When I was out in Tasmania visiting my best friend of some forty years, we were talking about how the older you get, the more you truly become the self you were as a kid. You're less self conscious, and return to those passions that hooked you when you were younger, before life got in the way and all kinds of occupations and responsibilities pulled you in all kinds of directions.
That's the focus of this week's Ladies of Hive question - about the hobbies we had when we were kids and whether we've kept them or not, if they satisfy us, or whether they are different. My conversation with Tam asserted the fact that we can return to our passions just at a time where we have more time to do so.
Makes me wonder whether our interests are nurtured - for me, growing up with a surfing father and parents who valued nature and gardening, it was kinda a no brainer that I was going to end up in the same place as an adult. If you have a good childhood, chances are you'll come back to similar things as an adult.
My passions are yoga, surfing, herbalism and gardening. Learning to surf from about eight years old, yoga from fourteen and an interest in plants from about sixteen, well, I was always going to come back to those things because I felt joy in them from the moment I stepped into those worlds.
There was a time in my life when I didn't surf at all - I was busy raising a child, living in a place where there wasn't surf (Somerset and Dorset, UK) and there were lots of other things in my life that were preoccupying me. I'll return to surfing in a minute.
Gardening, however, never really left me, and in fact, it was one of the first conversations Jamie and I had. We talked about having some land, some chickens, a vegetable garden. That was always going to come true. I'd been growing herbs and plants since my late teens when I left home. Mum had hooked me with her own excited investigation into the plant world and she had a huge herb garden with a dragon tail path made out of bricks. It was a gorgeous cottage garden she let die when drought it, but I used to pinch herbs from it to plant in every rental I lived in. Thyme, peppermint, chamomile, sage, rosemary, lavender - herbs have been part of my life since Mum first put the family on a steady dose of nettle tea. Chamomile for eye infections, peppermint for tummy upsets - this was just part of how I grew up.
My Nana was always an avid gardener. When we were kids we used to run through her jungle of a garden, playing hide and seek. She grew an absolute abundance of parsley that ended up in every meal she made - gorgeous potato rosti, baked pasta with breadcrumbs, cucumber salad. Apricots dripping off her trees ended up in compote or in strudel, plums in jam, calendula in salve. It was from Nana that I gained further interest in homemade remedies, and it is much to my regret that she died before I could glean more from her. I always think it's her green thumb and practical, resourceful nature that runs through at least part of my DNA. She too rose chickens, although as Dad tells me, when they were kids she'd buy boxfuls of chicks from the market, wait til they were of age and then kill them to eat. Me, I don't have the heart.
Although I left surfing for a while, saltwater always ran in my veins. Saltwater, my Dad used to say, would fix anything. I recall being sick with a cold and Dad forcing me out of bed at dawn to surf, swearing it'd make me feel better, which it always did. I was Daddy's girl, so was always going to follow him into the waves. I rode a shortboard as a kid, and when I left Dad's side it was to spend hours upon hours at the beach with my best mate and the boys (girls didn't surf in those days) in the water, only coming out on dark, limbs rubbery and skin burnt. When I came back from England I rode a longboard, then a mate started shaping and riding SUP's (stand up paddle boards) when no one had ever seen them. Once I got on one I was hooked. It was a 8 foot thing (much shorter than the 9 - 10 foot boards that people often learn on) and super light. No grip tape, only a sandy surface that ripped my knees and feet every time I fell off and tried to clamber back on. Most people will give up because it's super hard to balance, but I had the luck to have other SUP crew encouraging me. Once I got on a wave I was totally sold. I get more waves on that thing than any other board and whilst I still have my long board, I tend to use the SUP more.
Like my best mate in Tassie, I'm obsessed by surfing again, coming full circle back to my youth. It's where I feel most at home, on the water. I feel no pain out there. I'm more agile, more supple and more happy out there than on land. And it doesn't matter how bad you might feel, surfing makes you feel better. Saltwater is the cure for most things. Dad was right. It'll soothe me when I'm angry, cheer me up when I'm sad, pull me into the now when my thoughts are scattered. Out there with dolphins and fish and the moon rising over the cliffs as the sun sets or vice verse, I'm in a state of perfect oneness.
Come Easter, I'll be heading out to Tassie a week before Jamie so I can spend a week surfing with my bestie down the west coast. It'll be just like the old days, though we have a few more creaks and groans in our bones and are no longer obsessed with boys.
It's funny, when we were kids we thought we'd never stop surfing, but we did, both of us, for a long while. I started again about ten years ago, and I'm so happy Tam found her way back to it as well. Turns out that the hobbies of your youth sometimes just come back to you, as if they've never left.
With Love,
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I've come full circle pretty much too, I have to say. Sometimes it pains me to think that, having not come from the happiest of childhoods. And yet there is immense POWER in reclaiming and going back to something as your stronger, wiser self.
Love that you got back in the water!!
Gosh, I hope that you have gone back to the good parts of your childhood! It makes me think that we pretty much are who we are from quite a young age. You'll see that in Ploi once she hits her 20's too.
Getting back in the water 12 years ago was best thing I ever did. Of course I stopped surfing for about eight years because of having Jarrah and moving to England. Love sustained me - but in the end, salt water was the thing that added that little bit extra I needed in my life. As you know I'm quite independent too so it's something I can do on my own.
I've tried to really coax Ploi to enjoy and learn things she can do on her own and don't always need a partner or a buddy. It's such a bummer having grown up on netball, tennis and basketball to learn that Thai people shudder at the thought. LOL.
I am going back slowly to revisit things.... try them again and detach old thoughts... and finding great pleasure in the feeling of not being defeated by my emotional baggage.
I suddenly KNOW why I am procrastinating on something I really need to do today, and gonna write a post about it!! On Drawing House Plans. Stay tuned.... xxx
Amazing post @riverflows!
I guess this is the good option! Oh my, how many things we have to unlearn to remember (if we are lucky) who we really are!
I truly enjoyed it!
My main hobby was reading, followed closely by horses. I have, of course, never stopped reading. The horses I had from age 8 until I was 17, then again at 22 until I got really sick in 1999. We closed the barn in October 2001 and have not had horses since.
Now the hobbies are reading and gardening. I started with house plants when I was 20 and when we got our first rented house in 1978 I started my first garden. There weren't really house plants when I was growing up and my mom never did gardens until I was in my mid teens. I found it on my own.
Oh gosh yes reading!!! I read ALOT when I was a kid. Now I think I watch more series on telly, so I think it was the stories I was addicted to as much as the words.
Oh horses - do you still miss them? I do.
Here's me as a kid with my sister.. She's in front on Bayleaf, which became my horse. The one I"m on is Chester, we had him on free lease and he used to do a funny wiggle and chuck you off. I could anticipate it and growl at him but he threw my Dad off so hard once he pissed blood for a week. Dad still tells that story, embellishing with how I thundered ahead on Bayleaf and caused him to fall, and laughed when he did - none of this is true - he just tells it for theatrical detail.
I haven't ridden in absolute years. When I went travelling I gave Bayleaf to a younger cousin who had her til she died. Great horse - she used to flagrace so was super agile, thus great for a young girl who used to like riding bareback on the beach and adventure riding!
This was my pony I learned to ride on. He was 15 when we got him and he lived to 35. He was 25 in this photo. His name was Chief and he was a retired gymkhana pony.
Later we got this half Arab mare. I was 13 in the photo. Her name was Kwaiyis Jauhar (Beautiful Jewel). I think she was 7 in the photo.
Oh wow snap!!! Love the photos .. just gorgeous!!!!!!
Surfing just without the boys hahahaha.
All of these watersports are good to keep on doing, I get ya! Staying on the water forever as well when there is water
Oh yeah, man, we were obsessed with boys of course. Lots of little love affairs, if that's what you'd call them. Fun times. But we were also fiercely independent and surfed because we loved it too!
HOpe you are well hon and things are okay where you are?
You are right @riverflows . As we get older we become more interested in our hobbies. Sometimes we can continue with the same ones, but we also discover others that we didn't have in our youth.
I love that you grow your plants. I have little space but I grow aromatic and medicinal plants: aloe, mint, basil, cilantro and oregano are the ones I have now. I also have some ornamentals that I love. They all respond to the love you give them. I always talk to them and they become more beautiful when I do it.
Happy gardening day!
#hivecomments
π That is why I am still giving it a last try to play football. The mind still feels, we are at our youth.
Oh yes! And we probably only have a good ten years left .... My Dad was surfing well til 69 when he got sick. So maybe I have longer!
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OH gosh @thekittygirl I'm glad that you don't award me every week, there's loads of ladies that deserve it too, but gee I'm really, really, really chuffed that you say so - I was just feeling the heavy grief I feel for what's going on in Ukraine so this little comment gave me a bit of brightness! Thanks so much - that means the world to me, it really does! xxx
It's awesome that you have returned back to them, I love that photo of you on the paddle board.
Keeping chickens is so cool. I've always wanted to get some of the ones with the funky hairdos and the feathers over their toes, they just look so swanky. One day maybe.
I'm so sorry that you didn't have enough time with your gran, I too wish I had known mine and learned from her, I feel that we lose so much brilliant knowledge along the way when this happens, it's generational history that we are missing out on. I am kind of hoping that at least some of what I was able to learn I am passing down to Lory. Family heritage is important to me.
Have an awesome Sunday evening River
Hugs
x
I also have a small garden with beautiful floral and medicinal plants. I'm sure you have pretty colorful butterflies around the flowers, I love that.
That is a lovely picture of you. Does it give you a lot of resilience to remember who you were back then and imagine yourself throughout. From 5-Now all together? Maybe in 5 Years cycles, imaging what you did and you it inspired you to stick to what you really love doing? Your passion for gardening inspires everyone, including me. Interestingly I meet other on hive here, who also actually have a huge passion for gardening.