I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty level-headed kind of gal. I smile easily, I argue not a lot and I try to keep my eye on the whole picture before being sucked into the minutiae. I wail rarely and have never fully screamed.
I’m a steady-Eddie at work. I’ve fought that a bit, but I’m really not a creative comet of innovation, not shall I ever be. I’ll be the one who dresses (mostly) appropriately, speaks appropriately, works as professionally as possible in the circumstances and owns every mistake I make. I’m the one gazing adoringly at the trail-blazers and with confused delight and the creative non-linear thinkers who still make things happen. I’m okay with spreadsheets.
My energy reserves come from the earth. My ways of finding zen, re calibrating at moments of stress or to exist in pure joy are out in nature. Throw me in a garden, on a coastline with just marine life as company, or in a desert packed with unseen life and I will grin. Throw a camera in the mix and I’ll never have to leave. It’s where I feel most peaceful and how I feel most alive.
And yet there are times for all of us grounded types when that spirit level shows all sorts of obtuse inclinations. Sometimes, there is no even keel- usually signified by a silence accompanied by gnawing of some kind or drop-by-drop tears that combine endlessly with a snivelling nose. Sometimes just sometimes, the measured voice is raised, grinds and rasps at the reality in front of us as if we can, with words, sculpt it into a different scene.
Then? Then oh World, we are already two-thirds further on that pendulum swing than you give us credit for. Then oh World, don’t push the person who is used to having solid foundations of life. Don’t suddenly establish walls of decorum or logic around us. Don’t try an antidote of tough love. Send only the most sturdy of hearts, the most compassionate of brains, the most easy of hugs to allow us to glide back to ground. Send us hearts to which we can rooted and voices to lull us out of flight.
We don’t do it often, we promise. But when we do, flex with us, not against us, and we will shelter you most when it’s your turn.
(No significance to this one, just waiting for the bus!)
the bamboo principle 