Hey, it’s been a while. How are you?
I’ve had a two week hiatus and it’s lovely to be back. I briefly wondered if anyone has noticed that I was gone! Or, the other extreme, will my readers still be here? I hope so.
I’ve needed a pause due to a big, and long awaited transition to my own place (renting of course, I do not have a spare half a million knocking around to buy a pad in the Cayman Islands!). After months of looking for the perfect place with a sea view, pool, and quiet location, I told the universe (and a realtor) the complex in which I wanted to live, and she (universe or realtor, you decide!) provided it that same day. The property was not yet on the market, so I was the only one to go and view it. I snapped it up. Having seen the apartment opposite just after Christmas, everything that was wrong about that one was right about this. I love it.
It’s been two weeks, and I am starting to feel myself again. Part of the understanding when renting a room in someone else’s home is that you don’t make the rules, you follow them. The result is a lesson in acceptance, and when the way you choose to live is not quite aligned with the norm of the home in which you’re living, there is a constant jangling of the sympathetic nervous system. Well that’s how it can be for me.
It takes time to get into the rhythm of a new home. I am lucky to have a landlord who wants things to look nice. The decor is homely, and I opened boxes of new cutlery and spatulas, tea towels, and beautiful plates and bowls that match the beachside theme, it’s like living in a beachside cabin in Cornwall, with, up until this week, more reliable sunshine and less rain.
Despite the floor to ceiling sliding glass doors front and back, there is a cave-like feel to the new place, as one wall is covered in visible coral brick work and the curtains are often shut to reduce the ac bill and because I usually get home after dark. I like the contrast, feeling cosy inside, and open to the bright, wild world when I step outside.
The other gift about moving home, I realised on one of my swims this week, is the opportunity to pause to choose your new routine. Routines are things that tend to evolve over time, creeping up on us without consciously realising it, they reduces the number of choices we have to make each day, helping it to have a rhythm and predictability. Many people like this familiarity, but it closes down opportunities. One of the things I wanted to do when I moved was to rejuvenate my meditation practice. I have sometimes been doing this on the beach, soaking up Vitamin D, whilst being savaged by the sand flies. It is a mindfulness and meditation student’s dream. What do you feel, think, hear, see, smell, taste, touch? How long can you stay still whilst your skin is being pricked with hundreds of needles?! Not very long is the answer, and the instinct to squish the flies is not very Buddhist.
None of us is perfect!
My Substack writing sometimes seems like I am coming to talk to far away friends. I share my thoughts and ideas with you and hope to engage in conversation. It doesn’t often happen that conversations spark up, but when they do, it makes me feel good to know my words have connected with someone else. It has been one of the anchors during the even larger transition and house move from the UK to here. The total shake up of all my routines and relationships!
Whilst Caribbean life looks beautiful, and perhaps sometimes enviable, it is also challenging. I said to someone this week, that the shots of beautiful sunsets and seascapes can conceal the difficulties. I wondered if others see the picture of paradise, and imagine that I am living a life that is like a permanent holiday. I am, like everyone else, grafting hard, working therapeutically with people with significant trauma, marginalised, and sometimes stigmatised (A comment made by the MC at an event recently, shockingly reminded me how far there still is to come with changing beliefs about people with intellectual disabilities). I work long hours, and the weekends are precious. Days where I can unplug myself and enjoy yoga on the beach, pretending that I can live a permanent holiday!
It can also be lonely.
Friendships are both precious and sometimes fragile. When they reach out their arms around the world it makes me feel connected still, but it is hard not having the routine and regularity I enjoyed back home. I have made friends here, and one thing you learn fast in an expat community is that your friends often become pat, returning to the UK, or the people you found yourselves thrown together with on your first weeks on island, do not always stand the test of time. Despite the sunshine, island life is intense- attachments can form like life rafts in those early months, but is not all rainbows and roses, no matter how idyllic it looks in the photos.
Have you ever been asked the question, Where is home?
What do you answer?
It came up this week for me, and I realised, not for the first time, that it’s not an easy one to answer. Like most people, I’ve had many homes. I have a home back in the UK, which is currently home to a family. Is it still mine to claim?
The hermit crab has popped up in my posts many times. It too has many homes. When it leaves one shell and goes to another, does it ponder home? Does it take time to adjust to the new shape and size and feel in the water, and weight carried along the sand? Does it contemplate the crab who’s taken up home in their old shell? Wondering if they are keeping care of the inside?! Is home a place, or is it within us? A silly thought experiment for you!
And I will leave you with a beautiful word that a friend, who walked every step alongside me during my deliberations of whether to make the leap to try life here, shared with me. With the 6 hour time difference, we’ve found that the best way to keep in regular touch is through voice messages. We talk at the phone for 5 to 25 minutes, like entering the diary room of Big Brother, and press send, sharing unfiltered and uninterrupted moments of our lives. It’s such a lovely thing to experience, and this week my friend dropped in a Japanese word that was so beautiful I immediately wanted to share it with you.
Kuchissabishii
Lonely Mouth
Lonely mouth
What is it about Japanese language that allows it to capture the essence of a thing? Like the haiku, an entire story is captured succinctly within a word or a phrase. Before going into meaning and associations, here’s how to pronounce it-
There are various sites offering a definition, such as “lonely mouth” or “longing to have or put something in one’s mouth.” My favourite is this one, posted on the website of a restaurant in Queensland, Australia.
Kuchissabishii
Lonely Mouth
When your stomach isn’t growling but your mouth is
My internet research shows that this is a word written about during the pandemic, explaining why people were eating their way through it. Dulling their loneliness, by eating. Comfort eating, or comfort drinking. What a beautiful word for something that is often associated with shame, and perceived weakness of mind.
Today is a day of another first. Having shaken up my Substack habit I am off to spend the morning with a friend, trying our hands at pickleball. We have bats, balls, and a sense of fun. We did our research by visiting the Cayman home of pickleball this week, and chose to try our first game at a much smaller venue, where hopefully our stray balls will not disturb the game of others so much!
I’ll let you know how it goes.
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