COACH YOU BLOG

A Hosepipe Ban Makes Perfect Sense
25/4/2012

A hosepipe ban’s in place, so of course it’s raining on my walk this morning. Usually the 2.5 miles into the fen and back again is a sensory delight with the sound of birds and the visual impact of the fields, the dainty copses, brilliant yellow of the goldfinches, doily tracings of the trees and the glistening ripples of the quiet, slow meandering river.

Today however, I feel challenged. An incessant drill has been digging into the pavement outside my house since 8am, a nagging worry drilling also into my brain, so I’m glad to leave it behind and head for the peace of the fen.

There’s a light drizzle … I don’t know how teens wear hoodies all the time, they bring my head down, pressure the top of my head, especially with a mack hood over the top. It feels like my head is putting all the pressure on my body, which metaphorically is probably about right … our Gremlins or Self-Limiting Beliefs live in our heads.

 

The hoods block out sound. The birds seem to penetrate but everything else is muffled out – I remember when I was in a hot air balloon and all I could hear from the earth were dogs barking. Just my breath huh …. huh … hah … hah with each step … in … in … out … out. I’m sure my daughter’s sports scientist boyfriend would have something to say about breathing efficiency … away from me gremlin.

It’s too early for contact lenses and my glasses fog up with drizzle and exertion and, they keep doing the Eric Morcombe wobble with my hoods on, so I shove my glasses in my pocket. Alarmed at first by the lack of clarity, I blink hard and then begin to enjoy the sensation of rain water in my eyes. I can’t see all the detail any more but the colours somehow become more prominent … swathes of beautiful dark brown soil, blocks of harsh bright oil seed rape, brilliant green of new shoots on the spring trees and the shimmering silver, grey of the river. I’m convinced the Impressionists were just a bunch of short-sighted middle-aged artists!

An anxious retriever spins on the lead, staring back at me fast approaching his mistress from behind … I’m very tall and over-wrapped and walking very fast, I suppose he’s every right to feel anxious … he’s also looking for my non-existent dog.
“Morning, awful weather …” and onwards … huh … huh … hah … hah … onto the steep bank encasing both river and the flood plain strewn with heavy willows, upturned boat carcasses and animal tracks joining homes in the bank to the river. Empty of life, grey … no geese, swans or grebes coming into land, no woodpecker disrupting the neighbourhood … grey clouds, grey river … I shiver and walk on more briskly. The pigs haven’t bothered to stir from their sty tucked between the lea of the high bank and the fen farm barns.

Through the gate and onto the road straddled by bushes blocking the view … with limited sound and vision my focus is entirely internal … and I’m forced into acute awareness of my body … my feet in my shoes, muscles taught and in constant motion, blood pumping, cool breath working hard but comfortable. Suddenly I feel so incredibly alive … living … energy surging through my body, strengthening my core, pulling me taller, stronger, more able. I guess the sports scientist would describe it as endorphins and yet it’s so much more than feeling good.

We spend so little time considering our body’s opinion … we debate our emotions, study our intellect, explore the world around us and reciprocal impact. We go about with things whirring around in our heads and our bodies just get on with it – breathing, beating, pumping … If only we could trust our bodies’ knowledge more. So much of our intuition is accessible through our bodies if we can only listen. Through a disparate set of circumstances my body gave me the message I needed to hear today:
Trust that whatever crisis is happening in the world outside, underneath, in the physical world nature continues regardless. Equally in my world, my physical world, whatever torment created inside my head, my body just keeps working without my conscious intervention or interference – trust that it will continue.