Tag: self-care

thing 37: ‘a delightful weekend in the country’: going on holiday (not by mistake), part (i)

Okay, so it’s not exactly the country. And it’s not a weekend, more of a week. Well, 5½ days. But there hasn’t been nearly enough Uncle Monty here at wtak; and besides, I was definitely starting to drift into the arena of the unwell—too much work, too many difficult things going on. So it was time to stop. Or go, then stop. So off I went.

For me, holidaying alone—I love the slightly quaint feel of “holiday” as a verb—can be a tricky undertaking, both in the conceiving and in the doing thereof. I can well see that a few days away, alone, might (more…)

thing 31: ‘the year is going, let him go’: tidying up

I know. Sounds most unlikely as a special or celebratory act, right? But stay with me. It’s been a pretty thorough tidying up, with some surprisingly lovely and unexpectedly profound things involved.

It all started when my landlady was getting people in to quote for redecorating my house, and one of the decorators thus consulted had a look in the front room where all my books and bookbinding equipment and supplies live—and we are talking a lot of paper here, friends—and said, ‘Hmm, when we’re done, you’ll have a chance to put things back nicely, won’t you?’. Patronising git. (And he left the seat up, too.) (more…)

thing 30: ‘we are the wood drake’: reading together

‘… and then you’d think aha! something interesting is going to happen and then someone would mention Derrida and it would all be over…’

Thus my friend Simon, speaking about his time reading English at Oxford and the death-by-theory thing which can so often happen during formal study. I know what he means. In my very first group supervision at Cambridge we were issued copies of a poem—I have repressed the knowledge of what it was, if I ever knew—and the Director of Studies’ opening gambit (more…)

thing 16: ‘the deep breath burning’: learning to run

… and I don’t mean in some metaphorical sense. It’s not an image for being efficient, or moving through existence effortlessly and with ease. Nope. It’s actual running. I know. You couldn’t be more surprised than I am.

When I was at boarding school we had to do these things called Standards, which basically meant that everyone with the requisite complement of limbs had to “do” every athletics event—track, field and (more…)

thing 13: ‘sometimes counsel… sometimes tea’: the joy of cafes

I read an interview with Alain de Botton in which he revealed that the mirror features in his morning routine only as something he can glance into and ‘check that nothing too terrible [is] happening’. I like that a lot. This is a level of personal grooming I can relate to.

But even that isn’t necessary, of course, if you don’t go out of the house. If all you’re going to do is have a cup of tea, why put yourself through grooming, or indeed dressing, at all? Why take off your jamas/house clothes and brush your hair? (Or at least redeploy it; those among you (more…)