“… Is FEAR Itself”

I’ll challenge myself to use wisdom not fear, to speak words of encouragement not doubt. I’ll learn and grow, not with a spirit of fear but with one of intuition.
I’m sewing a garden bed of clarity.

THOUGHTS: The Rest Is Still Unwritten

Sometime ago your book began.

At first everything was blurry. Then you started recognizing faces and eventually you placed those faces in relation to their significance and frequency in your life. You began to understand numbers, made sense of the alphabet and you dreamed.

You drew in pencils, in crayons, in paint. You formed shapes and figures that made perfect sense to you. You questioned whatever you were taught, you chased butterflies and insects.

You had a bedtime or maybe you didn’t. You went to school or maybe you didn’t. You made friends or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you made friends but not the type of friends that you wanted.

You travelled, you ate, you cried, you loved.

At each step of the way, you held concerns and dreams and wishes for the future. You anticipated, you were anxious, you lived. That right there is the most important bit. You came through it and once you hold on to life, you always will.

The future is unravelling around you constantly. Don’t hold on so tightly, don’t worry so much. Try to let go because tomorrow is going to come and each day you may get a little better or you may get a little worse.

If you get a little worse, cry, but embrace this. These times are going to to give you a new perspective, they will make you better able to cope in the future. These times make you get better in the future.

Your story is unwritten, go boldly in the direction of your dreams.

Thoughts: Expiration Dates

No action of mine sought this out,
I didn’t look for expiry dates looming in the nearby future.
That was just the way that it has been,
The way that it has been with every single one.

Thoughts: Investing In Me

The most important asset I possess is myself.

Thoughts: Picking a Leaf to Kill a Tree- Life

Things could be a lot better, a lot a lot better.

California Road Trip (part 2)

Originally posted on A Bigger Picture:
Stopping in Tahoe to eat gave us a chance to recognise just how tired we were after our 6 mile hike in Blackwood Canyon. This drive would be trying. I was currently in no shape to drive. I always…

By Sunset

When all that was to be done still isn’t done. When the laundry hasn’t washed itself and relationships didn’t mend as easily as they should have. When you woke 50 minutes late, or 10 minutes late, or 5 minutes late and before your feet even hit the floor you know that an absolutely shitty day just began. When that happens three days in a row. When you don’t want to face your reality so you just go to bed and it doesn’t matter that you still have your glasses on. When you’re certain that love is a fanciful ideal. When the courage and wisdom that you developed as you grew older drain away and you’re back at your core beliefs. When there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel because it is certain that you’re not even  in a tunnel you’re in a sink hole and they are filling in that void in the Earth. When your past haunts you and although you’re learned to live without regrets, if you got the chance to go back and change somethings you wouldn’t hesitate.

Remember this: Somehow, when all of these things are going on you should still know that it doesn’t last for ever. They aren’t that powerful.

When I lived in Barbados I went through a really bad bout of depression, not the worse but still too bad for comfort. At the same time, because I broke my parents simple rules for my time while abroad and possibly also because I wrote them a detailed letter of the events of my first two months in Barbados I ended up getting moved to on campus housing as well as having an even stricter list of rules implemented. One of which was that I had to be back on campus by 6pm and also that I wasn’t to leave campus unnecessarily- they deemed what was necessary or not.

The beach was almost never necessary, so getting to watch my sunsets on the beach or at the boy’s house was now out of the question.  I searched campus for the perfect place to watch the sunset from on campus and there really weren’t that many. I wasn’t religious but watching sunsets to me was my everyday ritual. It gave me reassurance, hope and closure. It made me focus on beauty and gave my heart a reason to be full amidst my pain. Watching the sunset through a barbed wire fence further intensified the feeling that I was stuck and I felt trapped on that campus. After studying an afternoon I found a spot at the top of a hill in the grass where wildflowers grew at the side of the highway. It was the furthest thing from peaceful yet still I just zoned out every afternoon and watched the sunset. The day was done, what was still to be done was then the following day’s problem if it was ever to come. We had rotated until the sun no longer hit our spot on the Earth. Soon it would be dark but until then it was a period of peace, suspension and beauty.

I’d sit there golden in that light from the setting sun and it felt really good, really alive. The thing or things that I did get done that day pushed me closer to my goal of where I wanted to be which at that point was simply to still be alive the next morning and to finish the semester. It was such a great thing because some days it drizzled and some days it was a little heavier than a drizzle but I was still there standing in the rain as it fell watching this period of time that I had occupied expire. Somedays I was studying in the library or study hall, some days I was in class and I’d take off and go to my spot.

Looking back now a year and a half later those experiences seem so foreign. Almost like they happened to another person, years ago. But no it was me, I’ve got the scars to show for it and I’ve got the warmth of those sunsets that live on in me. I’ve got the wild flowers tickling under my knees. You could have counted on me, wherever I roamed, I’d be looking on, thankfully, in pain or happy, mourning the death of a friend, freaking out for exams, or pleased with my effort that day, as the time narrowed to the close of the day I’d be looking on by sunset.

By sunset.
It’s almost a promise and a congratulations prize. You got though the day and sometimes that the hardest thing to do.

By sunset.
Stay salty,
Rush

This photo isn’t in Barbados but it was a sunset in London that really literally momentarily took my breath away.

Guidance: Adventure, Love, Contribution- Sailing, Swimming and Study Abroad

In case you don’t know, this summer, in exactly 20 days from now, I will be leaving my little island in the sun to compete along side my team at the oldest and one of the most prestigeous sailing regattas in the world- the ‘Cowes …

All You Dreamers…

Have you every read words that went straight through you to the deepest parts of your mind and heart? Words that you wanted to remember for the rest of your life or maybe rekindle the flickering flames of an experience of the past? Words that you won’t let go of?

When I lived in Barbados, one of my housemates from California had a tattoo on her scapula, “invincible summer”, it was a beautiful tattoo in quite an obvious place. She said that it was from a book that she read in her first semester of university and when she read those words, she felt like it applied to her life. She would not let these words go.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. 
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger- something better, pushing right back.”
Albert Camus

That quote makes me feel something and I think that almost everyone who reads it feels something. That was her quote, I found mine today. It was found just scrolling through Instagram, not looking for quotes but beautiful photographic inspiration. Here it is:

“If you are a dreamer come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer,
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

It’s a poem called, The Invitation by Shel Silverstein. I think it is beautiful. I read it and I intend to answer to this invitation, everyday for the rest of my life. Maybe I won’t tattoo it on me, I don’t need to. Maybe one day I will, maybe I won’t.

What’s your call?
Have you been answering?

Love you,
Rushell

UPDATE on ‘Under the Weather’

I realised just how sad that last post was and that I actually do not feel that way anymore. Upon further investigation I realised that most of my problems then were either solved or on their way to being solved. Others still loomed in the rafters but for the most part the forecast was much more pleasant this time around. With that said I decided that I should give you an update.