Yesterday was not a good day for me.
I am not sure if you identify with not having a good day. When I am in a funk it seems like everyone else has it good. Their lives are dandy. They have problems such as trying to cram in a little getaway to Spain before starting a new job, or running out of avocados for their breakfast. Some have deep dilemmas, like which pair of shoes to buy – a cheeky strappy sandal for summer or scarlet heels for a very important date. Sometimes, traffic is really bad and people start banging on their steering wheels and using creative sign language to express their feelings.
When I get into a grump I start looking inward pretty quickly. I can go from being in top form mentally and emotionally, to plummeting to the depths of despair in a nanosecond. I think this may be one of my giftings. I am brilliant at it. I sprawl in a pool of self-indulgent sludge at the bottom of that downward tunnel of doom, arms akimbo, eyes caked shut with ‘woe-is-me’ echoing on a loop through my brain.
Making the return journey upwards is not so easy. Firstly, I don’t have the energy. I am kaput. I’m done. It’s all too much. I will flounder in the mud. It’s where I belong. This is my happy place. So I wallow like a hippo on a muddy riverbank, where I am safe.
Sometimes, I hear voices – I am needed, there are things to do – so, disgruntled, I try to heave myself off the floor to climb out of this place of gloom. I don’t want to leave this spot. I don’t want to be needed. I want things to just blow over. I want the world to carry on without me. But I have no choice. So I clamber up the sides of the tunnel like a drunken spider, turned away from the light, aggrieved that I should be made to move. I haul myself out at the top begrudgingly, and do what I have to do.
There are times when I feel the weight of the world is pressing down on me like a block of concrete and I cannot get up even if I wanted to. I feel broken. I am crushed. There is no way up, except for others to haul the block off me so I can be winched to safety, to the light. These are the really bad days.
Often, the reason for the plummet is money – or rather the lack thereof. The pressures of living in this cost-of-living crisis can send me skidding to the gaping mouth of the tunnel before you can say “Buy-one-get-one-free”. Going to the supermarket and looking at prices before product when you shop for your dinner does not make for a joyous experience.
So, given my tendencies for diving headlong into the gloom, I have to look for ways to keep my eyes up and forward, and my heart open to enjoy the present. I tried gym and long walks for a while. That worked, until my knees and hips began their arthritic crumbling. So, strolls are now the way to go.
These strolls are taken in the beauty of the English countryside. Natural beauty is my medication. Flowers are my smelling salts. The green hills of the South Downs are my vitamins. I breathe in the fragrant air like I’m breathing in life itself.
Taking photographs of this beauty stretches the joy and increases the wonder. When I return home and download my photographs, I’m able to revisit the poppy fields, the bluebell dells, the tulips under the trees. I gaze again at branches that reach tall into the sky as the sun shines through translucent leaves. I see things in the photographs that I could not see with my naked eye: tiny spiderwebs crisscrossing stems, miniature bugs that hide among petals, the hearts of flowers exposed to the lens. I see the intricacies of roses, their hidden blushes, the juxtaposition of a delicate rose bud embraced by a rose past its prime.
What I have learned is that when I look a poppy in the eye, my spirits lift and I am at peace.
When I walk silently through a bluebell wood, I walk in the light.
Making my way through a forest, I see life even where the sun cannot reach. The forest floor is carpeted with mosses, making homes for insects and creatures of the soil.
I am present.
Gratitude comes. The reasons for the bad day do not evaporate like a morning mist, but they no longer hang over me like a black thundercloud. I can skirt around the tunnel of doom.
I can take time to smell the roses.
I can make a bad day a good day.