The Story is Always Where You Are

And other reasons to sometimes stop chasing your dreams.

I used to think that the stories, the world was ‘out there’. I went looking for those stories until I realised the world inside of me. I am the story too.

Hello friends,

I spent the last week mostly in my flat. (I am ill).

It reminded me of the peace of being in one place.

It reminded me of all the chasing of experiences, places, moments I have done in my life.

It reminded me of the poetry in rest. Of the way quietness and boredom open up spaces to feel, to remember, to dream.

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It rained in Dubai this week. I felt at home. Somewhere midway between Scottish dreich days and Myanmar rainy season. Somewhere familiar.

I rushed outside to be in the weather. To feel the wind. To watch the clouds. To remember the feeling of rain.

We think we don’t want weather but it is the colour, the movement, the patterns of our daily life. Without it, the days end up all the same.

Rain puddle in the backstreets of Dubai.

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My adult life has not been very much the same. It has chopped and changed between countries and homes, between rainstorms and rainbows. Maybe that is why calm now lands differently. Having known unrest. I know that peace is rarely an expanse - but it can be a shelter.

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This reminds me of

Dr Sharon Blackie

‘s story of the man who became her husband, who turned up at the front door of her remote Scottish home. (She tells this in her book ‘If Women Rose Rooted’.) To me, this story speaks to the idea that true connection doesn’t begin in overextending. It begins in closeness to self. It begins in the cracks, in the mundane, in staying with your own quiet dreams.

In my own life, I have seen it is only when I root down into myself, that it is possible to expand.

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In Dubai, life often seems like it must be chased down and tackled to the ground, like prey. Ticking off experience after experience, as if that is where life is lying, somewhere between a parachute and the ground.

I have lived in over ten countries now. I have been on hundreds of dates. I have found the world empty, even with beauty right in front of me. I have found the world full, in the most banal of places.

I have found routines as valuable as adventures. The delight of a perfect ritual. The thrill of meeting that same friend again and again.

The perfection of a wasted weekend, where all I did was watch the new season of Love is Blind, feel sick, lie in bed and stare out the window. Did not do anything I was meant to do to get ahead in the world or chase my dreams.

But I did listen to a module of

Susannah Conway

brilliant course, which I have let sit for a while. Did show myself kindness by not requiring anything of my body or mind. Did find in that softness, the late Sunday afternoon energy to write this post. Did feel too tired to do much else.

Did, by the end of it, feel a bit more like me again.

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Thank you for reading Notes from Saving the World.

This is a place to share experiences that connect our personal stories to our collective stories. Our inner journeys to outer journeys and our transformations to bigger global change.

I write about the systems we live in through the lens of my personal and professional experiences of twenty years working in the aid sector.

I hope my stories might add some texture to these topics and help connect your lived experiences to our global narrative. And ultimately - feel a bit less alone.