Yearning to be elsewhere
Yearning to be elsewhere. acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 cm, Lynne Cameron.
I often catch myself yearning to be ‘elsewhere’ - which of course is actually to be ‘otherwise’ - and nowadays I try to catch this whisper of otherwise to examine it for any useful hints for how to live in the here and now.
One holiday morning, when home was a country cottage in England, I came downstairs and suddenly found myself longing to be in a house looking over a wide lake where I could light a fire, lay out my books and spend all day thinking and writing. Lamenting the fact that I couldn’t fly to Canada or the Rockies and seek out my longed-for lake, I glanced out of the window at the little farm pond across the road, with its weeping willows and geese and the tiny island where the moorhens nested.
Ha! - I realised - I do have a house by a (kind of) lake!
I am already ‘there’.
I moved my table to the window so I was overlooking the pond, now acting as that lake; I lit a fire; I brought to the table the books and notebooks and pens; I allowed myself to sit and gaze over the water as if I was there; prepared lake house meals. I brought something of the fleeting dream to life and so enjoyed those days of being in my imagined lake house.
If you’re joining us in the At-Home Residency next week, or you just long for a change of scene, allow yourself to dream into being in your place – perhaps you’re longing for the mountains, or a particular city (ah! Berlin, I miss you), or your home village, or that white cottage by the sea, or a luxurious spa hotel.
Close your eyes for 5 minutes and imagine yourself there.
What would you see, do, eat?
Walk around in your imagination - look outside and in. How would it feel to each of your senses?
Open your eyes and catch any connections with where you actually are, inside your place or through the windows. Maybe there’s snow on the roofs, or a postcard of the beach, or some tea from there, or some other souvenir brought back in better times.
Be creative about how you could capture something of the feeling of your longed-for place and how use this to create the best possible place for your residency or the next few days.
If you’d like to join us next week, read more about it in the previous blog post here.