Trying to…sip selfhood

Flames of Love - Tracey Emin EMMA BARNETT

What would you go and do if somebody suddenly interrupted your working day and said: “Go. Now. You are free for three hours and you can do what you want.”

Would you know what you wanted to do? Immediately. Just like that? Snatching moments to oneself and knowing what to do in them for actual pleasure - not what you think might be pleasurable - is a proper skill.

I never needed this skill prior to having children because all of my free time was my own. I could, and would, languidly move from one pleasurable whim to another - without much thought. Or I had had the time and energy to plan something in advance and then relax into doing that thing without a firing gun starting and the timer on.

Pleasure on demand, and sometimes without notice, and often alone, is talent I am trying to hone as my husband and I try to gift such moments to one another.

A more extreme example of it came about four weeks ago (which is how long I have been trying to write this post - make of that what you will) when my husband and I were both in the car, with our son and daughter in the back seat, on the way to a children’s birthday party and he suddenly said to me: “You don’t need to be here. Go and do something fun.” I was slightly shocked for a moment and then got the hell out of the car before anything else changed.

It was ever so tempting to go straight back inside the house, curl up and probably fall asleep after a quiet cup of tea with a book or TV remote in hand.

Instead and I stood on the street and challenged myself to locate the mindset of the old me - the one before kids, a gruelling IVF regime and endo hell - and think of what I might commission for my pleasure of a casual Sunday morning.

Opening up these neural pathways actually felt hard; an old machine cranking back up. But suddenly I had a brainwave: Tracey Emin had an exhibition on at London’s White Cube. I had wanted to see it when glancing at a review in a mag that quickly passed through my hands in the blur of life at the moment - but had written it off as something too hard to make work. And yet suddenly time was mine! Amazingly it was the last day of the show and because it was a Sunday, the gallery opened a little later, so I simply had to go for a second breakfast on nearby Bermondsey Street - a foodie haven. Had to.

I packed a notebook, forced myself to think about some ideas I never dedicate any time to and ate delicious eggs. All alone.

And then I went to the exhibition and enjoyed some more original thoughts (some of which I shared here) - without the hyper-vigilance and facilitation caring induces.

And then it was done. Time was up. I scurried home, slightly born anew. Ever so slightly.

Walking back through the front door - I swiftly found my way back into the swing of family and home life. Traversing between the two worlds, which are set at vastly different tempos, requires the flick of a few different switches.

The writer, Natasha Randall, calls such acts - from snatching five minutes to read or posting on social media - or even nabbing a glorious three hours: “sips of selfhood”. It is an exquisite phrase I try to live by and a series of actions I savour. Such acts are vital when parenting, working hard or trying to traverse tricky times.

But knowing what you want and be able to grab it at the point a window opens up? And learning to enjoy it without guilt and a constant awareness of how long you have left on the clock? Those are a whole other group of talents I am working on. I envy people who have a thing and always want to go to it. Such as drumming or running. But even then - you might still want and crave something else away from your hobby.

I hope by sharing the idea of taking “sips of selfhood” - it might fire up some of your neural pathways too. What would your sip be? As we go into the weekend and the Christmas period - it might be worth having a brainstorm. So you are primed and ready for the snatching of joy.