What If?

Less than a week to go!

A photo of lovely Pembrokeshire, just because.

My life is now packed away into boxes, which have been duly strewn around various family members' attics and sheds in Pembrokeshire (where I am currently holed up 'spending time with family', aka avoiding the 7,000 things I still have to do in Bristol before I leave). I had grand Zen-inspired ideas of getting rid of almost everything I own, but when it came down to it I failed spectacularly. There's a very real possibility that I will need all those scribbled notes and books from my Contemporary China MA, even though I have no intention of using them again! That collection of useless bric-a-brac that I have accumulated over the years? Er, MEMORIES MADE TANGIBLE! And the clothes, well the clothes are all absolutely essential for future...just in case-ness... darn it.

Anyhow, despite all that storing of rubbish I can't quite bear to part with, for the foreseeable future I will be using only those possessions which can be squashed into a rucksack. It's a weird feeling; shifty, unsettled. Who am I without all of my belongings around me?

I know that identity shouldn't be bound up with material things (if identity exists at all, a subject of much debate I believe, but let's not get into that eh) but I suspect for me it is. Spiritually undeveloped materialistic slob that I am.  I guess that's something I will be working on in the coming months, or else my locus of individualism will just shrink down to the two or three skanky farming outfits I'll be sporting for autumn/winter 2013 and a couple of books.

Now that the major life change is terrifyingly imminent, my old enemies the 'What Ifs' have come to call.  Sneaking, slippery things, sliding in under my door in the dead of night to whisper their sibilant poison in my ears:

'What if you hate it?'
'What if you don't get on with the hosts?' 
'What if you don't get on with the other WWOOFers?'
'What if you can't deal with suddenly doing physical work after so may years of sitting on your lazy ass?'
'What if living in someone else's house 24/7 is horrendous and awkward and uncomfortable?'
'What if you don't get enough time to yourself?'
'What if you get too much time to yourself?'
'What if you don't like other people's cooking?'
'What if you have to cook for other people?!'
'What if having to be on your best behaviour all the time means you internalise so much grumpiness you crumble away into a little pile of dust?'
'WHAT IF YOU GET BORED?'

Ugh.

As a worrier, raised among worriers by a worrier, I do find it quite hard not to worry about such things. But I came across this quote today:

'After careful examination, understand not to discriminate, to neither accept nor reject.  As anything can happen, peace will arise from within.'

This makes me feel a bit better.  Good old Buddhism. Peace will arise from within; external things are all filtered through my own mind; I am responsible for my own emotions; whatever happens, I will cope with it just fine.

Begone dastardly What Ifs, you are not welcome here!!

Walk The Line

  

Everybody has a place where they draw the line, right? I mean, in what they are willing to entertain the idea of.  For some people, for example, it’s the power of crystals - that just seems silly.  For others, crystals are fine, even witchcraft is perfectly sensible.  But primal scream therapy, say?  That’s just a step too far! 

Well, for me, the line gets drawn at dumpster diving, as in the Freegan practice of foraging food from commercial bins. Don’t get me wrong, I am very enthusiastic about the whole concept of ‘free’.  I’m on a mission to reduce the amount of stuff I buy and I’m about to embark on a scheme in which that pesky middleman Wages is eliminated completely.  I’ve been thinking extremely hard about every little thing I purchase for a few months now – do I really need it?  Is it the cheapest version that will do the job? etc.  And that includes food items.

For a friend’s wedding recently, I not only made them a gift (it was nice though! I'm sure they were very grateful), I also squashed my urge to buy a jacket and a new pair of shoes for the ceremony and instead wore a cardigan I already had and spent some time stretching a pair of old shoes that were too small.  And I felt fine! That’s a big deal for me.  When it comes to issues of image and clothes, I have historically ALWAYS allowed my insecurities to take control of my wallet and do whatever it takes to make me feel on a par with my contemporaries.  

I've also been trying the odd super-scrimping meal from this blog: A Girl Called Jack (with mixed results I have to say - although that's probably the fault of my dubious cooking skills than her recipes).

Anyway, you can see that I’m trying to take this whole spend reduction thing seriously.  But dumpster diving?  Sneaking around the back of shops at dusk, opening up their skanky bins and rifling through them to find my dinner?  I, just… no.  I’m aware of the arguments for:  it’s free, obviously;  use-by dates are very conservative and often fairly arbitrary; the food is still packaged; throwing it away is  needless waste and a crime against the world’s finite resources which we are using up with no thought for the future. Yada yada, I know it’s a good thing to do! But I just can’t do it.  And to be honest, I thought this was quite normal and reasonable until the other day. 

I’ve been volunteering at an organic farm just outside the city (to, you know, get a bit of experience in for the big trip, because I’m a giant lame-o with soft office hands) and had The Money Conversation with one of the guys there.  Freeganism came up, I mentioned my resistance and this is what he said: 

‘You mean you’ve never been dumpster diving?’

I’ve clearly been moving in the wrong circles. Wanna take me dumpster diving? No? Good!!

In other completely unrelated news, I finally watched that Tyrannosaur film and like, WOAH, the awful, terrible, relentless awfulness of everything the whole way through!! Also, the touchingness though - I cried, I cried real human tears when they hugged in the kitchen.
 

Well done Paddy Considine, you may remain on the giant pedestal of adoration I have built for you.   I know you're married and everything but, well, I'm here if you if you need me.  That's all I'm saying.

 

Reasons

I realised my first post below sounds a bit flippant - really, I saw someone farming on TV and then jacked in my job to run off to the countryside?  Aren't I a bit old (31 if you must know) for that kind of whimsical behaviour?!

Obviously there's a bit more to it than that, so I thought I should explain more clearly my reasons for doing this, if only to reassure my mum. They are as follows:

1. To Gain Practical Skills

I want to learn to farm the land, and maybe some animals (the crazy-looking ones like alpacas, and the ones that produce stuff I eat like chickens for eggs and goats for milk/cheese), organically, to live sustainably and provide for myself directly rather than paying other people to do it while I faff about on a computer all day. Considering my total lack of experience or qualifications in this kind of thing, WWOOFing seems like a good way to convince people to teach me stuff for free, whilst having no overheads!

Oh, also, I am a VERY unpractical person.  Everything I've ever done is academic/creative and I feel annoyed that I'm so useless when it comes to stuff with my hands... this shall be rectified.

2. To reduce the role that money plays in my life

I read a book by Mark Boyle,  The Moneyless Manifesto.  He kind of comes across like a bit of a knob*, but if you only read one book this year, make it this one - seriously.  It's totally changed the way I look at the world, convinced me to stop being such a mindless consumer and try and escape ze filthy lucre as much as I can.

(More on this later maybe, as when I started thinking about it loads of ranty stuff came into my brain and there's no place for it in this list).

3. To improve my chances of actually living Buddhist-ly

This isn't me, but you knew that.

In all honesty, I cannot call myself a Buddhist.  I eat meat and fish, I sometimes drink (only on special occasions though, I swear! Oh yeah I swear as well but I don't think that's expressly prohibited in Buddhism), I hardly ever meditate even though I know it's massively helpful and I'm a beginner at yoga. If I'm a Buddhist then I'm a pretty crap one.

BUT, I am very interested in Buddhism and I'm trying quite hard to live more mindfully.  In fact, trying to live mindfully is probably the root of this whole business as it was through applying Buddhist 'awareness of the present moment'-type principles to my daily life that I realised just how bad my office job was for me and just how much I want to live a more ethical life.

Phew! That's a bit heavy, sorry.

If you're interested though, this is a good place to look: Free Buddhist Audio. Those guys know way more about it than me.

4. For Health

Spending 8 hours a day hunched over a computer screen grinding my teeth with stress vs. spending all day out in the fresh air and using my body to do actual tasks? No contest!

5. To Travel

I have itchy gypsy feet.

Itchy Gypsy Feet - Duncan Disorderly & The Scallywags - Demo!! by goodtimes music

6.  To Improve My Language Skills

I have started learning quite a few languages and never become fluent in any of 'em.  Welsh, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Swedish... started and stopped, started and stopped.  So I would like to get at least my French a bit more up to scratch - my sister lives there after all and my 10 year-old nephew speaks like a native; I am ashamed of my stupid British mono-lingualness.

7. To Discover Writing Material

I want to write.  I've gone off writing fiction, I'm much better at reading it, so non-fiction it is!  And to write non-fiction it very much helps if you're doing something more interesting than sitting in an office all day.  At least I hope it does...

8. Regain My Faith In Humanity

I am a jaded and cynical being.  I hope that by living and working with people who are doing Good Things I will, well, regain my faith in humanity. 

There we go, a nice list for me to look back on in a few months time when I'm covered in goat shit and snow and crying into a pail of milk, to remind me why I came up with this crazy plan in the first place!


* I mean, he's probably okay, but he spends the whole book going on about how if you're REALLY a good person you will eliminate money from your life ENTIRELY, but then when it comes to the 'feminine hygiene' section he's like - 'errrm, you can use a mooncup, but then you have to buy it with evil money and they only work effectively for some women.  Or you could make your own sanitary towels from hemp you grew yourself, but really who wants to do that? Ew! Or you can just go sit on the ground with no pants on for a few days every month, there we go.'  Thanks Mark! So, 50%ish of the population can't be truly moneyless unless they are prepared to be rather inconvenienced/scratchy and unrealistic every month.  (You probably have to read the book to realise how annoying this is). Also, there's a reference to women and shoes that I found rather offensive and I'm only mildly feminist.  But honestly apart from that it's amazing!

So then!

The horrible, terrible, odious office job has been QUIT:

01 Quitter's Raga GOLD PANDA by ANNIMULL FORRILLA

Notice on the flat has been given.  Host farms have been emailed.  

Preparations In General have begun. I am going WWOOFing!!

In case you haven't already read it a million times (I guess not everyone Googles 'WWOOF blog' incessantly like I've been doing), here is the WWOOF explanation bit:

WWOOF, or Willing Workers On Organic Farms, is a worldwide network of organisations which allow volunteers to contact host farms and arrange farm/gardening work placements.  Each country has it's own separate organisation, e.g. WWOOF UK (which is  a little annoying as it means you have to join - and pay for - one in each country you want to go to).  WWOOF volunteers, or WWOOFers, generally don't receive financial payment, instead the host provides food, accommodation and opportunities to learn, in exchange for help with farming or gardening activities. WWOOFers get first-hand experience in organic and ecologically sound growing methods, along with the chance to sample life in a rural setting or a different country. 

Photo from www.ediblelandscaping.co.uk - this is not me but I did a weekend WWOOF here to try it out!

Although I've been dimly aware for years that such a thing existed, I had it lumped with 'gap year' and 'Australia/New Zealand' in my mental filing system and had never given it a seconds thought, quite frankly, until a bizarre Eureka moment in February this year.... cue wavy screen indicating back-through-the-mists-of-time section...

It was a dark and dreary Sunday night.  I was doing my customary beached whale impression in front of the TV, simultaneously watching Countryfile and dreading work the next day in a stunning example of multitasking, when suddenly a lightening bolt of realisation hit me.

Countryfile were doing a piece on a biodynamic farm; Julia Bradbury was chatting to a man who had filled a number of cow horns with manure, buried them in the ground for 12 months and was now stirring the aged manure into a tank full of water.  For an hour.  Ready to be sprayed over his crops by hand. 

Now, normally this would have filled me with dismay - that a perfectly sensible human being could waste their time on such hippy dippy bullshit (haha) - I had on many an occasion raised a cynical eyebrow at my sister when she mentioned biodynamic growing, or cultivating plants 'in tune with the moon'.  Indeed, on screen even Julia was looking deeply skeptical/as though she thought the man was certifiable. But on this day, on this particular day, a little chime went off in my pea-brain.  THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT', my thoughts said.

I dragged myself up from my beached-whale pose in outrage and sat forward, examining my traitorous thoughts again.  I wanted to go and work on a biodynamic WHAT now?! Yep, there was no mistaking it; I wanted to get me some of that.  

Fast forward through some extensive internet research, tedious soul searching, a gradual dimming of biodynamic to bog-standard organic, experimental volunteering and months - months! - of suffering through work whilst fantasising about the feel of the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, oh! a farmers life for me! etc.  and here we are.

SOD YOU OFFICE/CITY LIFE, I'M GOING WWOOFING! YEAH!!

For a bit anyway.  Let's see what happens.