This beautiful mind of ours

LinkedIn recap: The thing that never gets old is the surprise that people have in themselves. In their capabilities and what's up there in the subconscious waiting to be stirred. Writing for wellness isn’t actually about writing well. It’s about writing what your body and your mind want you to write without the limitations of personal & societal expectations of what makes good writing. In fact, when people actually let themselves drift into a sentence or thought, the freer the more confusing, the better. It’s fun to be that free.

There are patterns up there in that beautiful mind of ours. Patterns long established and often reinforced that lead us to create negative thought processes and bias in our opinions of ourselves and our behaviour. Like well worn tyre tracks, these biases become the normal pathway for our responses to everyday situations and so it can take an outside force to just turn the steering wheel, divert the thought and think of things from a new perspective. 

My journey with CWTP started at a low point. I had returned from Shanghai and was disillusioned with the constant battling I felt in my career at the time. Sad, not knowing to whom I could talk or reach out to for help, I decided to write to a carpet. It sounds crazy but when I rolled with it, allowed myself freedom to ramble, what happened was what follows below. On rereading later, I realised that the voice of the carpet was still me. There was a place of reassurance that I offered myself and I spied hope. It wasn't crazy, it wasn't desperate. That part of my mind that I had hidden, crushed beneath self doubt and angst was still there just waiting for a moment to be set free. 

It's personal, emotional, (be warned) but read with context in mind. This moment helped realign me and move me forward and for that, I am forever grateful. Well done me!

To the carpet upon which I descended, not melting nor collapsing, just descending, I offer humble thanks. I do not know what I sought in pressing my face into the pale roughness of your threads except perhaps to escape. The thought of moving, of making another decision, of having the strength to move one foot in front of the other became overwhelming. So, in you I imagined that I could break through a seal into another place, below the surface, where waves of comfort could support. Where I might tread lightly, if I needed to tread at all. 

I can see it, what I couldn’t see then; too busy with tears and an awkward body angle to think, that I was pushing, attempting to break through and from. Also, to feel. I think. Something other than panic, paralysis and seeping struggle.

My cheek, I urged into you and pressed down with the flats of my hands, both pushing away and attempting to break through. Not really knowing which I wanted or why my body was doing it. Wasted, tired and heavy eventually I gave up and just lay, limp. You felt more soothing when I did this. I stroked the threads. Breathed. Stared. I don’t know how long I was there. 

Then slowly, I moved on to my front and climbed, still slowly. On my knees I now pressed my forehead to you and breathed some more. Palm to thread again. This time I pushed up and away. I stared some more in apparent blank indifference. But I had moved. 

When we were in China, Kerry, I was 70% under your bed to keep out the draft whilst also ensuring your feet were never cold when you rose those dark mornings. When we were in China, I saw you laughing. I could peek over the mezzanine shelf, under the ornate iron railing and watch as your friends would let themselves in, waving a bottle. I would watch as your door sat open in the hotter days and your neighbours would ‘Ni hao’ or the son would deliver the steamy little plastic bag to his caged mother next door. I would think about how exciting it was here and how lucky we were.

I watched when Ge came. She knew I was there and would chat to me while she cleaned and arranged. She noticed the table and the beautiful chest you had upon which you would place a small Christmas tree and candles, even though you lived alone. She would stand in confusion before that which you called art.

You would cook beneath me and chatter to whoever was sitting in those grey sofas this time. Another cork popped, another song would be selected or sometimes the lights would dim, the screen would lower then you and your friends would settle in for a movie night in your mini cinema. 

Then here. You return home. I am out. I am more necessary to you for the carpet beneath me is rough. Unlike China, here there are no cockroaches or mosquitos. There is something more than bug intrusion that I feel seep in to you. There is nowhere to hide now. Things must be faced and as you sought comfort and escape on that day, on that floor, laying on me; I decided not to let you sink. I will push back so that you might meet what you see as weakness with strength and together we shall push – in opposite directions until you realise that this cannot and will not go on. 

I am constant, I am warm. I am also a part of the earth that will push you back up from the depths to which you sank and we will do it here. Here in England. Here where you need to face it all and I will be here. To protect and to comfort but to hold and push back because I know you. And I know that there were dark times in Shanghai too – these were short lived ones that you climbed from after a day in pyjamas watching and eating. But the crater into which you have fallen here, the father of it all, will need courage and determination to climb from. 

You can do it because you have strength and you have me beneath your feet. Let’s keep it that way for a while.

To the Carpet.