“Do what you can in joy, instead of trying to do it all in misery”..
A wonderful line I read this morning in the chapter ‘the drama of overwhelm’ in my book of choice this week. 
And I am totally taking that advice . Great day! That is all!

After waking up to such tragic, unbelievable, unimaginable news in Nice this morning, today was a day for living and for gratitude.
There is no better way to feel alive than running hard on the sand and sand dunes to make your heart pound, loud in your chest and in your ears.
There is no better way to feel the swell of gratitude than watching your small boys growing up strong, independent, energetic and throwing themselves in to the sea, jumping the surf and riding the waves. 
The antidote to hate is love. And I can only believe this event was one born of hate… 

So tonight I will fill the evening with love, for my family, for life and for France. 

Ah… Rock. 
As a family holiday, it is our favourite place. Made even more perfect with the glorious Cornish sunshine, making our faces flush and the estuary sparkle. The Big Man has been coming here since he was the boys age… Me for the 19 years we have been together and the boys since they were babies.. 

As tradition has it, we always head straight for our first drink to celebrate our arrival before unpacking. And then it is now a traditional competition to see who can unpack their bags the quickest, get in to boardies (or bikini) and be ready to hit the beach first! 
The boys and I hit the dunes while the Big Man sleeps… 90 minutes of sand play, sand slide races and hill running…. Loosening up the legs from being in a car for 5 hours, Cornish air in our faces, sand in our crocs… 
This evening as I put away the shopping, cook supper and make up the beds, I day dream….. I love to daydream! Makes the chores go quicker! One day… One day… We will arrive to bags already unpacked, fridge and freezer full, fresh sheets already on beds and flowers littering the house… And if I really want to roll the boat out – a chef to cook our hearts desire and a butler to pour our drinks… One day.
One day!
I love to dream…. To aspire for more, visualise being better.  
And yet as I daydream, I feel a pang of guilt for my greed … And so I turn it around and do the small little acts to make our holiday run smoothly, and do them with gratitude, for I am so thankful for all the fortune we have, how lucky we are already.  

My day was ‘bookended’ with two little boys nestled under my armpits…  happy boys, snuggling in for cuddles..

 

Our list of best bits of the day today was endless…

 

Swimming, diving and bombing multiple times during the day in Grandad’s pool featured high on the list for the boys.  And also mine. It reminded me so much of Bambi and I, history repeating itself.

 

Eating ice creams and cross referencing our Bekonscot quiz answers against Grandad and Edna… and winning!  They may have seen the extra fireman in the fire engine, but we got the elusive people in the Tudor Mansion entrance hall… the lady on the stairs!… and we could see the small writing of the cost of a trip in the cable car … ‘ha’penny’.

 

Eating biscuits with Great Aunty Pam and playing on the Stannah Stair lift.

 

Willy liked going to see the church where I was christened and where we were married… and also liked seeing ‘the stone where the people from our family are underground’..  He meant Great Grandad’s grave…   (That was an interesting conversation – ‘do you want to go in a box or be burnt, Mummy?’)

 

Tom liked being able to eat as many cakes as he liked… My Godmother welcomed us all with wide open arms and ushered us into her front room where afternoon tea fit for a King was served.  His eyes lit up with the sight of platters of Victoria sponge, butterfly cakes, cream pastries, special jam tarts just for Willy, a tower of fruit and pots of tea… And no one telling him ‘last one’.

 

My best bit, seeing my boys happy… free… relaxed… and my Dad… happy… free… relaxed.  Making much happier memories in a place where the last time he had been, was the last time Mum went missing just after an outburst that hurt my Dad physically and scarred my sister emotionally…

 

My bestest bit, being held tight by my tiny Godmother, my Mumbo’s dearest friend, sharing my feelings freely, being able to talk about the events of the week leading up to Mum’s death, the boiling pot of emotion – a broken child, a stressed husband leaving a job, the death rattle and final loss.  Being told my emotional breakdown 6 months after the fact was totally normal and with her professional, no nonsense, expert medical bedside manner it was called ‘abreaction’; after living in the moment for so long to get through day to day, the body has a natural way of making you stop, ‘by pulling out the choke’ and slowing you down and face what has happened.  ‘Abreaction – the expression and consequent release of a previously repressed emotion’..  I feel relieved that I haven’t been going mad.  I feel relieved that I am normal.  I feel relieved that I have trusted my instincts, stopped, stripped my life back to basics and simplicity.

 

My bestest, bestest bit… the boys under my armpits, their arms around my waist, their bony chins on my chest, their bright eyes alive with laughter, their little soft kisses…their words echoing my last ones to my Mumbo… ‘Love you so much Mamma’..

 

I am feeling the good vibrations!

 

I am feeling myself lift on to higher frequencies…

 

My cheeks are aching from grinning… Bombing along the old routes and back roads that I know like the back of my hand, each bump, turn, lift and camber of the road.

 

I could be 17 again… off on every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and even weeknights during every school holiday to meet with the ‘Henley crowd’… in the Argyll, the Angel, the Little Angel… 3 Tonnes… our favourites would change based on who was working where.

 

Memories flooding my mind of so much laughter, so much cider and even more Pimms!  Friendships sealed forever.. no matter how far flung we are now…

 

When and why and how did I let life get so serious?

 

Today reminded me to let the serious go.  At 17, 18, 19.. life was fun, life was exciting, an exciting future ahead, daring to dream!  I was still working hard  – the serious stuff being A Levels and Uni, but there was always time for fun.. Always.

 

At 40, the serious stuff seems to creep in and take over – mortgages, bills, fees, sadness, grief, health, childcare but there are so many memories to be made, still an exciting future! So much more laughter to be there for the taking.

 

Last night before bed I read a chapter of my book… It talked of a trapped bird inside a room and it kept flying again and again at the glass window, trying to get out to the open space and sky he could see on the other side, trying hard and harder each time…

 

“It made me think of the way so may of us live our lives.  We can see what we want, and nearly kill ourselves trying to get it in a way that’s not working and nearly kill ourselves trying to get it in a way that’s not working.  Meanwhile, if we just stopped, got quiet for a minute or two and looked at things a little differently, we’d notice the door to what we want being held open for us by the nice lady in the bathrobe across the room.  Then all we’d have to do is fly through it.”

 

I have been the bird.  Frantic.  Knocking myself out, throwing myself harder and harder at anything offered to me.  Trying to get through the peace and freedom on the other side…

 

I am loving this time to reflect, in my old bed, my old bedroom where I used to daydream of my bright future.  I am the bird taking that moment or two to look at things differently.    I am taking off my blinkers to look for the lady in the bathrobe…

 

There are signs everywhere… as the boys slept on the way back from the wildlife park, the audiobook I was listening to was all about building self belief, self confidence… and those dreams again.  ‘Follow your bliss’… ‘Do what you love’…

 

So what is my dream now?  The audio suggested that I answer 3 questions:

• What would you do if you could do anything?
• What would you do if money didn’t need to be a consideration?
• What would you do if you knew that success was guaranteed?

 

I am so lucky that so many of my dreams in this very bed as a young 17 year old girl came true, are true now… (one little dream is lying next to me now… )

 

As I fall asleep tonight, I will be considering those questions and letting my mind drift and dream, I will have my answer..

 

 

“Home is where your heart is.”

 

For the first time in a long time, I feel at peace, so relaxed.

 

I know I am relaxed because the boys haven’t argued, shouted, fought… they are playing like real little brothers, exploring Mum’s garden, hiding in bushes, being so, so polite (Tom especially), loving and kind, full of life…

 

I know I am relaxed because I am able to drink a second glass of wine without feeling ill.

 

I know I am relaxed as I sit in the conservatory, look out over Mumbo’s beautiful garden that has been tended to so carefully by Dad and Edna, and across the fields to the Chiltern valley beyond… and I feel no guilt, no pressure to do anything else, except watch the boys, ponder the cloud formations and sip my wine, write these words.

 

“Home is where your heart is”…

 

And yet as I ponder that, I feel it isn’t quite right.  Our Home is in Yorkshire, our future is in Yorkshire.

 

So maybe I need to adapt it slightly – ‘Home is where your heart needs to be”… and it is my childhood home, that has drawn me to it, to mend my heart, return peace and tranquillity to my soul.

 

I follow the same ritual as I have done for over 35 years, the same one I did every exeat, every half term, every end of term, every return home… Walk round the rooms, looking at the paintings, pictures and ornaments… and wander round the garden, breathing in the roses, checking that everything is as it should be.  This time, filling the void that has been left, with the memories of my Mumbo, our time together as the ‘Brooks’ family, in our home, playing in the garden, sharing tales of our lives and adventures, happy times and sad, around the table.

 

This time, each moment I savour is precious.  There will only be a few more trips home.  The house and garden too taxing now for my Dad alone… a new young family deserves this space to explore, tend and love.

 

And my Dad has the world to explore, a new love to tend to.

 

And I have my life to love, my family to tend to, and endless ‘Sandwich’ possibilities to explore.

 

 

 

 

One more sleep!Tomorrow I get to see my Dad and ‘my person’… 
And I leave Yorkshire on a good note.
A good pounding run around the pathways and pavements of the local villages – the first time in four weeks…
A good open discussion over good coffee. 
A good sense of belonging as we cheered Andy Murray on to victory in our own little village millennium gardens, with a big screen, a few light beers with mates, strawberries and cream, with the boys playing happily with friends… 
A good family feed with the Scottish clan, just warm enough to eat ‘al fresco’…
A good early night in preparation for a good early start! 

Today I learnt a few things..

 

I learnt that I can now nap guilt free, in the middle of the day…  It’s taken a while!

 

I learnt that I am a Brooks through and through.  According to my Dad anyway…

 

I learnt that the Brooks’ always ‘come out the sh*t smelling of roses’.  But I also learnt that is because they work hard to do so..

 

I learnt that I feel as much part of the Mortimer and Pick families as I have always felt a Brooks and a Davies.

 

I learnt a lot from a fascinating lady, who had 4 PhD’s, spoke 8 languages and who had a Grandson of 6’4” who lived in Paris and a husband who had left her to ‘go upstairs’.  I learnt that I could still understand spoken German… but that I could no longer speak it.

 

I learnt that I will never tire of my Mum’s recipe for rice salad with peaches and Herta sausages… my comfort food.   The only change is that I make with brown rice rather than white… oh, and that I add kale and broccoli…. And edamame beans.  And I leave out the gruyere.

 

I learnt that I Kit Kat’s should not be messed with.  I do not like the cookies and cream version…

 

I learnt that I can open up, share my shame out loud as well as declare what I do want and what I don’t want… and that it feels better to do so, especially when heard and acknowledged.

 

I learnt that my Mumbo’s cat will be joining her next Friday.  Mum found him in a hedge 16 years ago and brought him home in her pocket.  He has been a comfort and companion to my Dad, but he now has Edna to keep him warm, it’s time to let him go to rest, be out of his pain too.

 

Today I learnt that I will never be too old to love a Rainbow.  And I still squeak when I see the second one, the paler reflection of the of the bolder one..

 

 

This evening I am sat in the warmth of the conservatory, listening to and watching the boys play outside.. heart in my mouth at points as they are playing throw and catch on the walls around the garden.. the occasional thud on the window as one of them misses or mis-aims…

 

And I have been re-watching for the ‘n’th time the Ted Talks by Brené Brown on vulnerability and shame, having been reminded of them by a friend earlier this week.   I enjoyed them the first time round a year ago, but this time I have made the effort to really hear and understand.  So I am surrounded by scraps of paper as I write down key words and phrases in an attempt to apply them to my feelings, my heart and soul and situation…

 

When I watched the first one, I nodded a lot and raised my eyebrows in thought … my weekend ‘hiatus’ was the same as her ‘vulnerability breakdown’…

 

But it is the second one where everything seems to be dropping in to place, her summary of findings on her 6 year research of ‘shame’.

 

Words I have ringed on sheets of paper… ‘vulnerability’, ‘courage’ and ‘shame’ and ‘failure’ and drawn arrows between them to understand the flow.  And ‘numb’ and ‘heart’ on a tangent.

 

She said she started with ‘shame’… which lead her to ‘vulnerability’.

 

For me, I have started with ‘vulnerability’ and ended up with ‘shame’…

 

Vulnerability comes from exposure… exposing ourselves to judgement of another or others in quiet privacy or open public arenas.

 

To exposure oneself, one’s thoughts, inner most secrets or pain takes ‘courage’.  Courage as she rightly points out is from the Latin word ‘cor’, meaning heart.  To be vulnerable means you have to have courage to live your life wholeheartedly and embrace joy, love, peace and connection but to live from your heart and opening your heart can also inflict pain, feel shame or even fear.

 

My cycle from vulnerability, to courage then leads on to failure.  If it takes courage to be vulnerable and open up, it also takes courage to fail.  And keep failing.  You have to ‘get in the ring’ and give everything a go, even if you get it wrong.  The courage comes from firstly trying and then secondly, getting up and giving it another shot… and another and another… or even just having the guts to say ‘this isn’t working for me, I made a mistake’.

 

And therefore, as vulnerability, courage and failure are intrinsically linked, the forth word in the wheel is ‘shame’.  The shame we hold on to for that ‘failure’.  The saboteur in your head who puts you down, laughs at you and tells you that it’s you that is the mistake, not that you made one (BB says this is the difference between guilt and shame…I made a mistake vs I am the mistake).

 

‘Vulnerability Ted’ as she calls herself says that shame is born of secrecy, silence and judgement and points out that the only antidote to shame is empathy, the words ‘me too’.  And therefore, this is how I connect the wheel to complete the cycle.  The only way to receive empathy, compassion and the words ‘I get it, me too’ and to feel less alone, less exposed… is to be ‘vulnerable’, tell your story, share your truth, your pain.

 

And so the cycle is complete:  Vulnerability to courage to failure to shame… and back round to the ‘Big V’.

 

Outside of the ‘vulnerability wheel’, I have noted the word ‘numb’.  I have interpreted this to be the one danger to the free flow of the ‘V’ cycle… You have to ‘let go’, let your heart be free.  There is a danger that on exposing yourself, you can anticipate pain and therefore you ‘numb’ the heart, freeze it so it no longer feels the harsh words, the devastation of loss, the heartache of betrayal.  If you numb the heart, you feel nothing, learn nothing, enjoy nothing.

 

To unfreeze, the only way I can see is actually to step back in to the vulnerability wheel.  Thaw out.  Re-expose.  Be brave and share what hurts, what shames you.  And then allow the empathy and compassion to mend you.

 

So in applying this theory to me… My whole heart was broken a while ago. I was exposed and vulnerable and breathless with pain and consumed with enough shame for the world.  Despite my vulnerability, my heart continued to be under attack… again…. And yet again…  Multiple parties getting their kicks from my pain.  I stepped off the V Wheel and numbed myself, retreated and shied away, locked my heart in a frozen cage.  And this has worked for a while.

 

With Mumbo dying, I can feel my heart trying to get out to be healed.  I am scared to let it out frozen.  One hit, one knock and it could shatter for ever.

 

However, the messages are loud and clear from what I have listened to in these talks.  Bare your soul, be vulnerable, have courage to release the shame of failure and show up wholeheartedly for what you believe in.

 

I also believe that the key to the big thaw, is time. Not time to wait but time to take baby steps in vulnerability.

As the Vulnerability Guru says, you don’t wait until you are bulletproof to get in to the ring, get in the ring with everyone else, their weaknesses, their failures, their shame, their guilt and open up, empathise, connect and belong.

 

Each broken heart can be fixed and each time get stronger.

 

 

I had another topic entirely on my mind today…. But then the end of term School Celebration happened.

 

The school really did themselves proud.  Not only did the children perform their little hearts out… (even my boys who really hate being on stage, unless it is the sports ‘stage’ or sing in public unless it is in the car) but so did the teachers!  A truly magnificent rendition of ‘Les Miserables’… a brilliant example to our children that that adults and even teachers also have to step outside their comfort zones, sing and perform when it isn’t their forte and still get a resounding standing ovation.

 

This performance also reminded me of the saying ‘behind every great (or successful) man, there is a great woman’.

 

And so it highlighted that behind each great school and great student, is a great head teacher.  And today’s celebration recognised that behind every great head teacher is a great team of teachers, support staff, groundsmen and chefs…

 

While toasting to the end of a successful year with the many new friends and a few old friends, I also realised that the very well known saying was also missing a line…

 

‘Behind every great man, there is a great woman.  Behind every great woman, there is a group of even greater women.’

 

In any decade of my life – at school, uni, work, home… there has always been a strong group of women around me that had lifted me in low periods, and when I have contributed to supporting them in their periods of darkness…

 

I would not have made it through this first school year without many of the incredible new friends I have made who have shown warmth, smiles and friendship through a tricky and emotional year…  some of whom have also had their own trials, tribulations, heartaches, illness and ‘sandwich’ issues of their own.

 

I would have not have made it through without one particular strong group of friends who had my back and caught me when I faltered, showed tough love just as much as compassion and empathy.

 

Here’s to the next 10 years!