8-ball

ask the magic 8-ball

Shaped to look like the 8-ball used in pool, it’s essentially a fortune-telling toy for kids.

Did you have one of those ‘ask the magic 8-balls’ as a kid?

I did. I don’t recall how reliable I believed the answers to be, but I remember asking my question again if I didn’t like what it first gave me.

try, try, try again

When I am performing better than average in life, I feel a bit like that.

Curious, open, and excited to see what’s going to happen. I will try, do my best, and see. And if I don’t like the outcome, I try again. Other times, I notice myself giving up and going with the flow,

try again

following the path of least resistance, which can have its joys and surprises too, but may also mean I’m being a bit lazy and surrendering to real or imagined forces greater than me.

The 18-months I spent looking for rewarding and worthwhile (paid) work when I arrived in London from Mexico was definitely a period of ‘try, try and try again’. And hurrah, I did it!

I’ve learned and delighted in a lot everywhere I’ve lived, but right now, the nearness of time means the London memories loom larger than the others. But I sense these one day too will be overshadowed by new adventures.

anchors aweigh

Time to up sticks and move. The origin of this expression is obscure. Some say ‘sticks’ refers to furniture, and others that it to do with raising a ship’s mast before sailing.

Now after nearly 10 years in London, it’s time once again, to throw all the pieces of my life up into the air and see where and how they land. To re-invent myself again.

The current plan is to go to Valencia, Spain. I have only been there once, so I will visit a few more times before fully making that decision, but already it feels right.

It also feels a bit scary, but exciting too.

Where will I live? Who will my friends be? What will I do for work? Will it be training and education work for social change as I have done for the last 25 years? Or something totally different? How will my daily creative practice fit into my ‘new life’?

Valencia, a place to bloom and grow

something will work out, it always does

Whatever happens I trust that something will work out, because so far in all my many moves around the globe, it has.

Sorting and beginning to eliminate stuff, I recently came across a box of old journals and notebooks and I found a poem I had written some years back when I left Japan to work with Witness for Peace in Latin America. I left not yet knowing where I would live and work. There was first a month-long training and induction period in Managua, Nicaragua where the employer and trainees mutually discerned we were right for each other and suited for the work. We were, I was, and I ended up in Mexico, but that’s a whole other story.

Anyhow the poem goes –

Though it’s sad to leave, I sense it’s time to go

In …. there’s more interesting work be done, people to meet and delights to discover

Though what and who I don’t yet know, I trust one day soon all this and more will be on show

packing and leaving Japan, March 2000

good bye for now!

And this I believe as much, if not more, today as I did then. Watch this space and together we’ll see how it all unfolds.