory plays tricks on you. How a moment can look so different in the minds of one person to the next. How perceptions of a defining thing can shift and morph and mould into something entirely new.
It was like a heavy fog had cleared over the past few days. On Tuesday night I stayed up until midnight writing over a thousand words of something new I hope will one day turn into a fully finished short story. I wrote another poem. I’ve tripped and stumbled over still pockets of inspiration pretty much daily. Scrambling to make notes and write down ideas as soon as they arrive. Everything is copy once again. I am glad I’ve persevered in ways I haven’t been able to before. Letting the ebbs and flows direct me completely off course. Unable to withstand the periods of drought and tumbleweed with writing. Allowing myself to feel like a failure, too self conscious to push through the doubt. As I’ve said before, that’s Drafting. It is as it comes. Somewhere between crafting and drifting. It can be unrefined and messy. It’s present tense. Perpetual.