Fallow

Last week, I was sitting in the park with my friend Lydie, a French illustrator and one of those people in my life who moved from co-worker to friend. I’d call her a true creative, and that idea was on my mind all afternoon. 

I also love how much she hates mornings; it’s one of my favourite memories from our time working together. Lydie was usually five or ten minutes late, which used to drive our Head of Marketing absolutely mad. It didn’t really bother me then, and now I feel almost more offended for her than I did at the time. She was, and is, so bloody talented. She always delivered. She just wasn’t a morning person. 

And now I’m like, God, did it actually matter?

As a graphic designer in a marketing team, surely what matters is that she brings creative flair and new ideas; who cares if she needs coffee and arrives between 09:05 and 09:15 to get going? Corporate is so funny and ridiculous at the same time. 

Anyway, I digress. 

Lydie is taking a big, bold move to focus full time on Grecorama, an incredible immersive experience. Right now, I love nothing more than hearing about friends who are making moves like this.

So there we were, me with a little flask of tea and my almond croissant, surrounded by trees already starting to shed their leaves, talking about her next brave move.

What’s great is that I’ve known her since 2014, and she’s been working on this incredible side hustle ever since, which has taken her to New Zealand, Korea, and several wonderful places in between. And now she’s giving herself until the end of the year to really make it her full-time thang. 

I think there’s something about talking to people who are imagining new worlds for themselves that makes me feel freer about imagining one for myself — it’s just so inspirational. 

We eventually got to the fact that I wasn't posting my updates on LinkedIn, and as we said bye, she asked me where she could find all the stuff I had been talking about. Where was I writing? Where was I putting all these thoughts?

And to be honest, I have been stalling.

I do have this blog, and it’s available for anyone to read (technically), but I don’t promote it because right now I quite like writing without knowing who is reading. I don’t want somebody sitting on the other side of the screen in my head because I know what happens then. I start editing what I write for this imaginary person.

Anyway, I got home later and was washing up, still thinking about our conversation, and for some reason I started thinking about Glastonbury. Now, I’ve never been, but I usually watch bits of it on the BBC if there are artists I like, and I remembered that every so often they have a fallow year.

Obviously I went and looked it up. Turns out there isn’t a neat rule of when this happens, which made me love the idea even more.

Then I looked up what actually happens when land lies fallow. I thought it basically meant leaving a farm alone for a bit. But there’s loads going on. Nutrients replenish, the soil itself changes, organic matter becomes compost, and different organisms can return, including things that might have been crowded out by whatever was being intensively grown there before.

And I was like… oh.

Because I think I’ve been very focused on what is happening above ground.

If there isn’t stuff being produced, am I even relevant?

Still a creative?

If I don’t post on LinkedIn, do I even exist? 

Like the famous philosopher said, ‘I post, therefore I am’. Sorry, terrible joke, but you get why my brain went there.

The funny thing is, there’s loads happening for me right now. I’m reading more widely than I have in years, disappearing down completely voluntary rabbit holes on things like commensality one week and Donella Meadows the next. 

I’m having long, windy conversations with people from my MBA, who make me think differently. I’m writing morning pages. I’m relaxing and spending hours in local parks. I’m thinking a lot - A LOT. There just isn’t necessarily much to show for it ‘above ground.’

And maybe that’s why the composting bit got me too. I don’t feel like I’m throwing away the twenty-odd years that came before this, nor do I want to. It’s more that I’m starting to work out who I am when my identity isn’t so attached to being in marketing, being a senior leader, getting on planes, jumping on stages and doing all that type of shit. 

Weirdly, a lot of the dots were already there. 

I just have more room for them now.

I didn’t realise how big my brain was. Which I know sounds ridiculous, but I think this is more about me remembering how curious I am about the world I live in, even when it is not posted on LinkedIn.

So yeah.

Fallow.

I thought it happened every four years. Turns out, not necessarily. The fallow year comes when it’s needed.

God, I bloody love that.