What’s really interesting (strange choice of word?) about the experiences I’m going through is what it does to your perceptions of the world. As my hair thins (not losing it completely so far), I feel a strong connection with the trees as their leaves turn gold and fall to the ground in what has so far been a really lovely autumn in the UK. In the spring I will welcome back my thick hair, and it will probably differ a little from before, just like the trees’ leaves (though I’m not expecting it to grow back green!).
I’m currently in the good phase of round two – ten more days of feeling relatively well and enjoying our granddaughter’s 6th birthday and relishing ordinary things like gardening and baking. I’ve completed a 25 day streak on Duolingo Italian now, but it really is slow going, so I’m also starting to read some short stories that I was given by my son’s lovely partner, Cristiana, a while ago. Turns out my passive knowledge is pretty good – it’s just actually speaking that’s hard! My grandson doesn’t like me trying out my few words so I get shut down pretty sharpish if I try.
People are still contacting me about challenges – including the ones that are not going so well. That’s great – at least you tried so no need to think about those ones any more;) I’m about to start learning poem number six. This has been the most helpful of the challenges so far as I use the poems every night at some point to make my brain go into calm mode and often back to sleep. I was talking to a friend about meditation the other day – I guess this is my form of that mechanism for stopping thought processes that are unhelpful.
So – I’ll be busy and happy for a week or so and then start gearing up for round three. It’ll be great to get to the halfway mark in mid-November and we have a little trip to East Yorkshire planned just after that. More news soon – keep up the good work on the challenges – or give them up and find other ones, I don’t mind!
Lesleyx
Lesley Jeffries 