When I have a big idea, I have to leave home. I wrote 50,000 words in 2 months in 25-minute chunks, in a tiny Balinese village where I hardly met anyone. Living at Amrita cafe, with a view of rice fields and Mount Agung, I knew myself differently, deeply immersed, open and absorbed. There isn’t a time I don’t long to return to that flow and the volcano view from my desk. Little and medium ideas are welcome too. In everyday life, I still use a timer set for 25 minutes, leaving the house for a cafe with an endless horizon view.

Dirty talk can be hit and miss. Strike the wrong note in stealth, and it can kill a mood; hit the right tone, and it can rocket the eroticism skyward. Discussing the edgy words before trying them out is more useful than guesswork. Calling me ‘good girl’ makes the brat in me bristle; an encouraging ‘clever girl’ makes me smile. Though it was intoning the words “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” kneeling in front of a role-playing priest, that turned the eroticism from zero to hot in the time it would have taken to say a few Hail Marys. Let’s talk about penance. Hallelujah.

Re-finding silence is lovely. I’ve not had a TV for years; I mostly listen to music in the car. My creativity wants alone, quiet time. In time for reflection, there’s space to be inspired, to notice, to take things in, to consider ideas. Rather than morning pages, I mull over questions in evening pages, writing to the Greek gods, guides and angels, asking questions and listening to answers. Who knows who or what makes up the inner guidance, but the practice of emptying my day onto the page by lamplight is reassuringly, soothingly worthwhile. 

How am I going to die? “Find the opium dealers,” was one friend’s advice to help with the existential dread of suffering. There’s a first and last time for everything.

Unconsciously controlling is a way to keep love at a distance. When love has to meet criteria, how can it be unconditional? That’s not to be confused with a relationship, where it's valuable to be discerning.

Having parents you don’t want to be like is a strong motivation for change. Stepping out of expectations of shared inherited values is a liberation and a loss. Exile is confusing, at least at the beginning. I ran a long way to freedom. It’s a long road back to reconciliation. To stand in their shoes, to soften, to understand that in their situation, how else would I have done differently?

What impact do you want to have? When folx talk about leaving a legacy, it feels grandiose. Yet if we’re always radiating an effect, how do you want to be known? For influencing kindness or meanness, pettiness, pragmatism, idealism, reliability or trouble? Impact doesn’t have to be a driving force; it’s happening anyway. How do you want to be known and what for?

I’ve been through three divorces, none of them mine. A catalyst rather than a cause. Who wouldn’t want an oasis of kindness and pleasure after marital misery?

The missing childhood message ‘you will be taken care of’ still undoes me.

I grew up with secrets. I became good at them myself. A hidden liaison permeated my teenage upbringing. Later, I was a secret mistress to someone for 5 years. Avoidance and secrets were easy until my first yoga teacher remarked, “the truth is obviously very important to you”.

I used to love my early Tantra days when, between workshops, I’d meet up with other participants and practice the structures we’d learned. Whether that was something as simple as eye gazing, or practising pleasure island, massage, or healing in groups, the gradual trust in time-limited meetings that weren’t a fast track to becoming relationships allowed each of us to grow in touch, experience, and expectation. Reducing the chatter of projection, there was a clarity and purpose to the meetings, and bonding beyond the usual. 

Not compromising oneself for love is hard. I wonder if at least acknowledging where we do, without rancour, allows genuine generosity and expansiveness rather than martyrdom? Setting aside one’s own preferences is a gift when it’s done with a full heart.

There’s a difference between a dream and an inner knowing. That latter took longer to recognise and trust.

In a world of harshness, how do we promote personal kindness? Challenging the big-swinging-dick culture of zillionaire oneupmanship, how do we break free from the prevailing competitive system, being content to make our small, essential contribution to the collective good? Finding an internal validation matters, letting that be enough to sustain our hope and forward motion. I don’t have easy answers, it’s a decision every day.

If subtlety has as much value as intensity, how do I appreciate it? After a lifetime of enjoying the rush of risk and, to some extent, the uncertainty of excitement, it’s time, really time, to value quieter experiences. How that translates to intimacy is new ground. Conditioned to seek the wow, how do we feel able to enjoy the wisdom of refinement? With aging and absence, there’s a wish for warmth rather than heat. How to be met in that, without apologising for, or excusing is a reinvention of relationship expectations. Believing that, savouring, slowing down, and sensuality become the new anticipation.

I’m a fan of equanimity. If I don’t ‘feel all the feelings’, does that make me shallow, numb or not fully living? Not at all. It means not getting jerked around by ephemerality. I’ll live with the emotional middle ground until necessary, choose to stay grounded and deal with whatever comes up. I’m learning to value the distance in detachment.

I didn’t get the memo early on that the dark and difficult are as essential as the easy and light. I thought life was a one way trip to betterment. Dark times show the scope for both acceptance and change. Now the easier times feel like a blessing.

I love days of deciding moment to moment what to do. A rare day without a plan, meeting or list. Waiting for an impulse or a want to arise. Enjoying the space of time on my hands rather than mistaking it for boredom or inertia. A chance for spontaneous possibility, following my instincts and inspiration, allowing freedom, trust and permission to arise alongside

Self care is a phrase I can spell, yet have little concept of. Maybe I should try a bubble bath. In my previous cash-rich corporate days, I used to love spending a small fortune on beautifully packaged products and cosmetics in Space NK. Now I haven’t brushed my hair for years, perfume no longer appeals, the cleanse, tone and moisturise routine of old is haphazard to non-existent. Somehow the love of a decent red lipstick sustains. While I’m not sure putting red lipstick on counts as self care, it’s a start.

There’s a slight guilty pleasure of having the house to myself. I can mess up the table with my notebooks, have the cups colour-coordinated. I’m discovering the guilty pleasure of lighting the fire and candles in the early dark, lying on the sofa, reading a vast Indian novel full of sadness, longing, palm trees, and obstacles to love. Quiet solitude, restored and however short-lived, feels like a welcome return.