4 years ago, I got the chance to take Callum to the Rugby World Cup.
As it so often seems to happen (to me at least) an opportunity presented itself at the last minute and Andy (Legg), really kindly offered his tickets, x2 tickets to the Scotland vs Australia quarter final at Twickenham.
Andy had intended to go if it was an England quarter final and it wasn’t and so Callum and I travelled down to London, in the car, with our faces painted and me in a kilt.
Callum had been somewhat reluctant to have his face painted, but understood the significance of this when we arrived, due to the enormous amount of positive attention we received.
That was the most extraordinary game and although Scotland lost controversially in the very last minute, we had a acquitted our self extraordinarily well and as usual, it became “what might have been” for a Scotland sports team, which is usually the way.
Callum was 7 years old and I had brought a pillow and a quilt in the car, so that on the long journey home through the traffic and back to Nottingham, he could be comfortable and sleep, I even brought him a McDonald’s (I never do that), but as we sat in the car with his quilt around him, eating his cheese burger, he just sobbed and sobbed, because Scotland hadn’t won.
We listened to James Bay “Hold back the river” in the car on the way home and every time we hear that song, we talk excitedly about that day.
This is a blog about mindfulness, although I am cautious to write it, because there is still a taboo about talking about stuff like mindfulness and meditation, which makes people look at you like you are a bit “gone out”.
It would take me 18 months following that rugby match, before I had a proper go at anything to do with mindfulness and I would not want anyone reading this blog to think that I have a “well-established practice”, but it is certainly a tool that I have used to navigate the massive complexity of life as it has now become.
I use headspace, the app on my iPhone to teach me a little about how to meditate and use mindfulness in day to day life and then I found that I can use it without the app too.
So, fast forwards from 4 years from 2015 in the Rugby World Cup, to the Ed Sheeran gig at Roundhay Park in Leeds on the 17th August 2019.
It seemed that this was an absolutely doomed set of circumstances, a year before we tried really hard to get tickets for this, asking Marie at work to help, only to find out afterwards in the middle of snatching the tickets of what we thought would be a sold out concert – and then wasn’t.
We had 13 tickets over two nights, to go to Ed Sheeran!!
In the first instance, Callum and I were going to go and take some family on the Friday night and then go back on the Saturday, because the girls couldn’t make it due to horse commitments, but in the end the girls went on Friday and Callum and I went on Saturday.
We had 9 tickets, so we gave some as a present to Callum's primary school teachers because he had left primary school this year and Hayley B, her Husband and Becky (my implant nurse) took the rest of the tickets.
The ticket situation is important, because it is a demonstration of how you can use these tricks to help you in situations when things go a little bit out of shape.
Getting into an Ed Sheeran concert now, is insane, you have to have your credit card that you booked on, you have to have photo ID and you have to go through the correct entrance. The difficulty was that 8 of our tickets were through one entrance and one was through another and I had to go through a solo entrance.
I got to the first entrance, got everybody else in, no problems and then walked up to the green entrance to get in myself.
It ended up, there was a 40-minute delay to get in and I had left Callum inside, (although with other people and very safe) away from me in the middle of a massive concert.
Then I start to get a bit anxious.
You know that feeling, when you become a little bit irrational. I tried to text Hayley but my phone wouldn’t send because there were too many people, I tried to call but we couldn’t hear each other and so, it started to unravel, (it’s just a little bit).
That’s when the mindfulness tricks came in, if you can bring yourself back, and I did, and it was fine and I bided my time and I got in, obviously all was well.
The second incident occurred after Callum and I had gone off our self, leaving everybody to enjoy the concert without us and found our own little pitch, straight in front of the stage, but far back. Laid down a blanket and sat there and watched Lewis Capaldi and The Darkness waiting for Ed Sheeran to come on.
Callum was Hungry, so I told him to wait where he was whist I went to find out what food was available, but of course on my return in about of 10,000 people, I couldn’t find him.
Miscalculation.
I started to walk round and round, where I thought he should be and then there was the slight panic again, once again, just controlled in the same way and obviously tripped over and I nearly fell on his face.
Historically I would have had a tendency to react in difficult situations, particularly ones where anxiety is involved.
Mindfulness doesn’t stop that and has not stopped it, but it has helped me enormously, to control and deal and manage with things, more easily.
Up to the point and the glorious point.
My head moves very quickly, it’s always on to the next thing, I am difficult to work with at times, I know.
As soon as I start on something, I am planning the next thing.
Rehearsed conversations and scenarios and situations, while I am in the middle of a current situation.
When I went to concerts or events or any experiences, it was almost difficult to enjoy them, because I was always looking at my watch, thinking about the trip home or wondering what I will do next or how I will get to that or this.
It wasn’t like that on Saturday night in Leeds, Callum and I stood together, (he is now 11) but he was cold, so I had my arms round him the way I would if I was there with Alison. We watched the show, we watched the crowd, we watched the lights of everybody’s camera’s when the slow songs came on, we watched the people around us who were drunk dancing, we smelt the smells and we tasted the tastes, I looked at my watch a couple of times and I couldn’t believe how fast the concert was going (historically for me, these things were always slow), I didn’t want it to end.
Each song a surprise, but ones that we knew, singing along and dancing.
Alison, had been the night before, so we knew the format, before the encore, we moved closer to the exists but where we could still see the stage and then as soon as he was finished (that was the 6th time I’ve seen Ed Sheeran, I know how he finishes). We walked out fast to the car to get a head start on the way home.
Like 4 years ago, I had brought a quilt and a pillow for Callum, as we drove back down the M1 towards Nottingham, we reviewed the events together, what we liked, the amazing things we had seen and we cemented the memory.
Callum fell asleep, somewhere round about Rotherham, I watched so many people video the concert, to share later, with people that wasn’t there.
I saw so many people that I thought were a little like the way I used to be.
But I saw others, that I thought were like me too, just taking in what we could see and sharing it with someone who was there.
It is not the same when we share things electronically, we are not wired to do that.
We process experiences, through discussion and sharing and mutual emotions and then they’re locked. I have never been a big one for photographs in my hand, I much prefer photographs, in my mind.
Blog Post Number - 2106