This morning, I posted on Instagram, a question to myself and anyone else who wanted to answer.
Here is the post
Dear Friends, For so much of my life, my purpose was clear: raising children, working hard – even from the time I was working in a chip shop at the age of twelve, paying every bill, standing on my own two feet. My days were filled with responsibility, with caring for others, with the thought of always moving forward.
Now, at sixty-two, I find myself asking a new question: can my purpose be me? I was talking to a friend yesterday about giving up work. He said but I need purpose. My work is not my purpose. So, now I wonder Can purpose be found in quiet moments, like the way the rising sun casts a shadow across my wall? And I sit and truly enjoy that moment, Can it be in the joy of growing plants, in sewing, in designing knitting patterns, in feeding my many wild animal friends, and listening to tig’s happy purring, and in simply being here—present in the now?
I think the answer is yes. Maybe purpose doesn’t always have to be about doing more, giving more, proving more. Maybe it can be about inhabiting the life we’ve built, noticing the beauty around us, and letting ourselves rest in who we are today. I am accepting my new purpose in this new phase of my life. What do you think?
Additionally, thank you to everyone who sponsored me for the 30 day walking for a 3 mile walk every day for Cancer Research Uk. We did good for the research and I walked every day and continue to do so.
and, if you would like to support me in this new season of my life, then, please buy a knitting pattern, then you, Ravelry, paypal and I will all get a little something. xxxx
I am off to Japan again this year and beginning to allow myself to be excited. There is still so much to sort but I will write from the place I am staying. I may even do a Christmas online workshop.
For some time now, when I wake around sunrise, I look at my wall.
This is my wall this morning, as the sun was rising higher, around 6am. I have an old hand sewn cut work lace panel in the window. It doesn’t fit properly, it is pinned into place and it looks a little scruffy, but on the whole, the overall effect is that it casts a shadow across my wall every early morning. Without thinking, I turn to look at the wall, or my cat and I feel at peace. Something I realise, I did not feel many mornings when I lived in my beautiful croft house in Shetland.
the thing is, I no longer live in my dream house but I feel calm and peaceful and can live with autonomy in this city. I can also leap, when the time is right.
Here are some of my first sights in the mornings
And, if I look the other way, this is often my first sight. The one of Alfie was taken at 6am the morning before the day he died, and there he was just purring and looking at me.
Tiggy hears me wake and throws his upside down head at me wanting to be loved. And this is peace, and love.
I saw a Japanese word this morning :- UKIYU – it means, Floating World – describing the fleeting beauty of life and the art of living in the moment.
I find that just looking at the shadow of the cut work fabric, falling across my wall is such fleeting beauty that I have looked at it over many viewings totalling many hours. It is peace.
Thank you for your continued support. Happy summer, Tracey 🙂
I had begun to think that I am not happy, that I have little happiness in my life, so I decided to note any moments of happiness in a diary – so that I might recognise all the small moments that make me happy during. The happiness is fleeting, brief but those moments add up to make the days with happiness inside. By reading the logs in the diary, I regained that small moment and it made me happy again. here are my logs from the last 5 days.
Happiness Diary 2024
23rd June. 8am
The early sun warms my face and arms whilst I knit quietly on the bench out front and Tig preens himself gently purring by my side – not quite touching me but connected, non the less. He allows me to hold his paws, moving through each one individually. I admire the splaying of his toes and claws in his comfort and watch his flicking tip of his striped tail. My favourite thing is when he crosses my lap and his hair arms brush over the skin of my forearms; I never move, I wait for the brief touch, whilst quietly knitting on the bench out front.
23rd June
The pleasure of a working, functional, above adequate shower for the first time in my tiny bathroom.
23rd June
Talking with my neighbour, J, about cyanotype and giving her a small print that I made at the workshop yesterday, of a daisy cluster – it’s not so good yet but I like it enough to give it.
23rd June
Came home at 2:30 to Jess’s birthday present on the doorstep. It’s a fit bit watch and scales – it took me 2:5 hours to set it up from watching youtube videos, having to launch a new gmail email and linking app to watch to scales to me. I had a real sense of achievement and perseverance and problem solving and after it was all working, I biked to the gym and swam for half an hour then biked back. What the watch can do, lifted my spirits. It is a very generous gift and what makes me happy is the love of a son to buy it, my ability to finally get it all working and that it lifts my energy because it is watching me.
24th June
The first cut of my sweet peas, placed with tiny stems of scented mock orange blossom in a green glass vase – makes me deeply satisfied.
25th June
Laughing lightly, connecting briefly at work with a work colleague over something that seems ridiculous.
26th June 6:30am
Cycling, through the mist, on my way through endcliffe park, I see a great young heron fly overhead coming to land in the pond, only to lift again and gracefully flap its wings to lift high. Such beauty.
26th June 10:00am
It is my birthday, I am 61 years old. On passing the place where Mr Beddoes rests at Edensor, Chatsworth church yard, I move away the weeds and say to him, 24 years without him in my life. I rise to walk into the church, and there it is – a patchwork quilt that I made in 1991, stitching over the signatures of 250 people including Dukes, Duchesses, Earls, local estate workers, Vicars, mothers, sisters, daughters, sons, brothers and fathers. All there, I charged £2 per square and donated over £500 to a charity that I no longer remember. But the quilt survives, on the back wall of the great church designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, such memories flooding back from 33 years ago, many people now long gone.
26th June noon.
I went to meet my beautiful sister and immediately, she talked over her sorrows. It makes me love her even more.
26th June, 4:30pm
Arriving at Verity’s house on my birthday, to a banner of bunting spelling out Happy Birthday, and beautiful ice cubes in the shape of flowers with strawberries inside and a plate of beautiful cakes, the table set in the garden with cloth and napkins made me very happy. Such care and love and attention just for me. I greatly appreciate Verity who has been a friend since 1998. And, I love her too.
26th June – 8:30pm
Talking with Patti, on the phone about happiness. How the briefness of fleeting moments of love or beauty or learning new exciting experiences and creativity makes me happy. She told me about her solstice morning at 4:30am and that made me happy that she had experienced a magical moment.
I began to look back at the few logs I had started in my happiness and realised that they are fleeting, maybe 2 or 3 minutes each but that every day, I am happy when I thought that I had not been. We also talked about the analysis of the moments that had made me happy and I realised that they fell into 3 categories, Love, beauty, and learning/or new experiences. We cannot create happiness moments but to understand what makes us happy can surely help.
Such a lovely birthday, filled with simple, happy moments of joy and surprise and beauty.
27th June,
Sitting outside Park Hill flats at The Pearl, with a cherry bakewell and soda split between my work colleague Jane and I. sitting in the sunshine, feeling free, talking and laughing with such iconic architecture in the background, made me happy.
28th June.
Lying on the bed, beside my old cat, him curled tightly in a circle. I touch his head and he uncurls his body, shifting it into the negative space between my chin and chest. He purrs, his little old paws unfurl, he kneads the bed sheet in satisfaction. He is old, he is safe, he is happy. This makes me happy.
28th June
Picking the 2nd cut of my sweet peas and any individual pretty flowers from my tiny border of flowers, to place in a glass, on the doorstep mat of my neighbour. 😊
28th June
I was walking from the gym in the gentle breeze and faint sunshine, I realised that I was singing to myself. I felt it, that brief but discernible hint of happiness – just sitting above calm and content.
I write the moment into my diary and think of how much happiness I can fill inside this small book. That makes me happy. So, can thinking about happy moments, make me happy? Can I lift myself by reading past happiness?
28th June
Seeing two young student girls bending down, talking to Alfie on the pavement outside my flat. So cute, so caring – when Alfie normally avoids people.
tracey doxey 