Mercury is going retrograde
and so am I
Hello to you my trusted friends
Mercury retrograde is upon us (August 5 to 28) and we all know what that means, right? (Right?)
Just in case you don’t: Time to recharge, review, retreat.
Three times a year the planet of communication, information and technology spends an average of three weeks seemingly moving backwards. It’s to do with the planet’s closeness to the earth and our perception of it. It’s not actually moving backwards. (in case any astronomers were planning at coming at me) During these retrogrades technology tends to glitch, delays or cancellations in travel often occur, contracts or other works of writing need to be revised or rewritten, we change our minds about seemingly set plans, etc.
It’s the perfect time to take things slow, turn inwards, retreat, to really pay attention to details, to rethink a course of action or rewrite something we’ve been working on.
And that’s exactly what I plan on doing.
On Thursday I’m flying to Denmark to spend a week by the ocean, no laptop, no social media, and hopefully very few people. Just me, my thoughts, a pen and a notebook.
I almost wasn’t sure I would be able to get out of the country for a while. People who know me, know I started working as a teacher last year and that means I now have six weeks paid vacation. I know you’re all thinking that I’m a lucky bitch. On paper it sounds great, right?
I’m going to say something super controversial now: I hate it. I don’t want to have all this time off during the summer months. Ever since I started working, I have used travel to cope with adulthood. I’m single and have no kids which means that I can technically do whatever I want. And what I want, is to travel. To get away from the reality of my day-to-day life. (Yes, I should probably find a more permanent solution for that. I’m getting to this.)
Aye, there’s the rub. I’m not the only one looking for a getaway. Summer vacation is prime time for families and so, not only has our capitalist society figured this out and pushed the prices of flights and sleeping arrangements to the limit, it also means the people with the children are everywhere you go.
And listen, I love kids. But that doesn’t mean I want to spend my vacation with them. They are loud and I want quiet. Also, I’m a geriatric millennial who switches jobs every season and is renting a studio. Does it sound like I can pay 300 euro for a flight? No. I am as lost and poor as my fellow 80’s babies.
(And even if I could…it’s the principal of the matter. Those flights will be a third of the price as soon as school starts again.)
But I digress. I was talking about my upcoming retreat. (Classic Mercury retrograde)
I have this odd feeling sometimes, a deep desire to go fully off grid. To spend time in silence with nothing but a pen and paper. No people, no distractions, only nature. Preferably the ocean. There’s nothing that fascinates me more than the sea. Its vast expanse, calm on the surface, but a deep unknown darkness beneath it. In a way it terrifies me but it’s the one place that always pulls me back in, grounds me.
And so I have booked a tiny caravan in the back of someone’s garden, 50 metres from the beach. Perfect to block out all the noise in my brain (and there’s a lot of that as you may have read in my previous post) and get to the important stuff again.
Here are a few things I want to focus on:
My book
I can’t let it go. I got another email from an agent I wasn’t expecting to hear from anymore and her words gave me hope again. It’s always the hope that gets us, isn’t it? But yeah, I bought myself a new notebook (because obviously I couldn’t use any of the other 333 I have lying around) and now I’m ready to endlessly stare out at the Danish ocean and breathe new life into my characters.
The Substack
A deserted beach seems like the perfect place to come up with some profound posts for the future. Also, this time next year I want to monetise my Substack and a plan on how I can make it worth people’s money, might come in handy.
Myself
This one is probably the biggest one of them all. Or perhaps it’s the overarching theme. In the end, everything I write will be a reflection of who I am.
And here’s one thing I learned recently: It turns out I’m an expert at rationalising emotions. I have read the books, I have seen the documentaries. I (think I) know what processes are at work when I one again fall for someone emotionally unavailable. I’ll even tell you all about it. Talking about my hurts and fears is easy for me. Too easy. And again, I know the theory, I can tell you why it’s so easy: it keeps me from actually having to feel my feels and getting washed away by the immensity of them.
The other day, I was reading Oisin McKenna’s recent novel Evenings and Weekends, a stunning work of art, and found myself sobbing by the time I finished it. Not that the story was particularly devastating, but the inability of the characters to feel their emotions hit home with the force of a tsunami. It was as though there was a tiny mirror on each page, reflecting myself back to me. It wasn’t pretty.
And sure, pushing down my feelings, even the good ones, has helped me get on with my life when otherwise I might have crumbled, but the thing with not feeling feelings is this: it holds you back. It makes you anxious and stressed and then it makes you sick. So sure, it helps you to keep going, but in what capacity? Do you want to live on life support? Or do you want to live?
People always tell me I seem so calm and confident, relaxed and put-together. And each time I’m surprised that they can’t see it, the turmoil beneath the surface. The questioning, the anxiety, the insecurity. I have become too good at keeping it all in check, even from myself at times. I have some work to do here.
So this Mercury retrograde I will go to Denmark and dive below my steady surface into the deep darkness, swim with the wildlife there and hopefully resurface with a better understanding of what I need to live an extraordinary life.
Mx
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