Sea Breeze: An Update From Jemma

Recently we relocated from London to the Coast. I imagined our move - smooth, chaos free technically, we weren’t moving completely, more a dual centre thing but oh... how wrong could I be? 

Very. As it happens.

Six weeks later surrounded by dust, boxes and broken windows I hanker after our builder, not because I love him but because I’d love him to finish the bathroom and the floors and the skirting and well, the bathroom. 

Every day I flick flack through my discombobulated state. 

It’s hugely inconvenient. Honestly, massively so. 

We have no shower. No power. The pipes are blocked; new kitchen, new electrics, pre-loved, pre-worn, recycled - the house is falling down. 

At some point Sash Window guy arrives, a hybrid Monty Don and Kevin McCloud, says my husband excitedly, followed by, he can’t start for six weeks. 

Who cares? Who needs windows? Frankly Mister Don-McCloud can stretch cling film between those rotting frames and we’ll thank him profusely.

To sum up, we have: 

• Two camping chairs

• One bed

• And a Bialetti Espresso Coffee Pot(okay we have gas) 

What more, my friend, do you need? I know isn’t the Bialetti the best? And yes, I hear you.

Well, guess what?

I need nothing. I have everything. Because outside our front door is the sea.

The sea is a stone’s throw of pebble beach away. I can see it from our living room. On a clear day France hooves into view.

In the morning I walk out onto the beach, sit on a rock and meditate.

Before me the sea: symbol of infinite abundance and possibility.

I have no complaints. Despite the backflips and endless builder texts.

“What time will you be here? Oh, tomorrow? Okay, right, the day after you say? Next week, WTF?!”

Mine are first world inconveniences.

I am blessed, energised and stimulated fully aware that any response to my situation is within my remit. 

I have a home. 

A bed.

A roof above the place I lay my head.

So this is what I really want to say.

On that rock I sit in gratitude.

I say thank you.

Whatever came before brought me to where I am now. 

I give thanks for it all.

The darkness.

The lost, lonely years.

The waking up.

Sea breeze on my skin. 

My resilience and gratitude honed from decades of disordered eating, my understanding that these symptoms were effective signposts, this way, keep going, you can do it, don’t stop, keep going all the way...all the way within.

Within is where the feelings are, in here not out there. Say thank you.

I sit on a rock on the beach and meditate.

Sea breeze on my skin.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.