Tag: grow

Small changes bringing great gifts

Published on by Jane MatthewsLeave a comment

As usual, there was a lunchtime queue in Pret so I had time to study the menu above the heads of baristas. Americano or breakfast tea? Which of my two staples did I most feel like?

…Or…I could put my mouth where my money is and try something new. Turmeric latte for instance?

Frankly, it sounded horrible. But, I reasoned, surely if it tasted as bad as it sounds it wouldn’t survive being on the menu of a fast food chain?

At first glance the reality lived up to my fears: NO drink should be that putrid shade of yellow, nor have a hint of scum on its surface.

I studied it curiously, sniffed the liquid then took a small sip. I could taste the yellow spice but I could also taste creaminess and sweetness and – to my suprise – heat and comfort. It was deliciously strange and strangely delicious and I loved every drop.

Why am I telling you about this rather trivial event?

Because a part of extracting life from our days is being open to new things and new experiences. Making small changes is a great way to bring more mindfulness to any daily activity and I highly recommend it. It sends a signal to our sub-conscious that we are ready and willing for change; in essence to DRINK in more of the richness of life.

Since the start of this year I have:

  • made myself late for work by running a hot, steamy bath instead my usual quick dash into the shower – because I suddenly felt like it;
  • ordered garlic soup in a cafe rather than any of my usual safe choices;
  • booked tickets for a live stream performance of Leopoldstadt by the National Theatre – my first ever live stream;
  • NOT had a glass of wine with supper every night (change can be about what we don’t do just as much as what we do!)
  • done my daily walk at dusk rather than my more usual post lunch outing – the world is a very different place then;
  • resisted the strong urge to say ‘ah ok, come along with me then’, when I was heading for a solo trip to town and a loved one hinted they’d like to be included;
  • and many more small actions.

How about you? In Best Year these activities appear in the ‘Expand’ category but I see now they could equally appear until grow because every single time we choose to break an old habit we move ourselves a fraction forward.

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

Making a masterpiece from life

Published on by Jane MatthewsLeave a comment

My new year always begins with my birthday, which arrives so close to New Year’s Eve as to add extra significance to both.

This year my birthday treat was a visit to Vienna’s Belvedere Gallery where I finally came face to face with the real Gustav Klimt – rather than the one whose work appears tamely on almost everything in Vienna: keyrings, fridge magnets, mouse mats and t-shirts.

Here in the gallery were the canvases in full technicolour glory, entirely different from all those copies: huge, glittering and so bold. A perfect motif for how I would like to live the next twelve months of my life.

Among them, Klimt’s slightly less well-known Portrait of Fritza Riedler (above) was painted in 1906. I imagine it bursting into the dourness of post-Victorian Britain, as shocking and wonderful as a rainbow illuminating grey skies after days of rain.

At first glance it is a classic portrait, masterfully executed from the chiffon-like ruffles of the dress to the delicately posed hands. But then as you look properly the painting becomes a treasure trove of the unexpected: blocks of textured colour in place of the usual bland background; the almost-halo framing the model’s face, a glorious mosaic inspired by other lands; the surreal pattern on the chair where Fritza sits, reminiscent of eyes or snakeskin; the small squares of pattern that punctuate the colour blocks as if to prevent our gaze settling, demanding we pay attention.

Thinking about some of the main themes of my Best Year book these moments I spent with the painting remind me that life too is a treasure when we pause long enough to notice what is all around us, and take the time to experience it – explore – through as many of our senses as possible. It expands when we make opportunities to do things we’ve not done before – whether that means visiting a new gallery or simply walking home by a different route. (Or – as I did on New Year’s Day – bringing a small biscuit back to bed to have with my morning tea and tasting its crumbly sweetness in a way I don’t when meals become a mostly unconscious habit.)

Klimt’s painting also speaks, in a perhaps more challenging way, of what may arise when we operate from what’s within us rather than the comfortable and safe norms of what we see all out-with us. I like to think what I see in Fritza’s face is openness and curiosity: two qualities which are necessary for Growth.

Finally the sheer ambition of this work, sitting brashly alongside all those traditionally beautiful and almost photographic landscapes from the same era, are a reminder of the power of being bold with our lives, of mixing it up, taking risks and becoming the creators of our own world. As we begin a new year that’s my commitment to myself.

*** Thinking about your intentions for the new year, is there a work of art – painting, sculpture, song, poem, building or something else – that might serve as a motif and reminder to you?

Lifelong learning

Published on by Jane MatthewsLeave a comment

At the age of five I won a fancy dress competition dressed in a green curtain as a bookworm. It was a fitting start to a lifelong love affair with books – as the teetering pile of titles waiting beside my bed to be read confirms.

I read to be entertained or distracted, of course, but also because one lifetime isn’t enough to visit all the places I want to see, to understand the experience of the billions who have inhabited this beautiful planet, or to delve into the depths of my own soul and truly know myself.

I’ve triple tagged this post because I couldn’t decide whether making time every day for reading – as I sit in bed with a mug of tea and the silence of the early morning – fits best in the grow, expand or explore category of Best Year.

I think it’s actually all three.

Since the start of this year I’ve explored the dusty shelves of threatening atmosphere of The Stationery Shop of Tehran thanks to Marjan Kamali. I’ve walked Alpine lanes jewelled with wild flowers with author Eva Ibbotson. And I’ve studied Howard Carter as he excavated the Valley of the Kings in the pages of Sally Beauman’s The Visitors.

I’ve understood a fraction more about how different my life and experience would have been if I’d been born with black skin, in Brit Bennett’s brilliant The Vanishing Half. Or if I’d been born female in another century – Elizabethan England say, through Maggie O’Farrell’s delicious Hamnet.

And I have nodded in recognition and gratitude to those writers able to capture in words some of the things I’ve felt, who’ve made sense of things that confuse me, opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about my life and life on earth. Above all, who have empowered me to want to live as deliberately as they seem to be living their lives.

Thank you Brene Brown for Braving the Wilderness, Glennon Doyle for Untamed and Julia Baird for your beautiful book Phosporescence. In their own way each of them has made the morning light a little brighter and expansive as the world awakes.

May we NEVER stop reading, learning and sharing our truths with each other in order to grow.