Slippers + jaffles
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A bit more of my Lockdown One sort-of-memoir!
Chapter 13
Day 18 – 7000 steps
It was May 2nd and I had decided to settle into a brand new morning routine which allowed me to feel more productive and write my new book in earnest.
The new book was in the same vein as When Life Is Not Peachy, but geared to exhausted mums who needed to know they were not alone and were doing a brilliant job.
I set my alarm for 5am the night before, waking up at 6 because I’d slid the numbers one too far.
NO matter, I thought, easing myself out of bed to the tones of John Lennon singing Nobody Told Me.
My knee was still tender as I groggily slid my feet into my slippers, washed my face and headed into the kitchen with a goal of 1000 words. I made tea, fed the dogs and dived back into the researching and writing routine that runs in tandem on Books Like These.
Less than an hour later I’d hit my mark which meant not only had I made a brilliant start to the day with plenty of words in my New Book pocket, but that I could now put on my shoes and head out into the day. Writers love to make deals with themselves to get the writing done, and my walking was now the reward for spending this early morning hour at the keyboard.
It was raining again, but very, very lightly this time. I was glad to feel it on my face, and hoped it gave me even a hint of the invincibility that it had the day before.
I’d remembered to buy a stretchy support for my knee and had it pulled over the sore lefty like an ugly beige hug. The lady at the chemist had made me measure under my kneecap, handing me a measuring tape secured in a little bundle with a rubber band. I complied immediately as several elderly men looked on. She swapped the support thingy for a bigger size and sent me on my way.
“You don’t want it to be too tight!” she had warned and of course she was right.
The stretchy thing was helping a bit, and I figured I’d use it today to see how it felt and whether it helped keep the stabby pains and sore hip at bay.
I was walking much more slowly with a bung knee, so it seemed to take ages to reach the end of the street and hit the park. Once I did I realised it was almost deserted again. Despite it being 7.15 it was a Sunday and a rainy one at that. It was nice to move through the quietness, breathe the cool air and feel the rain kissing my cheeks.
I passed a small tree which was growing at a significant angle, surrounded by other much straighter trees. That tree’s me, I thought wondering if someone had given it a little push to make it grow so crooked. I hoped not, but had already born witness to mushroom stompers and branch snappers, so I knew it was a possibility.
Tree bullies, I muttered. Who even knew?
I got closer to the wetlands area, and more and more walkers and cyclists popped out of the trees on the path ahead. The older ladies always said hello to me and it was lovely to have some human contact when things had been so insular.
The day before I’d put the feelers out to my blog readers about the idea of putting together an online community cookbook, inspired by an article I’d just read in The New York Times. It felt like a great way to connect at this somewhat disconnected time and as I paced along I pondered the wisdom of this.
Why had I had set myself the task of writing a book, this diary, a blog, studying and now possibly also compiling a community cookbook to fill my days? It was ridiculous, I concluded, and yet it mirrored how I’d behaved when things had been really tough for me a few short years earlier. I spent my days waking very early, working, writing parenting content, and then the rest of the time I squished in book-writing and blog-writing.
I simply needed to feel productive to feel good. I needed to feel useful and see progress to fight off dark days.
Granted I was not a particularly active productive, progressive person, but I’d switched that up. Now I was incorporating moving my body as well as all that other stuff. It was another simple way of optimising my life for the best possible mental health.
I had lost my job a month before but my fortunes were slowly shifting. I was about to sign a contract for the book about mums and this would provide me with a small advance which would help ease some of the stress. It wasn’t quite the security of an actual job like the one that I had been let go from, but it was something and it was progress and it was just the sort of thing I wanted to do with my life.
I reached the wetlands and saw that the vegetation had peeled even further back to the edges like a leafy green sheet on a watery bed. Gazing into the bark stained water I couldn’t see any movement. I stepped through the sludge on the bridge looking into the leafy banks and between the reeds. Where should you look for frogs? I wondered.
I decided I needed to be more purposeful and come back with the specific task of frogs – rather than walks. I also needed to find out where the frogs made their burrows and homes so I could stake out the right sort of vegetation.
I wish the library was open, I thought, my mind recalling the giant stack of books that were not able to be returned until restrictions lifted. I would have to make-do with the internet and its giant jumble of information instead.
I set off, away from the bridge and along the path. Beside the track literally 100s of tiny red fungi were growing. It looked like the perfect fairy village and I pondered taking a photo, instead deciding that simply experiencing the pretty scene was a much better idea. Not everything needs to be photographed for posterity, I thought. Adapting to change is about accepting that some things are temporary and that is totally okay.
Mulling this idea over I tore myself away from the little toadstools and walked on. Who should be walking towards me with a dog dressed in beautiful tartan coat but skinny jean man, his long centre-parted hair bouncing with every step!
Hello! I said happily and he said hello back and we both headed off in our opposite directions.
Who would have thought I’d be so happy to see SJM, I asked myself. Why on earth was I so scared of him in those early tunnel days.
I shook my head at myself and stepped onto the second bridge, stopping to look at a duck and stare into the reeds once more.
Then I crossed the familiar paths and headed over the grass to a new-to-me path which ran alongside some construction. The council appeared to be adding even more footpaths, possibly in an effort to accommodate the influx of new walkers. I walked quite early and it was busy-ish. I can imagine that later in the day it would be quite the metropolis and very difficult to social distance with the existing infrastructure.
I’d decided to walk an entirely different way back and the paths were very slippery, a mixture of mud and gravel running between the trees and the road that curls around the back of my suburb.
Each step was a bit of a sludgy gamble and I prayed that I wouldn’t take a tumble, remembering one night not so long ago before lockdown when I’d been walking up to the bus stop to meet Ari who was coming home from work. I had thought it would be nice for him to have company, but I tripped on some planks of wood which were laid across the path in the darkness. When he emerged from the darkness walking towards me my face was split open at the cheekbone and blood was running down my face. Not the nice encounter I had hoped for!
With this in mind I walked slowly until I reached a grassed area, deciding I preferred to trudge through the rain-logged grass than fall over on the path.
In the distance I watched a white dog bound up to a black dog and decided this was cheesily symbolic. As I headed back home I thought about last night’s beef and shallot stew and mashed potato. Slowly but surely my appetite seemed to be returning and I was keen to spoon that into a toasted sandwich (Jaffle!) and gobble it down with a hot cup of tea on my return.
The café was closed as I passed and I immediately wondered if they were avoiding me and my terrible earliness. Of course they weren’t. It was simply their day off. They’d be back tomorrow and this time I would be LATE to get my coffee, I determined.
At home I made the promised jaffle (so delicious!), slid into the bath with a barely even tender knee and pondered heading into the Queen Victoria Market for supplies. Clearly I was invincible again and I instantly hoped it would rain again tomorrow.
Day 19 – rest day
Rain! But heavy-ish, steady rain. The sort my rain jacket would not contend with. Sigh.
I decided to work on my book for as long as that felt right and then see what the weather did.
A change in routine. Well. A change in the new routine I’d been trying to establish. I admit it had me feeling a bit queasy. But I was tired. I had one and a bit sore knees and I hadn’t slept very well. It was okay to step sideways when circumstances – and body – dictated.
I would learn to adapt to these routine shifts, I thought. I’d stop being so reliant and practice pivoting with positivity!
So there I was, at ground zero of trying this new pivoting with positivity approach. I reminded myself that I’d been managing my health really well over the last 3 weeks, and that today was another example of doing what was right. In fact, I reasoned, it was another sign of strength and recovery. I was learning to work outside of my usual framework without anxiety rearing up or snarky self-talk getting the best of me.
Well done, I told myself. You are amazing. And then I laughed because I felt like a dill and I also felt like I was doing okay.
I flipped the TV on and watched a report about a man named Matt who had run 60kms around his own suburb to raise money to benefit the Victoria Police. He’d been keen to honour the police officers who had died in the freeway accident, and while he was confined by the current ‘stay home’ directive, he found a way to make a difference.
Maybe I could be inspired by Matt today? Granted I can’t run 65km or even 65cm at this point, but I can do the best with what I’ve got today, even if the rain and sore knees keep me from my usual comforting frog and dog-dotted efforts.
Day 20 – 9066 steps
I woke up at 5am and turned off the alarm, eventually getting up at 6 to begin to write.
What was I thinking? I asked myself. 5am is stupid!
I resolved to wake at 6 from now on and stop torturing myself with the 5 o clock idea.
I made coffee, gave the dogs their hugs and snacks and settled in to work on the commissioned Mum book.
I’d hit my stride the day before, managing a very tidy 4100 words, so today’s early morning effort came easily.
1300 Mum words later it was just after 7. I checked in with the news which revealed fresh clusters of COVID 19 in my city, and a national count of 96 lives lost to the virus.
I got dressed and headed out into the cool.
It was misty and quiet, drippy trees lining the footpath, fluttering their yellow leaves as I passed under them.
I took a detour away from my street and past the post box, taking a less hilly route in an effort to give my sore knees an easier start. The plan worked, and by the time I reached the park they were feeling pretty okay and certainly not as bad as the days before.
The black dog ladies had already arrived and I could see them in the distance, their dogs doing their usual delighted dance.
I headed for the wetlands area first, noticing some possibly frog-induced undulations in the water’s surface. I didn’t hang around too long, though. I was worried someone might SEE me looking for frogs. I don’t know why that worried me, but I felt a bit … vulnerable looking for wildlife, I suppose. I didn’t know much about the frogs or where they were hiding and perhaps I felt … stupid? Or worried someone would ask me what I was doing? I’m really not sure why I was feeling exposed by my frog-looking, but I resolved to think more about this. I needed to get to the bottom of this embarrassment and shake it off.
It was okay to be a beginner. It was okay to be curious. It was okay to not know things, I told myself.
A lovely bird (a pied cormorant) perched in a tree over the bridge and I figured if that bird was there so were some good bird snacks, so even if I was feeling silly I was on the right track.
I headed off to walk the other bridge, saying hello to my duck and swamp hen friends and then hitting the gravel path.
A very wet black dog emerged from between the trees ahead. He had an equally soggy toy in his mouth which he dropped as soon as he saw me, insisting on a scratch behind the ears before running back to his owner.
I walked on, listening to the final chapter and epilogue of Anna McNuff’s book, Pants of Perspective. I LOVED THAT BOOK. You must read it. There are so many good lessons in there and it’s perfect for adventurers and non-adventurers alike.
Next, I began a new audiobook – Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path, a book about a couple who lose their beloved family farm and what happens to them after that.
I didn’t really know much about this book except that it combined nature, endurance, persistence, resilience, walking and big feelings. Those are all things that I am very, very interested in, so I was excited to get started.
The thing is, I hadn’t realised the feelings would be quite so big from the get-go. It is in fact a brilliant book and you are plunged straight into the gravity of Raynor and her husband Moth’s incredibly difficult situation. Legal battles, bailiffs, homelessness.
Gosh, mental health is weird thing, isn’t it? We just store things up, whether we like to admit it or not, and then they seep out down the track in surprising ways.
Reading the first chapters of Raynor’s book about losing everything flicked a switch and turned on some carefully stored sadness. Some sadness about similar experiences I endured during my long former relationship.
Even though I stopped listening when I realised I was starting to feel a bit distressed, ready to change to something lighter, the pressing feeling in my chest remained and the sadness fluttered under the surface, asking to be looked at and listened to.
I planned to listen to Raynor’s book when I was more prepared. It was JUST the kind of book I loved to read.
But for now, I needed to think about what to do with the feelings it had let out of the bottle. The bottle being me, naturally.
“being in nature was like my safe place, something I understood, and at that point I didn’t understand much at all” – Raynor Winn
I switched my listening to Bryony Gordon’s book Mad Girl. It’s such a funny and poignant account of living with mental illness … perhaps not really a huge shift from Raynor’s book as I was to find out.
I stopped at the café to get a coffee and a Danish (apricot), squeezing the latter into my conveniently large pockets before hitting play and walking on.
I was up to the chapter where Bryony talks about her former boyfriend ‘Paul’ and his charming and dangerous ways. Raynor’s book had opened the feelings floodgates it would seem and Bryony’s book was ready to continue the charge.
I kept listening anyway, riding out the discomfort and nodding along with Bryony’s dissection of abusive relationships and how difficult it could be to extract yourself safely from them.
Revisiting those uncomfortable feelings was a reminder of how far I’d come, so that discomfort was not all bad.
I was reminded that despite experiencing loss, difficulties and at times dodgy mental and physical health I was always able to find ways to make the best of things (sometimes with a little help from my friends and family!)
I was glad of that Danish when I got home. I plonked myself on the couch in the warmth of my home and enjoyed very single custardy bite. I was glad of the quiet calm and the sense of security I had built for myself. Granted it was a little wobbly right this minute, but I knew in my heart that I could steady it. I just needed a little time to re-establish myself.
I’d been reflecting on how I felt on walking days vs non walking days. The non-walking day before, I felt tired and somehow compelled to drink 3 glasses of wine with dinner. Today, I felt energised physically, despite my emotional gymnastics. The walking was definitely for the best.
I read The Salt Path in 2019, a couple of miles from where it begins - in a former Cornish Miner’s cottage. So, I saved The Wild Silence (the sequel) for this summer when I was back in West Cornwall. Another good read. And if you follow Raynor on Insta you’ll see she’s in the process of another big big adventure with Moth. Hurray!
Hi Pip, I once read a beautiful book called "Notes From Walnut Tree Farm" by Roger Deakin. Maybe your library has a copy, or will get one in for you? I think you'd love it. X