London: Day 2
This morning I was eating Weetabix and blood sausage* when a spider the size of a quarter crawled across my hand. As noted earlier, I’m at the Blue Earth Summit, so I didn’t panic, I just gently threw the spider to the floor. Long live the earth.
The thing I’ve really, really loved about this summit so far is that not only does it not seem necessary to wear mascara, but the vast majority of attendees are taking notes on actual paper in actual notebooks of various sizes, colors, and materials. I have found my people.
Also of note: My soft, gentle voice fits right in here.
My favorite thing about this picture is the man plugging his ears.
Listening to Tim Smit was a highlight of today. He’s an archaeologist and creator/founder of The Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project in Cornwall. If you know him, let me know, we’d love to interview him on
.At the risk of boring you utterly, below is a bulleted list of highlights from Smit, but let me set the stage a little first. Tim Smit is in his 70s, a tuft of white hair, and dresses like someone who’s about to garden. You might think he’s sentimental by through my notes below, but he is salty and cantankerous — everything he said felt like both a barb and an invitation. I like him very much.
On to the notes:
Adults have a duty not to become old in their minds — we need to keep believing in a future worth looking forward to.
We are storytelling apes and a sum total of the stories we tell ourselves — what stories are we telling and believing?
Make the world beautiful and everything else will follow.
Be more random, be more hopeful, be a better citizen and we can all make something absolutely fantastic.
What really got me, though, was his golden bean.
Smit explained that inside every person is a golden bean, about the size of a coffee bean, that you’ve had all your life. This bean contains all your hopes and dreams — especially the ones you had as a child but have since pushed down or away.
All the magic Smit’s been able to make in the world is because he can see the golden bean in every person that he meets.
So, I feel silly for writing the word “bean” that many times, but I do not feel silly that I believe him. Every person, at their core, is golden — every person has dreams to share.
I guess the next question is how do we share our golden bits more often with the people we meet?
How do we more often recognize the golden bits in other people?
The afternoon was broken up a little with a nature walk along the Thames. The UK certainly has fantastic moss.
In the evening we saw Punch at the Apollo Theatre.
I’m not that into spoilers or sweeping plot summaries, so I won’t give you those. The play was hard-hitting, a gut punch, if you will. Very well done. But maybe a little too close to home? The story wasn’t about a single mom necessarily, it was about her son, but I was obsessed with her — with the way she declined mentally and physically post-divorce and then eventually passed away when her boys were still in their 20s.
To me it was a really stark presentation of the load single moms bear and the toll that it takes.
It is really hard to be a single mom. It is really hard to want to be there for your kids and to not be able to. It is really hard to make decisions alone, bear the finances alone, struggle with the emotional toll of your kids’ decisions and difficulties alone.
Walking back from the play, Soho was packed with people and the air smelled like wine. And I was holding all these ideas: the golden bean, the blue earth, the punch, the single mom. The street was full of rickshaws covered in electric lights and feathers and fur.
When I took a jumpseat in the tube, I just felt awestruck (like, really awe-struck) at all the different directions my life could have gone at every significant turning point, and, honestly, I’m really happy with where I am. That’s not an easy feeling to get or keep. So I’m holding it close today. That and my golden bean.
*I didn’t actually eat Weetabix or blood sausage, but there definitely was a spider.