Attention as devotion

Have you been caught out by purpose porn, too?

I’ve always been obsessed with purpose. As if it’s a secret to mine, some fossil to find in the strata of self, if I only dig far enough. As if, once found, I’ll have all the confidence and reassurance to go forth, emboldened and happy, a life of meaning unfurling in every direction.

A friend says that’s all well and good but don’t count on it. That ‘purpose porn’ is another tentacle of capitalism, an idea to be sold. She tells me that the idea you are lacking or aren’t fulfilled until you find your purpose is an insecurity ‘they’ have built in you to get you to spend cash. She says she read recently, ‘purpose isn’t about how you feel, it’s about how you make others feel’.

Ah. Ok. A peal of resonance, sound slicing cold winter air. In a hyper-individualised, navel gazing modern time, we/I assume purpose is something to define our days and when that one thing is held aloft, all will become clear and a path will materialise. This is the way! It will cry. Maybe it’s not about us, that speck in the universe, that puny grain of sand. It’s the collective, the flow, the bigger picture. Contribution. Energising.

***

I drive the children home from town, the afternoon stormy and wild. We round a bend and the sun forces its hands through the clouds so that castles rise from the mist in bushfire hues, gums lit like gems, wildly from within, in stark relief against a pewter dusk. I slow the car, am greedy for how beautiful it is, drink it in after a feeble day of coughs and whinging and clinging hands. Let the window down, welcome a freeing wind.

***

Adam and I load up the horses and drive to a friend’s property. We’ve been married five years (!) and want to mark it. Adam, as ever, is the keeper of our romance. He treats it like a live thing, an ember to breathe upon, to make glow. He makes the plans, packs the camping stuff, thinks of something we love to do together, coaxes me out of my comfort zone, reassures me I am more capable than I think. It doesn’t cost much but it does cost time, and effort. Mary Oliver said, attention is the beginning of devotion. It is easy to slip, to relinquish, to numb. Effort surely, is the kernel of longevity, the beating heart of a maintained love. Harder to reach for when pressed down by bills, duties, sick babies, filthy floors, screaming news cycles. But it’s the thing that matters.

We spend an afternoon in the saddle, riding through the steep bush of the Liverpool Range. The wind howls, the rain comes sideways, my jaw is clenched with anticipatory fear for how my young mare might cope. She is marvellous. My jaw relaxes, my shoulders lower. She handles the greasy tracks with ease, sits on her hocks to slide through mud, picks her way slowly over rock and fallen trees. The cold is enlivening. The wind runs its hands up and down my pony’s blonde mane. We tie their tails into Argie knots to stave off exploding Bathurst Burr. A wild pig bursts through the scrub; she tracks it with a flick of fuzzed chestnut ear. A collie dog jumps like a coiled jellybean for her nose. She stamps a foot, nonplussed. We go for a buoyant canter after cattle across a paddock indulgent with green oats. The bruised sky recedes as if someone waves a wand, slipping behind blue hills, that winter light marking the skyline in sulphur drips.

The night is cold and silent in our tent. I don’t want to sleep; I want to look at the muscular earth gentled under the spotlight of the moon. All this splendour happens every night! Night after night. Ignored, uncelebrated, it goes on, this tree shimmering under a billion stars for only itself and everything else. Tussocks growing because, every coppice of trees murmuring as they only can, a performance for existence’s sake and nothing else. It is a balm, a cleansing, a resubmitting to the natural way of things, a paring back of outside noise, an emergence like precious treasure half buried in mud. Purpose as a kiss of life, as attention, as devotion to being. Here we are, here it is, this is it.

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The list

• I read The Glucose Goddess’s first book after I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes when pregnant with Saffron - I heard about it through Trinny Woodall. The founder, Jessie formulated it to help with her mental ill health, with dramatic results. I’ve recently had such horrible moods with PMS that I thought I'd reinvigorate my approach to glucose. This is a GREAT podcast which explores the method and why regulating insulin spikes is so beneficial and really, pretty easy. I love Jessie’s approach. She’s so pragmatic and no nonsense and well intentioned and sounds like someone I’d like to be friends with.

• I was enraptured by Patricia Lockwood’s novel, No one is talking about this - following the life of a woman who is Very Online, until her niece is diagnosed with a terminal condition. It did make me want to throw my phone down the toilet. Patricia’s writing is poetry. I loved it, although I imagine those with little patience for flowery language would not be as charmed.

• Adam is constantly teasing me for my penchant for overalls but I just love them. Pockets, no belt required, room to move, warm. These are my favourites at the moment. A little thicker and warmer. Many places to book keys, wallets, match box cars, lollipops with lint stuck to them.

• I also ate up The Safekeep, by Yael Van Der Wouden and its prose - less wordy - is also gorgeous. Taboo desire and summer love set against the wreckage of post World War 2.

• I love soft, warm, natural fibres. It is my great joy of winter. Living in my impossibly warm and light possum jumper from NZ’s Noble Wilde and the sweetest hand knitted neckerchief, made in Scone and sold by a little boutique called Studio Number Eight. Instagram DM them, there is no online shop!

• I’m absolutely obsessed with buying Australian made where I can. Farmer’s Pick (the imperfect fruit and vegetables delivery box we have been getting weekly for about six months) now does meat and dairy!!!! (plus some pantry staples which are all Aussie and super yumbo). The meat has the farmers’ names on it and where it comes from. The dairy is all Little Big Dairy, my favourite. The convenience is fantastic, the quality impeccable. Local food on local plates!!!! Not delivering to everywhere yet, but rapidly expanding and I hope it will be available to everyone, everywhere, soon.

Until next time, keep well

Em xx