Hi ! Welcome back. Somewhere below, you’ll find a loose invitation to join my accountability group. Do it! This week I am also thinking and writing about gyms, concerts, shopping, keeping track, poets in a park, emotional connections, zebras and eagles - Eve D.❣️

Week in review…

💪 I (finally!) joined the gym! This is proving to be a) a whole lot of fun and b) very time consuming c) sore. I have done 2 pilate classes so far, and will do an aqua class soon, and I can already see how this is going to make me stronger. Which should, in theory, make me a better hiker. Hopefully. On the downside, I also had the opportunity to weigh myself at this gym, and I know this is going to sound funny, but I mean it seriously: I think the scale is broken. I have never weighed more than I do right now. Not only have I put on all the kilos I lost last year, I apparently added an extra two. Anyway, if accurate, my solution is to cut down on bread and butter. Down, not out. I honestly cannot imagine dieting more than that. 

👟 I hiked. And it was still tough, but not as tough as usual, and much more fun. And I was starving afterwards, so had a healthy quick lunch at the end. And a wholesome catchup with my hiking buddy, Laura. (And her two dogs).

🎸 I went to a concert! Counting this one, I think that makes it three in my entire life. It was a picnic concert (Jeremy Loops) in the local botanical gardens (all G’s idea), and it turned out to be a super way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Just really cool to be in the energy of 3,500 people but not feel crowded. Everyone was in a good mood, chatty and chilled. The music wasn’t even the highlight of the show for me. I enjoyed just hanging out, and next time I hope we can get more friends together and go as a mini crowd of our own. 

🛍️ Zac and I went shopping together. In a mall. Zac and I have a lot in common, and one of those things is that we hate shopping. Especially in a mall. But he needed clothes, and I can no longer easily gauge his size (he is in-between the kids section and the man’s section, and I’m still not coping with this fact, to be honest). Anyway, we sped through the shops, got the barest essentials of what we needed and then we gorged on an early dinner. That part was fun.

Free Therapy…

Click on this…

✅ Olivia Dodd is a poet and writes her poems in a park on a typewriter (giving off real Taylor Swift vibes). She doesn’t just write any poetry though…she asks random strangers walking past to tell her something about themselves (what they are struggling with, what they are proud of, what makes them happy etc), and she types a poem for them on the spot. This is a very beautiful process, and often leaves the recipient in tears. Olivia posts some of these on her Instagram, and it’s a breath of fresh air from the usual doomscrolling crap we put ourselves through.

olivia.poetess

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✅ This is webcam in the Namibian desert, that is live on YouTube. You can completely lose yourself in it, especially if you keep it open as a side window next to your actual work. The best part is that if you don’t have the patience to sit and wait for an animal to show up, you can simply read the comments where people time stamp interesting sightings. You can then scroll back to see it “live”. While writing this newsletter (on a Friday night) I spotted a herd of zebras coming in for a drink. (Fun fact: my father once read that the black and white stripes on a zebra act as their built in air-conditioning, allowing them to regulate body temperature. He loved that tidbit so much he would tell everyone he met about it. This was pre-internet era, so fun little facts really were fun and unusual. Every time I see a zebra I think of him and his delight).

And since we are talking about webcams, here is a link to hundreds of them, arranged by animal/location. Plenty more there of the African bush, but the focus is more on strategically placed cameras that guarantee sightings eg on a bird’s nest, or an animal den. It’s still wild to me (excuse the pun) that I can view an eagle, in real time, in its nest without needing binoculars or a really long hike:

✅ I’ve often mentioned here that I would love to own a book shop and/or a coffee shop (ideally combined into one). Well, Katie Clapham is living my ideal life, and sharing the receipts (literally). She works in an independent bookshop in the UK, and once a week she writes a newsletter that is a day-log of all that she does, and all the customers she interacts with. She writes, “The funny thing about bookshops is that their most regular patrons are the ones who aren’t short of things to read at all!” and “the very first thing that happened is that a man with a duffel bag came in and tried to sell me a pair of jorts“ and “Well we’ve only had two sales so far today, and it’s now 1 pm“. It’s cute and entertaining, and confirms that if I ever do own a bookshop, I better do it with a healthy bank account, because there is no money in selling books. But she does confirm that it is a lot of fun. Read it here.

Home essentials…

Keeping track…

There is a power in keeping a written record of stuff you do, whether it is the books you read, the coffee dates you have or the number of hours you (actually) work. If you don’t physically write down each instance, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing you are doing the things you want to do just because you think about doing them. 

My real life example of this is reading. If you asked me, I would say that reading is something I do in abundance. I believe that I go through books quickly. But this year I am tracking the (fiction) books I read (using a free app called Margin)...and guess what? We are basically done with May and I have read 6 fiction books this whole year thus far. It’s not nothing, but it’s not on track for my 25 books that is my loose 2025 goal. It turns out that I do read, but I don’t read fiction daily, and thus I don’t go through the volume of books that I think I do. To be clear, it’s not a competition and I am not necessarily chasing empty goals. My point is simply that I believed I read many more fiction books than I actually do, and the only reason I caught my delusion was because I now keep track.

Another example: I always tell people that I write, a lot. And that may be true (maybe), but I publish very, very, very little. I have fooled myself into thinking I write often, but in actual fact I only half-arse write: I write stuff that is a brain dump but I rarely polish those thoughts into a real, shareable format. It’s easy to track this too…I can simply look for the stuff that I published (and not find anything!). My Google Drive is full of thoughts and ideas (and a book that is forever a work in progress) but not much to actually suggest that I am a writer.

Let’s get accountable….

I have also learnt that simply setting goals, such as “Publish 1000 words a day” is completely, utterly and laughingly ineffective for me. I need a different motivator. Being accountable to friends or colleagues is a good one. I would never have started to walk/get fit if I wasn’t walking the Kruger Park with G. I would never hike up a mountain every week if I wasn’t doing it with my friend Laura. I would never buy groceries/cook if I didn’t have to feed my kids ( 😂 ).

I was part of an online accountability group during Covid, and it was so much fun and kept me as sane as one could be during lockdown. So maybe I need to join or create an accountability group of my own. Let me know if you would want to join one. It would mostly be a Whatsapp chat, but would probably also involve a weekly Zoom session where we could share our excuses, and call each other out on them. (It’d be free, obviously. A friend showed me an online writing accountability group, and it was $200 for 3 weeks. Ha ha ha!). Anyway, hit reply if you’d like to join. (It doesn’t have to be for writing, it can be for anything you want to get done. The more variety the better.)

Relationship advice….

I was thrilled to find this article about relationships, which says a lot of things but the one I agree with the most is that “marrying for life” when you are in your twenties is unrealistic because both of you will grow into different people, and the chances that you will grow in the same direction is slim. “The person you fall in love with at 25 is gone by 35. And the person they fell in love with is gone too. You're both constantly shapeshifting. Sometimes the new shapes fit together. Often they don't”. But, much as I like the message, I am now 80% convinced this article was written by AI, or at least heavily assisted by it. It lacks substance. So, fair warning.

On the other hand, A life changing lesson I learnt about love in later life, written by Jillian Turecki, is definitely written by a real person and raises an interesting theory. She says that the instant connection (“chemistry”) we feel with someone when we first meet them is not the connection that will keep us together. The connection that gives long term prospects is an emotional connection, and according to her it takes a full year to develop. (Side note: I am a huge fan of “wait a full year before making any decisions about your relationship”, but not exactly for her reasons). She says: “When my marriage ended … I finally understood that the connection we feel in the beginning is not the same thing as true emotional connection. A true emotional connection takes the entire first year of a relationship. It’s not something that happens right away. It’s built.”

Jillian says emotional connection is built on trust and safety, and the feeling of safety comes from the ability to have difficult conversations (something I have also spoken about here!). One interesting question she asks: do you have faith that an argument won’t end the relationship? Worth a read. 

I’ve been watching…

We watched The Taste of Things. It’s beautiful! The movie is set in France in 1889, and follows the life of chef Dodin Bouffant and his personal cook and lover Eugénie (Julliette Binoche). They share a long history of gastronomy and express their love through the food they cook together and for each other.

The first 25 minutes of the movie sets the scene. There is almost no dialogue as the characters cook an elaborate meal for Dodin’s close friends. Dish after dish, we are swept away by the sumptuousness of it all. In fact, I would guess that at least 80% of the movie is shot in this kitchen, and the kitchen is a character in the movie as much as any of the actors. (Fair warning: you will fall in love with this kitchen!).

Two quotes from the movie, that I loved:
“Marriage is a dinner that begins with dessert”
“Happiness is continuing to desire what we already have” - St Augustine

If you have little patience (especially for artsy movies), or little love for good food, this movie might frustrate you: it’s slow and gentle, and is meant to be savoured. But if you revel in the love that goes into preparing a good meal, if you enjoy foreign movies, and if you are in the mood for a calm evening, you will bask in the movie’s gloriousness. (The movie is French, with English subtitles.) At the very least, please watch the trailer below. It captures the movie beautifully, without giving anything away.

(A piece of advice: do not watch this movie while eating popcorn or chips! You’ll hate yourself. Pull out that good bottle of wine, get a cheese board going, spoil yourself with some good crackers. You’ll be glad you did.)

Thanks for reading!

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