I was sitting cross-legged on the sleeping bag on my air bed, my spaniel snoozing fitfully beside me. Neither of us had slept well for days. The air bed was too squashy, the forest floor beneath it too sloped, the woods around us filled with unfamiliar night-time noises so, if I slept through them, Daisy woke me in her uncertainty. And, to top it all off, it had rained for three days. Everything was damp. Damp and muddy.
So, that afternoon, while the warmth of the day crept into our forest home, she slept and I listened to the drips from the branches above onto canvas and tried to check my emails on my phone.
There was beauty here. Deep green light filtered through the tree canopy and made the earthy pine needle scent rise off the spongey forest floor. And, last night, there had been a lull in the constant rainfall. Enough of a lull to light the carefully protected firewood and sit by the flames and let the night fall around my shoulders.
And, the day before, I had taken a pilgrimage to the home of one of my heroes: Agatha Christie. A talented, insanely prolific writer who also lived the fullest life. If you doubt what I’m saying here, look it up, she did everything and wrote hundreds of books too.
I took a boat down the river to her boathouse. To the green slope up to her home. To its creamy yellow walls and valley view. And, afterwards, when my clothes were hanging off me with rain, and Daisy’s fur had become slick to her skin, a café in the nearby town welcomed us both and gave Daisy treats and let us sit and steam until we’d dried and one of the staff even leant me his phone charger so I could re-awaken my dead mobile.
So, you see, there was beauty and memories and inspiration and companionship and generosity and kindness. Just as in the last six months of my life there had been beauty and encouragement and inspiration and adventure. But I was struggling too.
After taking six months out of work to pursue writing, my life would never be the same again. I would never be the same again. But, here I was at the end of that time and I had a book, and hope, and new courage and a collection of amazing, terrifying experiences, and a gaping overdraft and no savings left and no job.
Because that’s the truth of it sometimes. You can pursue your dreams, you can give your time to what you love, but you still need to make money, you still need to support yourself, and you still need to go outside even when it’s raining.
So, I sit on my lumpy sleeping bag beside my tired dog under damp canvas and I summon all the data I can to check my emails because, before I came here, I saw a sign in a shop window: staff wanted. Before I came here, I put together a CV and sent it over.
And then it comes through. Can I come in for an interview?
Because, although it’s not the dream to work for a chain of coffee shops in your thirties while living with your parents (it’s really, really not) sometimes you need to go out in the rain to do what you love.
P.S “While the Light Lasts” is a short story by Agatha Christie and, I think, one of the best things she wrote. Read it if you can.