Category Archives: Life

Life, writing

That feeling of coming home, know it?

Leave a comment

“The best way to change the world is in concentric circles: start with yourself and work your way out from there.”

James Clear

Hi there!

Well it’s been a minute. How are things with you? It has been all sorts busy here. Still we await the arrival of the northern hemisphere’s spring season, as in really arrive and not disappear again tomorrow! The winter has been long, the busy has been good and oh my gosh this is my first post for the year! And.It.Is.May.Already. There’s been learning, trying new things and settling into life as I chill my nervous system.

Learning by living is my modus operandi, so when I am quiet in these times and sharing less, never fear. I’m simply off being human and growing with that experience. It’s nice though to feel ready to come home and to begin to grow something with words. To once again write to you from a sturdy place. There’s so much to talk about!

Hey, so, I know we aren’t really talking about the C time and I know we all experienced that time differently, but during my deep dive into being human I had to think about how the pandemic affected me. It’s not the first time I’ve had to face some really tough feelings but it was probably the hardest.

It wasn’t the actual pandemic time that was hard for me. It was more so the years after. Specifically, this notion of simply returning to life that’s a ‘new normal’, one that doesn’t accommodate for changes. It is not quite ridiculous to expect to simply go back to being the same with a new tag?! I mean let’s be honest … who is the same two years on, ever. Even without a pandemic – things, life changes. When I look back at the amount of change in my usually quiet life I feel a great deal of sympathy for my nervous system, no wonder it got itself stuck in survival mode.

My family of little kids, those kids who danced behind the pide piper when she (me) played the next tune went and grew up. Really grew, the buggers. Two became fully fledged teens and boy that was something I did not have a manual or a script for. It’s taken some trial and error. After being locked out of our home country during the pandemic, the connection with our ozzie’ness shifted and this happened differently for all of us. Our parents downsized, aged and our old life at ‘home’ felt like it lost its roots.

We renovated a house (ha never again, ever). Th challenge aside from the actual living in a building site was that as someone who keeps it small and prefers the company of kind, interesting, honest, pay it forward types and a lot of quiet space was that I had to live with builders in that space everyday. Builders who regularly took the piss, lied and instead of 6, took 18 months. Oh and then there is the peri menopause, yep that hit at the same time. JESUS that peri – it took my energy, brain, confidence and what resilience I had left. Lol and they’re just the big things!

The good news is that I have found peace with all the change. Time is a great healer, yes, this is true … but also it is what you do in the time that heals. There has been plenty of sitting in my shit. A bit, hmm maybe a lot of woe is me. But, maybe this is necessary sometimes. Some time to feel sad for yourself, or to feel your sadness so you can uncover what it is you are really sad about and what you need. I am glad for it. Obviously, it isn’t fun but to accept change, but to step out of the flight, fight, fawn or freeze response it felt necessary. To me, this is self love. To love yourself enough to give yourself the grace to not be ok when you’re not, to give yourself and those around you compassion, to accept being imperfect and the imperfections of others, humaness. To recognise where and who you are and to be ok with that.

Anyways, that’s just a little of where I’ve been. If you’re interested in where the peace came from well a number of ways. I talk to someone. She helped me rip off a few bandaids. Under those bandaids were some wounds that I needed to give air to. We all know wounds heal better when exposed (if ready). I realised some of my teenage wounds were causing me to react rather than to respond to my own teens. Flight/fight. My catholic upbringing, schooling and life experiences still have some real impacts on me – fawn/freeze (don’t be seen). In survival mode it felt boundless and just as a river can’t flow without banks I couldn’t find my flow without boundaries which explained the bewildered state.

Anyways, from the chats I began thinking about how to step out of the fear mode I was existing in and how I could settle my nervous system. Diet came next. I was eating for survival. My gut health needed some love and based on tests – gluten, sugar and dairy are gone for now. I feel better. I gave up alcohol in favour of special occasions but kept coffee, I drink a lot of hot water and herb tea too. it’s not easy and these changes are a work in progress.

On a whim I picked up and read a book (this book) and honestly it changed my life. Peri/menopause is a feminist issue and we need to talk about it. I started HRT and that is something I never thought I would ever do. I have learnt that as women we are completely gaslit when it comes to our hormones and what this change means. We cannot rely on all caregivers to provide accurate, evidence based, individual information. An oestrogen deficiency played havoc with my body just as a thyroxine or insulin issues can for some. Those oestrogen receptors that live from my head down to my toes are now dancing with happiness to be awake. My energy has returned and the brain fog has disappeared. So now I can move, hot yoga, cycling and walking (always walking) are my things right now.

There is no magic bullet in my story here, just a few different paths I took to try to find my way through to post pandemic ‘new normal’. The gem for me was to learn that I can’t do what I’ve always done to cope and what that meant for me in terms of action. I couldn’t run/hike my way through it – injuries. I couldn’t write my way out of it – brain fog. I couldn’t eat my way out of it – health consequences, I couldn’t do something new (study) or adventurous (plan a move) – no energy. I simply had to sit still and move slowly and be open to and accept new things. I am not there yet but I am better for it. I need to give weight to all the puzzle pieces.

So, new things. Well, yes. As you all know I’m a little bit of a gypsy soul and I like need some excitement … some sweet synchronicity, some of those oh-wow-what-a-coincidence type moments and really I just need to find and hang out with my people. The ones get that about me, about life and that keep it interesting. Writing has always been such a beautiful doorway for me to stay connected with and to find the finest of kindreds. I started a new blog and gosh I’m excited (and nervous) to be in this space.

Your Camino

It is something different for me. This current blog you may remember started as the fundraiser for my first camino and it’s veered off is so many directions I don’t know what it is anymore! It is boundless. Of course that is ok. But like the river needs its banks, I want to do something that is in flow so I need boundaries, banks. I need to create something with direction. Already in the short time I’ve been playing over on your camino I’ve had some sweet interactions. I’ve felt a shift in what my mind thinks about and where it goes, my step and I’ve felt that feeling of ‘good’ fear. Like I am actually doing something that scares me a little. I like that I can connect people.

It feels time to challenge myself and see what I am capable of in this time. With commitment, the work of that feels doable. There are of course many sites dedicated to the camino, and yes there’s that shadow part of me that thinks and says ‘how do I fit with those, how can I compete, what if you fail’? But you know, I am tired of wondering about that, and it’s not a competition. So, I am creating my own unique space dedicated to camino walking, not trying to fit in. I am just going to write my stories and walk my walk, write to connect people and that alone feels like success.

I wanted to write this open the conversation about ‘new normal’ and change because it feels important, how are you with yours? And I am thinking a bit about this blog and I think perhaps this will become a letter about life here or maybe it will disappear. We shall see what flow says. We did have a beautiful weekend away last weekend in the fabulous south where the wildflowers are in bloom and there are hills. Hills in the flatlands, yes it’s true, they really exist. I am out of time and page space so I’ll share that with you next time.

With much love and grace,

Fran xx

Sneak peak from next week … the wildflowers

Life, Travel

Can one be suitably outraged, contented and peaceful all at once?

14 Comments

For a little while I have been thinking about blogging again. I miss it. The getting to know people through their stories. The new ideas, perspectives, the clarity it brings and the personal nature of it. I do wonder … does it even exist anymore, the blogosphere? Hello, is anybody out there? Or has it become something else, something I seek that used to exist. Is blogging simply a thing from the past that I pine for. Lately, I seem to pine for past things, past times. Times that can’t return. I can’t go back and yet I am unsure about which way is forward. So, I guess I will do what I do in these times, I will write.

It seems hard to feel excited about the future when the world is warming, fighting, trapped in an online vortex of some sort of bullshit alternate reality and it’s becoming so ridiculously expensive to live in, how can all of this be sustainable? And yet, everyday the world goes on and I do want to feel excited about that, and about life. I do want to have hope, adventure, fun times, laugher, good food, joy and sadness with my people and to live in my natural state of optimism. But … I don’t want to do that at the cost of living in denial about the world. How do we call bullshit on the bullshit and live peacefully, contentedly at the same time?

After being away from Australia for over 5 years I do feel the pull back. There are a lot of things I miss. I miss all things ‘Aussie’ish’. The things that are Aussie to me. My family, friends, the bush, the beach, the smashed avo and egg breakfasts, the humour, the language that shortens all words, the familiarity, the ease in which we are open, the 5 TV channels, all the things really and of course the warm weather. Maybe it’s belonging to something that’s a big part of me, of who I am that I crave. And for whatever reason I haven’t managed to create that sense of belonging to here – to where I am.

Yesterday, I said to a friend ‘I don’t think I have caught up to where I am in my life’. I am in such a different phase to the one we were in when we landed here. We arrived with young kids, a huge adventure on the horizon and now we have teens who are almost adults. When we left, I felt a world of possibility … and for a while there was this great sense of something new being built. The world seemed so big, anything, everything seemed possible. I felt on the cusp of something. What was that cusp though? And where did I climb down from walking towards it? What was it that stopped me in my tracks? Did I even stop in my tracks, or am I taking a longer route, an alternative route?

I am, of course, very much here and while a clear path back to Australia doesn’t seem to be looking at us right now there are lots of things I enjoy and love about this life. Train to Paris anyone? Take the bike kids! Oh I’ll be hiking a part of the Northern Camino for a bit, toodles. We have built something amazing, but still, something feels like it is missing. I should be able to find it here … right. The missing puzzle piece. I mean, I know the grass is never greener. Fact. And in the quiet when I think about what I miss the most about my ‘old’ life (aside from Aussie’ness) it is the doing of something that matters. I want to be someone who stands for something, for many things. For most of my life I have had a job where that’s been my day to day. From teaching kids at risk to supporting women in childbirth. Right now, I seem to be in an apathetic state. I don’t feel like I fit in here. I just don’t know how, or where to fight ‘the good fight’. What even is the good fight right now?

Some days I feel I am living in complete culture shock. I don’t understand the world. The big world and my smaller world. I know I’m not someone who wants to be super loud. I am no politician, and I am not striving for a leadership or big job. But I do want to do something that matters. Writing is this little thing I do, often in the quiet and and it does matter. It helps me to make sense of my world and sometimes it seems to also help others. Words can be magical like that. And when I’m lost in writing all the other not so important things, seem, well, just so not important.

In this post pandemic, post yearlong renovation, post kids growing faster than I have been able to keep up with time – I really need to find which way is North again. I think it’s changed for me and in this phase of my life, it isn’t so clear cut! The way forward really isn’t obvious. Decisions seem momentous with far reaching consequences. Where will the children end up, where will I grow old. And there is the simple fact that I am a lot less ‘cartwheely’ these days about the whole process of life and change. I can’t quite summon the energy for huge expectations and outrageously gung-ho plans. Which ironically and so not like me – I kind of like. This feels peaceful in its own way.

I did very simple things yesterday. I played music most of the day, I cooked a favorite meal for one of my loved from scratch, I started regrowing spring onions. I had some lovely conversation where there were no answers, but questions were asked. I started thinking about decisions without needing to make any. I think it is in these small things that the big things can unfold. And I was suitably outraged when I learnt that petrol is coming up through the sinks in a suburb south of Sydney. As well as the flooding. Climate change is happening in real time, I wasn’t wrong about that years ago when I left. Am I outraged by the fact that this is happening without consequence for those in power, or is it that I’m in a languishing, apathetic way that outrages me.

OMG I have reverted to being someone who apologises for taking up space. Have I become a bootlicker? What scared me? Who scared me? Last night in my outrage, I did send off a message to the universe (via the insta world 🤪) seeking a sign, willing myself to find some momentum and I did buy a sweater that said ‘if you’re not angry. you’re not taking notice’. So yeah, look, I’m pretty outraged at the world and myself for being a privileged ass.

Yes, dear friends it is time to face myself and to go in search of something. In search of a tribe maybe, or of myself and most definitely of my strength and courage. ROAR. It’s time to catch up to where I am before yet another year passes. To be outraged with bullshitand to be peaceful and contented with where I am. I don’t know how to solve the climate change problem or all the world’s injustices and I am ok with that. What I’m not ok with is not trying. There was a time when I was was sooo here and so connected that when I walked in the woods I could feel the pain of Mother Earth. I felt she spoke to me one time, I even stopped to write a poem. I am not sure why I’ve put my woo woo self to sleep. Perhaps, there have been too many other voices and just too many people with a different kind of energy around me. It’s just become too crowded. I know I need to wake her up though. I am certain of that. I need the woo woo. It is the essence of who I am and when I am in that space, I can see the North star.

So unapologetically in I go …

Adventure, Life, Travel

The Tuscan lesson.

8 Comments

Ciao dear friends. We can use ciao between us because we are friends, you and I all of us who hang out here. At first I found it difficult in my Italian classes to get over the hurdle of an informal and a formal language, why two languages within one? Today I get it. I found a reason. Indulge me while I write up the last of our Tuscan time with the recent musings of my mind. It’s time to take myself out from this writing slump I’ve landed myself in and share the end of this Tuscan holiday diary with you. So once again I can write to you from where I am now.

On the last day of our Tuscan escape we decided to follow our love of the home cooked Italian meal, we followed it up and into a restaurant in the mountains. Ristorante I Faggi was its name. High up at 1296m on the pass between the regions of Emilia-Romagna and Toscana she stands. A family restaurant serving meals directly from the Madre’s kitchen.

It was misty and cool as we made our way up the winding roads. We weren’t prepared for the cool and arrived in our shorts and t’s! We were grateful a table was available inside for us. I’m not going to lie it felt odd in these corona times to eat indoors on a cool, misty day. I didn’t settle in as I normally would’ve. I was conscious we were abroad and these times are corona times. For the first time it felt like what we were doing carried a degree of risk, perhaps it is because we were inside.

However, we were here now, committed to the eating and supporting this small family restaurant. So we ordered and decided not to feel fearful. The restaurant was small yet ventilated, we had our own dining room and there were few tables and guests.

And then it happened …

The food and the first bite. We were in home cooked wonderland. Have you been there recently? Tell me about your last such meal. The writing isn’t the only slump here, our food could do with a bit of spark.

Many hikers passed through here while we ate. In the future, when planning hiking trips are something we can do – I will be back. It reminded me of walking the camino and campervanning around Mont Blanc. There are many hiking trails in Europe where stopping for a cooked meal and even camping a night are part of the experience. I long for this again. When I hiked the camino I remember thinking how I could wander like this without a return date … perhaps in retirement.

The taste is one thing but also there is this feeling of community. The family run restaurant, the camaraderie among the hikers, the un-fancy yet welcoming decor. We were in someone’s home. More than that we were home, where we sat, who we sat with, what we ate and with each-other. It’s like what community feels like to me. To be eating food that’s sustainably made and sourced, amongst like minded people, surrounded by kindness, warmth and without expectations.

Of course I know community is more than this but this is always where I feel so complete, so home in myself, so at peace. Eating good food, kind people, my people and nature close by. A little bit of wild on the doorstep. In an adventure. All that is right with the world right here in this moment. Yes corona was knocking on the door, but at this moment in time it seemed to have gone to sleep for the summer.

This was the perfect last Tuscan meal and I’m rather pleased to be writing it up now. We’ve been back from our Italian break for a couple of months now and it’s time to come back here and finish this holiday diary. I’ve found myself in a bit of a writing slump. But today I relised the Tuscan lesson, it’s about what’s home. So I’m home. Home here. Home to writing. Home to creating.

Sometimes, I feel like I live in a state of culture shock. Not because I live abroad (although there is that) but because I struggle with pressure, rush, competition and convenience. And at times in my world these are unavoidable, in this phase of my life it seems more so than in the past. And these past years I have found myself frustrated and angrier with the world and the values I encounter in the world. More so than I remember feeling before.

Tuscany and the time since taught me something.

Community matters. Community feels like home. Community is about the people who meet you with their values, whose actions are aligned with making your heart feel warm and safe, whose heart paints your spirit with kindness. Whose speak connects to your soul, whose interests inspire you, people who arrive in your life to make you laugh when you least expect it. Our community isn’t everyone who lives near us, or all the ones who share the same settings (work, school) as us, nor is it all the ones who live in our feeds. Community is smaller than that, community doesn’t overwhelm us it protects us.

The Italian language also taught me something.

Perhaps, I need to know the two languages. The one I speak when I’m in my head, when I’m with the ones in my community and when I write. The informal one. The dreamy one. The one where I’m most at home. Where community means connection, noticing, hearing, reflecting, sharing and feeling. Where life is about attaching meaning to how we live and the choices we make. Where I am unafraid because I’m safe and among friends. I’m working at embracing and speaking this language more.

And the formal one. The one where when I’m in culture shock, where I need to step back or step away. Away from the allowing it to penetrate me because this is not the language that deserves my intimacy. This is not where I’m with friends, not where I’ll feel community. It’s not me. It’s not where I’ll be able to create anything because formality isn’t about dreamy. Giving myself here isn’t always aligned with my values. I’m investing less when I find myself here. Less in order to create more space for dreamy and for community.

And with this friends, the Tuscan escape ends!

What an amazing time. What a weird time to be away in the world. I’m glad we took the opportunity while we could. And I’m glad to have finally made some sense of the disarray this incredible experience threw me into upon my return. It’s not always easy to return to ‘as you were before’ when you’ve been moved by an experience! Impossible actually.

As a wise friend recently said to me ‘… sometimes you just have to sit it out for a bit’.

And with the the writing slump also ends. Ph-ew because I have so much to share with you. SO much.

Adventure, Food, Life, poetry, Travel

A visit to the Tuscan Heart, Florence

2 Comments

Another day and another trip away from the Tuscan villa a.k.a. the bolthole. Today it was into the beating heart of Tuscany and the birthplace of the renaissance, Florence. Also the home of Michelangelo’s ‘David’, Botticelli’s ‘The Birth of Venus’ and da Vinci’s ‘Annunciation’. I may need to get this out early in case I disappoint you. We went to Florence on this day and we didn’t visit any of these! No. Nessuna. Nienta.  But don’t worry I’ve seen them before … twice. On this day we simply wandered, ate and breathed in Florence.

You may see a theme evolving in our Italian trip. Food. And gelato. And contented smiles. Italians have worked it out you see. They know that pleasure and happiness is tied to enjoying the simple pleasures of life. Convivial times and food that comes from close to home and is cooked traditionally, simply and with heart. And of course they are fortunate in that everywhere they wander there is art in all its forms. From the architecture to the vineyards, Italy is purely romantic poetry for the soul. It is hard not to be in love with every second in Italy.

The Pizza Della Signoria, the Florence Cathedral and Ponte Vecchio all relatively empty. I have never experienced Florence in this way. Florence is so mind blowing of course it doesn’t matter who you share it with, but on this quiet day I took some very long, very deep breaths. I also ran into an Aussie friend on the Ponte Vecchio. Right now the world doesn’t feel small but in this magical brief moment of coincidence the world again felt small.

I danced with love today in Florence. For those of you who know us and me you will know Italy lives in our hearts and home. (Complete with the pizza oven.) Even writing here now I feel my heart flutter with a yearning. Perhaps it is curiosity. If I was 20 I’d take a year in Italy. I didn’t know of the possibilities then. I don’t want to lose this feeling. I’m nervous about when I return. Home to Holland where the food can’t be compared, where the cities, language, culture and landscape don’t captivate my spirit in this way! Where I’ll again be confronted with the realities of the current state of the world.

‘As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you.’ – Anthony Bourdain.

I feel the familiar stirrings of change. Of considering what needs to stay and what needs to be let go. Of missing what’s familiar and still craving what’s exciting. Of knowing I still have many chapters to write in this story of my life. That there is some stagnation inside that needs to be broken down so the flow of creativity and curiosity (the life blood) can be free. The marks of travel – the reminders, the peeling back.

Florence lives in us now. And also on one of our dining room walls. In the form of a little piece of Tuscan inspired art, bought on the street from an artist. After this day in Florence my eight year old declared ‘this is my favourite city in the world’. His siblings agreed. My job is done ;) Perhaps I won’t take them to Florence again. It seems a nice way to leave it for them to remember. I will of course come back. Maybe I’ll hike in one day. I’d particularly like to see the Botticelli again and breath in the Florence air. Dreaming is of course my air, my lungs are full. Full of Florence magic.

Hiking, Life, Photography, Travel

Tuscan Wandering.

4 Comments

Every window and every door of this traditional Tuscan villa offers a glimpse of postcard Tuscan wonder. This vista the view from the bathroom. When the end of the work week arrived last night, rather than a knock off drink the husband and I took ourselves off on a knock off hike! A wander out the front door and up into the Tuscan wonder.

I’ve given up my running schedule while I’m here to hike this trail each day. It is spectacular. And it’s simply Tuscany. The colours, the rolling hills and valleys, olive groves, vineyards, bountiful fruit trees, earthy brick and concrete buildings as far as the eyes can see, wildflowers at ground level and expansive skies above. The buzzing of the flies during the day and the mozzies at night remind us there’s always some discomfort! However, dips in the pool, a fan to sleep near and Italian gastronomy more than compensate for this.

My legs hurt in new places. I tricked them with these hills and the hiking. They were so used to running across flat Holland. This is the hiking I love. Wild wonder. Adventurous trails with surprises along the way. It’s good to change it up, do something different with your legs and for your mind don’t you think? I feel a familiar sense of myself on these trails. Hiking through and across countries. The solitude of simply walking.

It’s a weird time in the word to be travelling. The familiarity of being here, the slowness of the days, the long nights and the unfurling of this unplanned time away doesn’t feel like travel. It feels like living. Living within a community, quietly up on the hill and in the local wildness. This is slow travel, this is home for now, this time here behind the Tuscan windows.

#underthetuscansun

#writingstreak

#somewherenewwithlife