Nature and books! Yes! JW you speak to my heart. Thankyou. I recently read your memoir and having been a slow reader my whole life I whizzed through this in no time. Struggling to concentrate as I am grieving for only child, my son who died in March from a Brain tumour. Can't thank you enough for taking me away, needless to say I didn't want it to end. My son always focused on what he could do, not what he couldn't. When he couldn't walk he painted and did jigsaws for hours. He was sent to inspire, to teach me. And so were you. (just about to start a diploma in horticulture at the Duchy - no more yes buts for me) P.s have you read Christopher Lloyd, The Well Tempered Garden? Or David Abram The Spell of the Sensuous?
Lovely! And there you go again innocently pronouncing your yogic mastery. One of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Tara Brach, puts it this way: there are two wings to awakening - 1. clear seeing and 2. loving kindness. In other words, listening deeply and gently moving toward what feels true. Just as you said 🧡
I am laughing again. This morning I rushed past the new yoga classes all over my Peloton screen , sweated my arse off, and then had a large cafetière of coffee with fresh tuna and avocado . I was thinking ; so great this isn’t almond milk after Downward Dog …
PS your Dad must've been really brave, really desperate, really traumatised. Real trauma can devastate the rest of your life. And affect the kids too (as I'm sure you know only too well with your Mum Jeanette...) So good you got out
Our relationships to ourselves are the foundation for everything else. It is our longest and closest relationship and deserves more of our attention and priority than anything else and that is not selfish. I needed to work on healing and strengthening my relationship with myself (and still do) for a period of many years before I started to see the relationships I had out in the world with others, with my writing, shift into healthier and stronger relationships. The prioritizing of oneself over others, when it has the intent of being part of a larger whole, is not closing oneself off from others in need, it is opening up to all that is now and all that is possible.
My dad (if alive, obviously not tho), would be 114 this April. We found out much later in life he was not his mother s son.... We never knew if he knew. Life is strange sometimes.
'Accept that you have certain advantages and disadvantages, and let all the muddle live at home in the family of yourself.' - absolutely love that sentence. The family of myself is a very dysfunctional one but we rub along somehow. As I get older I am so much more accepting of myself. Also now I'm in my late 60s I find that switching on 'mad old lady' mode on occasion can be a superpower! Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece.
Your writings triggered some memories. On hopes, on change, on ghosts.
When I was around fourteen, my parents moved in an apparently shabby house at Fontainebleau. It looked odd at the center of this neat and cosy middle-class town. It looked more like a farm, with a mossy paved courtyard surrounded by barns and a large building set on two levels in a L shape, the smallest part of it running above a medieval porch. It had been abandonned for years and the last residents were chickens. I remember we spent all the summer digging their fossilized shits off the ground and restoring by ourselves the living area before winter. My father was a kind of instinctive builder and the rest of the family assisted him in the different development works. Actually, all passers-by, friends and mere acquaintances, somehow became part of the team. From the start, that place had always been a rallying point, full of passages, of people, of dreams, popping up...
A few years later, it was turned into a cultural place, a theater. And my father in a comedian.
My parents came from a modest background. They had so far managed to grow their career in the Haute-couture but two years after we moved in, my father was suddenly dismissed. he had to go back to school to learn new skills, and how to "sell himself". That is precisely when he caught the theater syndrom and was definitely lost to the market.
Change is about mutiple factors melting together. And I am convinced that one and one does not just make two. The house had a spirtit of its own infused in its walls, my father a motive he was not even aware of yet ; the two brought together made change happen and thrive. Of course, there were other events I will not develop here, but both the house and my father played the role of the cornerstone in their mutual transformation.
We gradually realized that the house was one of the oldest in Fontainebleau, built in the vicinity of the king’s palace in the thirteenth century. At first, a humble shed, it became a hostel, « L’auberge de l’âne vert » named after the habit of putting a green blanket on the donkeys rented to travellers. Numerous people had eaten, drunk, hated, loved, quarelled, cheated, slept and perhaps died in there. More or less illustrious characters who could not lodge in the palace like Le Nôtre, De la Rochefoucauld, Mansart, the poet Régnier, and many more... I like to think that Molière came by.
Triboulet, a famous king’s jester was a regular customer in the fifteenth century. He is believed to have written one of the first French comic plays « la Farce de Maître Pathelin ».
The house was sold long before my father’s death since he moved to Corsica to fulfill another dream but the theater is still running. If you happen to visit Fontainebleau, it is worth a detour.
Uncanny how you always manage to surprise me with insights that find resonance in me. Lately, I've been struggling with a couple of issues and your essay brought me relief and comfort - as much as hope. I like the whole essay, specially the passage at the end of it. Sometimes we emphasize the disadvantages, forgetting the advantages. In other hand, even what looks like a disadvantage, after all might turn out being an advantage in disguise...
Nature and books! Yes! JW you speak to my heart. Thankyou. I recently read your memoir and having been a slow reader my whole life I whizzed through this in no time. Struggling to concentrate as I am grieving for only child, my son who died in March from a Brain tumour. Can't thank you enough for taking me away, needless to say I didn't want it to end. My son always focused on what he could do, not what he couldn't. When he couldn't walk he painted and did jigsaws for hours. He was sent to inspire, to teach me. And so were you. (just about to start a diploma in horticulture at the Duchy - no more yes buts for me) P.s have you read Christopher Lloyd, The Well Tempered Garden? Or David Abram The Spell of the Sensuous?
Oh and loved the Woolf talk so much, Thank you
Lovely! And there you go again innocently pronouncing your yogic mastery. One of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Tara Brach, puts it this way: there are two wings to awakening - 1. clear seeing and 2. loving kindness. In other words, listening deeply and gently moving toward what feels true. Just as you said 🧡
I am laughing again. This morning I rushed past the new yoga classes all over my Peloton screen , sweated my arse off, and then had a large cafetière of coffee with fresh tuna and avocado . I was thinking ; so great this isn’t almond milk after Downward Dog …
Lol! The Buddhists say the last attachment to go is judgement. I think it’s coffee ;)
I’m so happy that you have books and nature because books and nature have given you words and from your words we all benefit. Thank you!
PS your Dad must've been really brave, really desperate, really traumatised. Real trauma can devastate the rest of your life. And affect the kids too (as I'm sure you know only too well with your Mum Jeanette...) So good you got out
Our relationships to ourselves are the foundation for everything else. It is our longest and closest relationship and deserves more of our attention and priority than anything else and that is not selfish. I needed to work on healing and strengthening my relationship with myself (and still do) for a period of many years before I started to see the relationships I had out in the world with others, with my writing, shift into healthier and stronger relationships. The prioritizing of oneself over others, when it has the intent of being part of a larger whole, is not closing oneself off from others in need, it is opening up to all that is now and all that is possible.
My dad (if alive, obviously not tho), would be 114 this April. We found out much later in life he was not his mother s son.... We never knew if he knew. Life is strange sometimes.
Hard to imagine a world without Jeanette - she has no equal.
'Accept that you have certain advantages and disadvantages, and let all the muddle live at home in the family of yourself.' - absolutely love that sentence. The family of myself is a very dysfunctional one but we rub along somehow. As I get older I am so much more accepting of myself. Also now I'm in my late 60s I find that switching on 'mad old lady' mode on occasion can be a superpower! Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece.
Thank you.
Such a gentle piece. Thank you
Beautiful!
So much kindness and grace here. I love magic right at my feet. I find it everyday if I look.
Your writings triggered some memories. On hopes, on change, on ghosts.
When I was around fourteen, my parents moved in an apparently shabby house at Fontainebleau. It looked odd at the center of this neat and cosy middle-class town. It looked more like a farm, with a mossy paved courtyard surrounded by barns and a large building set on two levels in a L shape, the smallest part of it running above a medieval porch. It had been abandonned for years and the last residents were chickens. I remember we spent all the summer digging their fossilized shits off the ground and restoring by ourselves the living area before winter. My father was a kind of instinctive builder and the rest of the family assisted him in the different development works. Actually, all passers-by, friends and mere acquaintances, somehow became part of the team. From the start, that place had always been a rallying point, full of passages, of people, of dreams, popping up...
A few years later, it was turned into a cultural place, a theater. And my father in a comedian.
My parents came from a modest background. They had so far managed to grow their career in the Haute-couture but two years after we moved in, my father was suddenly dismissed. he had to go back to school to learn new skills, and how to "sell himself". That is precisely when he caught the theater syndrom and was definitely lost to the market.
Change is about mutiple factors melting together. And I am convinced that one and one does not just make two. The house had a spirtit of its own infused in its walls, my father a motive he was not even aware of yet ; the two brought together made change happen and thrive. Of course, there were other events I will not develop here, but both the house and my father played the role of the cornerstone in their mutual transformation.
We gradually realized that the house was one of the oldest in Fontainebleau, built in the vicinity of the king’s palace in the thirteenth century. At first, a humble shed, it became a hostel, « L’auberge de l’âne vert » named after the habit of putting a green blanket on the donkeys rented to travellers. Numerous people had eaten, drunk, hated, loved, quarelled, cheated, slept and perhaps died in there. More or less illustrious characters who could not lodge in the palace like Le Nôtre, De la Rochefoucauld, Mansart, the poet Régnier, and many more... I like to think that Molière came by.
Triboulet, a famous king’s jester was a regular customer in the fifteenth century. He is believed to have written one of the first French comic plays « la Farce de Maître Pathelin ».
The house was sold long before my father’s death since he moved to Corsica to fulfill another dream but the theater is still running. If you happen to visit Fontainebleau, it is worth a detour.
Uncanny how you always manage to surprise me with insights that find resonance in me. Lately, I've been struggling with a couple of issues and your essay brought me relief and comfort - as much as hope. I like the whole essay, specially the passage at the end of it. Sometimes we emphasize the disadvantages, forgetting the advantages. In other hand, even what looks like a disadvantage, after all might turn out being an advantage in disguise...
This really spoke to me today. Thank you so much for sharing your wise thoughts!
Thank you Jeanette, it is so stimulating to have a walk with you in your garden! My motto these years: What I can do—I will—
Though it be little as a Daffodil—
That I cannot—must be
Unknown to possibility—