I Number My Days

Lately, it’s been about counting. Years. Runs. Words. Work. Breaths. Days. Trees.

60 years - a number I may not have made. There was, among so many other near misses, that dangerous overtaking move I made in a dark blue Ford Cortina on my way to Mull in 1986 after finals. I was driving my Longest-Serving Friend, and I think Dave, Seb, and Richard. We were rushing to Oban for the ferry and the car coming in the opposite direction swerved to avoid us.

149 runs - it was meant to be 150 in time for my birthday, but storm Darragh intervened. I spent the night before wondering whether to try to find a Parkrun that wasn't cancelled but at 2am, saw the light, and decided that 149 is as beautiful a number. So instead of driving through wind and rain to Wolverhampton, I had a wonderful brunch (dry and warm) at Greenhouse Café with 15 of my closest running buddies. 850: the number of my token (and highest ever) after today's 151st Christmas Parkrun.

12,000 words - the number of words my novel has been stuck on all year. I lost my writing mojo in 2024, but I've found it again. Standby 2025, especially February 14th.

18 - the number of years I've spent at Wrexham University building a project which includes the voices of those usually excluded from education, from life, from being heard. A few days before my birthday, Outside In won an Above and Beyond Award for embedding Inclusion into the everyday life of the university. A day after my birthday, the group threw me a surprise party with more gifts than I could carry, some flowers that have lasted right up to today.

Breaths - who knows how many? But lately I've been practising Yoga Nidra as a way of grounding myself back into my adult self after the re-emergence of childhood traumas, counting breaths in through my nose, and out through my mouth. At first, I found this almost impossible to do. Now, it's becoming more of a habit.

24 - the number of my advent calendar, and maybe yours: a treat I bought in the dark of November. Each day in December, I've opened a cardboard drawer to find a gift to myself. Lavender salve to rub into my temples, geranium hand cream, frankincense oil to rejuvenate my 60 year old skins. It's taught me something about self-care that I don't think I knew before - how to treasure myself each day, regardless.

                                      

1 - the tree that came to mind in a therapy session recently. This tree is real and imagined, a safe place of non-judgement, acceptance, strength, solidity and power -  somewhere I can go, in my mind, to find all that I needed when a child, all that I need now to draw upon when I'm thrown back into child-learnt fears. 

And so I find I've numbered my days, counted myself into my sixties and up to this Christmas  Day. And what have I found? 

Love. A growing into love for myself I've never thought possible. A growing into receiving love from others I've never thought I deserved. A growing love for this world, with all its darkness, all its lights.

I Will Build You A Bed ...

 … literally, if you’re my friend Julie. Here's her bed. We built it together last week because it’s easier to wrestle larger self-assembly things into being with company.

Helping build Julie’s bed put me in mind of something Ted told me that his grandson Freddy said a while ago. I thought his words, as I walked home: I Will Build You A Bed … and then later ... this can be the promise I make to myself as I enter my 7th decade.

I’ve spent too much of my first six decades weary - some of the tiredness inevitable. Much of it the result of trying too hard to avoid something. Myself, mainly. Myself as reflected to me by the habits I formed to survive the harsh aspects of my childhood (you are not worthy, so serve, please, rescue). I’m learning, re-learning, that I no longer need these survival strategies. It’s time to rest up from the reverberations of that childhood stuff, and the pains they cause.

So, here I am, or there I was, thinking about, and now quoting, what young Freddy exclaimed so lovingly to his beloved grandpa, whom he calls CC, in the context of Ted explaining why he couldn’t stay at Freddy’s home (because there was no bed). “But I Will Build You A Bed, CC!”

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But I Will Build You A Bed, Liz. A place to sleep, a place to grow strawberries and over-winter your geraniums, a place to read and write, to stare at the sky, a place to run, and a place to camp. I will build a place to lounge around, to daydream, to sing and dance, to sleep on-and-off till noon sometimes. A place which takes proper heed of those wearisome wearinesses, carried since childhood, lays them to rest.