The missing gift

I have looked under the sofa, and in the bed, around the TV and above the wardrobe… Still it eludes me like an invisible city fox.  The worst thing about it is, I have only just realised how precious it was....In the early hours of Sunday morning, 60 minutes went missing!

The absence of this lost hour leaves me with a pocketful of questions and a silver lining of sunny mornings and balmy nights ahead.

Time has a clever way of slipping by unnoticed if we turn our heads for too long. The truly amazing things we can do in those 3,600 seconds are mind-blowing. Everything can change in that moment. You can say ‘I love you!’, ‘Never again!’ and ‘I do!’

Possibilities fill every single minute and if we could just realise how fleeting time is, we would never waste any of it again, not a tiny drop.

Just think how rich life would be for us all if we let go of the past and future and lived for the now. That is where our power truly lies.

As with most things in life, nothing is ever really lost and I feel warmth inside to know that this absent hour is going to fly back to me in a few months time, carrying a gift of a second chance to make a difference.

Size 8

My favourite shoes are a well worn pair of red and white Converse All Star boots with matching double laces. I adore them. I wore them every day on tour in Italy and they have travelled with me thousands of miles like a trusted friend ever since. Sure they are a bit battered and the soles are slowly wearing down but despite walking on pavement, grass, carpet, glass, gravel, sand, steel and snow, they remain. Every inch of wear and tear seems to add a little more character than the day before. One of the bright red laces is shredded at the end following a vicious fight with an angry washing machine. They came out clean(ish) and still smiling at the memory of having once strolled along the Seine at dusk.

We take so many steps in this lifetime that it would be impossible to keep count. Sometimes they are so small they hardly make an imprint, steadily ambling along. And occasionally the strides are so incredibly colossal that we literally vault into a new chapter without so much as a glance behind.

Everyone wears their shoes differently and each pair has their own unique story to tell. Despite all the weight they carry on their journey, they never give up, steady in the knowledge that no one will ever be able to walk a mile in them better than their rightful owner.

Helping hands

At 2:45 pm it was all ok. People were going about their everyday lives. Contracts were being signed, washing was finishing a cycle to the sound of a daytime TV ‘wide show’ playing in the next room and the shop assistant was busily stocking the shelf with a brand new box of Kiri Mochi rice cakes.
In less than a minute life would be turned upside down...
We can go for days without speaking to a stranger preferring instead the conversation with a familiar face. It is easy for us to feel disconnected from the rest of the world....until this.
Even from 5996 miles away, the shockwaves of human despair can be felt beyond any measurable scale. And then something happens...Hands reach across an ocean and people stand to reveal compassionate, beating hearts. Suddenly the World becomes a much smaller place and we are reminded that we are all connected and we are all the same.
My love and thoughts go out to all those who have moved onto somewhere else and to those brave souls who remain.

“We must recognise that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity”
-The Dali Lama

Ripples

There is a time of day that sits just before the sun comes up and the city is still rubbing its eyes that I dedicate to me, just to me and no one else.

I love feeling the cool water rush over my body as I submerge my entire being and for the briefest of moments, vanish from sight like a Vegas illusionist. Everything becomes a muffled echo as I sink deeper into this chlorine scented world. Here under the surface everything feels safe as I am quickly emancipated from the demands and deadlines that hover just above the surface. Despite not having any air down here, I can, once again, breathe deeply.

Limbs moving in harmony to travel a length at a time, the rhythm induces an almost out of body experience allowing my mind to venture outside of its natural habitat and explore the boundaries of thoughts to come up with new, inventive ways of being. I am free and happy.

Life seems to be so full nowadays and it feels as if we never have enough time to do everything. Stress has become the new centre and tiredness is the new status symbol.

So many things demand our attention and the fear of not having ample time to reach our full potential is palpable.

It is so important to have our moment in the day where we can push the panic button on life and just sit in the stillness. Here we can truly listen to the inner voice. The voice that guides us and knows what is important.  The voice that knows we are always going to be ok.

Changes

As the bus trundled slowly towards St Pancras station, a million thoughts pulsed in and out of my mind like a beating heart. It’s funny how one memory leads to another, to another, to another. This snowball of recollection was brought about by being minutes away from a reunion with an old school friend who I hadn’t seen in a while -‘a while’ actually being a decade and a half but who’s counting?

My initial thought was that I wouldn’t recognise her face in the crowded coffee shop filled with people taking refuge from the hammering February rain. How had we both changed? Were we completely different people or still fundamentally the same? Would she even recognise me walking in now with my sodden jacket and dripping hair? I thought about how we vowed to always be friends no matter what...

We all have so many incarnations in a lifetime that sometimes we don’t see the changes happening right in front of our very eyes. Just as every single cell in our body regenerates, the same is true with our experiences, good and bad. Life has a habit of throwing things at us and we all deal with challenges differently. I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes the choices I make are flawed but never the less, make me the man I am today.

We can’t stay the same. It is the nature of being. Everything changes and everything grows whether we like it or not.

I guess the secret is in the acquiescence of that. Rather than fighting the metamorphosis we can accept that it will happen anyway and make a conscious decision to fashion ourselves into the person we want to become.

And yes, she did recognise me.

Journeys

When I was little I used to sit there in my maths class, staring into the distance towards the airport and watch as the planes lifted gracefully into the sky one by one. How I longed to be on them. To be going anywhere, I wouldn’t care. For me, flying equalled freedom, an escape.

Fast forward to me sporting less floppy hair, I find myself sitting in Gatwick Airport eating scrambled eggs, remembering those reveries.

There is something I love about airports. The smell of sweet leather and sanitising liquid mixed with jet fuel, the constant hum of chattering passengers and clinking cutlery and the allure of the Herb Ritts-esque Eau de Toilette posters in Duty Free promising a life of sun, sea and oiled abs (I make a quick mental note to start swimming again before my mind wanders).

Being an avid people watcher (and no that is not the same as being a nosey parker in case you were wondering), I love to observe. I think about the individuals surrounding me and their personal journeys through life. What brought them to this moment in time? Where are they heading and what will they find?

Being in this environment never fails to be a sensory feast for me and always triggers a myriad of ponderings.

Every day, we are faced with challenges and opportunities that ultimately change our lives forever and I can’t help but wonder how my journey today is going to shape mine and all that it means.

Once in a while it is important to stop looking up at our destination board and take a deep breath. It is, after all, just a journey.

Let’s sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Have you ever been on a journey that has changed your life? I would love to hear about it in the comments below.



I heart you

Happy Valentine's day!

It’s that time of year once again when most of us turn our attention to all things lurve.... Whether we are happily married, joyfully coupled or blissfully single*, we can’t help but think about love and what it means to us. It may be our partners, pets, jobs, clothes, families or iPhones which all feature prominently under this umbrella or a trillion things in between.

Love lifts, expands, engulfs, swirls and ignites. It shines a light in a world filled with pain and suffering and gives us a glimmer of hope....a shining beacon of loveliness.

I have always been a champion to love, fiercely defending its existence to the cynics. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard people declare that the world is an evil place and that everyone in it is wicked! In their reality that may be true. For me, the whole experience is amazingly different. I witness on a daily basis, beautiful, random acts of kindness everywhere I go...... I see the woman picking up a fallen scarf and running down the street with flailing limbs, shouting to reunite it with its unsuspecting owner, and the hand extended to help an old man off the bus, and the smile given to the Big Issue seller sitting on the floor surrounded by crumpled magazines. All of these things prove to me that we are surrounded by love and if we only open our eyes, we will see how brightly we shine.

To everyone who has it or is still searching, I wish you all the love in the world!

(*not leaving out those who are not so happy in all of these things)

The naughty step

Right, that’s it! Go and sit on the naughty step and have a long, hard think about what you’ve done!

Okay so while we are sitting here for a bit I wanted to ask you something. Have you been here before? I have. Many times! Not for refusing to eat my greens or for being cheeky or even for not tidying my room (the floordrobe I have is a walk-in by the way). The step I am talking about is the place we go to voluntarily to punish ourselves. The space in which the internal monologue throws all the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s in our face and tells us how stupid we were. We mull it over until our head hurts. All of that self flagellation leaving deep red marks on our backs and conscience.

So when will we give ourselves permission to get up off the step and forgive ourselves? Crime and time done! Finito!

It seems that out of habit the naughty step has become our home from home. Like a self-imposed prison of guilt which we have refurbished to make the whole beating ourselves up experience more comfortable.

We miss out on so much by looking back at things we may have said or done. If we can’t make things right, then it’s time to draw a line under it, move on and vow never to do that again and congratulate ourselves for being one step closer to becoming a better person with a more open heart.

Right, times up. You may get off the naughty step and come back into the room. All is forgiven.  Now come and let me give you a hug!!!




(Thanks to my beautiful niece Renn for being the best model in the world - you rock angel)

90 minutes

I have something to tell you. It’s time to embrace who I am and be proud of it. I am what I am. No more hiding. Yes folks, here it comes, the proclamation, my coming out.....I am.....a football fan! (Cue tumbleweed and cawing crows). There, I said it. It’s like a weight has been lifted off my repressed shoulders.

Some of my closest friends have found themselves disconcerted with my new revelation and I have noticed them on more than one occasion looking at me as if I am a Cylon.

Secretly though, I have always enjoyed watching the world cup every few years but once the golden accolade has been thrust into the air amidst the flashing lights of the photogs , I put that part of me back in the closet and patiently wait for the next time. So this year I actually started watching it on a more regular basis.

There are many things I like about the game and am starting to see the occasion in a much more spiritual way. On a superficial level I never cease to be amazed at how wonderful the human body is. The combination of speed, balance, flexibility and timing is awe-inspiring to all those sedentary beings that bear witness to the spectacle.

Watching each game now, for me, is a weekly reminder of how connected we all are on this rock whether we like it or not; A celebration of life here on Planet Earth. The Stadium is filled with song and cheer, all synchronised to perfection to make.....well a bit of a din really but let’s skip over that.

The waves of energy flying around like an electrical impulse, touching each and every beating heart and elevating emotion till the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.  

It reminds me how important it is to have a goal in life; something to aim for. Without that, we are just a bunch of streakers running across the pitch.

It reminds me to always get up quickly if I fall and not be afraid to take that leap of faith to the left hand corner.

It reminds me to look around and see who is on my side, the team-mates who are there for me no matter what.

And it reminds me that if something isn’t working, it’s time to be flexible, fearless and fabulous!

The malleable reality

Malleable • adj. 1 able to be hammered or pressed into shape without breaking or cracking.

2 easily controlled or influenced. 3 able to adjust to changing circumstances: adaptable.

Did you know that the most malleable of all metals is gold?! It is capable of great deformation without actually breaking (I have a fetish for useless facts. Move on).

This got me thinking about the ‘gold’ present in my life. My health, relationships, creativity...Could I shape all these elements over the space of a year into something even more beautiful and precious just like the gold nugget being pressed into a Tiffany ring? Is it indeed possible that one can fashion their reality however they choose? Being brave enough to look at those areas which don’t seem to be working and then, using all the tools at our disposal, begin to hammer and shape these parts of our lives with complete trust that, just like gold, change doesn’t mean that things will break and crack.

Reality is not set in stone and the only thing that holds us back is fear. Fear of failure, of not being good enough, not being loved/appreciated etc...The list is endless. It doesn’t seem to be enough anymore to just be dissatisfied with our lot in life. The discomfort has become too comfortable, too familiar.

So this is the challenge. What areas in our lives do we now want to change and make better? What is keeping us up at night that if we made a conscious effort to mould, our journeys would have more meaning? Just like gold, the more we shape our lives, the more beautiful they become. Reality is indeed malleable.

New Year beginnings

So, New Year, New beginnings... Exciting stuff eh?!

I have always restricted my musings to the safety of my cobalt blue journal. For my eyes only! However, as I sat there, 5 minutes to midnight clutching onto a glass of something cold and fizzy, I couldn't help but do the obligatory yearly evaluation.  Listening to the crowds of partying people in the background shouting and singing away in anticipation of the first chime (which was now 3 minutes away), I was transported back to the start of the year in a 'Scroodge, I am going to show you your Christmas past' sort of way (minus the ghostly billowing and cobwebs but you can leave them in there for dramatic effect if you fancy).

So I started the year of 2010 optimistically by packing my bright red bag and returning to beautiful Italy to embark on another tour. (My love for that country deserves a blog of its own-another time).

Breathing on a stage every day doing something I truly love is the most exhilarating feeling in the world which was then followed closely behind by the well known to all actors, slump once the show was over! Hmmmm....

Chimes T-Minus 2 minutes.  

This is when I guess my journey of the year really began. It seems that for most of last year I have been searching for something....something I hadn’t quite put my finger on but which dangled about a centimetre from my Roman nose making it itch like crazy.

I think a lot of people on this beautiful planet (maybe even everyone) will, around midnight once a year, look at their life and wonder where and how they fit in....or don’t. We all most certainly think of things we would like to change about our lives.

Then as the masses began counting down from 10... I made a promise to myself...9...I would be braver this year...8...and look inside myself...7...at things which I hadn’t dared glance at before...6...this would be the year in which...5...I stood up, dusted myself down and...4...made the change in my life...3...challenged myself beyond my well worn comfort zone....2...and for the first time in my life, without hesitation...1...FLY!

Happy New You!!