I’ve started going on longer walks…that’s been a gift giver from the running program I did (and am about to do again). Lately i’ve been craving more embodiment, more alignment between the mind, body, spirit fractions of my whole. More somatic therapies, more mindfulness, more joyful movement, more walking with the sole purpose of noticing what’s around me, and what’s inside me. I take photos on my walks, things that delight; cute dogs, pretty flowers, impressive trees, a tiny horse. My brain is a chaotic place, a place I enjoy most of the time, but there is a lot going on in here always. Four million tabs open, a constant soundtrack, a narrator documenting my every move, my inner critic, my inner sage, disco balls, ideas and hypervigilance over all of the data around me. It’s a lot. I’m practicing feeling without analysing. I’m practicing breathing and presence. I’m practicing because this isn’t my go-to way of being. I’m not good at slow and steady. I’m good at fast and messy and enthusiastic.
This morning Ray Lamontagne sung to my soul as I walked along a bush track and dazzled at the whole minutes that passed by as the only person on the track. This lyric stuck out…
Tell me what your heart wants.
In all my research and reading and pondering about pleasure and longing in the last few years I’m still planting seeds in this desire-led garden as I truly believe our desires and the meeting of them really is the whole fucking point of this life caper. Especially because we’re so rarely given the space to truly answer this question…tell me what your heart wants, my love.
My heart wants…slow and steady, embodiment, intentional living, grace and peace. It wants adventure and awe. Space to write and play and ponder. It wants to try and learn new things like Tai Chi, sewing, meditation, weight lifting and hypnosis. It wants more play dates solo and shared. It wants to journal more and phone less. It wants more surprise and delight. It wants financial spaciousness. It wants to tell the truth. My heart wants to keep walking and listening to my body and my heart.
So, i’ll ask you the same question what does your heart want, my dear? The big and the small and what can you do to nurture this desire? What can you google, or watch, or daydream about that acknowledges these desires, because my goodness you are worthy. Small intentional changes to let yourself know you see you, and then repeat.
Last week I launched West Side Honey with my dear best David Burton and my heart delighted in the conversation, in the beautiful friends and students and strangers who came to celebrate and share in the ending of this chapter. I think about it like an ending, once it’s launched it feels like the book ceases to be just mine and rather it becomes this thing that means whatever it will mean to the people reading it. My impulse is to just jump straight into the next thing, but I know that’s capitalism and culture telling me that my value is only derived by my output, or my relevance, and I know that’s bullshit. So, i’m really trying to go slow and steady and today is the first time in months i’ve actually felt like writing something. I want to write from this place. From desire and heart and not head, and that will take however long it takes, and it will be exactly as it is meant to be. I have to believe that.
I want you to believe in that for yourself too, your desire, your timing, it’s all legitimate.
I believe in you and it.
Love
Claire.
What’s happening:
All my upcoming events and things are all listed on the Text Publishing website if you’re curious.
But, I’ll be at Brisbane Writers Festival - i’m on a panel on the Saturday at LOVE YA Day and moderating a panel on the Sunday.
I’ve got a few library events coming up too, one in Logan Central and one in Ballina in May.
You can also listen to this segment I did on Litterati Glitterati on Triple R radio listen from 8 mins 42.
West Side Honey is available to purchase now, and also available as an audio book too.
Pearler is written on the unceded lands of the Yugerra and Turball people and Claire acknowledges and pays her deepest heartfelt respects to Indigenous Elders past and present. This always was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
[AUDIO] Tell me what your heart wants