This is 40
Pushing into my 5th decade
So here it is — the big four-oh. Crikey, I feel like I’ve raced through life, been a million different beings and done so much.
Half the time, I wonder if I’ve made my stories up. Living in Japan for a while, travelling round India, a year at an Italian University (eventful, to say the least), the Millennium in Egypt (also eventful, in a crazy, lost-it, acid-induced, fin-de-siècle fervour); like any normal person who’s had a life, the list goes on.
It all seems like such a long time ago.
Too much worldliness
In lieu of this impending mid life crisis, I thought I’d pre-empt any potential material world panic and decided to take myself off on a deeply intense spiritual retreat in the heart of Northern California.
So I found myself at White Sulpher Springs, with 40 other people who’d come to make some serious changes in their life by undertaking The Hoffman Process. I’d heard so many positive stories, I figured there couldn’t be any harm in just signing up and hoping for the best. In retrospect, I didn’t have any idea what I was letting myself in for.
The days were beyond intense — from 7am until 11pm, there was hardly time to take yourself off and perform your ablutions. Perhaps that was the point. The process is based around a mix of ‘Eastern mysticism, deep meditation, Gestalt, group therapy, visualisation, and allegedly condenses a lifetime of analysis to eight days’. There were so many occasions where I wondered what the actual fuck I was doing, but after a while, when 40 other apparently normal people are doing crazy stuff all in the same room, you start to think you might as well give it a go. All I could think about for the first 3 days was the infamous Larkin poem, ‘This be the Verse’, I’d first read as a student many moons ago.
Man hands on misery to man
The main premise is to rid yourself of negative thought patterns — don’t get me wrong, I have a pretty charmed life by any standards, but there’s always deep rooted shit that you just can’t shake — and continual room for self improvement, right? The way I saw it, it was like reconditioning perpetual negative thought cycles that had been rearing their ugly heads for years, and turning these into positives. Which didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
The process supposedly brings you back to full form — insofar as you are made up equally of four parts: the spiritual self, the body, the emotional self and the intellect. The main learning point for me was that all other 3 parts had been completely subjugated by the intellect. And I’m still crunching that one through (pattern).
Perhaps the best thing was becoming really quite close to 40 complete strangers. The things we did together (all legal and correct), I don’t think I’ll experience with anyone else, and I know I’ve made a few firm bonds for life. I’m hoping years down the line, a few of them will wander into my home for a cuppa.
Decompression
We’d been warned that leaving the 7 day retreat would be a bit weird. Lucky for me, I left with 3 friends I’d made during the week. No joke, it was like a comedy scene from Bridesmaids. We drove at what felt like 90mph, but realised we were doing 25. Then headed straight into the bollard when we arrived at the hot springs resort — where we were all supposed to spend the the time alone, recalibrating to the outside world, putting our learning into practice.
We smuggled a couple of the girls into the hot springs, whereupon one, resplendent in a bright rainbow two-piece, struck up a conversation with a duck in a tree. Not only that, she managed to entice at least 5 other normal ‘un-process’ people to strike up conversations with said duck. Watching the girls in the hot springs, with steam rising from the pool, talking to birds and completely spaced out, will always remain etched in my memory as a great way to finish a life-changing week. We’ve been texting each other since with messages of hilarity and support.
I came back to the real world for a day (still slightly spaced), and was expecting a nice, low-key celebration to slip quietly into my 40s, but my husband had other plans.
Game on
I was presented with a set of clues for each day of a 5 day trip. First (with me already slightly speechless in the passenger seat of yet another wagon), we flew into Phoenix, Arizona and headed up via Sedona to the Grand Canyon to watch the sunset. It was freezing, but so beautiful.
Next day, we took an early morning helicopter ride across the Canyon. The weather was perfect; we didn’t see another soul, and clearly the boys were more engrossed in the head sets, microphones and silly voices than the Canyon below. It was spectacular.
As if the Grand Canyon wasn’t enough, the birthday pièces de résistance was unveiled over the next 5 hours as we drove to the most incredible desert hotel, set in the heart of the Colorado Plateau in Utah. I spent much of it wondering what I’d done in a past life to deserve such an amazing husband — I think about this a lot (pattern).
The drive ended up being an intensely spiritual and moving experience for us all, as my playlist hit Max Richter’s Sleep. Even my 7 year old commented on how much he loved the music/desert combination. We were all in deep meditation for the whole trip.
It’s funny how the right music just comes along in life when you need it.
We spent 3 days in ultimate luxury, walking desert caves with the boys charming every single guest. And I spent my 40th feeling totally blissed out.
On the drive back, we meandered through stunning scenery in Zion National Park, made a mad dash through Vegas, and jumped on our plane just in the nick of time — I just about caught the glittering facade of the Trump tower.
I couldn’t have asked for a more memorable trip with my beautiful family — and my husband won a few hundred brownie points for that surprise. I’d better get the Butlins plans changed sharpish for his 40th in May.
I’ll always remember the last few crazy weeks — creating long-lasting and beautiful memories here in California, that will no doubt get me through a few harsh British winters further down the line. But what the last couple of weeks has really made me realise, is the support and love I have from family and a few really close friends (old and new).
And no matter where you live — or what trips you take — there really is nothing better than that.
Books
Station Eleven
I raced through this brilliant, but flawed, post-apocalyptic story. I kept dreaming of alternative endings I’d write myself (pattern). Well worth a read though.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Rated as The Guardian’s №6 best novel of all time, this was my Dad’s favourite book, which he would continually harp on about. To this day, I’ve never read it, so I recently ordered a Penguin classic and have made it through 2 pages. Gonna grit my teeth and get on with it.
Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time — Marcel Proust
Another classic from my Dad — my husband and I met a couple of very fit and active octagenarians in 2007, whilst walking the Tour de Mont Blanc (a 100 mile, 10 day walk through the Alps, taking in Switzerland, Italy and France). They had a copy of this with them, and looked after a local gite to welcome novice walkers like ourselves. They would sit for hours and crunch over one or two sentences. Now I know why.
The book is almost impenetrable and you need a lot of energy to get through a single paragraph. This Guardian review kinda sums it up for me. My husband found this revised version for my birthday and now I’m committed to reading it (somebody please help me).
Music
I was recently introduced to the music of Annette Henshaw via a beautiful but slightly crazy animation about heartbreak and Indian gods, called Sita sings the Blues. This soundtrack has become my new Sunday listening, whilst prepping the Sunday Roast.
