176. Mapping my world
Drawing barefoot with my feet on the ground.
In which Rebecca explores both her garden and a mind-body approach to things.
Dear Reader,
I have strong feelings about certain things, one being that that I don’t like to take my shoes and socks off.
It’s not that I dislike my feet – my feet are fine – but I just can’t abide the thought of foot flesh touching anything other than the inside of a sock or the sheets on my bed. I feel desperately uncomfortable if my clodhoppers aren’t covered.
Some exceptions are acceptable. There’s the beach, of course, and my naked feet are permitted to touch the floor if it’s the middle of the night and I’ve got out of bed for a visit to the bathroom. Ditto the shower tray. As soon as my feet are clean and dry, though, I reach straight for socks and slippers.
🦶 Bare-naked discomfort
When in a conversation last week about the benefits of a mind-body approach to health my lovely friend P asked me if I’d ever stood in the garden in bare feet. I laughed, and hoped my panic wasn’t obvious.
‘I couldn’t possibly do that!’ I told her, as my feet screamed silently in support from inside my shoes. ‘Bare feet, outside? I just couldn’t!’
Later, while I waited for the kettle to boil for a cuppa, I headed outside to empty our container of kitchen scraps into the compost bin. As I clamped its lid back down I glanced at my feet, clad at the time in a pair of stripy socks and the green Crocs I wear around the garden. Should I? Could I? I laughed at myself.
No, course not. Not a chance.
Returning to the house, I made some tea to take back out into the sunshine. Jim had cut the grass and trimmed the summer growth from the hedges the day before, and the garden was looking lovely.
And then:
An extraordinary moment of what felt like utter madness had caused me to be standing barefoot on the grass. I didn’t even remember taking my shoes and socks off, and I felt both deeply uncomfortable and strangely different. Different, and – could this be true? – in a good way. I reminded myself that discomfort isn’t dangerous, just – well – uncomfortable. What was the worst that could happen here? Would my feet be okay? Of course they would. They would, and I would. Heck, even if there was broken glass around, or a rusty nail, well, my feet hadn’t found it, and if I stood in one spot there was no danger at all.
I breathed in the sunshine, the view, the feel of the grass, the sound of the birds. Somehow I felt rooted in this place. This is where I was meant to be in that moment, and, to my astonishment, I found that my feet were supposed to be free.
Naked.
Exposed.
Vulnerable.
🤔 Hang on. Vulnerable?
Gosh. Actually, no. Needing to wear socks and shoes all the time has never been down to the vulnerability of my feet, but of my whole self. And now, standing in the garden with my naked feet on the grass – my very soul exposed – I actually felt okay.
I am okay.
(Nuts, maybe, but heck, I’m okay.)
🖌️ The art part
Feeling unexpectedly soothed, I put my creative socks hat on and decided to make an intuitive, sketchy, no-pressure map of the garden, as a kind of ‘YOU-ARE-HERE!’ announcement to myself.
I fetched a stool, a piece of paper and a chaotic handful of pencils from the house, and retraced my steps back down the garden to record whatever it was that had just happened, and where.
I didn’t intend for my map to be geographically accurate, but as a page in my life’s atlas I wanted it to show everything I felt about what I was looking at.
The first landmark I plotted was the compost bin and the route I’d taken to get there. I didn’t label it ‘compost bin’, but ‘worms and bugs’, because to me those are its salient features. The focal point of our garden is the lamppost which Jim’s grandad had rescued from a railway station that had shut down, and I’ve represented that as a glowing light bulb. The birdbaths I trip over on almost every walk to the compost bin are there, and the locations of our two fruit trees are indicated by a rosy red and green apple and some stripy figs.
Who cares if the figs look like bulbs of garlic? I don’t. 😉
My map shows how I feel about the features of my garden. I dislike our palm tree with ungrateful passion, and have labelled it ‘incongruous cordyline’ because it doesn’t fit in with its surroundings.
Our vegetable garden makes an appearance with the legend ‘raised bed intended for growing stuff’, with its implied subtext ‘although we don’t grow anything’ remaining a hidden whisper.
Even our ongoing discussions about replacing our decaying garden furniture are charted, with the argument ‘we don’t ever really sit here’ shown in black and white on the map. One day we might replace it, or maybe we won’t. Heck, the jury’s still out, as it has been for years.
🗺️ I get to choose what my own map shows
Plenty of garden features didn’t make it onto the paper, and I know that if – when – I draw my next map of the garden, it will be entirely different. Perhaps I won’t plot the incongruous cordyline at all – and actually, is it even incongruous?
Reader, no. Any incongruity is mine.
Whatever makes it onto the next sheet of my life map, I know this one shows me that I have my feet on the ground, and that roses grow here.
And here is fine, just fine. Even barefoot.
Love,
Rebecca
📚 Reading 📚
📚 Street artist Angry Dan, as this article from BBC News shows, has spent six months creating a cartoon map of London showing 850 landmarks and people. A 5,000 square foot version of his work has been on display at the London Mural Festival.
📚 14-year-old Jake Daniels-Shipsmith has just finished drawing this map! His incredible seven-year project also saw him writing tour guides and history books for the imaginary world he’d created. Awesome!
📚 I love the map art made by Substack writer and abstract artist
of . Do check it out!
📚 Regular readers of ‘Dear Reader, I’m Lost' will be no strangers to my ongoing light-hearted correspondence with fellow Brit
of . Terry illustrates his posts with his own art, too, and it’s my turn to reply to him next Wednesday!If you’ve enjoyed reading this post,please let me know by clicking the heart. Thank you! You’ll find all the posts in this ‘Art & Treasures’ series here.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoy ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’, please share and subscribe for free.
I am so glad you and your feet have made contact with the earth. It's grounding, and I'm not being at all facetious. It's fabulous when the weather warms enough to get rid of footwear and just go barefoot. I love walking across our wooden floors after I've washed and polished them. It's like walking on satin. Goodness, Rebecca, I guess it must feel heady, like the days of bra-burning!
I also thought your garden map was so special and I think I'd like to try that myself - thank you for the inspiration.
And finally thank you for the link to 14 year old Daniel. What an astonishing piece of art and how dedicated he is. The idea of combining histories in his map is so clever.
I love maps. I've got a series of maps of my fantasy country, Eirie, that were designed by miniature book artist, Pat Sweet (USA). Pat is also a bookbinder and created the most marvellous miniature chest in which to store the maps. We had a lot of fun in a collaborations through the years of my fantasy writing. Her studio at the time was called Bo Press, but she has now closed it. She was a very fine artist and map maker. I might do a post on the work one day.
Thank you again for an 'earthy' post - golly, we almost tiptoed through the tulips with you!
What a brilliantly candid piece of writing, Rebecca. I loved that you were able to embrace going barefoot on the grass - isn’t that the line from a very famous Ed Sheeran song?! - and enjoyed the liberating experience. I love walking around barefoot and do so whenever I can. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, as always.