Yesterday I had lunch with an ex-colleague, who, since we became ex-s, has become a friend. She's a wonderful woman who lives life to the full more than almost anyone else I know. She did more last week than I've done since 2002. This weekend for instance she's off with her family and friends to Sea Bangor 2007, a maritime festival in Northern Ireland. They'll dress, painstakingly authentically, as pirates, re-enact some pirating on real tall ships using actual cannons and generally have a good time. Last weekend she played viola in an orchestra visit to the Isle of Coll, (Inner Hebridean island), next week it's a dance workshop in preparation for a Regency themed ball, after throwing a barbeque for some visiting Russian friends and taking her son to auditions for Junior Mastermind. And running her own very successful translation service.
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I'm exhausted just typing it. How do people become such wonderfully free spirits that they can let go of their lives so easily in order to live them so fully? It's made me think about how tightly I've been holding on to the details of my life in recent years.
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Nick reminded me of the Unbearable Lightness of Being. The gist, for me, being that life has no value, weight or meaning other than that which we construct or accept for it ourselves.
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So, in the spirit of living a bit more freely I've accepted her invitation to a commemoration of the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans at Holyrood, Edinburgh in September. I have to make a dress from a contemporary pattern and materials, learn to dance a la mode and get into character as a comely whore (don't know which'll be the most taxing). Two days of partying and carousing and being on display, meeting new people and generally letting go.
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I've never done anything like this before and I already feel inspired to try more and more new things until I start to forget to remember to hold onto the life I have and to live the life I could have if I let myself, again.
