Decluttering is all the rage just now! Clear desk, clear room, clear mind….and there may well be something in that, although as someone who prefers Einstein´s theory that a tidy desk is a boring mind, as an excuse for encroaching on the personal space around me, I may have to disagree…

I have a cluttered mind. I have intrusive thoughts, racing ideas, amazing and convoluted plans that come to me at 3am and are becoming totteringly grandiose by dawn…I am getting older and I have so much left to do and see …but my brain exhausts me..bipolar is a tiring business and often I am just out of control of the dramatic fireworks that are going off in my head.

I need to clear my internal desk on a regular basis and I declutter in the most minimalist way I can. I walk.

To me, walking is minimalism at its most pure. You need you and a decent pair of shoes, plus a coat that fits the climate. Nothing fancy. Forget the step counter and the heart monitor… You can get up and go when you want, where you want, and for how long you want and each step is the engine running down.

You are guided to see the teeny tiny sensations. A breeze or a gale on your face. Different textures of ground beneath your feet. A smell of smoke or blossom or wet earth. You see changes on the trees, in the sky, new flowers grow and die and grow again.

You can sit where you want, for as long as you want and time begins to become elastic.

The Ancient Greeks believed that meditation was a vital part of education and a stroll without an end point counted as part of the meditative process…you are part of the line of history that stretches back to that wisdom. That just to BE in the cycle of life is enough.

Back to the untidy desk!

I am going to write more about how travel, mental illness, mental health and life purpose have been intertwined in my life since I was a kid in later posts.

Here, I want to tell you about the minimising mallet that I took to my life when I was 49. No gentle pruning for me! I had a steady job I loved in learning support, nice friends, a good social life, a lovely husband and the fabulous children were growing up and flying away… Time to settle into a few hobbies, some more community work and enjoy the lifestyle we had earned. Sure, that was an option.

But I hankered and had hankered for years for the free wheeling life I had BC. Before children. Happiness for me was always a small day pack, a map and some walking boots. And a dog, if possible.

Secretly I had been taking teaching classes in ESL, trying out weekend courses, reading up on grammar, doing a bit of teaching…I chose this area mainly because I have few transferable skills apart from my rapport with teenagers and my total infatuation with language. Words, don´t you love ém?!

We made a game plan. He would stay, I would go and try it.

I had a punt at a interview for a job in Vietnam..never been there..but it was good practice, and to my shock I got it. I took it. I moved fast.

I left my friends, my family, my kids, my colleagues…..and left with a suitcase, a computer and my dear old backpack ( I travel even lighter now!) I minimised all these things to ground zero and set off for a new life, unencumbered by the expectations of anyone.

And it was so easy. So, breathtakingly easy,

Hi everyone! My name is Julie. I´m 57 and have worked as a teacher, social worker and sometime writer. My job has taken me all over the world, with a special place reserved in my heart for South East Asia.

Just now, I am teaching and writing online, dog fostering, running a small charity and enjoying walking and camping in this beautiful part of Spain.

I have pillioned with Steve for all our relationship and I think he fell for me the day his Super Tenere began to fall over and I rushed forward to catch it…

´´Pillion Posts´´ will be a varied menu. . I have bipolar 1 and for me travel is part of my journey to recovery, to escape or sometimes into downright weirdness…