Look Ma, no watch.. Is it just me or is it funny that a timepiece is called a watch?

This week I have been delving into what I really love to spend my time on. And I mean spend. Mitch Albom reminds us that humans are the only species who divvy up and measure time a structured way, to divide and divide and divide until even a long exhale, a sip of tea or a glance to the horizon are allocated a moment. All of the other creatures who inhabit this planet measure time otherly. By the scent of the breeze, the crunch of frost on the morning grass, the ebbing of the tide or the smile of the moon.

Time is a currency that we spend and save through our days. We throw it away with wild abandon as we gaze into the eyes of our babies, and tap tap tap away when we are far from the people we love. We let it fly freely as we cartwheel and sprint through our childhoods, sleep and grumble it away through our teens, and try to hoard it as the menopausal pull of gravity sags our stomach skin and jowls, and we finally admit that just as time is starting to speed up, we want to take more of it, in bigger and bigger chunks, for ourselves. To fill it with things that make our hearts beat more resonant and  deep, and if we are truly lucky; skip a little every now and then.

The places we choose to spend our time on don’t notice us at all, so it is us who must do the noticing. It is us who must approach our spending with care and attention. To make our investments count. Moment by tiny moment. Or so we believe.

The cult of busyness has fed into this trope, adding a sense of guilt, making us like ticking-eco-warriors (worriers) constantly finding ways to save, share, reuse and recycle our time so that an indolent hour in the sun is something akin to putting the plastics and glass in with the regular garbage. A small thing for one, but with a callous flow on effect that could jeopardise more than we planned. Or does it?

What if the flow on effect of us taking time to centre ourselves does the opposite of destruction? What if, instead of wasting and destroying, it soothes our cells in a way that they are free to bathe in moments of expansion? Of rejuvenation and clarification. Of love.

And what if this sensation creates the space for us to just simply care? For ourselves. For the things that blow our skirts up. For the hearts of those around us. For the minds and bodies of all humanity. What if by the simple process of spending some of our minutes and hours on something that allows us be present and listen to pull of our yearnings, we are able to be more present to give our presence? Being careworn is something that happens with time and weather and experiences and love and grief and life. The care will be worn into us, and we to it, holding hands through the rest of our days.

I think today is a great day to spend some time with care. Holding hands with her. Seeing what she can show us when we show up.

After all, what do we have to lose?

Time? She shall pass anyway.

What are you spending your time on today?

…From The Ashers…

Someone* once said, “Things have no inherent meaning, just the meaning we bring to them.”

It’s a statement that comes to me time and time again, because it’s so simple and true. I use essential oils a lot, and I like them for the ‘properties’ they have. You know, how Rose Oil needs the massacre of fifty bazillion rose petals to make 5ml of the stuff, and it has a vibration of 325mHz and is the oil of Divine Love. Now it may or may not be those things. And it may or may not bring me divine love when I inhale it, but it’s the meaning I bring to it that gives it at least some of its power. You might smell it and say, “That shit stinks, it reminds me of the 80s” (potpourri was a thing) and bring a completely different meaning to it.

And so it goes.

For all of the things. Whether it be the transformative or mundane experience of birthing a child, bringing home a new cat, or that first sip of silent coffee. It’s the meaning we bring that gives our life meaning.

The cool part is: we get to choose. We get to choose if that fancy champers is a story of female empowerment, success and innovation, or an expensive way to get pissed. We can choose if putting on some lipstick is a sign of gender-based oppression, ridiculous vanity, gorgeous nurturing of our feminine (or masculine- get on it fellas) beauty or a reminder to speak our truth. Très exciting. (Or boring- yet again, you get to choose).

My life motto is “choose your own adventure”… a variation of “You do you, Boo” because I believe it’s the source of true freedom. From FOMO and JOMO and growing a Mo. (Shut up, I’ve got The Menopause okay).

This week Coco did a hard thing, and, as it is with many hard things, there were opporfuckingtunities galore. Some of the biggies were her expanding belief that she can do hard things, along with an ability to control her own state. Often in life it is alluring to believe we are the victim- of crappy circumstances, mutated genetics (sorry Coco) or financial flukes that are outside our control. And although it might be kinda easy to go along with that flow, we’re going to end up in the crappy creek if we keep the story running. And the converse is so cool. We already know it, don’t we? When we jump in (not to shit creek, into the pool of potential) and accept the reality of the sitch, and wonder, “What can I do with this clusterfuck?” the real fun can begin.

When Coco did her hard thing this week, we chose to make some meaning from it. And because I am nothing if not good at shopping, of course I chose meaning in a little blue box. We trotted off to Tiff, and once our eyes grew accustomed to the opulence, we found just the thing. A little bracelet with silver balls, that she can use like Mala Beads to calm her state when things get freaky. A little bracelet as shiny as the moon, that she can use to know that the power of nature is within her, and she is a force of her own. A little bracelet with a blue heart to remind her that she has “cor” or courage waiting within her, any time she wants it.

So is a Tiffany bracelet a silly present for a thirteen year old? Probably. Is it indulgent to buy a kid something like this for ‘no reason’? Maybe.

Or maybe it’s just the meaning we bring.

*If you know who that someone is, please tell me. I use the quote a lot and I would like to attribute it. Guy Riekeman perhaps?

..when you know stuff and don’t do it and then you find out that all you ever needed to do in life you already knew? But you just didn’t do it. Or maybe it’s just me.

I’m doing a course at the moment and the coach (Katrina Ruth) is kicking my arse. Not because it’s new and challenging information (but she does have a cool way of cutting through the BS) but because it isn’t. We just had some homework to do, and one of the things she said was, “How can you expect consistent results if you don’t do consistent work?” SO annoying.

There’s a meme getting around on StalkerBook at the moment saying something about how exercise is hard, but being a fat bastard with no cardiovascular fitness and dying of a heart attack is harder. And being married is hard, but going through a divorce and using your kids as weapons whilst your solicitor banks the drama-cheques is harder. So choose your hard.

And so it is with getting what we want, in the areas we say are important to us. If we profess it’s important to be healthy, and we want to be surfing when we’re 80, then there’s a fair chance we need to be doing that now. I have a feeling that things don’t magically just fall into place at 79 years, 11 months. The same goes for all of the life areas. Things aren’t just gonna happen if we don’t put in the effort, and that means now. Not next week or year. And not just today, but tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Question: What do you want to come to fruition? What do you say that you want to be happening when you’re 80? Say it out loud right now, and then chop chop, take a tiny step. Want to be fit? Drop and give me ten right now.

I bet you can’t wait to hear mine.

Pause for effect.

I’ve been saying for years that when I’m 80 I want to be a crazy old lady who drinks Champagne on the regular (not sparkling mind, the proper stuff) and wears high heels every day. So it’s only fitting that I got myself into training, and got these bad boys to celebrate Coco’s gallstone removal. Or just life.

Now someone pass me the Veuve.

Yesterday I had an afternoon where lots of things were time dependant. I don’t like time to rule me- I prefer to let it roll along close by me, sometimes leading, sometimes following and sometimes, in those sweet moments of flow we even hold hands, time and I. Yesterday time was boss.

I had to pick up some cool presents for our Chicks Who Click private coaching group, then bust into the corona-free zone of the school to get Coco’s case left over from camp (yes, the two day old poo-water marinating in the Queensland sun smelt DIVINE for those of you following along), then be back to get the kids to work and singing lessons. Time-frames. And none of them mine. Which doesn’t sound like much, until I decided to believe the voice in my car “Do a u-turn and return to the route” instead of the voice in my head saying, “I don’t think that’s right.”

It wasn’t.

So I ended up sitting near Gibsons (which is the other side of town if you aren’t from Newsa), blinking like a mogwai, and wondering why on earth I didn’t listen to my brain instead of Siri. When you organise yourself to the nth degree, any deviation can throw the whole space-time-continuum thingy awry, and the earth shifts on its axis. Or perhaps I’m being a little dramatic. Blogging can do that to a person you know.

So I did what any self respecting loon would do: I breathed out, I smiled, and then I described (out loud) how the next hour would play out. How I would do all.of.the.things with ease and grace. Which of course made me laugh, as grace isn’t really my thang. (Have I ever told you about my “grace”-or fall from- on the escalator in Paris? Comment below if you must know more.)

The dude hosing the path out front of Gibsons gave me a smile- as you do when you encounter an unhinged Mum in a pretend 4WD near school pickup time- which I interpreted as him thinking, “Wow, she’s hot for an old bird, and I do like ’em with a bit of cray-cray.” Winky emoji. (Or maybe it’s the eggplant?)

Back to the narrative:

Guess what?

I got it all done. In fact, I got it done with time to spare. Time and I were mates again. Sorry for being mean, forgive me Time?

Which leads me to the point, and the thing that Coco and I were discussing this morning. Sometimes we think we can’t. Maybe we think we can’t get it all done. Or we can’t take the leap. Or we don’t have the skills. Or maybe we think we are too small, too weak, too dumb, too lazy, too incapable. But the funny thing is, when we set our intentions clearly, when we profess what we want, when we put in our specific order (I’ll have the steak medium-rare and put the gravy on the side please) and make sure it is received, then we can do more than we think we are capable of.

We aren’t incapable. We are IN CAPE ABLE.

We can all be super heroes in our own lives. In capes (obvs).

My cape says ‘The Fabulous Popping Nacho,” Liam’s says, “The Mighty Lightening Bolt,” and Coco’s says, “The Amazing Little Bee”. (Yes, we all have our talents, and yes, if I could choose again I’d now be The Chick of Truth, but sometimes you have to work with what you’ve been given, don’t you?). Point being: we all have capes. It’s just that sometimes they get chucked to the back of the cupboard with all the unmatched socks and the now dusty Apple box with the receipts from last Christmas. And we forget we have them.

Here’s some homework: Dust off your cape. (You’re more than able.)