What makes you tick?

What makes you tick? 

That's a funny expression isn't it? Imagining the rhythmic swinging of a pendulum inside you keeping going because there is something there that makes it want to go on and on....
If I try to think about what makes me tick then lots of things come to mind, things I guess without which my tick wouldn't be nearly as loud, or would maybe slow down and miss a beat or two. The reason I'm thinking about this and the reason I'm sharing it with you is because these last couple of weeks I have been allowed to swim again and as I swim up and down the pool or even better swim across my Exmoor pond I think to myself....'this really makes me tick' I need this in order to be whole, to be the best I can be. 
So I thought I'd think about some more things that make me tick, because at times like this we are forced into remembering how mortal we are and how important those aspects of our lives really are. And when we are unable to do these things for whatever reason the strength of those memories can keep us going...keep is ticking. So here's a short list of some of what really makes me tick.

• Adventures.
  
  The best times are when we are exploring this planet and getting to experience it from a new and exciting perspective. Adventure enriches and stimulates, it challenges and feeds. I love to go on an adventure. A big adventure paddling the Canadian Boundary Waters or hiking in the Sinai Desert. Or maybe just a small adventure, like packing up a tent and sleeping bag and spending a night out on Exmoor. More recently we have had wild swimming adventures exploring the rugged and beautiful North Devon coast, watching the sunset through tiny caves in the middle of nowhere, swimming round headlands and past hidden waterfalls and coves.  Whether its down a cave, up a mountain, in the sea or on the moor... miles away or close to home Adventures make me tick. 
• Baldness. It might be new to me, it is hopefully transient but right now it's who I am and I'm trying to celebrate it. Does it make me tick? no not exactly but as the public face of this disease I have to mention it here.
• Cooking. I love to cook and I think I'm pretty good at it. Not baking, I'm rubbish at that, but cooking meals for Rachel and me and for friends when they visit. Whilst I've been off work I have spent a lot of time cooking, I love to chop onions, mix herbs and spices and prepare meals that I hope will make someone feel better about their day. Tonight we are having roasted fresh caught Devon Brill with Capers and Chanterelles picked from the moor. 
• Dogs.
  
  I love them all, but especially mine. What is a walk without a dog? A bed is too big without a dog stretching across it, a fire is wasted without a dog sleeping in front of it. The unconditional love, the quiet company, the sensitivity to our every mood. Their pure pleasure in simple things like running, stretching, bouncing, meeting people, going new places...I love dogs and couldn't be without one. I will miss mine terribly when I'm in hospital. Some years ago when my mother was in hospital having her knee operated on we sneaked her two Yorkies into her room in a small bag! I'd love for Rachel to do that for me but I know she can't. So maybe just a visit by my window will have to do.
• Exmoor.
  
  How lucky are me and Rachel to be living right in the heart of this amazing place? - where the valleys are impossibly deep, holding in their depths secret places that only we know.
  
  Red deer and wild ponies, crashing ocean and babbling stream, heather coated hills, and sculptural beech hedges. Exmoor is the most beautiful place I know and we get to have adventures on it every day. 
• Friends. Quite simply I have the best friends on this whole planet Earth. I have said a lot about my wonderful friends over the weeks on this blog because no amount of words can explain what they mean to me.
  
  Do they make me tick? They are my hands, my cogs  my face, my whole watch. Without them there is no time for me.
• Going on holiday. Planning where to go, getting the tickets, collecting the currency, pack and re packing! All of this anticipation leading up to the moment you leave one place and arrive somewhere else. Somewhere magical and distant and not home. The bustle of the airport, the heat and sounds and smells as the doors open on to a new and different world. The pure escape and chance for life to be a bit more colourful and a bit more free, a bit more exciting and challenging and sometimes even a bit more scary. I love going on holiday, near and far home and abroad. I wonder where I'll go next? But...
• Home. After all life has to throw at you good and bad, after travels near and far being back home is the best place in the world. 
• I. It's the centre of who I am. We are all me, we are all I...without this we are no one. Being ill makes you the centre of attention, sometimes attention you don't want. No one wants to be surrounded by nurses and doctors telling you scary stuff, and doing things that hurt. But we all want to be surrounded by those friends and family reassuring you that it will be ok. You are strong and you got this. I am and I have.
• Jobs. Specifically having a list of jobs to do and ticking them off one by one. That sense of achievement and the ultimate satisfaction of completing all those jobs...yes, I really like that.The only problem with lists, rather like this one is that when it's all done you think of something else that really should have been on it. I guess a lesson is to learn to let go of that stuff. 
• Kamaji. This place still makes me tick all these years later. Just ask Rachel how often I'm singing camp songs! After my first year of college, half the people in the dorm I was in went on to an American Summer camp because they had heard me go on and on about it day and night. 
• Leaves. In the spring those delicate lime green leaves that first push free from their winter buds when the warm sun coaxes them out. In the summer when the leaves are dark and shiny and make dappled patterns and shade. In the Autumn when they turn colour on its head and set fire to the forest with dazzling displays. When they become the orchestra of the trees allowing us to hear their song.
  
  In the winter when they lie on the frozen wet ground and slowly disappear into the cold earth to be nourishment for next year's growth. And for Rachel who catches a leaf....
• Magic. Not the weird stuff magicians do on a stage and on street corners. But the every day magic that makes our day extra special. Unexpected kindness, wonderful coincidences, serendipity,  being in the right place at the right time, surprises...everyday magic that is there but sometimes you have to look for it, perhaps it's the looking that keeps me going.
• Notes. Musical of course and those nice notes you get left sometimes. A few well chosen words can make your day. Leaving a nice note makes me happy too.
• One day I will... The thought of good things to come, amazing places to travel to, friends to be reunited with. One day, that sense of optimism that it will happen....
• Post. Usually this wouldn't be the case.
  
  Usually, and by that I mean when I didn't have cancer, post was mostly official letters, junk mail, my weekly TV magazine. Now I love my post, it keeps me going and even makes me tick. Because my most wonderful friends have day after day found the time to put something in the post for me. I have had cards, that aways make me smile, letters which let me immerse myself in another's life. I have had thoughtful books, and hats, and scarves, and t-shirts and hoodies. Today I received possibly the weirdest gift...30 Staffordshire Oatcakes, from Esther, Rachel's lovely sister. For those of you you don't know an oatcake from a pancake! its more like a savoury crepe in texture and are only available in Staffordshire. I love them, they almost make me tick, but getting them in the post certainly does.
• Quizzes. I'd like to say I enjoy taxing my brain with a crossword or brainteaser. Thing is I don't really, I don't have the patience or the brain for that matter. But Rachel does, she's really good at them and loves them so that's enough for me. Her love of all things cerebral makes me tick.
• Rain and Rainbows. Lucky really living on Exmoor! I could do without it raining every day, but the rain makes this place so lush and green. It makes it shine and sparkle and smell of the best kind of dampness. It makes the rivers sing and the pond deep. And every now and again it throws up a rainbow across its vast sky. And of course without rain there would be no clouds....I love clouds too.                          Rachel. She is my sun and moon, my high and low, my big and small, my everything ....All these things I write about here I share with her, and because of her they all have meaning. She makes me tick and without her I wouldn't want to.                              
• Sandwiches. I have always made the best sandwiches. I love taking my time over making a sandwich. In another life I own the best sandwich shop in the world making the perfect sandwich on delicious homemade bread. And of course the sky's the limit with a sandwich, what's to not love about that?
• Trees. I live surrounded by trees, and have for many years now. Forests in Sussex  and now high beech on the moor. There is nothing about a tree that I don't love. I would hate to live in a place where there were no trees. I would like to live in a tree, or in a cabin right underneath the trees....this thought makes me tick.
• Underwater.
  
  When I was young I wanted to be a marine biologist and study dolphins. I wanted to wear a big watch like Jaques Cousteau and point at things in the blue depths of the ocean. Now my underwater is smaller and closer. I love to swim. The freedom swimming gives us is unsurpassed. Working with children with special needs, it is in the pool and on the lake that they can truly move and be equal and free. Water holds us and supports us. We are, after all, mostly made up of water. We start life in water and being back there under its surface is truly wonderful, maybe primal.  Throughout this illness when I couldn't swim I missed it like crazy. And when I can swim it keeps me going. Today I swam up and down the local pool, length upon repetitive length. I loved it. Last week I swam in the green waves of the Atlantic ocean and the dark peaty waters of Pinkery Pond high on Exmoor. To swim underwater in the pond is to truly go somewhere otherworldly. It is dark and cold and it is beautiful. Just the thought of being in the water again, being held by it's silky tension makes me tick. Swimming underwater and being in another place entirely with no sound but just you and your thoughts, and the distance ahead and the creatures below you share the water with. Brilliant.
• Views.
  
  I have just got back from a walk with the dogs. It is wild and blustery today. Sunshine and showers. The views I saw on this short walk were so varied and so wonderful. They made me stop and look and see. The black clouds lit up with bright sunshine enhancing
  
   their darkness and light illuminating the greens of the moor below. The deep blue of the river bulging with the recent rains as it races down the valley. The dark twisting frame of the beech trees through which little windows of colour glimmer, here purple there blue. I wish I could post all the pictures I've taken of the views across Exmoor over the years, that would really show you what makes me tick.
  
  
  
  
  
• Walking. With dogs, with friends. Walking into the middle of nowhere.
• X. When two planes make an X in the sky with their contrails. This always used to be a good omen for our stoolball team. We would win when this happened in the skies above us. Good omens are good for the soul.
• You. Without you this would all be pointless. Without you I would be alone. Without you there would be no post, no one to walk or swim with. No one to make sandwiches for or listen to music with, or go on holiday with. I am so grateful for You. This cancer has reminded me of this. Thank You.
• Zzzzzz. Snoozing in the sun, snoozing by the fire, snoozing with the dogs. Maybe this doesn't make me tick but after I have been 'tick tocking' like mad for a while doing lots of stuff I like to stop, take a rest and snooze. This makes me ready to get back up and do more stuff that really makes me tick. 

I'm sure I've said this before, but life changing events do make you stop and re-evaluate your life and its course. And doing more of what makes you tick becomes essential in the coping and healing process. Maybe we should remember to slow down every now and again and do more of what is truly important in our lives.

What makes you tick?