Crisitunity

I’ve learned a lot from The Simpsons over the years. It’s made me smile, laugh, think and, I’m sure I remember once, cry. The writing is superb. The characters are almost real. So I wasn’t surprised last week when the following conversation between Homer Simpson and his daughter Lisa jumped into my head:

Lisa
The Chinese use the same word for crisis and opportunity.

Homer
Yes. Crisitunity!

Lots happened last week that made me step back and think about who I am and what I’m doing. I can’t call any of it a crisis. But I certainly started looking for new opportunities.

After eight months of planning and working and working and working, we launched 26 Flavours on 1st July to over a hundred special guests at Trebah Garden in Cornwall. And all of a sudden it stopped taking up huge amounts of my thinking space.

I felt so proud that I’d been part of the team that’d put together this celebration of food, drink and creativity. But I also felt completely empty. I always feel like that at the end of big, fun projects that bring so many people together. Incredibly happy that it’s gone from an idea into something real and popular. But sad the experience is over, the process done. So much hard work and happiness locked away now in memory.

Then a friend who’d become so much more in the last six months left on a train never to return. Again, months of experience came to an end. Shared stories are now finding their place beside 26 Flavours in my brain.

And I started thinking about all the things I’ve been doing lately. The year in Cornwall. The long weekend in Germany. The week in France. The nine days in New York. Stories started to bash into each other. Names disappeared. Faces smudged. And looking back I didn’t see the huge positives that I experienced during every part of every adventure.

So today I’ve stopped moving and started writing. Properly writing – with thought behind every word. ‘We write to make sense of the world around us,’ the wonderful Jamie Jauncey told me in France. So true. I’d never realised before, but everything I write puts things I see and read into my voice, informs them with my thoughts.

So 26 Flavours is over. Well no, it’s not. It continues at Trebah until 26th July. Then it moves to The Poly in Falmouth. Then to Truro, and other places. More than that though. The project connected me to so many clever, talented and interesting people. Over the last few months I’ve shared working and social time with them. And many I can now call friends.

That’ll happen with the next 26 project I’m involved in (this one’s even bigger). Which means no project is ever really over. And thinking like that makes me happy and excited by the future.

So the friend’s gone. No she hasn’t. She’s just living her life without me now – and I’m sure creating new experiences, enjoying new things, finding happiness in fantastically fun new ways. The memories we share are good. Very good. And they’ll creep into our conscious minds every now and then just to remind us that good experiences can only create good memories.

And those good experiences have inspired me try more of everything – to dig into Life with a big spoon and see what comes out.

And all the merging experiences? I think that’s a sign that I need to find a bit of focus. My year in Cornwall is nearly over – it’s been beautiful and hard, social and full of work, exciting and very very worth it. The weekend in Germany was fun and educational. And a good taste of what’s to come with my travels next year. France gave me time to walk, think, write and drink a lot of wine. New York blew my mind to pieces, then started to put it back together. But in a new and exciting order.

Right now I’ve got a month left to enjoy Cornish summer and watch 26 Flavours grow and grow. So that’s my focus. And by focusing I’m sure I’ll find lots of new opportunities.