Touching Vitality
Our hike and swim at Nanjizal Beach, Cornwall is still on my mind and inspiring me creatively as I continue to look for ways to express what it meant to me.
I felt so alive, so full of delight and vitality that day, taking in those incredible blues, clambering over the big, glistening boulders to get to the pools, and floating in the crystal clear, luminous turquoise water.
“Vitality” is the word I chose to guide me this year, to remind me to do more of the things that give me that feeling, and less of the things that steal that feeling.
Having experienced what it’s like to feel my health and ability to do things I love slipping away when my kidneys failed and my vision and hearing deteriorated, and having fought my way back after my kidney transplant, I appreciate it so much more now that I have the health and energy to do the things I love again. Like walking, cycling, running, or swimming in nature’s beauty.
Despite having regained so much of my health, vulnerability and the risk of losing it all remains my close companion. My transplant means I’m immunosuppressed for life and significantly more vulnerable in the face of all illnesses, even the everyday endemic viruses. And there’s no way to know how much more time I have with the little vision and hearing that I have left.
I don’t dwell on the threat of this vulnerability and risk of losing more of who I am and what I can do everyday, but it’s there.
Except when I’m in touch with vitality.
The vitality in nature, and the vitality in me.
Then the vulnerability and fear is gone. And I feel alive, strong, connected, delighted, brave, full of hope and faith, grateful for it all.
Vitality.
Thats what I felt that day as I hiked and climbed and swam with my friend, Rhona, at Nanjizal Beach, and it’s how I felt when I created these 3 mixed media paintings.
(These will be available to buy. I’ll share more as soon as I have them listed on my website, but in the meantime, be in touch if you want me to set one of these aside for you.)