Hello fellow spiralwalker,
We've just landed from a three day visit to Suffolk for a friend's wedding, with a bonus visit to artist Claudia Myatt on her cosy river barge and a morning at Sutton Hoo. The bad weather put off other campers so Nicola and I had an entire campsite to ourselves, which was extra special. Yesterday was a bit of a recovery and catchup day, hence the newsletter landing on a Monday!
I've been thinking a lot recently about how overloaded I've felt over the last few weeks.
Not because I've necessarily taken on the wrong things (OK not entirely because of that - I do love to overcommit) - ost of them have been important things that I wanted to do.
The problem was that I planned as though nothing unexpected would happen.
Which, in hindsight, is a bold assumption. Friends need support, bodies need rest, opportunities appear, problems arise. Life stubbornly refuses to stick to the schedule.
I wrote a short post about that this week: the importance of leaving room for the unexpected, and why empty space in a calendar isn't wasted time. Read it here
I've also written a new JourneySpiral piece: The Tarmac Path, exploring the difference between fixed routes and more wandering ways of moving through the world.
The two pieces ended up feeling strangely connected. One is about paths through landscapes, the other is about paths through life.
Perhaps neither works particularly well when we try to control every step and leave no room for the things we cannot forsee.
I hope you have found a little space for the unexpected this week too - let me know about it if you have!
Spiral inward, create outward,
Jez
A quick reminder that it is Neurodivergent Art Club on Zoom on Thursday from 2 - 4pm. Arrive late, leave early, we'd love to have you there!
It is fine to leave your camera and mic off if you can't people today but would like some company. Just say hello in the text chat.
Link for this week's ND art club Zoom
Neurodivergent Art Club is free to all, if you would like to chip in a little something to support the session, please drop something in the hat via PayPal or on BuyMeACoffee(which uses Stripe as the payment processor) or support the sessions regularly on Patreon and get extra things.