19 March

you & ME

No Valentine's card for me today. No last minute roses, out of season strawberries, expensive champagne or unethical chocolates. No candlelit restaurant or diamond ring.

No big, show-offy gestures. Just a long list of tiny, meaningful ones. Just me and you, my love. You & M.E.

You made me breakfast in bed, because I was too weary to rise after a sleepless night. You came back from a walk bearing a tiny elm bough, plucked from a snowy hedge, bringing the outside in, because I was too poorly to leave the house.

You massaged my aching muscles. You held me close when the tiredness overwhelmed and the anxiety threatened to carry me away. 

We're simple hearted folk. We don't celebrate Valentine's day. We don't even know the precise date of out first meeting, our first date or all those other firsts that seemed so important to my younger self.

We don't keep these dates, but what I do know is this: it doesn't really matter to commemorate when the seed was first planted, but rather to keep nurturing and  tending to this precious love every single day.

I guard our precious memories fiercely in my heart's mind. When I'm afraid, worn out or downhearted, we take one out together, carefully unwrap it, admire and enjoy it from every angle with a whispered "Do you remember when...?"

We're not celebrating Valentine's day with pomp and circumstance. But you've been there for me when it matters, on a very poorly day, just like you always are.

*****

Joining in with the lovely Rachel and Faye to celebrate the love and support of the wonderful men in our (chronically ill) lives.

looking forward

2014 was a challenging year for me, for us.
My attitude tended to veer towards un-acceptance. Frustration. Sorrow.

But the earth kept on spinning round the sun. And now it is January once again.

For once, I'm not gonna try to "turn over a new leaf". 
The world doesn't change, we change.
Not who I am, but how I feel about myself.
About this. 

So this is 2015.

Where the past year was a collection of endless endings, then these months just about to unfurl will be surely marked by new beginnings.
Where the past year was tinged with a deep rooted despair, then we step forth into the blinding light of this new one with a renewed sense of hope.

So this is 2015. Welcome. 

*****

Inspired by the gorgeous words of Rachel Violet: 

"Despite all the heartaches this last chapter has brought me, as 365 blank pages unfold I am filled to the brim with hope that day by day we will all be reunited with our health, happiness and love."

looking back

As the old year passes, I take to the hills. Not literally, not physically. But in my mind's eye. 

Drifting off into that place between waking and dreaming, there is no real time to mull over 2014 before I surrender to sleep. No need really either. These past twelve months, I've done enough mulling to last a lifetime.

But it's good to take a cursory glance back across my shoulder, back down the mountain of the year. For it is only now that I can see it has all been worth it, that I did the right thing to keep going, to keep on hoping and not bail out when the going got tough. 

That is what 2014 has taught me, to keep on going...no matter how slowly.

Because as is often the way out in these mountains, it's only when you've slogged for hours up that hillside, worked through the sweat and the tears to stand high on the crest with the sun on your face that you can truly measure just how far you've come. 

Here on the cusp of the mountain, it's finally easy to see where I've been...and where I'm going next...

Joining in with these gorgeous and inspiring girls: 

Anna: Health doesn't equal happiness

Faye : 10 Things I've learned in 2014

Katharine: What 2014 taught me

maybe

Maybe  it needs a bit more time. Maybe this is just a rocky patch. Maybe the mountain is just a little higher than we thought. Maybe it will require a little bit more courage. Maybe I haven't fallen back as far as I thought.

No one said it would be the easy. This dream. This life. This living. Learning to fly on my own wings. 

But maybe it will be worth it. Maybe wellness will come again. At the right moment. Maybe the courage will be there.

Maybe I don't have to give up hope, after all.

and there was that time

 

And there was that time in

the last days of summer.

When we sat beside the ocean,

you and me, 

listening to the waves

pounding against the shore.

And I felt the spray on my cheeks, and 

I felt your hand in my hand. 

And I was not afraid of the roar.

And as we sat beside the ocean,

you and me, 

watching the sun sink into the briny depths.

I felt it's last warmth on my cheeks.

And I felt your hand in my hand.

And so I was not afraid of the dark. 

And later, as we settled down to sleep

you and me

beneath the pine trees,

I felt the pounding of your heart from your chest to mine

I felt the warmth of your skin on my skin 

I felt your hand in my hand

And I was no longer afraid.

Already five (and a half!) years together, you and me. Not bad, hey?

how could I not?

And when I wake in these mountains, when the first warm rays of sun are  yet to stream to the valley bottom. When the world is still quiet and sleepy and the odour of morning mist and autumn leaves hangs in the air. When the only sound is the call of a kestrel, the chiming of the church bells.

How could I not? How could I not, this life, my life, not love? With it's ups and it's downs. With it's stumbles and falls. With it's getting up again. With the rain and the sunshine. With the fatigue, yes. Oh that fatigue.

But also with all the small moments. With the people on my side. With the breath. With the heartbeat. My heartbeat. His heartbeat. How could I not be in love with it? It is not perfect. But I am living, breathing, creating. How could I not? Because it is imperfect. Sometimes tangled. Lumpy and bumpy. But it is mine.

"Be in love with your life. Every minute of it." (Jack Kerouac)

How could I not?

(Inspired by the lovely Faye...)

going slowly

I took the better part of a month away from the blog since the start of the Autumn. I needed to find some perspective, because at first I was convinced it was something that I no longer wanted to continue. Early September I was literally washed out from my month of thermal treatment and I was convinced it was best to give it all up, to write a final farewell and bid you all good luck. 

But six weeks in, I realise now my doubts were short lived and so I set about planning a new name, a fresh design and a second beginning. 

A few weeks ago, I realised that I wanted to change the name of the blog. Blue moon had never really resonated with me, it was just something I plucked from the air back in May when I first discovered a heap of other bloggers and felt compelled to join in the conversation. 

It was fine at the time, but I've never really felt as though it represented my feelings or my intention. I don't want my blog to be for only sharing notable milestones or tales of sleepless nights. Instead I want to use it as a means of exploring ideas of wellness and seeking inspiration. I want it also to be about my experience of gently crafting a slow and deliberate life, one which is fulfilling personally and not only sustainable for me health wise. 

Since this realisation, I've been trying to come up with a new name...to no avail. Then over the weekend, I realised the perfect name had been staring me in the face the entire time. 

Going slowly is a series I created over on my craft blog, that has been documenting the ups and downs of my life with M.E. since I started it up in 2013. I've always found it to be a very positive way of understanding what at times can be a very limiting aspect of my life. And more importantly, it really is becoming my personal philosophy as I learn to face the reality of this illness for the rest of my life. Going slowly is what I am learning to practise, but not what I have perfected. Which I think is very apt,  considering this blog is an ever-changing, always evolving story.

starfish

There are times when it can feel as if the rough and tumble of this chronic life has left us washed up on the rocks. Forgotten in the sand by the retreating tide. Just like this little starfish I found on the foreshore last weekend. 

But just as on the foreshore the tide will always turn, so too in life things will inevitably change. It can be hard to stay calm whilst we're waiting. Sometimes it's easy to loose perspective and get swept away by such feelings, to feel as if we'll be marooned forever. 

It's at times like these we have to hold on tight to all the good things we have. To remember that we are not alone. And to acknowledge that all things must pass. Even the really hard stuff. 

And sometimes when all that is to hard, we have to surrender and let those wonderful people who are there by our sides look out for us. Let them pluck us from the sand and safely put us back in the sea, as it were. Because we are all holding each others lives. And together we can get through the strongest of tempests.

All things will pass. Just as everything will be ok. Because he is by my side. As he has been for the past five years.  

in equal measure

 

Day and night in equal measure. Enough rest, not too many worries. 

From it's daily rising to it's setting, the sun doesn't hurry across the sky. She takes her time, going at her own rhythm. No need to rush, her daily path is already drawn. 

As we gently slide into autumn, it's the moment to take heart from the sun, to slow down and put balance at the centre once again.

Location: Messanges beach, at sunset. (Les Landes)

on ups and downs

Living with a chronic illness means there are good days and bad days, mountain days and fire-side days.

There are days where I feel on top of the world, when I literally am on top of the world. And there are days when just getting out of bed seems like an expedition.

I'm slowly starting to accept that I shouldn't be ashamed of these secret days. I shouldn't try to hide them away. I don't need to talk about them all the time. But they are nothing to be ashamed of either.

Because this is the pattern of my days in these green mountains. These highs and lows are what make the landscape so very interesting.

And in my daily life, it is these secret, quiet days that make the others so very, very special.

standing still

We went to Lourdes and had a picnic by the lake. 

A kingfisher darted back and forth, nothing more than a flash of russet and turquoise skimming across the limpid waters. 

But not everything in nature rushed around. A heron stood for over an hour, poised and concentrated, waiting patiently for the right moment. 

Sometimes it can feel as though life is grinding to a halt. As I watch friends and family dashing all around me - getting married, buying houses, making babies, embarking on new careers, or simply sustaining "proper" jobs.


Questions without answers are on the tip of my tongue, the edge of my heart:

When will I...?
Will I ever...? 

It's hard to not let my mind drag me off into a never ending spiral of useless questioning...

But I was somehow comforted by the sight of that heron, somehow so elegant and graceful in it's mindful poise, patiently waiting just for the right time.

Not everything in nature rushes around, but it is still moving forward. Why then should I? 

golden days

Late summer days spent with his parents, then mine. Golden, sun drenched days wrapped up in a total disregard for time, where the big event of the day is going for a picnic, and the only decision to be taken is which mountain meadow to visit next.

I adored their two week holiday out here with us, so quickly settling back into the familiarity of their company. It felt good to have them in our valley, tucked up in their cosy little gîte on the other side of the stream. To be able to just pop round for a cup of tea in their garden each day on my way home from school.

We walked slowly along familiar paths, learnt tai-chi in the open air, gorged ourselves on the last of the bilberries and swam in icy mountain lakes. We made dinner for one another, caught up on news, knitted in the garden and drank coffee in nearly every café in the village. 

I soaked up every ray of late summer sun, every drop of family time. Like last year, precious memories to hold on to when Autumn eventually falls into our laps.

struggling

This time two years ago, I had just taken my finals, graduated from University, completed an intense teacher training course and then moved permanently abroad. With no specific job prospects or family nearby. Emerging into adulthood is frightening enough at the best of times. But it's been even harder trying to do it in a foreign country with a chronic illness that no one seems to understand.

There are no longer my parents to buffer the unhelpful comments and incomprehension of people. I've had to learn to stand on my own two feet. And sometimes that takes a lot of my precious energy.

The worst of it, is once again having to re-adjust my horizons, learn to accept my limits.

The past year or so, I've really struggled to accept the fact that I've got this illness for life. Without realising it, I was convinced that once I had a University degree under my belt, this illness would somehow magically disappear and I'd finally be free from it's shadow to get on with the rest of my life. No such luck... 

For months and months I've been feeling particularly under par and that seems to have plummeted me into a rather blue frame of mind. 

But finally finding some proper medical support out here this summer, trying a very French course of treatment and most of all learning once again to be more open and honest about my health limitations to those around me has been offering me a fresh perspective on things. More on that later...

my breath

Rough grass beneath our feet. Forest paths and fields of scree. The ceiling so high, so inviting. And then this moment. This smell. This taste. These mountains in my lungs. My muscles unfurl. My chest rises and falls. The clouds, the sun, the earth. My breath.

"la cure"

July and August. 

For the French, these are the holiday months. Suncream. Straw hats. Ice creams. Coffees on pavement cafés. Apéros on the balcony. Festivals and village fêtes stretching long into the night.  Market stalls groaning under the weight of plump, sweet summer fruits. Peaches, nectaries, plums, apricots, strawberries. Melons. 

For me this year, July and August have been a time to emerge from my hibernation. To slow down, take stock. And finally get looked after. 

Daily baths in thermal pools. Hosed down. Plastered in hot, stinky, thermal mud. Balneotherapy. Physiotherapy. Group therapy. 

Eating better. Sleeping better. Walking better. Living better. Feeling (a little) better. 

As hippy-dippy as it might sound, my time spent up at the thermal baths has felt like a re-birth. It hasn't cured me. Sadly nothing will do that. But it has helped me to accept the situation. Myself. My life now and my life in the future. 

At the end of July, I was waiting for the baths, a downtrodden and defeated British girl. At the end of August, I've emerged a more confident, more hopeful British girl, who's now a little more French around the edges. (After a month as a curiste, it would be impossible not to feel a little more gallic, after all).

July and August. The holiday healing months. Healing my body. Healing my mind. Healing my soul. Three weeks up at Barèges. Hours spent being pampered. Making wonderful new friends. Dreaming of other possibilities...

Days saturated with mud and water and golden summer light.

storm clouds

 
Truth be told, things have been a bit of a struggle of late. I've been struggling to accept how things are to accept myself and what I'm facing, this current relapse.

Knitting helps unravel my anxieties. Spinning helps quieten my racing mind. He helps in every way he can think.

But despite these, it's hard to not get downtrodden. To wonder when my life will actually begin...

In those quiet moments, sometimes I wonder, when?

All around me, dear friends are getting engaged, starting new jobs, developing their careers, becoming mothers, preparing for marriage. No matter how hard I try, sometimes it's hard to feel genuine happiness for them as their lives progress and their opportunities widen because it feels as if my own life has ground to a sickening halt.

But whilst I cry over the loss of my livelihood, chances of a "proper" career, the absence of babies, it's easy to forget amid all my suffering that my dear friends around me also have their own struggles. Whilst they might not have suffered the loss of job, the indignity of having to be taken to the bathroom by their boyfriends, in my own way, they face their own storms.

Loosing a beloved parent to aggressive cancer or a failing heart. Living half-way across the world from a husband because of over-strict immigration rules. Waking up one morning to realise they are stuck in the rate race. Having to cope with long-term unemployment despite having a top degree from a top university. Having to face the prospect of long-term single-hood.

Yes, they do not know my struggles intimately....but then, I don't know their suffering either.

But what I do know if this. My own life would be much more empty and harder to bear were I to cut myself off from those friends...

At least together, we can help one another brave our own particular storm clouds.

be kind

Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out in the vast field of light
And let it breathe.'               
Hafiz

During group therapy at the thèrmes today, we were encouraged to think about being more "kind to ourselves". The psychologist asked us to share with the group the things that make us happy, that help us to be kind to ourselves.

Knitting and spinning were of course at the top of my own list. Whilst I learn to find my own rhythm once again, it looks as if there might be a lot more woolcraft going on around here for the next few months. 

walking out

People often ask me, where did it begin?
 

Muscles tensed. One leg planted firmly on the earth, the other swinging forward as a pendulum. Heel touched down and my body rolled forward onto the other foot. The legs reversed position and the whole thing started again.

As simple as that. We met in the village library. But it began on the mountainside.

Five years ago, I walked towards the summit, step by step. Not my first steps in the Pyrenees. But my first steps walking out with Nico. 

Five years later, and we're still walking together, albeit much slower than back then. Walking through the mountains, through the valleys, through the world.

on teaching and self employment

It's now six months since I stopped working from home. There are moments when I see the bank balance slowly emptying that I wish I had kept going longer. Then I remember those last six weeks of teaching, remember just how badly my health suffered, just how physically, mentally and emotionally spent I was. And then I wish I had pulled the plug sooner.  

In the weeks before stopping, I would often sit at the dinner table, my eyes heavy, the mere suggestion of a conversation overwhelming me through the fog of the fatigue. I woke in the morning after a long night of sleep, knowing that rest had nonetheless alluded me.


I was so happy to be building my little teaching business. To finally have more than enough students on my books to pay my half of the bills and even have a little over to put aside for a rainy day. Independence and security. More than I could have hoped for.

As well as working with students directly from home, I was also working four or five days a week in a language school down and out of the valley, over half an hours drive away. At the back of my mind, I knew that it was all a bit too much. That eventually something would have to give. I just wish I had stopped sooner. Then perhaps it wouldn't have been my health that had to suffer.


But despite my heavy load, there was a part of me that felt I needed to be so busy, that I should work like everyone else. Should. Such a powerfully strong word that we so often inflict upon ourselves as justification for things that are not good for us. So unnecessary. But still, it was what I believed at the time.

Despite my steadfast belief, there were many occasions where I admitted to Nico that I needed to slow down. He wholeheartedly agreed with me and offered his support. But I kept on going. Why?

Because I didn't have the confidence and self-belief to decline the opportunity to work more hours or take on more classes.

Because I didn't have the strength to stand up to my own fears of financial uncertainty to cut-back on my hours.

Because I didn't have the courage to accept that a little is more than enough, because in the eyes of other people I was "doing the right thing" for once. 

A sort of haze had installed itself when I first set up as self-employed back in 2013. Complete with blurred perspectives and a powerful determination to make my little business work. It was heavy and unyielding and I couldn't see my way out of it. Hence I kept on going. 

But then nature decided for me; I got really sick, had no choice but to stop. And just like that, it was over.

Months later, I'm still trying to recover from that relapse, but am also basking in the lifting of that self-employment cloud. Yes, there has been much sadness and grief at the current loss  of my livelihood. I have waded through strong feelings of shame at the thought of having let others and myself down. Not to mention quite a lot of frustration and anger.

But little by little, as I let all those "shoulds" loosen their grip on me, there has also been profound relief. Although I'm still waiting for the energy to return, for now, I'm feeling calmer and more at ease.

I'm never going to get things exactly right: treading the rope strung between what I need to do, what I want to do and what is best for my health and well-being is not an easy path to tread. Therein lies the complexity but also the opportunity for a challenge.


For me teaching languages, especially working one to one with students of all ages, has never been simply the physical act of imparting knowledge from one person to another. It is also work that comes from the heart, an opportunity to build relationships, learn and exchange from one another. It is something that brings me great personal joy and satisfaction...as well as stress and worry if I don't keep a check on things...and myself.

I still haven't quite decided if I'll return to freelance teaching or not. For the time being, I just need to concentrate on getting back to a place of stability and balance with my health and better well-being in my life.

If the time comes for me to embark once again on a new teaching journey, I'll do so with gratitude but also a little more care than the last time. I know I'll bask in the opportunity to once again sit down with my students, connect to different aspects of their lives, craft lessons and guide and accompany them in their personal learning journey. 

But I'll also try to go about things at a slightly slower pace. Be a little less ambitious of my physical capacities, a little more careful of my workload, a little more mindful of the impact teaching also has on my own health.

I'll take it day by day and this time round, I'll aim to continually take note of my health and well-being. I'll ask myself: "What's best for me?" - because I'm important, too. 

And if for some reason I decide that teaching is no longer a possible activity for me to pursue...well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.