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tortoise

Work, play and rest

Tortoises
Tortoises. Owned by a ninety-year-old Italian woman who invited me into her garden to photograph them.

I work, I play, and I rest.

Or at least, this is my noble goal. Many people would claim, I think, to do the above, yet, for all their good intentions, find themselves procrastinating their work, criticising themselves instead of playing, and worrying when they had intended resting. I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve noticed myself not doing things I would have done impulsively before.

When I’m working, I’m working solidly. My efforts are wholehearted. If I decide, for example, that I’m going to write, I write. I don’t sit staring at social media. I don’t faff around following some tangential thread through the internet. I don’t suddenly decide that I need to do something else, urgently and simultaneously. I love physical work too. It’s one of the reasons I have loved some of my travels so much. I’m content when I’m busy painting a wall or sanding the skirting boards. Living on a farm for a couple of months, where I was physically working every morning, felling trees, building log piles, caring for the animals, felt wonderful.

But we also had good food and laughed together.

It’s strange perhaps, but I’ve noticed that when I’m playing nowadays, I’m more likely to laugh. I’m a little harder to embarrass. I sing along to my music, without worrying too much about how I sound, or how I only know half the lyrics and have no idea what the familiar tune is. When I paint, I’m gentler with my expectations. I play games. Occasionally I immerse myself in a computer game, sometimes it’s social and board games. My Mother and I sit on the living room floor and play dominos. I cook playfully, experimenting and creating. Reading the rules and letting them loosely guide me. I smile more frequently because I feel at ease, not because I’m trying to make someone else comfortable. Maybe I’m just less uptight?

And then rest. Sleep is complex for me because it comes bundled with nightmares and tense dreams. I try to take my mornings slowly to give myself the opportunity to recover if my night-time thoughts have been rather tense. I am training myself to paint with oils, but to rest I might crayon in a colouring book. I read a lot, partially because of the love of reading, partly because it keeps me still and rests my defences. I read more thought provoking material to learn, but I also read entertaining lighter stuff too. When I rest I try not to be doing other things. Simplicity is my goal. Good music. An immersive story. Finding shapes in clouds. Sometimes I tell myself it’s okay just to sit quietly. Especially in company.

Whatever the change is, I’m grateful for it.