Now more than ever the Spirit of Adventure is a much needed tonic, like the beautiful bright orange sun climbing over the back hedge outside my window, it is awakening and shaking its tail feathers.
I can feel it calling to me now, it’s time to explore again. Moving home from 18 years in Costa Rica, nursing a sick relative to end of life, and of course the pandemic rather abruptly moved my wandering spirit into repose. But like everything in life, it goes full circle and change is once more coming. I feel myself stretch up and out, ready to embrace a new chapter in life. Do you feel the change in the air? A planet of beautiful people once more wanting to experience life to the full.
When I left the UK twenty years ago for a vacation in Costa Rica, from which I never returned, I had no idea what an incredible roller coaster of a ride it would be. Sometimes there was WAY too much adventure, sometimes I was overwhelmed by fear, sometimes there was SO much joy I felt I could have bottled it 1000 times over and had plenty to spare. In short, it was the most glorious experience of my life. The pandemic changed all that of course, and as myself and my husband climbed onto an evacuation flight and headed home to the UK to care for family, I don’t mind admitting that I feared adventure would be in very short supply. The first winter back in England, as the world was still locked down, I felt so stagnant! I could hardly lift my feet from the mire. I had to change something, I was yearning for adventure, but I didn’t know what.
I have long learnt to be open to opportunity and know it rarely comes in the way we expect it. I felt so restless, I couldn’t sleep, so at 5am on a frozen white November morning I wrapped myself in a blanket and crunched across the grass to my writing hut. My tropical blood, recoiling at the cold, promptly abandoned my toes and hid deep inside my body. Reaching the relative warmth of the shed, I truthfully had no idea where to start. I held a steaming cup of tea and sat in front of a blank screen. It happened of course, I just started typing and words started to fill my page, I felt the incredible flow state descend like mist around me. In all honesty, I don’t feel like I wrote the words of my book, sure it was my fingers that were on the keyboard, but I finally understood there are stories out there waiting to be told, they just need to find someone to open enough to let them flow through them, that is how it felt for me.
I should never have doubted the universe! Writing Crossing Bridges was the most incredible experience.
