The trail of breadcrumbs

I’ll start where I left off last week, and with the possibility of a new start. It’s been a rollercoaster week of learning and creating and I have to say I am back on form after my dalliance and dance with the black dog.  Several things brought me out and I want to tell you about them.  I had some uplifting emails and I am so grateful for those who sent messages of hope and encouragement.  People who had really thought about what I’ve been saying and knew where I’ve been.  One of the best things about us humans is our capacity to be there.  I’m not sure about empathy.  I have a friend who says ‘a problem shared is a problem doubled’, which is funny and true because it is funny or maybe funny because it is true.  But being there and showing up for someone going through mental health challenges is a lot more helpful honestly, so thank you. It all launched me on a search for what it means to be creative and my guru in the search became Elisabeth Gilbert, by way of her TED talk ( https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius ).  I downloaded her book ‘Big Magic’ after listening to her talking recently with head of TED, Chris Anderson, about being overwhelmed by the coronavirus.  That journey took me also to the thoughts about what I have been good at in my life and what I could explore in the way of following Ms Gilbert’s ‘trail of breadcrumbs’. I responded to an email from someone I knew years ago when I ran The Clocktower, the training and education centre I founded in the heady days of the early lottery.  She founded and now runs an arts charity in North Wales and was looking for a project to launch and rebrand the Charity’s work.  The long and the short is that I’ve been helping with that as a volunteer and have been creatively involved with developing a project for 18-24 year olds who have been effected by the constraints of lockdown and feel isolated and a bit lost.  Like us all really but we oldies have at least had the huge advantage of a pandemic-free career to look back on, reflect on, remember and feel good about.  And unlike half the world who, as well as all those feelings, are also suffering, starving, homeless, disenfranchised and desperate. So I am following the trail and I must say it IS fascinating.  It’s not about a new career, though the thought of earning a penny or two from it at some point is a vague possibility.  It is about doing something for the others again.  'Storing my grain in the belly of my neighbour' as Ms Gilbert quotes. And I must say that thought is uplifting and energising. I am finding a new energy and enjoying all the new ways of co-working now far more technologically than they ever were in my day, but clever and useful and matching in some ways the workings of the human brain. The project would be a four week online (how could it be anything else) project for young people interested in discovering their creativity and working towards a career.  There’s a psychologist also in the bra