Four Airports

| sophiekemsley

Gatwick airport

Not many kinds of building will evoke emotions quite like an airport.

Primarily, airports, to me, equate to long-distance travel, and that is always a good thing, right?

Of course.  You cannot travel to the other side of the world without visiting an airport first, but instead of always wanting to celebrate their existence there’s something about them that seems so wrenching to me when they come to mind.

I’ve noticed that my emotions never feel truly balanced on each and any occasion I’m in an airport, and I think it’s that – moreso than the widely maligned concept of queues and customs – that makes my stomach feel so heavy when I think about them.   There’s always a hello or a goodbye involved.  There’s always distance involved.

I do think there is a massive difference in one’s perception of the airport depending on whether they are travelling alone or with others.  When you’re travelling alone, you have no other option but to spectate and truly absorb what’s going on around you, whereas amongst company the trajectory of thought is decided for you by your companions – conversations about what so and so said or whether or not we’ve packed enough soap.  The naked intensity of the airport is tranquilised by the presence of familiar faces and discussions reflecting day-to-day life…but you don’t have that if you’re alone.

The following observations stem from my experiences of travelling solo.

We start with airport number 1.  Our origin, gateway to a dream.  Upon entrance our minds are full of the half a dozen things we are sure we must have forgotten to pack.  We work out whereabouts we’re meant to stand and then we queue.  We say sayonara to our luggage and use our newly free hands to go and  grab a coffee.  We wait. We watch.  We look at all of the other people in the airport and wonder where they’re going and for what reason.  The airport is a microcosm of diversity and we are surrounded by skins of all shades, hear voices of all accents and see whole varieties of dress.  We are mesmerised by it.  We remember how big the world is and smile to ourselves.

The excitement of impending departure causes us to be restless, and we pin our eyes to the Departure boards dreading the sudden emergence of bright red text next to the name of our destination which will signify that there is a problem with our flight.

Things become more real once we are motioned to the gate.  We familiarise with the departure lounge and finally allow the feeling of excitement to pulsate through every single cell in our body.  We think about all of the memorable things we’re going to be doing in the days ahead.  New places to discover.  New people to meet.  New feelings to feel.

The second airport.  “Finally!!” We arrive.  We are jet-lagged.  Turbulence has left us unable to hear a thing and the bright lights which we saw mapping out the city below us have left us feeling romanticised and our hearts beating faster.  This is it.  We are here.  Exiting the plane, sounds become muffled.  Everything seems so much more luminous.  We are tired, but we are excited.  Our mouths are dry and we look haggard but the thrill of being somewhere new is shuffling us towards border control.

Hello there, stern-faced man at the barriers.  The first person I will speak to in this new country.  Here is my passport, there is my nut on the page so that you can verify it’s me – adhering to regulations by looking completely blank and expressionless. No hair over the face.  No headwear.  No glasses.  You look at me intensely to check it’s really me, and then you motion me onward, over to baggage reclaim, where I wait.  For an eternity.  Dreading that mine will be the last case to come out, or that it won’t come out at all.

Just like the panic in Jakarta July 2012, when that hand-drawn sign saying ‘End’ appeared on the conveyer belt but my suitcase was nowhere to be seen.  There was panicked jumping onto the belt to expediate my journey to the other side of the room where I thought I could see my bag, security chastising me for this, but it didn’t matter because I was happy to have located my suitcase, unrecognisable from losing it’s multi-coloured strap I put there for identity purposes.  Thank Heavens, they’ll get their presents, and I have enough underwear to last the trip.

And then: We leave.  Out into the open air.  The foreign air.  The foreign smells.  The foreign noises.
That wonderful feeling of not knowing where you are… and it is a wonderful feeling despite not sounding so, because it ensures that everything that is about to happen to us will be a complete surprise.  We bathe in the blood-rush and this new wave of excitement will be both the fuel and the guide that our jet-lagged bodies need to reach the hotel,  The adventure begins.

These first two airports of the journey will represent the best memories and emotions of the lot.

But then there’s the return, a journey we will eventually have to make, when the airport takes on a completely new context, and emanates a completely different vibe.  Airport number three is the worst one. We turn up tired and the building is no longer a gateway to new dreams and memories, but an arduous formality that stinks of cleaning fluids and concentrated clusters of fast-food outlets.  But we don’t really notice any of that because our thoughts and emotions have been sidetracked by a feeling of hollowness.  A feeling as though we are missing something.  A feeling as though we have left something remarkable behind.  It could be a person.  It could be a place.  It could be an over-friendly street-cat that you passed each morning on your way to the market, or it could be the wistful way that the man selling roti by the side of the road looked at you in hope of your custom as he sat alongside a dozen others selling the same thing.  Whatever it is, you can almost find yourself searching for it in your handbag, because it feels like it should be with you.

Airport number three brings out the worst in us.  It was a hard goodbye to people who are no longer by our sides.  This is the worst thing about travelling alone.  At least when you’re with
other people, you can commiserate one another and reminisce the trip.  When you’re alone and you’ve passed through those doors, that’s it.  You have a long-haul journey ahead of you
in which you will speak to nobody… bar maybe the flight attendant when you confirm you want the chicken option, or the person next to you when you need to pass them in order to get to the toilet.  That’s it.

I have to say… sometimes the goodbyes have been so hard to do that it’s made a small part of me wonder if things would’ve been easier had I not gone at all.  Airports can make that moment so much worse.
The harsh bright lights shining over your sole suitcase.
The doors, heavy and damning.
New friends waving… and then disappearing, gone, from view.
Sitting having a coffee alone trying to use up the last of your foreign notes and the tears are welling up, but you’re more exposed when you’re crying alone.  You cannot bury your head into the shoulder of a friend.  Strangers stare at you with that expression of awkward sympathy.

When the plane takes off you look at the labyrinth-of-a-city below and wonder if the things you will always remember from that place will remember you too, or whether or not you’ll
be forgotten just as soon as the next visitor touches down.  You wonder if you’ll ever set foot on those streets again and possibly find yourself promising to yourself that you will.  A coping mechanism that will make this departure a little easier to bear.  You get your camera out from your handbag and browse through all the photos you took just to keep the flame of this trip burning for that little bit longer.

After what seems like an eternity of floating around in the troposphere, we eventually reach airport number four.  How you feel about that one depends on how long you’ve been away.  If it’s been a considerable amount of time, airport number four is the emblem of a homecoming enriched with pride and excitement.  Visions attached to the warming thoughts of roast dinners, hot water, English pubs and timber-framed buildings with uneven floorboards.  The smell of cloves and potpourri.  Family and friends.

However, if your absence has been much shorter term, we tend to attach thoughts of all the negative parts about the homeland.  Rain.  Dark Monday evenings in Winter.  A conservative society in which saying hello to stranger as you pass them on the street is considered abnormal or overbearing.  Documentaries about our binge-drinking culture.  Formalities.
We still love home, of course, but it lacks that element of surprise.  We know it too well.  Too often it slips into the rhythm of repetitive routine, because we allow it to.

And the fourth airport is the damning rubber stamp to this realisation.

airport2

The 5 Most Annoying Things About My Commute

| sophiekemsley

The railway line between Canterbury West and Ashford International may as well be a secondary address of mine.

As a rough estimate, I have made the journey 536 times within the past year and a half since I started working in Ashford.  (That’s something like £2200 spent on the pleasure of travelling with South Eastern trains – whom incidentally I hold solely responsible for this year’s motivation to start learning to drive again).  Over time the journey has become somewhat etched into my mind, and each time the train sets off from Canterbury I prepare myself to look out for the various mapping points that will define it: the creepy water tower of the former St Augustine’s asylum which looms out of the distant trees to your left shortly before you pull into Chartham, the amusingly titled Bagham Barn antiques at Chilham, the peculiar building next to the station at Wye that looks like some kind of gigantic sweetener dispenser, and the house near Ashford that has a bunch of school-lockers in the back garden, to name but a few.

By all means, it’s not an aesthetically unpleasant journey.  The sun setting over the North Downs Way often serves as a wonderful way to welcome in the weekend after a busy week of work; and likewise in Winter – when the morning mist rises up from the Great Stour against a backdrop of stone-washed sky – I find myself being thankful to the fact that I am now living in the Garden of England and not the junkyard of London.  The train journey from Watford into the capital was never as beautiful as this, and on those trains you also had to contend with a couple of other unpleasantries, namely the overpowering stench of the Wrigleys Orbit remains that had been idly stuck to the bottom of the seats, and a view out of a window the pane of which had been obliterated by rude words innocuously engraved into the plastic.

Yet despite the pleasant surrounds of the Kentish commute, there is something resoundingly tiresome about this journey – something that has somewhat invisibly gnawed away at me over the past few months, eventuating in my desire to drive a car to work instead – but what is it?

Recently, I have begun to identify those recurring themes; not just those permanent features on the other side of the window but those within – those things that gradually build up and start to define my daily experiences with South Eastern trains – those most annoying things about my commute.

bless this mess

1)  People Who Have Exceptionally Loud Conversations

Either attached to a mobile phone or sat with companions, these are some of the worst kind of people to share a commute with.

I try not to let it affect me.  Time and time again you’ll find me celebrating whichever entity first invented the noise-isolating earphone; but occasionally I must endure those tragic moments when the battery of my MP3 player goes flat leaving me with nothing to entertain my ears besides the warbling racket of other peoples’ conversations.  I often think I would prefer to listen to an orchestral medley of chainsaws, vacuum hoovers and Adele rather than other peoples’ conversations, and here are some recent examples of overheard snippets that can perhaps demonstrate why:

“So e’s sent me this teeeeeeeext, and it says, ‘You’re so fick that if you puked up Alphabettispaghetti you still wouldn’t be able to spell a word’ “

The worst thing about the above – besides the fact it was emitted into the air at such a tumultuous, honking volume – is that it doesn’t even make sense.  Errr…I don’t think that even Einstein himself had a talented knack for regurgitating pasta snacks at Spelling Bees, but whatever.  What do I know! Either way, such dialogue fails to romantically juxtapose the rolling hills surrounding us, so hush to you – girl in glasses who is speaking loudly!

“SHE WAS ALL OVER ME ON SATURDAY NIGHT!!” – Caps Lock to demonstrate the volume with which one particular man on the 06:50 to St Pancras the other week declared his weekend activity to his friend.  As far as I could see, the friend didn’t seem to be attached to anything resembling an auditory aid, so I can only assume that the desired audience for this cacophonous broadcast was not just him, but the rest of the carriage too.  Listen up, everybody on the train!  We have a studmuffin in our midst.  Kent today, Playboy Mansion tomorrow!

“Mummayyy, I need a big toilet…Mummayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, MUUUUUMAYYYYYYY!!!!”
For Christs sake, little kid.  You may be sweet and innocent and all that jazz, but this is not the kind of vocal accompaniment that my music needs.  Wait until you get to Canterbury West where, in a Russian roulette of sorts, you may pick the one toilet which locks properly, has loo-roll AND isn’t clogged up in order to relieve yourself.  For now, please pipe down, and hold it in!

I would at this moment in time again like to give thanks to my MP3 player which most of the time manages to obscure the above sounds, hence making this perhaps one of the least-most annoying things about my commute.

2) Getting Stuck Behind People in Impractical Footwear

Most people want to look smart and professional in the office, I get that, but the office and the commute are two totally different landscapes, the latter of which will almost always host a whole variety of hazardous gradients and terrains.  I am always baffled by women who may look the picture of professionalism in their suits and killer-heels, but who when alighting the train begin to morph into towering wind turbines that sway around, looking as though they could topple over at any minute from a misplaced step.

As they wait for the doors to slide open, you can see them nervously clenching firmly onto the handles, before stepping out slowly onto the platform.  Once balanced and composed, they begin to walk on – slowly – footstep by tiny footstep.  It is painful viewing; I often fear for an onslaught of wind that may blow them over completely.  That just cannot be comfortable, right? Heels so high they could be lopped off and used as skewers for pieces of seasoned lamb and shallots.  It becomes annoying when I find myself stuck behind these women as they totter slowly down the stairs at Canterbury West – arms outstretched to gain the kind of balance that would have any yoga teacher screaming “ASTANGA VINYASA!” in horror, leaving no room for anybody else to get past,just as I’m itching to get home after a long day… It all makes me wonder, why don’t they just do what most sensible people do and swap their shoes around then they get to work?

A pair of trainers and a comfortable power-walk home will, for me, always outweigh a need to look sexy, professional and….stupid, when stumbling down the stairs at the station.

wobbly woman

3) Bicycles

Ok.  I like bicycles.  I like the idea behind bicycles.  I like the dish who looks a bit like Scots musician Colin McIntyre who takes his on the 06:50 to St Pancras, who I shared an elevator with once after we both alighted at Ashford (It was not the romantic liaison it sounds, he scowled at me throughout our descent and I’m still not entirely sure why). Indeed, I sometimes take a bicycle on the train myself if I feel like cycling instead of walking either side of the train, so I’m not going to bash the idea completely.

But none of this atones for the fact that bicycles on trains can be a massive pain in the arse, particularly when their owners seem to be inconsiderate of other passengers who need to get off the train before they do, leaving their vehicles propped up against the carriage doors whilst they stay sat down, staring out the window whilst sweating into their Lycras and daydreaming about bicycle pumps.

And then later on, when leaving the station, they will choose to carry it up or down the flights of stairs away from the platform – its tyres like flailing ferris wheels that wave around mid-air, threatening to concuss any of those around them at any given moment.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this one of the reasons why we have elevators at train stations now?!

4)  Automated Apologies for Late-Running Services

The saddest part is that even now, within the comfort of my own home, I can hear that sentence in my head as vividly as if I was hearing it at Ashford International station, in real-time, as I so often seem to be:

“We are sorry to advise that the *manually insert train time here* from St Pancras International is delayed by approximately *15 minutes*.  South Eastern apologises for any inconvenience caused by the late-running of this train.”

I’m not sure who the lady is that records these automated messages but by Christ, what with this and doing something similar for the likes of BT and Orange, as well as announcing each individual stop on the London Underground, she must barely get anytime for herself, and any respite she does have is probably spent sat at home sucking on a throat lozenge after a busy day’s chatting shite to consumers.

I’m sure it wasn’t that long ago that announcements made at train stations were made by actual people who actually sat at the station, monitoring each of the goings on?  I recall my sister telling me about the time a human voice boomed at her over a loudspeaker, instructing her not to lean against a flower-feature whilst waiting for a train at Northwick Park Underground station sometime in the late 1990s.  Can you imagine such personal supervision taking place in this day and age?  I for sure can’t; and those automated messages, whilst indubitably relieving the vocal cords of somebody, somewhere within England’s great rail system, only compound those feelings of frustration and rage that a tardy train can cause to the commuter.

Any enlightened individual will know that South Eastern trains couldn’t really give two flying figs about the inconveniences that have been caused in instances like this, that’s why they send generic response lady to deliver those faux-emblazoned messages of remorse.  And that – more so than the additional waiting time itself – is what makes delayed train services so irritating.

apologies

5)  Pointless coffee purchases

Any sketch of the modern day commuter will likely feature a briefcase in one of his or her hands, and a paper cup of coffee in the other.  Indeed, in the years since trains have been a popular mode of travel by which to get to work, the barista on the platform and the paper cup of coffee have managed to evolve into a staple part of the daily commute.

If you can afford it, that is.  I’m not sure of the current prices, but I do know that as of January 2012, when I became a commuter, the going-rate was something like £2 for a thimble of coffee – a shockingly deep excavation into my purse for such a small quantity of liquid.  Furthermore, I couldn’t even enjoy it in the way I was hoping to.  In the twenty minutes between Canterbury West and Ashford on the first day of my new job, my caffeinated thimble had still not cooled to a temperature low enough to drink without doing some serious damage to my tongue.  I took my drink with me when I alighted the train and thought about how at least I’d be able to enjoy it on the walk to my new office.  Unfortunately, the black ice on the pavement at the brow of the railway bridge I was crossing had other plans.  Within minutes of getting off the train, my thimble of coffee was spilled out all over the pavement close to my pink earmuffs about 5 yards from where I was sat writhing in pain from a fall that has probably left me infertile.  Indeed, this coffee was the epitome of a pointless purchase, and I vowed to never bother buying another again.

For me at least, that sketch of the modern day commuter rings untrue, and the disappointment that I cannot at least accompany such a monotonous journey with a cup of my favourite hot beverage forms the final of the most annoying things about my commute.

coffee

So there we are, the five things that have managed to define my daily commute through their ongoing existence in or around the train.  Five of the things which I considered shortly before deciding to learn to drive again.  Five of the things which – if ever I do get my driving license – I will not miss in the slightest.

I have no doubt that the A28 and I will become the best of friends.

Famous last words!?

Song of the Day:  Mother Mother – Ghosting

Canadian indie-rockers Mother Mother have provided a musical accompaniment to my commute on many a journey, with this tune being particularly well-played lately.

Reflections | snoitcelfeR

| sophiekemsley

Roll back the clock two years and I remember an incredibly depressing point of my life in which – whilst all of the important things (family, friends, health) were thankfully intact, I was struggling to cope with being in a new town where I had no job, no friends and no money to do anything with.  Much of the Summer was spent at home, trawling through job websites trying to find something, anything to apply to.  Lack of employment meant I didn’t have the means to go back home to see my friends often, meaning that I seldom did anything social and over the Summer pretty much forgot how to orally communicate with people unless I’d known them for considerable time, due to the lack of opportunity to interact with people in person.

In that kind of situation, you are very limited with the things you can do to pass the time.  For me, it seemed as though every day would revolve around waking up at noon, eating some breakfast/lunch, going for a coffee in town – “table for one, please”, maybe reading a book, having dinner, listening to music and then watching The Simpsons in bed with an ice-cream…  I generally worry about things a lot more than I should, but seldom do I feel dispirited to the extent of tears, yet back then crying was something I did every day.   I always knew my problems weren’t the worst in the world and that one day far worse things will happen to me, but it was hard to get any joy from that all the whilst I felt as though I had no idea when things would change.  Canterbury is one of the most beautiful places in the UK yet for a while I really struggled to like it; at least back in Watford – the ugly duckling of English towns – I could find work, and had friends.

Yet there is one thing about that hard, sweltering Summer of 2011 which I will always be grateful for.  Indeed, as with any difficulty or problem that seems to stick around for much longer than you’d like, you eventually have no option but to try and find a solution – or if you can’t ‘find’, you ‘make’.  Not every problem will resolve itself in time; you have to take action.  My solution of choice was focused upon trying to understand myself a bit better; to be at peace with myself and be on my own team rather than repeatedly taunting myself with negative thoughts about how crap a person I must be for being unable to sustain a conversation with somebody I don’t know very well, or for failing to land that part-time job as a window-cleaner which had seemed like such a beacon of hope one desperate, grotty Friday morning at the Job Centre, or ‘Nob Centre’ as I preferred to refer to it.

Towards the end of this unhappy phase, after a small little journey of self-discovery, I had managed to re-discover a sense of positivity about everything and find pleasance in even the smallest or simplest of things.  The facts were that the people I cared about the most were all still alive, I had a roof over my head, there were some great people in my life albeit not around here, I’d learned that Chom Chom in town does the most amazing panang curry, and that the sun-setting over the North Downs Way is one of the most beautiful environments in which you can cycle: a thrill that is not only free, but natural.  I still had no job, and no friends in Canterbury, but finally I was looking at the larger picture as opposed to the smaller, day-to-day one.  It’s funny how you can attribute such varying levels of value to something depending on your personal circumstances at the time.  Once I felt as though I had embraced the initial difficulties, I began to find that the more time I had to myself, and the harder the difficulties I felt like I was going through, the more I was beginning to appreciate even the smallest of things around me.

Which is what leads me to the main point of this post, which is essentially to emphasize just how quickly we can begin to take things for granted the second we get tied up in the regular, day-to-day, rat-race life that is so prominent here within our society.

Two years on, my life is very different.  Contrary to the Summer of 2011, time to myself now feels like something of a rarity.  Indeed, the time which I do spend alone is normally spent thinking about the concerns going on immediately around me – this piece of work, that piece of work, arranging that outing, why did the man on the train look at me strange, setting my alarm clock for tomorrow, wondering what that message really meant, preparing my bag, what train do I need to catch to get to such-and-such place on time, I think I’ve pissed so-and-so off, I need to book a hair appointment, the money hasn’t reached my account yet, how much longer do I leave the potatoes in for, I can’t find my purse, I don’t enough have enough pairs of clean tights to last the week, I’ve run out of butter…

If we’re not careful, then the busier life becomes, the more we take for granted.  The bigger picture can quickly become warped into a sense of tunnel vision whereby we focus only on the most immediate things around us, simply because they appear to become the most urgent of our priorities.   We have more things to do and as our spare time consequently shrinks around us there is less opportunity to think about anything else, and it becomes much harder to find that fifteen or so minutes a day where you can sit back and take some deep breaths whilst breathing in the relaxing vapours of a joss stick named after some kind of magical entity from a faraway country whilst reflecting on the truly important stuff.  The daily grind swallows us whole and we have less time for the basics.  It becomes a big-wow moment if we can spend a few hours a week amongst nature, and we have to schedule in appointments with our friends months in advance.  Before we know it, it’s Christmas again and the start of another New Year in which we will make resolutions only to find that a couple of weeks later, it’s time to make them again.

It can become so easy to feel like a passenger in your own body; going through the motions without really thinking about why you’re doing what you’re doing.  Doing life rather than feeling it.  Why?  Simply because you have a billion other things to think about, too.

All this does is serve as a reminder as to why it’s so important to have that time out to ourselves occasionally, a time to re-connect with ourselves and our values and make sure that they’re not being lost within that grand melee of day to day activities that can so often fool us into thinking that there is ever anything more important than those root things without which we would truly struggle – our nearest and dearest, our key values, our dreams and desires and our passions.

Whilst I wouldn’t wish to experience the Summer of 2011 ever again, I am grateful in a sense for the opportunity to have had that ‘time-out’ to work things out and understand myself a bit better and realise what’s truly important in life.  If you can only whip that bigger picture out at intermittent points throughout the day, week or month, you’re still keeping check on what matters the most.  Just make sure you give yourself the time to do so…

Song of the Day:  The Grammar Club – Underbeard

This is a novelty U.S band singing a novelty song about unwelcome facial hair.  It has been stuck in my head for weeks.  Hopefully now it will be stuck in yours:



World Music, Real World Music!

| sophiekemsley

Question:  What kind of musical performance do you get when you mix together the Indonesian, the Pakistani, the Kuwaiti-Canadian, the Vietnamese, the Dutch, the Taiwanese and the British?
Answer:  This incredibly catchy albeit repetitive tune composed ad hoc three years ago in a friend’s uncle’s house near Bukittinggi, West Sumatra.

Simple song, simple melody, simple lyrics, unforgettable moment.

 

Something to Say About May

| sophiekemsley

Not a proper post from me this month as I’ve been using my spare time to swot up for my driving theory test (yes, the thing most people do when they’ve barely outgrown their Pampers Pull-ups, but what idiots like me need to do now because they failed their practical test enough times a decade ago to eventually invalidate the original theory pass).

Instead, I just wanted to share a damning if not slightly amusing observation I made earlier about today’s date and the range in fortunes it has seen over the past few years:

The 23rd of May 2010 – on a plane to Indonesia, looking out the window to this view, sat next to a somewhat dishy Australian surfer, with three months of awe-inspiring moments ahead…:

Indonesia 002

The 23rd of May 2013 – on a train to Ashford, looking out the window to this view, sat next to a loud, obnoxious chap in a suit, with an half-hour journey through commuter mundanity ahead…:

20130523_065052

…If there’s anything we can say about life for sure, it’s that it’s loaded with extremes.  I guess it’s that fact alone that can help us to facilitate the savouring of good moments as they occur, but keep on walking through the not-so-good moments.

So… bring on tomorrow and whatever surprises it may bring, because that’s what keeps things interesting 😉

Song of the Day:  Psapp – Monster Song

Psapp are a quirky little duo from London who are often credited as being the inventors of the toytronica genre – a musical style that incorporates the use of childrens’ toys amongst standard electronics.

I have nothing but respect for any artist responsible for that.

Something I Wish I’d Realised Earlier

| sophiekemsley

(When I decided to ‘draw’ a post, I forgot to factor in how terrible I am at Art, but at least it means I don’t have to worry about people stealing pictures from my site)

part11part22part33part44

part55part66

Knowing what to do and making decisions is often a far from simple process for anybody, particularly if there are important things at stake.

I hate having to choose between things (and I’m not just talking about whether to go for number 38 – Sweet and Sour pork, or number 42 – Crispy Chilli Beef – although that dilemma is dismaying enough).  It’s especially daunting when the available options vary significantly in their potential outcomes or implications, and sometimes it’s easier just to turn our backs on the decision altogether, and continue on our merry way as we were before, rather than throw caution to the wind, go with our gut and get on with it.

Other times, it’s not even just the fear that prevents us from making a decision, but a genuine yearning for each of the choices – to go to the beach and swim or go to the park and picnic? To live in the town where there’s a lot going on, or to live in the countryside where the surroundings are so green and beautiful?  To travel the world or to settle down sooner with a house and family? To become a teacher or to become an astronaut?  To wear pyjamas or to wear a nightgown…. etc, etc.

The problem is that all the whilst you’re trying to choose between these things and contemplating about how good each one could be you’re not actually doing any of them.  You are being pulled in different directions and then like the stick-men in the rowing boat above, you remain motionless as a result – if the options you wish to pursue are polar-opposites it will be harder to make any visible progress with any of them.

Unless you make a plan.  One that includes everything you want it to include, in a way which can work with a bit of forward-thinking and perhaps a bit of compromise too.  It’s not impossible to pursue each option provided you manage to fit them around one another and if you think long and hard enough about it all you are bound to find a way in which you can do that.  Up until around two years ago, I couldn’t for the life of me choose between Career or Travel.  I didn’t want to commit to a career because I knew it would mean I couldn’t just swan off to Asia for three months again, and I didn’t want to commit to Travel because I knew it would delay me from getting my career on track.  I wanted both but the problem was that whilst I wasn’t earning from a career, I couldn’t exactly afford to travel either.  In essence I was doing sod-all; treading water in a small oasis in the middle of a desert.  I was unhappy and felt pointless because I wasn’t doing either of the things I really wanted to and, on top of all that, I was wasting valuable time.  I realised I needed to make a proper plan, so took a notepad into a coffee shop and started thinking.  It was only then that I realised I could be doing both: pursuing a career and then using the salary to travel during the holidays.*  It sounds so obvious now but for many months I felt I had to choose between the two, and it’s in that area of No Man’s Land in which you are most in danger of feeling pressured to pick one option over the other and completely forgetting all about the one you don’t pursue, when it could be something that really means a lot to you.

So, if you are really struggling to choose between things, particularly when it comes to working out what you want to do with your life, just remember to slow down and take the time to try and make each of the pieces of the puzzle fit together somehow.  Take each of the things that are important to you and allocate the times when you will focus on them so that they can all feature in your grand plan.  Wear your pyjamas in Winter and your nightgown in Summer; be an astronaut whilst you’re young and fit and a teacher when you’re older, wiser and able to tell your pupils amusing anecdotes about Space; go the beach now whilst the sun is shining and save the park for later on, when it’s cooler and you don’t plan on swimming.

There’s always a way to make things work, provided you take the time to find it.  You can do everything, provided you have patience and a plan.

* – This particular decision is a rarity, I’m still, for the most part, crap at making them – but now I at least realise it doesn’t always have to be about one or the other.

Song of the Day:  Dinosaur Feathers – Family Waves

I just can’t seem to get bored of listening to this song by New York indie-pop act Dinosaur Feathers.  These guys are criminally under-rated, but music sounds better when it’s like that.

Regrets of the Dying = A Lesson For The Living

| sophiekemsley

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse.

She has spent a number of years working in palliative care, supporting a variety of patients who are trying to come to grips with the fact that they have only days left to live.

You can imagine that the nature of this work has allowed her to spend a considerable amount of time engaging and speaking with people who, upon knowing that they are about to reach the end of their lives, have been able to look back and pick out and divulge the bits they loved, the bits they loathed… and the bits they wish they’d never allowed to happen.

Over the course of time, Ware began to notice several common themes which she collated into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, available to buy on Amazon.

The ‘Five Regrets’ have since featured on various sites across cyberspace, and so you may already be acquainted with them, but for me they serve as both an interesting and very valuable read which is worth sharing again.  I love a good old inspirational quote – and the likes of scholars, philosophers and successful entrepreneurs provide us with these in abundance, but the lessons we can learn from ordinary people, just like you and I, resonate much deeper within me.  Evidently, they had the same affect on Ware, who saw the potential that this information had to change the lives of those who still (*touch wood*) have the time left to act upon these lessons.

So here we go – the Five most frequently cited Regrets of the Dying, each followed by own personal take on them.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Maybe I’m completely wrong about my interpretation of this one, but here goes anyway…

There seems to be this uncodified yet uniform belief and expectation that by the time you reach the end of your life, your personal timeline will probably read something like this:

Birth -> Childhood -> School -> Work -> Marriage -> Own Home -> Children -> Retirement -> Death

I’m sure we’d all be happy with a timeline like this, but I think sometimes there’s far too much emphasis on this one particular trajectory, so much so that it almost comes across as an expectation that society has – an expectation that either you will actively seek to do the following or… be questioned, whether directly or indirectly, as to why not.

Expectations aren’t always bad things, sometimes they can act as marker points that help us move forward and progress.   But other times they can be somewhat dangerous, in that they can lead to inferiority complexes or anxieties.  People might worry that they can’t match up to a particular ‘expectation’, even if they’d like to.  Perhaps people will worry that they may never find somebody to marry, or maybe they’ll worry that just because they had an x, y or z kind of education, that their future is already written in the stars for them and that nothing they do now will change that.  But most frightening of all, is that people might worry that they are not good enough, and that their life choices aren’t respectable enough in the eyes of those around them, and this is perhaps the saddest part.

Ultimately, the quote says it all.  Trying to live up to any apparent expectations is a waste of time and a barrier to true happiness.

With anything you do, there’ll always be somebody somewhere who disagrees with it.  I don’t mean that in a negative way, but a positive one.  The reality is that there’s no point even trying to fit in with other peoples’ expectations, so save your time and stress and just follow your own.

The outside of the box can be a very scary place to be, you could end up anywhere and the possibilities aren’t always good.  By all means the inside is more secure, but it can also be at times claustrophobic and doesn’t always have as interesting a view. 

In the end, you have to do what is right for you.  It doesn’t matter if people ask questions about why you have or haven’t done particular things.  Live and let live, but for your own good, don’t let other peoples’ expectations dictate your life.  The truth is that there are a multitude of ways in which a life can be lived.  Do the things you truly want to do – be it getting married and having children or staying single and travelling around the world with your own business – and then, unlike a lot of the people featured in Bronnie Ware’s research, you’ll die without having the most common regret of the dying.  You will have lived a life true to yourself.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

Ok.  Some facts:  Work is essential to survive.  Work gives us purpose.  Work challenges us. Work rewards us and, most importantly, Work prevents us from spending all of our days sitting on the sofa dunking digestive biscuits into a cup of tea whilst watching Jeremy Kyle.  We may often moan or worry about Work, but if we didn’t have it our lives would be far more complicated, fiscally much more stressful, and much more lacking in purpose.  You need only look at the various statistics denoting the link between unemployment and depression to know that this is more than just a personal opinion, it’s a reality.

But – let’s stop massaging Work’s ego and making it out to be some kind of heroic deity sent down from the Heavens to save us, because there are limits to the wonderful things that Work can do for us, and in actuality, we need more than just Work to survive and feel fulfilled.  There are some things that Work just can’t, or won’t, ever do for us.

Work won’t love us back.  Work can’t give us a hug.  Work might help us afford the ingredients but it won’t help us actually cook the dinner for our families, or tidy our houses.  Work can also dump us at any time without warning, if Work so needs.  Work won’t sit with us and share a cocktail whilst looking out over a sunset, and Work won’t sit and listen to you share your innermost thoughts and emotions in the way that family or friends can.  Ultimately, when you look back over your life and pick out the most memorable and happy moments, Work probably won’t (and nor should it!) feature as often as your loved ones will.

All in all, Work is somebody you need to keep close, but not too close – a friend who has the capacity to be a bit of a bitch at times.  And so the solution comes in finding the optimum work-life balance, and that can be hard, but it is most certainly a necessity.  Work at work.  Be free in your free-time.  And do whatever it takes to enable it to be that way.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

I’ll be short and sweet about this one.

If somebody cannot respect your feelings, regardless of whether or not they agree, get them out of your life.  Immediately.

The more respectful the people around you are, the less courage you’ll feel you need to be able to express your feelings without fear of any reprisals.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Of the Five regrets, I think this is probably the more easier to sustain – thanks in large to the likes of social networking and other forms of technology that put our friends as far away only as the palms of our hands.  Such technology was probably not available or as prominently used by the generation which was the focus of Ware’s research.

Indeed, this hasn’t always been the case – you need only go back a few decades and the only form of communication accessible to all, aside from face to face interaction, were handwritten letters sent in the post. Before these, there was barely anything.  If you weren’t in close proximity to somebody then that was it,  good luck finding out how they were without relying on the likes of carrier-pigeons or paper cups adjoined by long pieces of string.

But despite how much easier it is now, I still see that this is an important value to adhere to.

I’m the sort of person who can go weeks, sometimes months, without getting in touch with some of my friends.  It doesn’t mean the love is lost, it’s just a natural by-product of everybody being so damn busy these days, and the weeks speeding by so much faster because of this.  Regardless, the people who are the most important to you should be in your heart and mind all the time, no matter how frequent or infrequent the literal contact.

Just remember to check-in once in a while, at least.

 

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I wasn’t completely sure what was meant by this one so I read further into Ware’s article:

“Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again”

I understand what Ware means, but I also think that a general sense of ‘always wanting more’ is another thing which can lead to people not being as happy as they ought to be.

There is always going to be another step up you can take in life, always something more you can obtain – a new relationship, a better paid job, a new phone – but there seems to only ever be a certain period of time before things begin to plateau and you’re already thinking about the next step up – marriage, an even BETTER paid job, a phone which doubles up as a treasure trove of everything you’ve ever needed (and everything you didn’t.)

Maybe what people sometimes regard as an ambition is one of the biggest contributors to people not being as happy as they could be, or not, as the Regret implies, allowing themselves to be as happy as they could be.  Seldom do people ever think or accept that they’ve reached a peak.  All too often, there’s this ‘one thing that’s missing’.

The solution?

Stop thinking about that extra step so much.  Enjoy the plateau for a little bit longer sometimes.  It’s not always about the heights you’re reaching but the fun you’re having whilst you’re experiencing all of it.  If you like where you’re at then stay there until you feel any different.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************

And that’s it, the five most common regrets which Ware noticed were expressed by her patients.

I think the conclusion is pretty clear – stay true to yourself, live in the moment and keep a hold of what’s really important.  Apparently, that’s all we need do to avoid having any regrets later down the line…

And I can believe that.

Song of the Day:  Mint Royale – Show Me

Not entirely sure what the fan-made video is about, but this is a tune-and-a-half. “Jabulani siyashada namhla”.  Indeed.

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

| sophiekemsley

Around the World in 80+ Pages

In recent months, I have developed a new addiction – travel writing books.  My logic is that if my circumstances are such that I cannot actively be travelling right now then I may as well be doing the next best thing – reading about it.

Since my addiction began, towards the tale end of Autumn, I have visited the 7 most polluted places in the world with Andrew Blackwell, cycled from Mongolia to Vietnam with Erika Warmbrunn, driven around China with Peter Hessler, lived in a Javanese village with Andrew Beatty, and am currently whizzing around Jamaica with Ian Thomson.  Up next – Barbara Demick will be covertly burrowing me through to North Korea before I then head off to the Amazon with John Gimlette.  I am enjoying every moment of my trip.

I would seriously recommend this pastime to anybody else who misses the thrill of being surrounded by the unfamiliar but for whatever reason, can’t be doing it right now.  It’s comparatively inexpensive, you don’t need any vaccinations nor to worry about having enough deet in your repellant, and you won’t be in any danger whatsoever.

Whilst it doesn’t quite equate to the real thing, it’s still comforting to know that you can get off the beaten track and learn about the world without getting out of bed, and that’s precisely what I plan on doing with the remainder of my afternoon.
The Point When It All Makes Sense

Hitting the UK headlines this week was a rather shocking insinuation – politicians are capable of telling lies.  Who would have thought so?  But it’s true, former cabinet minister Chris Huhne was telling porky-pies about his ex-wife driving his car when it was caught speeding a decade ago.

Generally, anything to do with politics tends to go over my head somewhat (mainly because I have a hard time believing anything I read on the matter), but there were two things about this particular story which were of interest to me.

The first was that Huhne’s cowardice fits in perfectly well with the fact that his name, in German, roughly translates as ‘chicken’.  Ja, genau!

The second is the feeling that I’ve seen his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, somewhere before.  No – it wasn’t when she was ramping up points whilst zipping along the M11 in 2003, it was somewhere else I’m sure…

fabiocapello

N’ah yes, that’s it.  As I recall, she was desperate for points then, too.

Interestingly, when Chris Huhne resigned from the cabinet over the allegations (which were initially made last year), backing came from the somewhat surprising source of none other than Fabio Capello:

“I spoke to the Prime Minister and said that in my opinion someone should not be punished until it is official that he has deliberately conspired with his ex-wife to knowingly deceive the authorities.”  –  Well, you’re the expert on the situation afterall, insider info and all that jazz.

It’s all conspiracy I tell thee!

To Give Up Something, or to Give Up on Trying to Decide What That Something Is?

Last year was the first time I had given something up for the entire duration of Lent.  For 40 days and 40 nights, my stomach was a crisp, chocolate and cider-free zone, and I did feel a lot better for it.  The weighing scales were grateful too, and calculating my weight was a slightly less painful experience for them than usual.

Lent begins again on Wednesday and I am still wondering what I’d like to give up this year.  To repeat the abstinence of the 3C’s mentioned above feels slightly lacking in imagination, and I’m not so sure that crisps are thaaaaaaat fattening, and cider is something I rarely drink anymore anyway.

But what other guilty pleasures do I enjoy yet over-consume?  Wine is one option, but I do believe that a glass of wine every now and then can actually be quite beneficial.  So my resolution is to give up on buying any item of food or drink that isn’t necessary (to the new Sainsburys Local by the cricket ground – you have a lot of fat to answer for, buddy!).  And finally, I’m going to give up on being lazy when it comes to physical exercise.  A brisk 30-minute power-walk each and every day.  Watch this space.

Bring it on Lent, I’m ready and waiting for ya!

Song of the Day:  Ice Choir – Teletrips

I liked this artist the moment I read the name.  ‘Ice Choir‘.  Sounds like exactly the sort of music you want to listen to on a Sunday afternoon in February, when it’s raining and snowing outside, the sky is white, and the windows are spattered with rain and snowflakes.  This song lives up to the image evoked by the name – chilled, soothing and mysterious.  Enjoy.

An Interactive Memory of Indonesia

| sophiekemsley

I was delighted to find my Indonesia videos tucked away somewhere in My Documents recently.  I had forgotten all about them because I didn’t think they worked on my computer… but watching them brought everything back – the sights, the sounds, the scents…the reasons why I fell in love with that country…

I’m a big advocate of living in the present moment as opposed to the past, but the truth is, two and a half years on, I still cling on to those memories so tightly because that trip taught me things I can’t imagine my life without.  And I will never let go of those.

Like…learning the traditional Minangkabau dance and performing it at the Donation Day event in Universitas Andalas.  It took so many rehearsals in the hot, humid heat.  That song that would be oscillating round in my head each and every day…ding ding ba ding ding….and even each night as I tried to sleep….ding ding ba ding ding…

I remember the frequent rehearsal breaks to go and eat kentang goreng barbecue (barbecue chips) in the restaurant next door, and how thirsty the practice had made us, and how concerned we were over whether or not we’d be able to do a good performance at the event.

And how itchy the fabric of the traditional Minangkabau dress felt against my skin.

And how much I felt like a confused bowl of jelly up on stage.

But how much I loved that experience.

I see this video again for the first time in years and it brings it all back.

I miss that time so much.

I miss travelling so much.