99 Days of Something – #4: More About Rest

Ah well, yes – I didn’t get very far with the 99 Days of Something series did I. But I do miss the discipline of writing daily and I do need a kick up the backside to get some writing bits finished and writing helps with balance and rest. So the aim is to write something every day and record it here. Sometimes that might be writing for work, sometimes that might be some creative writing and sometimes it might just be the blog. But write I will. When I did the 100 Days of Wonder series, I structured the post around photos and that seemed to work really well – so maybe I start there to see how it goes.

I took this picture of Storm this morning. I like it for all sorts of reasons – the blue sky, her looking into the distance seemingly ignoring me completely, the tree in the background. I also like it because it was a very brief moment in the middle of chaos – she was being a parkour cat round the garden and paused to catch her breath before bouncing out of the greenhouse guttering onto the glass roof that covers our patio and then running across the other side of the greenhouse and jumping from there to the summer house roof and disappearing across the fence at the back of our garden. And then she appeared again doing some sort of variation of that loop. Now she’s fast asleep.

That, and scrolling through the blog and seeing some of the 100 Days of Wonder posts and realising that I feel more rested after this weekend than I did when I had a whole week off, made me reflect on my last post and on rest. Storm is good at resting. Like most cats really. She goes bonkers, she eats well, she plays, she takes care of herself and then she sleeps. When she was running around the garden and bouncing off buildings she seemed so joyful. She was just having fun. And she was just doing her thing. The other cats stayed out of her way, watching her with a mix of fear, admiration and disdain. She doesn’t care.

So as I sat in the sun, tidying up one of our little alpine tubs and watching a tiny little bee on a heuchera flower, I thought about what was different this weekend. I had assumed I would be more tired. I didn’t sleep well all week. Stress levels were high, emotional energy was drained and I was frustrated about my calf still being niggly. I almost expected to feel worse. But I didn’t. So what’s different. Well I suspect the weather helps. It’s warm and sunny and has been all weekend. Sunlight helps. The second things is that I have actually done some stuff that feels productive in a none work way. I deep cleaned the kitchen on Saturday. While somehow cleaning the kitchen always feels future because it almost immediately needs it again, the deep clean was well overdue and it does look and feel much better now. On Sunday we went out for breakfast and had a walk round Harlow Carr gardens and bought some plants. We also did a fair bit of life admin organising ourselves a bit and that felt good. I did yoga and moved a little testing out the calf and just doing what feels good. I have drunk lots more water. I always have been terrible at drinking enough but over the last few days I have really tried and I do actually feel better. I went to the gym this morning, I pottered in the garden a bit and I have made plans for an outrageous LEGO purchase that will be silly fun. I have paused and noticed things, the variety of bees, the colours outside, the difference in temperature between the front and back garden… I have watched the cats play and lounge. I have done what Storm did in condensed form this morning – I moved, I had yummy food, I have played and been silly, I have looked after myself and I have slept better. This long weekend so far has been much more about balance, about doing and being in ways that support each other. No ‘all or nothing’ in sight. Less scrolling for no reason, more deliberate breathing and noticing.

I had coffee in the shady bit of our garden when I had finished the alpine tubs and realised how much I have got out of the habit of doing nothing at all. Just sitting and sipping my coffee almost felt alien. I, like so many of us, usually have my phone out when I am just sitting. That’s not doing nothing. That doesn’t let the brain drift and do its thing. Sitting watching, sipping, listening, breathing for 10 minutes was so much more restful than any amount of time scrolling could ever be. And I’m not saying there isn’t a place for scrolling, sometimes I find it helpful to stop myself fixating on one thing or to switch tasks but the trick is not to get stuck scrolling. It takes effort.

So what is actually different? Maybe it is really simple, I feel more present, more connected to myself (I don’t quite know what I mean either but that’s the closes I can come with words) and more open to seeing the joy and wonder in the every day and that leads me to a better balance and better prioritisation between all the things that make up this rollercoaster we call life. Let’s see how I manage balance when I also have to work. Achieving it during a long weekend seems a little like cheating but I have to start somewhere!