Every Tuesday afternoon I do a volunteer stint at Cancer Research in Twickenham. Come Tuesday I'm glad to get into a real room with people. I've already learned a sequence of eleven button presses at the till to cash a ten pound note and acquired a new diligence at sorting out women's clothes.

I love it.

Anna is the woman who steams. She's great. She cleans the clothes, has been working there for years, and has a special relationship with the hoover type thing that steams them.

The last time I seriously put pencil to paper in the attempt to draw something I was 12 years old. Since then my potential contribution to the walls of the National Gallery has been in sketches during epic Pictionary games. But I've been recently inspired by a friend's work, lockdown journey and her sketch notebooks.How would it be to go to a life drawing class, now - and draw someone?I wasn't good enough. I'd learned that. Not my 'thing'. You may well have been taught this too. You may even say these words. It's taught so well.

Recently I’ve been in an internal chaos. Loss, closure and transition. All previous losses come up alongside my recent loss like long lost shadows. I know my grief will end when it ends. When it’s done with me, and when I move it.

I’ve had many losses before, and though none like this, I have a basic level of life practice in this state. I know a little of letting go.

My grief is an internal pressure state. It’s knocking me off ‘my stride’. I cry more tears than a heavy rainfall. It’s as if I’m having my life temperature taken. “Let’s just check-in and see how you’re doing Mr Alldridge.”

It’s also a reckoning. How resilient actually am I?

We see snippets of people’s lives. And it’s often natural for us to make an assessment based on these snippets. Whether it’s a conversation, or something we’ve seen on social media. The assessment I can often draw highlights my lack of something, and their gain.

We live in a time when so many of us want to be the public figures of our own tribe, with our own band of followers. What’s now possible is that we can create a projection of ourselves that bares little or no resemblance to what our lives are actually like.

I was out walking with my Dad on Good Friday. He’s deteriorated over the Winter, his walking is precariously slower and he becomes confused more easily. In the car I have a thing about his seatbelt. In a world where so much is done for him, I cajole and coax him to put this on himself, yet it’s so challenging. On our trips I’m committed to letting him do this alongside my gentle guidance; I want his brain to stay active as long as possible.

Last week I was offered a couple of hours work painting at the church hall. I’m grateful for the opportunity of working practically and seeing a space transformed by colour. During the afternoon a couple of other guys were around, one of them was working on the dryers in the toilets.

We briefly said hello and for a few minutes I got on with what I was doing. On reflection, I’m conscious that although I spoke, it wasn’t with the warmth I know I can offer. I withheld a part of myself.

Some of us long to be more deeply seen or known by others in our lives, yet the vulnerability of showing up more fully keeps us hidden away. Yet it’s the courage to be fully present with ourselves and others, that makes our interactions fulfilling and alive.

When you see someone, a politician, presenter, speaker or friend, stand up and speak, have you noticed what is it that draws you to them? Is it what they say? How they say it? Is it how they comport or hold themselves?

We are all born with an innate aliveness, an energy, a longing to participate fully in life. This light rests within us all, waiting to shine brightly.

Yet we all had needs that weren’t met when we were younger. We wanted to belong, to feel safe or to be held in dignity, and stuff happens, sometimes traumatically, that gets in the way of our receiving these basic human needs.

So to help take care of ourselves, our bodies learned to control this aliveness.

Perseverance…

Lands on Mars!

I remember hearing the word Martian when I was younger. It pretty much meant outer space to me, something alien at the edge of the galaxy…

Last week I watched the NASA team land Perseverance out there on the Red Planet. An incredible project bought to fulfilment. The lifetime's work of committed people coinciding to create such a warm and rich celebration of achievement, engineering, adventure and learning. Human accomplishment at its limits.

Why wouldn’t you take the quickest route, find the easiest way? Our lives are so wired for quick solutions and fixes. We constantly find ways to make life more comfortable for ourselves.

Yet will the easiest way bring you the most fulfilment?

When did you take the longer, perhaps less travelled route?

What’s your earliest memory of hearing a poem? Or reading one? How was it? Did the experience encourage you to explore reading more?

During a practice I lead, I often hear myself saying “use your embodied imagination…”

And what is embodied imagination?

My friend Raf, The Handiest Man, popped round yesterday afternoon to see if we could fix the broken cistern on the toilet. We couldn't do it.

So we shared a piece of cake.

Now baking has been many people’s thing during lockdown. I enjoy cooking, though I’ve never really got on with baking. Recently though, there’s been a breakthrough. I went back to basics. Recipes. I learn to dwell a little in the steps of those who have walked these paths before.

An older man stands up and says a few words. Moments later a much younger woman joins him, and says a few more words.

I’ve never felt closer to a political stage. What about you?

The elder and the artist, weaving their dreams together for truth, healing and democracy.

Sometimes the morning comes too soon, and sometimes it can’t come soon enough.

There’ve been times in my life where I’ve cried out in the despairing darkness of night.

Maybe you know of this place?

Ants don’t choose to do things.

We can.

I’ve been watching A Perfect Planet on BBC1, another artistic and scientific wonder of TV production. What a privilege to be able to see such incredible work. And Attenborough is a man who understands humility. He’s a master at not getting in the way.

My good friend’s in West Middx Hospital with Covid-19. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. While we’re quite close, I am distant enough not to be in the front line of his contacts. And I know a little what it’s like to be seriously ill: what’s important comes deeply into focus, life gets stripped back, we hand ourselves over to others to care for us, professionals and the care workers, so many of whom have already given their own lives in service.

New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve never liked them much.

Gym memberships soar and a couple of months later… Are you still going to that 8am class?

Sound familiar?

Was the 'resolution' deeply important for you, or just one of those ideas?

Holidays.

Or Holy Days?

Or both...

In a year where we mourn the loss of life for so many, and where some of us or our neighbours remain in uncertainty and fear, our need for a centred presence and for faith in the renewal of our world are greater than ever. We may feel the loss that sacrificing visits to see friends and family brings, and even though there is separation, we all stand together in the collective experience.

When did you last feel the desire for change?

Perhaps you have the experience of being united in a purposeful mission that matters, or you are looking for that right now. Maybe you experience a resonant leader in your life that inspires you with hope, caring and compassion.

Somewhere in the furthest recesses of your heart, perhaps in some shadow that you haven’t yet forgiven or resolved, sits your right to feel joy.

A mixture of emotions, an attitude, a choice. It’s perhaps deeper than the fleeting scent we call happiness and it waits to be brought into life through you.