Looking out of the window this morning, it would appear that the entire town of Wotton-under-Edge is inside a cloud.
This has happened twice this week and many times over the years I’ve lived here. For a little while everything disappears into a damp white blur, making it impossible to see more than a short distance in any direction.
It always makes me smile, because it feels uncannily similar to something that occurs inside my head from time to time.
Some days I find it’s just not possible to see clearly. My beautiful long-distance views of life get obscured for a while and I become disorientated and lost. I lose all certainty about what I’m doing and why it matters and who and what I might be in the first place. Everything disappears into an existentially-bewildering cloud.
This can be a disconcerting experience in a world that seems to place a high value on ‘knowing’ and ‘being right about things’. We can imagine that we are supposed to have answers and be acting on them now.
On these days I have adopted a policy of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-ness: of taking whatever seems to be a reasonable, useful step in a direction that looks just about right and then seeing how things look once I get there. I find that each step seems to reveal slightly more of the path ahead. Sooner or later I’m not in the cloud any more.
There can be relief in embracing the not-knowingness of these days. In realising that it isn’t actually very important to understand and feel in control of everything – that what matters is showing up and doing the best one can, whatever that looks like.
Little by little, I’m learning that the world seems to keep turning even when I don’t quite understand how. (Phew.) Life feels a lot gentler and less overwhelming as a result.
So I’m curious…do you have cloudy days too?
If so, how do you find your way through them?