What Cheryl Strayed taught me

Plus an embarrassing autumn confession. And - it turns out I don't like dogs (shhhh)

Hello, and thank you for reading The Honesty Box. Thanks, especially, if you’ve recently signed up – I really appreciate you being here.

I nearly started this newsletter with stories of autumn on this glorious morning, but I’ve literally deleted a chunk as something way more exciting has happened.

I think Cheryl Strayed might have just changed my life. If you haven’t heard of her (where have you been), she’s a bestselling writer, podcaster, essayist and author of Wild: A journey from lost to found, her memoir about walking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone.

She walked the trail as she tried to process her mother’s untimely death, while carrying a backpack she couldn’t lift.

It’s an incredible book, and while the plot is about the walk, the emotional plot (what the book is really about) is learning to bear what we think we cannot bear, which is a universal truth most people will experience at some point in their lives.

Today I’m doing the final part of an online writing workshop Cheryl is running at the Omega Institute in New York state.

What I’m learning needs a whole newsletter in itself, but here are a few things she said so far that have struck me:

“There is nothing more interesting than a curious mind.”

“Trust the voice that says: ‘I know that I have this to say’.”

“It’s agony. I hate writing. I love writing, and I hate writing.”

“Memories go into stores. Writing takes us into the storage space. Be open to what you find there.”

“Trust your brave heart… You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who is only a little brave.”

As some of you know, I’m tinkering with writing a book (well, books, plural). I published a chapter of a fictional one here, but I think the book I really need to write is a non-fiction one, about my own experiences.

The creative block I’ve had is that I don’t know exactly what to write about, but hearing about how Cheryl wrote Wild has helped me realise that’s OK.

She chopped and changed things, and as she wrote, themes and connections revealed themselves. The way she speaks is as if she’s chatting to a friend: she’s warm, and open and generous with her thoughts, and she goes really deep.

I know this is all very writerly, but I hope that some of the quotes above are as inspiring to you as they are to me.

On to autumn.

Autumn glory

We’re more than a week into October, and heading for the time when it’s properly, gloriously autumn. The best days are when the sun’s out and the leaves on the trees are a mixture of coppery, golden, pale lemon yellow or fire-red and there are enough on the ground for swishing and crunching.

I’m enjoying morning runs along the terraced houses on my street, ending up in my lovely local Roundwood Park for a coffee in the sunshine. Today, I want to dig some new shrubs into my flowerbeds where they’ll hopefully enjoy the earth, still warm from the summer, and maybe they’ll even grow some new buds before the frost comes.

There are less good days, when you swish through dog poo hidden in said leaves

On Friday night, I watched Monty Don on Gardeners’ World take cuttings from a pink salvia, a tall, slender plant that is easy to grow on and sometimes flowers well into November. I have a blue one in a glass of water on my windowsill that has sprouted roots and is desperate for a pot – another job for today.

This all sounds idyllic doesn’t it? And let’s be honest, there are less good days of the season too, like the ones where you swish through dog poo hidden in said leaves and then trample it around your home, or, worse, someone else’s (I’ve been there. A few years ago, the dark leaves on the walk to a Halloween party at a friend’s house hid a disgusting culprit – luckily, she has tiled floors rather than carpet so it was easier to clean).

My blue salvia cutting from a plant in my mum’s garden, ready for a pot

Hopefully the literal dog poo days are few and far between, but there are also those emotionally mucky times when it’s dull and windy, but not quite cold enough to put the heating on, or the days after the clocks change and it’s dark at 5pm and going for a run after work doesn’t feel safe anymore.

I sometimes spend those evenings alone at home, and have mixed feelings about their forthcoming appearance. Baking, soup-making and phone catch-ups are good for the soul here, plus I just joined the gym so I’m sure some terribly painful barbell class will replace the running.

Autumn is when I seek out domestic comforts, and one I enjoy year-round – and this is really embarrassing - is putting the dishwasher on, knowing it’s full to its very last inch, and then opening the door when it’s finished to let the gleaming glasses steam, before putting them away until my cupboards are satisfyingly full.

Another strange delight is putting the washing on the line and feeling like I’m multi-tasking as it dries with that lovely outside smell, while I get on with something else.

I hang my washing outdoors year-round, as even a few hours on a sunny winter’s day helps it dry more quickly.

I guess what I’m saying is that I find enjoyment in the mundane, and life is full of mundanities.

Photo by Kyle Arcilla on Unsplash (this is definitely not my garden)

In the autumn, it often dries fully on the line, and when I go out to get it in as the sun goes down, I’ll see something in the garden that needs deadheading and find myself spending an hour outdoors.

(I get that this really might not be your experience of domestic chores, as these tasks are probably daily drudgery if there are small – or large - children around. I’m sure my love of laundry would very quickly disappear if I had piles to do and it felt never-ending, so I’m sorry if you’re reading this ready to punch me!)

They looked like giant Pomeranians, with their curled-up tails showing an indecent amount of bottom

In the summer, I revel in the hot sunshine and those days seem to fly by. I’m always sad when it ends, but then autumn makes me reassess things and I start to enjoy wrapping up in clothes I haven’t worn for a while, as well as clearing out those I no longer want, and replacing them with something else.

So far I’ve managed to buy a chunky cardigan from a charity shop, in a shade my print designer friend calls ‘liver pate,’ a kind of musty pink that goes with everything and a garment I can chuck on over most items.

I also love autumn days when I need to put on a trench coat in case there’s a shower, but it’s still warm enough to have bare ankles.

I’m wearing a four-year-old M&S trench with a checked lining that’s not a million miles from a Burberry mac, an item I definitely aspire to own when I’m a real grown-up.

A controversial confession

Going for a walk is also a glorious autumn activity… apart from the presence of endless dogs. Last week I pottered around a local park with a friend who remarked on the prettiness of two fluffy dogs that looked to me like giant Pomeranians, with their curled-up tails showing an indecent amount of bottom.

“I don’t really like dogs,” I said, for the first time ever out loud. My friend was taken aback. But I find little dogs annoying because they look fake, like toys, and big dogs are just a bit panty and dribbly.

I thought I liked dogs and a while ago signed up to Borrow My Doggy, where you walk someone else’s dog when they can’t, but two years on I still hadn’t been matched to a mutt.

I thought it might be fun and a way to meet new people, but then I realised I would hate clearing up their mess and would be paranoid about letting the animal off the lead and never seeing it again.

They say you should tackle your phobias head on, but I think my dislike of dogs is rooted in childhood trauma (like most things, right?!) and too stuck to shift.

Aged around eight, I got a shiny, blue Raleigh bike for my birthday, complete with those neon plastic things you put on the spokes. On one of my first trips, I rode it proudly down an alleyway, only to swerve and drop it sideways.

The handlebars had protective rubber covers, and as I picked my bike up I noticed they had been squished into some dog poo. The thought still makes me shudder.

There have been one or two dogs that I’ve been fond of, usually after I’ve been forced into a situation where I have to get to know them at close quarters. On holiday in Greece once I befriended my friend’s sister’s Labrador and found that familiarity bred fondness, not contempt. It lived outside, was very well-behaved and didn’t disappear when I walked it.

I hope this autumn is a cosy one for you, full of mundane delights, wherever you find them.

Things I like

Closing Party

Closing Party is a newsletter written by a woman called Roses, and it’s bloody brilliant and based on the idea that she used to go to nightclubs’ closing parties at the end of the season in Ibiza (I might start going to those next year, aged 45, woo), and now she’s writing about the closing party that she calls her late 30s.

Her latest is ‘The secret joy of lady no kids’ and it really made me smile. “Let’s hear more from the babes without babes!” she writes. Just read it and see.

Love Life

As usual, I’m late to the party with Netflix, and usually avoid 20-something shows about dating. But Love Life is actually very sweet, tracing the relationships of Darby, played by Anna Kendrick, as she falls in love, loses love, and then finds what she thinks is love again… you get the picture. Perfect for those autumn evenings. (It’s also on BBC iPlayer.)