THE TREE OUTSIDE MY WINDOW

There’s a tree outside my window, it's an old cherry tree, sparse branches this time of year, stripped back to its foundations. It doesn’t belong to me, I have no say over how high it grows, it belongs to another. For her own reasons my neighbour has decided to leave her garden alone, she doesn’t step into her back garden, the space has its own pace, it’s returned to a wilder, yet calmer moment in time. From this angle, I get a glimpse of the higher branches, the finer reaches that sit quietly outside, and from time to time my melancholy is stirred by a bird that lands to take in the perspective.

This perspective I’ve never witnessed before, I only see it now because time is spent doing nothing. The irony being that so often as a parent I’ve desired to do less, to not have the many daily tasks, to sit and do nothing. Yet it seems what I in fact wanted was the opportunity to do nothing, because this week it's enforced, I find my body unable to move how it usually would. I am unable to sit, stand or walk, I have had an acute flare up of a condition in my lower back, something that’s happened in this way once before, after the birth of my son, and the only place I exist pain free for now is lay in this bed, with the tree outside my window.

Having recovered from the first episode back in 2019, along with the changes that come with the transition to motherhood, I found meaning out in the hills, spending the last 2 years hiking, training as a Hill and Moorland Leader, and beginning a new outdoor business. My body is capable, I am able, and because of such polar sides to my current physical situation I found the emotional low yesterday. Various reasons, from the inability to move without eye watering pain, the truth that I’m unable to care for myself with basic needs from dressing to cooking, and consequently the reliance on others for help. I’ve never been great at letting others help me, always enjoyed self sufficiency and independence, but this is a complete humbling.

The training didn’t come easily to me, the content pushed my schooled conceptions of myself, it wasn’t in fact true that I was crap at maths, Mountain Training gave me a meaning to fix my learning upon and Maths was for the first time enjoyable. The process of fulfilling training days alongside having a young child and family came with great practice in time management and shared responsibility as parents, windows of time, and supporting each other in any way we could to get those required hours in. I often had to say no, and change commitments at a moment's notice, because that’s the reality of having a child, it’s how families work, still it never felt good. Yet through all of it I’ve met some incredible people, and quickly discovered what resonated most for me; relationships and community. Flock Outdoors became not just an expression of myself, my creativity if I let fears go, but also a deep understanding of what I had learned working as a Speech and Language Therapist and through my own personal experiences - any therapy, teaching, learning, growth, potential or progress is built upon the foundation of relationship to another. Just one non judgemental, supportive person or moment can be enough to hold us steady at whatever we’re doing in our lives. Instruction and expert models lost my interest, and community and shared knowledge sparked something new.

This Winter season has placed in front of me some challenges for sure. Taking time away over the season was the right thing to do, I found my creativity there, and my website fell from my hands like it was meant to be, yet as my first walk for 2023 approached, my body had another challenge for me, and I again needed to cancel the date. A wise friend helped me to see that just because I wasn't able to walk, didn’t mean I couldn't continue to share the meaning and ethos behind Flock. Community group walks are simply the tool and vehicle for the meaning behind Flock, the coming together as women and parents, the shared experiences and time where differences in our lives are safe and accepted, where there’s a time to be for a few hours and let a few of the plates be spun and shared by another. We had carved the time out to walk on the 5th February, and instead we met for a coffee, a walk would have been lovely, yet the hour together felt even more significant.

Alongside my years as a Speech Therapist, I set up a yoga business, teaching and working as a production manager on yoga teacher trainings, forming part of transformational coaching, and I would usually be the first to look for meaning in any challenge placed in front of me. Asking myself what this experience was teaching me, with well meaning intention, to place my focus in a state that would serve me positively or at times keep me in motion. If I used that perspective now I could answer with meaning being acceptance, re-examining my time and actions, but currently I find myself holding a new perspective, having been part of not only the world of coaching, but enriching that together with my professional role using medical models and therapeutics too, it’s all taught me about people, and mostly about myself. Looking for lessons may resonate with you, if so, keep doing it, yet for me I feel sometimes there are none to be had, life does happen to us, and we can be in relationship with it through how we respond. There's some interesting questions in there for me, curiosity to explore gently. The response to feel those low days is valid, part of processing, and there can be a shift in state with support and co-regulation from others, whether that's your friends, relatives, community group, coach or therapist, whatever getting through something looks like for you. For now my response is to move forward hour by hour, I have no idea what tomorrow will look like, maybe I'll just keep writing?