ardysez

the movable self…

—

,

Winter is coming. Actually, as far as I’m concerned it has arrived. When I grab my favourite winter stretchy jeans and dive back under the covers to warm them and put them on, it is a sure sign. (This is a latent childlike behaviour, a lived out fantasy to be able to return to bed on a whim.)

Time has used some Jedi mind trick to move us through recent weeks of autumn at record speed. I was shocked this morning to see a new ‘like’ on my most recent post, already 6 weeks old, but it feels like it must be longer, so much has happened.

Thankfully the anti-social behaviour in town has calmed somewhat. Cold weather usually helps that, as have a couple dozen extra police. It is 0.1 C degrees here just now, 32F to my non-metric friends. 

This time last week we had just returned from five rainy days in Sydney. A week before that I had returned from partly sunny, but no rain Adelaide, where I had been for 11 days helping our daughter declutter, organise, grand-puppy sit, and get ready to move…to Sydney. She has moved through the ranks over the 12 years at her current job and her dream was to move to Sydney one day so the time was right. She worked for it, applying for over 100 jobs over the last year or so. It will be a big adjustment but she is as happy as I have ever seen her for the new adventure.

We are happy too, mostly. But it is farther away and we aren’t getting younger so there’s that.

Still, life holds some surprises for us yet, we are sure. As I read my weekly newsletter from Maria Popova yesterday I was reminded…

“A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living,” Virginia Woolf wrote. Nothing is more vital to the capacity for change than the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind — that stubborn refusal to ossify, the courageous willingness to outgrow your views, anneal your values, and keep clarifying your priorities. It is incredibly difficult to achieve because the very notion of the self hinges on our sense psychological continuity and internal consistency; because we live in a culture whose myths of heroism and martyrdom valorize completion at any cost, a culture that contractually binds the present self to the future self in mortgages and marital vows, presuming unchanging desires, forgetting that who we are is shaped by what we want and what we want goes on changing as we go on growing. 

Changing — your mind, your life — is also painfully difficult because it is a form of renunciation, a special case of those necessary losses that sculpt our lives; it requires giving something up — a way of seeing, a way of being — in order for something new to come abloom along the vector of the “endless unfolding” that is a life fully lived, something that leaves your new emerging self more fully met.

I love a red geranium and my newly acquired ones look great in the autumn weather at home.

I wish I’d said that. Still it is reassuring to know that others have felt the same, lived similar and come out the other side ‘self more fully met’. I love that line.

Having just passed my 71st birthday it seems appropriate, if not desirable, that I’m in treatment with a good physiotherapist at the moment. Don is moving through his various cancer and macular degeneration treatments both of which evolve. We live in hope of coming out the other side ‘selves more fully met’ and moving well for a while yet.

There were reports of some sightings of the Southern Lights from Alice but not being a night owl by choice, we were happy to have a glorious desert sunset instead.

Until next time…

If you would like to read Maria Popova’s article in its entirety: https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/05/17/adam-phillips-giving-up/

4 responses to “the movable self…”

  1. daleleelife101.blog Avatar
    daleleelife101.blog

    Thank you for sharing these thoughts… as so often happens mine are of similar train and are attempting to form into a blog post. Winter feels early this year but perhaps it is just cooler and wetter than last year’s notably warmer drier autumn. Regardless, I concur, the days are speeding by, and accommodating change is do or deal with the consequences, more so as we age, in order to as you say fully meet our evolving selves.
    I think your red geranium is the same colour as the one in our garden we refer to as big red, a favourite. All of our geraniums came as cuttings from our elderly neighbour’s garden who herself planted them as cuttings from an older friend as accommodation of less ability to manage a garden but still have flowers. A micro-lesson in itself. The years too are speeding by. I don’t see many late nights myself, nor I confess many very early mornings but the welcome rain obscured any vantage point there might have been to see the Southern Lights… I did dash out the back with a torch a couple of nights to check. Like you we have to make do with the sunsets, which is ok by me. They are a pleasant way of marking the passing days.

    Like

    Reply
    1. Ardys Avatar
      Ardys

      Thanks Dale. I’ve liked and personally observed the words… ‘the days are long but the years are short’. But this just doesn’t apply at the moment, and maybe never will again. I think both days and years are short and I’m beginning to understand my Dad’s refusal in his last years to waste his life queueing for things, especially to get into a restaurant. The challenge I’m having are the time wasters I try to get to do jobs around the house at the moment…don’t show up or are very late…grrr. Hope you are enjoying the almost full moon…xoxo

      Like

      Reply
  2. Kim Smith Avatar
    Kim Smith

    Ardys, I’m so grateful that you shared Maria Popova’s newsletter with her review of Adam Phillips’ book “On Giving Up.” It’s very timely for me. Just yesterday I finally resigned from a volunteer obligation that has been demanding far too much of my time for several years. I struggled mightily with this decision to quit, because I care a lot about the work we’ve been doing. But I realized a few years ago that my preoccupation with my volunteer obligations has been keeping me from pursuing an important goal for myself: to write a book. I’ve been trying to work on it for more than two years now, but I can’t focus my thoughts because I’m constantly working on things other people need from me. And I don’t have all the time in the world these days, if you know what I mean. Tick, tock, and all that. After I made my resignation official yesterday, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders, and I know it’s the right decision for me. I’m still struggling with some guilt over what feels like a failure, but I’ll work through that, I’m sure.

    And thanks for the update from your side of the world. Glad to hear that things are getting better in town.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. Ardys Avatar
      Ardys

      I really appreciate readers who let me know when something I write resonates, so thank you Kim. That was some of the best, most timely information I’ve seen in a while and I’m really glad it seemed helpful to you as well. We are doing lots of giving up and letting go these days and so far none of it has seemed wrong! It makes room for other things but also as you experienced ‘lightens the load’. Best wishes for your future endeavours, I hope we get to read them one day. x

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment

● Recent Articles
● About Me

I’m Ardys, the creator and author behind this blog. I’ve found great joy in the unexpected and tiny things in life, as well as some big ones…and in between is where I’ve learned my lessons. I like to write, take photos and paint and I hope it resonates with you.