Fixion Lessons from March

Changing your mind, starting over, and being a silly goose

This month’s fixion lessons are brought to you via a twisted ankle and some universe-decreed sitting-on-my-arse. Yep, deja vu as I offer up another post about me falling over that eventually, tangentially, relates to writing.

Please enjoy the journey.

Lesson #1: It’s okay to change your mind

I have taken a staunchly anti-running stance my entire life. If evolution had intended me to run after prey/away from predators, it wouldn’t have made me a natural forager. Because I was likely one of those cavepeople who wandered off and found cool rocks or mashed up beetles to make finger paint instead of going hunting. And if there was ever any running-for-survival involved, I was almost certainly going to get eaten first.

Exhibit A: just look at this perfect rock

However. In a twist of fate, evolution also created Covid-19, which led to several lockdowns, which led to government-mandated walks, which led to me wandering off for hours at a time to find cool rocks and look at beetles (although contemporary-me would never mash one up for art purposes). And once I’d walked as far as I could possibly walk, I eventually decided, fuck it, let’s give Couch to 5k a try.

Bearing in mind when I first started I couldn’ t even manage the first level, in which you only run for a single minute at a time, I persisted. I made it my mission to change my perception about what kind of caveperson I was. And, after an embarrassingly long period of sweaty persistence, I was pretty proud to gradually build up to jogging a very slow 5k.

But wait. Does this make me a runner?! Am I an athlete now? Do I have to get fancy trainers and chug those gross glucose gel things and take emergency shits in the woods and start giving a fuck about my personal best time?

No. I did not do any of those things. Becoming a ‘runner’ did not fundamentally change me as a person. It didn’t somehow change me from a gatherer to a hunter. I still often get distracted by cool trees mid-way through a run. I still would get eaten first if we were being chased by a sabre toothed tiger. I did keep on running, though. I even started inching towards a 10k. But I realised that — possibly due to my rock-foraging roots — none of this was really to do with fitness or achievement or fleeing/chasing imaginary metaphors.

I just… genuinely started enjoying running.

Who knew you could change your mind after thirty-a-lot years of hating something? Of telling yourself you weren’t the kind of caveperson to do it? Of pinning all your preconceptions of running on ill-fated PE lessons where a teacher yelled stale-coffee-breath insults in your face for daring to stop to catch your breath? Or perhaps of hiding behind a lifetime of bullshit internalised assumptions about what kind of person does such a ‘pointless’ thing as running, and why?

[Insert obligatory: “Wait, how is this a lesson about writing?” here.]

I mean, look, if you want a treatise on this, you can go and read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami — although in all honesty I only got a few chapters in because I found the whole thing intensely annoying (see internalised bullshit above, perhaps) and was far too jealous about how much free running and writing time the guy has to absorb whatever wisdom he was imparting, but I imagine it says something broadly similar to what I’m trying to ramble out in this post.

To make this more overtly literary-relevant, however, I am, in my middle age, coming to realise that younger me was quite often an opinionated dick. About running. About a lot of stuff. I’m coming to realise it’s perfectly fine to mellow about things you used to think were cringey or annoying or ‘beneath you’ (honestly, what a dick) or somehow lesser than other things which society, or influential people in your life, made you embarrassed or ashamed or afraid to enjoy.

It’s perfectly, absolutely, positively more than fine to change your goddamn mind.

Because I’m kinda sad to say I also used to feel that way about some books, some genres, some kinds of writing. I used to have some pretty bad internalised bullshit going on when it came to what I thought was ‘good’, or what I ‘should’ write or read. Certain people in my life also made it very clear they thought some kinds of writing were more worthy, while others were trash, and perpetuated what I can see clearly now were extremely narrow and snobbish opinions about all things ‘literary’. Deep down, I knew I didn’t really believe them, but I was too scared to challenge those opinions in case they started thinking I wasn’t worthy, or I was trash. I wanted to prove that I was ‘good’ at writing, that I had ‘good’ taste, that I knew ‘good’ quality when I read it. And it meant I missed out on a lot of fucking brilliant writing and a whole lot of joy.

Ridiculous, of course. As curious cavepeople, we should explore everything, challenge everything, enjoy as much as there is to to enjoy. And, as Mary Oliver said, let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. We certainly shouldn’t let anyone (even our internal bullshit) convince us not to like, or even try something that we might end up loving — for better or for cringe.

An admission: I actually think used to tell myself I was not a runner, that I didn’t like running, that running was stupid, mostly because I was bad at it.

I know. What a silly goose. The silliest and most prideful of geese, in fact.

‘Cause I still marvel, every time, at the fact that I changed my mind so spectacularly about it at all.

And guess what? I can more-or-less run a 5k now, and I’m still pretty bad at it.

I’m still often frustrated at my lack of progress. I still often fail. Sometimes I fall over. But I’m still glad every time I give it a try, and I never regret the attempt. ← Ahem. This. This is your writing lesson.

Which leads us neatly onto:

Lesson #2: It’s okay to start again

So here’s something funny. Despite Lesson #1, I haven’t run consistently in months. This winter has been muddy as fuck, and I struggle to run on concrete or a treadmill, so it’s woodland trails or nothing.

Nice huh? Now imagine this in ankle-deep mud.

I also got pretty ill and half-drowned in stress last year, so wasn’t able to do anything exercise-wise for a while. And all that hard work, all that 5k grind, all those 10k intentions gradually ebbed and coalesced into a more sedentary Jo.

Frustrating, yes. End of the world? No.

What have we learned?

Change is always possible.

Eventually, the mud started drying up and a tardy kind of spring poked its head around the seasonal door. So I put on my workout gear and my crappy old trainers and headed out to start again.

From scratch.

Oh yes. I put my silly goose pride aside and decided to go all the way back to the beginning. Day 1 of Couch to 5k. Let’s go.

I smashed the warm-up. Five minutes of walking? Piss easy. I’ve got this. Then that familiar ding-ding-ding to signal the first minute of running. I broke into a gentle jog. By golly, I’ve got this too — this is going to be a breeze.

[Insert booming laughter from the universe here]

Not even halfway into that first minute, my ankle turns 90 degrees with a delightful crunch and I’m back on my arse in the mud, conjuring up some interesting swear combinations.

Two weeks later, I’m only just able to walk up and down the stairs without crab-stepping it sideways. Yes, yes, feel sorry for me. Laugh at me. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll live to slow-jog another day. I’m almost there, I’m learning to be patient, and I’m looking forward to giving it another go.

So, what is the lesson here?

Sometimes you have to start again. And again-again. Go right back to the beginning. Or even a little bit beyond the beginning, to the pre-beginning. Sometimes it’s gonna suck. And you will find yourself, through no real fault of your own, on your arse. Sometimes the universe will laugh at your plight and watch, popcorn-in-hand, to see what you do next.

Yes, this is also a writing lesson.

Every story I’ve ever written, no matter what medium, what format, what style — I’ve had to start from absolute scratch. Many times I’ve had to re-start the same story afresh, over and over and over. I may think I know what I’m doing, and it may well turn out, in time, that I do — but every story ultimately begins with A Great Unknowing. And the truth is, we have to be at peace with that. And be patient.

A friend of mine has just started her fourth novel. I’m also embarking on a brand new story, in a brand new genre. More than once we’ve shared the same feelings of total bewilderment at having to start over. Surely it should get easier? Surely I know how to do this by now? Why am I stumbling and flailing? Why am I filled with doubt that this even IS a story?

Why, when faced with the simplest starting step, did I immediately trip and twist my ankle?

Well. Maybe the universe wants me to sit down for a bit. Maybe I’m not ready yet. Maybe it’s just a minor blip and I’ll get over it after some necessary bitching and moaning. Maybe it’s just a reminder that we can start again, as many times as we need to.

Because it’s fine to begin with zero expectations and baby steps.

When you let go of the need for things to be perfect, to be complete, to progress neatly and consistently according to some imaginary, arbitrary measure, to hurry to get to the end, there’s a whole lot of freedom to be found in the knowledge that you CAN start over, whenever you want to.

That illness and stress I mentioned from last year? Gone now, thankfully. But it meant I had to start from scratch with some big life things, and it was genuinely scary. I had to go waaaaay back beyond the beginning and begin again.

Since then, though? I’ve discovered SO many new things. So many new beginnings. New ideas, new stories, new friends, new ways of having fun, new ways of connecting, new ways of exploring writing, new opportunities, and new ways of seeing it all.

Learnt a bunch of new lessons, too. Which I’m hoping will make some kind of sense as I pass them on to you. :)

So that’s it for March. Even though I spent a lot of it limping and cursing, those lessons feel somewhat apt for spring: embracing change, starting again, and trying to laugh along with the universe when I inevitably end up being a silly ol’ goose.

(Honk honk.)

I hope you’ll join me with these 2024 silly goose vibes

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Thanks for reading. And if you’re having a similar false start to your writing (or running) plans, then I’m also here to commiserate, help you reconfigure your plans and expectations, and find your way. We can take baby steps together.