Today I share a piece of writing, inspired by one seemingly small and insignificant event, and yet it was a moment in time that brought together all the thoughts and feelings of my February: a month that was spent exploring my truths beneath a wide Andalucian sky.
But first…
This piece of writing is the result of a month of exploration with a small group of 🌟Slow Friends (paid subscribers)🌟 around the word TRUTH.
If you’re all about slowing down, delving deep, and trying to make the most of (and some sense of!) this life experience, then I’d love to welcome you as a Slow Friend.
Each month you’ll receive a short “Walk & Talk” video from wherever I am wandering, where I share my thoughts on the month and encourage deeper self-reflection by choosing a word for us to explore together through a journalling exercise. We’ll also get to enjoy conversations about our explorations in the private comments area.
As a little extra, I share occasional pre-recorded guided meditations for you to enjoy.
I hope you’ll consider joining this mindfulness and journalling community for gentle folk.
+ I’m always happy to invite like-minded folk behind the paywall for FREE for a few months, no questions asked, if you drop me a message.
🌟 Words from some lovely Slow Friends🌟
“I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this walk and talk and the journaling prompt worked magic on me. Sometimes it can be too easy to get bogged down in details and you can’t see what is going on until something makes you stop. Thank you for focusing my mind”
“Alice I enjoyed every word. What a joy to see the blossom on the trees. I loved your walk through your little town/village - probably the latter as there wasn’t a soul to be seen. I love the peace and quiet no people around.”
“What we accept as true and why, as dear Alice points out, so many of our truths are untrue. What we accept as reality. Wow, this can take you down the rabbit hole. Thank you, Alice.”
Now for the transcript of The Alicante Orange-Seller:
He knocked on the van window, making me jump. A deeply tanned face, smiling, with oranges cradled in his arms. I stepped out and followed in a trance as he led me to his battered old car parked in the dust, back seats folded down, old plastic crates crammed in, filled to the brim with oranges and tangerines.
Reaching into his shirt pocket — grubby with earth-dirt and sweat — he produced a stubby worn penknife. He picked up an orange and in his hand, with ease, sliced it in two, horizontally, before handing one piece to me and the other to my husband. We each took a bite — a slurp, a sip — and our faces gleamed as juice trickled down our chins.
Is this it?
Our eyes caught each others knowingly: the sun beating down, our dirty sandalled feet, a sense of freedom in the air.
Is this our truth?
We cobbled together some change and handed it to him, watching as he filled the bag; kept filling, until I politely touched his arm and said it was more than enough. And then we walked in silence back to our van and hopped in the front seat, smiles all-round.
THIS IS IT we said, almost in unison.
For us, it has always been it. To live freely in a van, eating the freshest oranges you can ever imagine tasting, to forget about the world that demands: a career, a persona, a … dot dot dot. The desire to go back, and back again, to the true simplicities of life, unbound by the influx of things that seem so…unreal, when living—truly living—in these moments.
The truth of who I truly am, beneath it all; the truth that belies all others, stands strong against the untruths, hit me in the face with such clarity that I could feel nothing but a floating sense of peace.
I am unravelling, disentangling, and I don’t yet know where I will land, and that’s okay.
Being here in the south of Spain, surrounded by a landscape that encourages only openness; a landscape dry and barren in parts with no undergrowth to hide within, no huge trees to clamber and be held in the branches of, has brought me back to zero.
Have you made it back to zero lately?
…made it back to a place where it feels like your whole self is laid bare and at that point you see the pieces clearly laid out, just like the neat rows of perfectly pruned almond trees here in Andalucia. Which to choose, I find myself pondering. Which piece is truly me?
Breathing into this complete state of impartiality I recognise that I may not be free like this again for a while, that I might not have the luxury of taking time to truly explore my truths, peel away the layers of untruths, and perhaps be proved wrong by myself. And so I walk and contemplate, let myself be, endeavour to not constantly cajole and conduct my thoughts, but instead simply sit — the spectator.
I type this to the sound of birds chattering on the terrace of a friend’s house in a tiny pueblo, the sky is pure blue and church bells ring on the hour, and on the half. I feel so grateful to have these places where I get to come and listen — truly listen — and observe how others choose to live, or not choose because, in honesty, so many of us land where we land…and so I recognise the luxury of this juncture.
Time to wander, to ponder, to think about how I want the next chapter of my life to look.
Dear reader (or listener) I invite you, too, to stop, to stand, as I have done beneath the almond trees, and hear your truths knowing that just like February’s glorious pink blossom here in Spain, where truths blow on the breeze and become untruths at times, we too can feel safe in the passage of the seasons; of time.
I think of the orange-seller now, the image imprinted on my mind’s eye, and I know there is something to be learned; to be heard. In the way he moved gracefully, in the simplicity and honesty of the interaction, in how it felt to share that moment and so, tomorrow, I will get back into my van and look silently out of the window knowing the answers are always here, hiding in the ever-changing landscapes: of life and nature.
Thank you for reading/listening.
With love,
Alice 🙏🏻
Share this post