Hey,

By and large, I’ve had a quiet year with work — mostly intentionally.

Nomading has taken up a lot of my time and energy, but I’ve also wanted to have more time to myself. No real purpose, no specific goal to work on, just taking it easy for a while. I’ve written it enough times in these emails, I must have finally taken my own advice.

In the last week, though, I’ve ended up with six prospects in my inbox at various stages of interest and readiness. My income could potentially treble in December if it all comes off. (It’s a mix of projects and retained work, so by January/February, it’d come down a bit.)

Hey,

“When you find the one, you’ll know it. You’ll just feel it!”

Houses, houses, houses.

I’m waiting to feel the one. That magical glowing feeling of “This is it — this is the place I have to be.”

Hey,

To stand beneath the autumn sky and watch a centimetre-long snail pirouette underwater, clinging to a fallen leaf…

This. This is to know one’s place in the world.

To think: I came all this way — 5 hours up the country, 1 more hour across it — to a vast, flagship nature reserve, its marshes and wetlands surrounding me and the muffled roar of endless traffic in the middle distance. I came all this way to crouch, awestruck, at the wet wooden edge of this pond and watch this snail.

Hey,

“How were you feeling, mate? Happy to have it out the way?”

My best man’s speech was possibly the easiest part of the day. I knew what I was saying, I knew that they wanted me to do it, and I knew that the room was on my side, so to speak. The chances of booing or a torrent of rotten vegetables felt pretty low.

The hard part was waking up with a sense of impending doom, my body tense as if under threat.

Hey,

I’ve got a bunch of friends who are going about having kids in a way that really pleases me and feels refreshing.

See, growing up, I think I took in this idea that having kids is an act of ultimate sacrifice—that it’s the moment you abandon yourself and your interests in service of another. It’s everywhere in our media and, I think, was the predominant view around me. You live your life, then you have kids.

That never sat right with me and I don’t love that I still see it in the world. I do love that I’m learning it’s not an absolute rule, thanks to friends and family who are proving otherwise.

Hey,

About being a digital nomad, this much I know:

• I get to enjoy a huge amount of novelty. Places, people, cultures, landscapes, lifestyles.

• Planning, enacting, and navigating that novelty requires a lot of resources.

Primarily, these are mental resources. I can (and may well in the future) write about the practicalities and costs of living as a digital nomad, but that’s not my focus as I write this.

Hey,

I’m a writer, right? Since I was a kid, it’s the only thing I’ve ever felt really good at. I’ve always been able to communicate things effectively in writing—emotion, information, instructions, whatever.

And right now, my words are failing me.

You might remember back in May, I wrote an email about a mysterious illness that was plaguing me. Well, it's kind of back. Or a version of it is, at least. I’m unwell again and I’ve spent days (no exaggeration) trying to understand what’s up. It’s messy, you see. I was feeling this unnamed weirdness since Saturday 16th and then I caught a cold on Wednesday 20th. Lines are blurred and sources are muddied.

Hey,

There we have it: six (and a bit) weeks at Château Coliving done and dusted, left trailing in the chugging wake of Brittany Ferries’ behemoth Santona.

It’s sad, for sure. It’s okay, too.

I think my acceptance started on Monday 4th, as that was the start of our last full week together. Then, this Monday, I knew it was the last few days. Still, though, for all the acceptance and processing and stoicism… Thursday sucked. It was the last day that I knew was coming, that I knew was inevitable, and yet it still hit me square in the chest when I woke up. Winded, I moved through the day trying to get everything in place.

Hey,

The air is warm and the sky is pink. Crickets and grasshoppers ring on both sides of the country lane. Cacophonous, shrill, furious. Blades of wheat, filling the fields and horizon besides me, strike softly in the breeze and cut the soft evening into ribbons of night.

I’d spent most of the day in Caen, taking in tall buildings and throngs of people after a month of pure chateau solitude, in 29C heat. 14,000 steps, a lot of sweat, and plenty of my old heat-health anxiety had wrung me out… but I got home, made dinner, and noticed that the run still called me.

Before I knew it, I was changed, hydrated, and taking an energy gel to get my frazzled body out the door for a gentle 5k.

Hey,

We sat in a circle, grounded on the old floor of the chateau living room. Floorboards older than any of us, their surface marked with rivulets and imprints from people long past. Candles, soft music, mint tea.

We talked about the moon—some might call it woo, but I felt it genuine and interesting. I felt a lot, in all of it. There was a group meditation, then we each wrote down something we wanted to let go of and burned our little shards of unease in the fire. We ended with a long, stretching sharing circle, talking about the things we want to release and invite in. I was moved by the openness and honesty around me. Inspired.

Except we didn't end there. We stepped outside and watched the moon rise, from a bank of cloud, with such brightness that it cast our shadows far behind us. Sam stepped into the clearing and sang a Scots folk song.

Hey,

I do travelling—and coliving, more specifically—wrong.

What I see in a lot of people, a lot of the time, is this adventurous spirit of wanting to get out into the world and explore everywhere nearby (and not so nearby). At Château, that means trips to places like Bayeux, Honfleur, and Mont Saint-Michel. Weekends get packed with day trips and activities, people leaving early and returning after dinner.

I don’t do that.

Hey,

I get giddy about this. It’s probably a bit silly, but it catches me by surprise regularly and makes me fizz with excitement. I’ll try to explain it as best I can…

My life—especially now, moving regularly and stacking plans—is full of milestones in the calendar. For example, in ~four weeks, I’m running a 10k race in Exmouth. I know that that date is coming up, that I’m accelerating towards its stationary position. That, no matter what I do, think, say, believe, feel, I know that that inevitable point in time will arrive and I will be on that start line.

I had it with our arrival at the Château—I knew that the moment would come in which our car turned in through the gates and we’d be held by the archway of trees and my heart would slow down and I’d feel the wash of peace across my chest. That knowledge made a brutal ferry crossing easier, it made the weeks leading up feel… out of shape?

Hey,

Back. I’m back. I’m back at work, I’m back writing this newsletter, and I’m back at Château coliving.

Some of it feels good, some of it doesn’t.

I’m loving how quickly I’ve settled into life in Normandy again. I presumed I’d find it easier this time, given that I’ve been here before, but I’ve found a sense of comfort beyond simply recognising where I am and knowing where things are. I’m feeling refreshed, back in community again. My last coliving was in February, which I left early. To be back in an intentional, international community of like-minded folks of all ages and creeds is a joy.

Hey,

Tomorrow’s my 29th birthday.

Getting a bit reflective on the cusp of a new year, the first thing I want to say is a big, sincere thank you. It’s really cool that you’re here, whether this is your first Slow News Day or your 57th! I write this newsletter primarily as a way to keep my own writing practice sharp, to carve out time for my own thoughts, and as a bit of a public journal. The fact you’re here, finding something useful or meaningful in my brain’s witterings, means a lot to me.

What’s 28 been about, then?

Hey,

I’m new to this adulthood thing. I’ve only done 10 years of it. Before that, I was a kid — legally, literally, and emotionally.

That means I’m about to hit the teenage years of my adulthood. When I think about the misplaced forthrightness of my childhood teenage years, I’m starting to realise I should tread carefully.

I had it all figured out, you see. I knew how things worked — I saw through the bull and knew how to right the wrongs of the world. I was sure that how I saw things and the way I imagined my life should go were absolute and would remain correct forever.

Hey,

The sky is big down here, at the edge of the island. Clouds bank up like they’re stored here to be distributed to the rest of the country. The sea is usually in sight and, more often than not, there is a hill upon which to marvel at it all.

Everything is open above me, beyond me.

I love Penwith. It’s so far out on the swollen limb at the end of Cornwall that it's claimed itself back, out the other side of tourism’s latching grasp, and exists in a bubble beyond the rest of Cornwall. Penzance is a popular town, but everybody stops and waits the same when the harbour bridge swings open and a vessel enters the dry dock.

Hey,

I’ve a funny relationship with the sea: terrible swimmer, ardent admirer. I don’t often get in, in what I’d consider a proper or meaningful way. I’m happy in the shallows, on the shore.

But I do sometimes go deeper. Especially when I feel in need of a certain… something. I heard Wyl Menmuir talk at an event last week and felt that something clarify when he spoke of “the sea’s great indifference”. As he sees it, we take from the sea what we need. When we need to feel small, we find it in the vast expanse. When we need to feel significant, brushing past the fronds of a seaweed reminds us of our closeness to the great, messy, soggy chain of life.

Hey,

Enough isn’t especially sexy.

A packed-out calendar and a few hours’ sleep sounds more industrious than prioritising rest.

A thriving stable of side-hustles is more admirable than doing a couple of things well as part of a sensibly balanced schedule.

Hey,

From the car park at Gwynver Beach, everything was dialled up to maximum. The light shone in all directions—from within and piercing out of the lazuli water and the swirling blue and yellow sky—as if we were nestled inside some secret coastal paraboloid. The strength of the light played tricks on the ocean, such that the passing clouds cast fast-moving, luminous green shadows on its glistening blue. They moved in perfect silence.

To do it a huge disservice, the view—perched, as if in an eagle’s nest on the near-sheer cliff-edge—is dramatic. Sennen Cove settles far off to the left, the rocks off Cape Cornwall glint past the headland on the right.

It’s a long way down to the beach, taking in a narrow stretch of coast path and a steep descent on stony steps and sandy soil. The beach itself is golden, fringed at the edges by shingle, and at the shoreline—about an hour after high tide—a sudden shelf drops half a metre or so and tinges the pleasant, rolling waves with threat.

Hey,

Justin Ehrecke's interview in Any Distance’s Community Spotlight features one of the most profound statements in my recent memory. I may have shared it before, but it clearly wanted to make its way back into Slow News Day.

"Our coaches would punish us by making us run. I never really considered myself a runner, honestly, because I always thought it was punishment."

If you'll forgive me the sweeping generalisation, I think this is the reason most people hate running. It's drilled in as a punishment, something to strain to overcome. And that's where a lifetime of running too fast begins.