I seem to remember writing a few months ago that 2013 felt significant in some way; maybe it's because I'd decided – without even really realising – that it was the year I'd set about defining and redefining a few truths about myself.
And without warning, up rocked yesterday's odd combination of conversations and happenstances. The great news first: I was back in a rowing boat for the first time in over two years and, damn, it was a wonderful feeling. It felt right that I was there, sitting in the middle of a river glaring at blades defying my requests. For a brief moment (and only rowers will understand this point) our double sat up beautifully and bubbles rushed under the bow; it's an addictive sound that is always accompanied by a beaming grin. Anybody walking along the riverbank tuning in to my mutterings would have listened to half an hour of quiet cursing followed by a jubilant, 'Oh my God! We've got bubbles!'
I find myself now sitting in a friend's absent landlady's bedroom. It's a lovely house, crammed with quirks and trinkets from travels; there's a would-be office that has essentially been abandoned after a failed attempt to launch a business, and a bathroom that defies the laws of physics by packing so much in to so very small a room. The landlady is pushing fifty, a single vegetarian with odd vestiges of Buddhism draped around her world. It strikes me as the sort of home I might someday create – and that terrifies me. I don't know what life holds for me, but in twenty years' time I don't want to be that caricature.
Two people have surprised me in the last week by essentially having the attitude they work hard at what they do and that is the extent of their involvement with their own future. There's no 'end goal', just a constant determination to complete tasks to the best of their ability, presumably with the belief that things will come their way when they are meant to. It seems horribly fatalistic. On a topical note, I can't imagine Margaret Thatcher did anything other than work her cotton socks off to get from living above a greengrocer's shop to becoming such a significant leader she is being honoured with a funeral just a step below that of one afforded to a member of the monarchy.
It is too easy to say everything will happen as it should in the end, so why bother fighting. I have always maintained that life will only happen to you if you make yourself available to it: park yourself at home in front of the television and the most exciting thing that could occur is a rampant bulldozer appearing in your living room. There may be a great many things I've missed out on by constantly moving around but at least I have developed my own philosophy and my own ideas, not merely borrowed from articles I've read or conversations I've overheard.
I wonder if it is coincidence that both of these people who had that attitude are going through a divorce at the moment. Nobody told them to marry: it was a conscious decision on both their parts, wanting to be with a particular person for the rest of their lives. And I do believe that both, albeit under very different circumstances, did marry with that intention in mind. Their choice, their action, is now being spectacularly undermined. And in retaliation to these events, they lead lives that are simultaneously hectic and in part hedonistic while working, working, always working. Work is something you can control, and something that won't let you down.
Here's an analogy that just came to mind. I've visited Kruger many times over the past three years; you will see no more animals if you race along the roads glancing desperately from side to side than if you spend a few hours parked up by a watering hole at the right time of day. The first will leave you stressed and tired and more than moderately fed up, whereas the second will leave you relaxed and satisfied. In other words, put yourself in the right place and, given time and space and a fair dose of calm, the world will provide you with offerings more extraordinary and wonderful than you could ever have imagined. The hard work is getting yourself to the right place at the right time, and having the strength to let go just a little.
“I feel bad for thinking it, but I know it's true. Not thinking about things doesn't make them not true.”
