I’ve started and stopped writing this to you so many times, but if I let it slide into February, I feel like I won’t be able to say “Happy New Year!”

(If we’re still in January—just—can we do that? I know, we’re pushing it.)

How are you, after a Christmas and holiday season which, again, looked different for so many? I’ve loved seeing all those posts on Instagram of postponed family gatherings, Christmas trees left up a little longer, crackers pulled and crowns worn long after the New Year’s corks had popped.

Late entries, of sorts. Yet all the more precious for it.

(Sidenote: are Christmas crackers just a British thing? If so, consider yourself spared another tradition: the comically tight paper crown that slowly slips and rips before the truly awful joke has been read out. We love it, really.)

I’d love to hear how these first few weeks of the year have been for you, and if your holiday get togethers spilled into this month.

If they couldn’t happen at all—or things have been unbelievably hard—I’m so sorry.

When it matters not

When I wrote, in my last newsletter, that I just wanted to finish last year “with love”, I could never have envisaged how that would look. My mother ended up in hospital after a fall on Christmas Day, needing surgery and we couldn’t be with her (or my dad), as we all went down with The Bug. 😩

Thank you so much to those who've left lovely and kind messages, here, by email and on Instagram. She is healing well, for which we’re so grateful, it’s been super- hard and my heart goes out to all those who have experienced similar trials and continue to.

I want to share one comment on a post I wrote, the first time I made it to the hospital to visit my mum.

I’d tapped it on my phone, while waiting in a corridor.

Sunday best. As in, truly the best and only place I would want to be in this moment, visiting my dear mum in hospital for the first time since she fell on Christmas Day.
Everyone here, from the healthcare assistants and nurses to the kindest lady on reception, have been wonderful.
And I’ve never been happier to be wearing such a last minute, throw-it-on-and-run outfit combo - even if I slightly feel like I should be doing someone’s foil highlights.

In replying, writer Crystal Hammon made the following observation:

“You know you’re in important space when what you have on your body matters not.”

Oof.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Flimsy plastic apron and blue gloves aside, I was just so happy to be at bed 8, overlooking the harbour, and seeing her eyes light up (literally). I have a ridiculous selfie of us on my phone of that moment that I will treasure always.

Back to class

After a couple of false starts, I made it back to my weekly Pilates class last week and I’m so glad I did.

I’m not great at it, but I always feel better afterwards. I head home over the bridge feeling energised, walking taller and breathing more deeply than when I rushed (late) to class over it, an hour earlier.

I’ve come a long way. You know the expression, “Dance like no one’s watching?”. For me, it’s “Dance like Miss Meacock from modern dance and ballet isn’t watching”.

Miss Meacock was my childhood ballet teacher at the Richmond School Of Dancing. Old school in every sense (and beloved for it). She was iconic and her reputation preceded her.

Every Saturday, I’d turn up to class in a vivid purple leotard, matching tights and black ballet shoes for modern dance; or white with pink tights and shoes, plus a baby blue, wrap-over ballet cardigan, knitted by my mother.

The big, mirrored studio smelled of dusty, soft leather ballet shoes. I’d always hide at the back, desperately trying to avoid Miss Meacock’s beady eye as she sat, bolt upright at the piano, and called out instructions. The only one I remember? “Mouth closed at the back, Jenni!”

I made it to one end of year performance, at Wimbledon Theatre, in which I mostly swayed a lot in a red satin skater dress and earmuffs, while the other girls danced around me to Winter Wonderland.

Over the years, any exercise class situation with mirrors has always got my inner ten year old rising. Yet doing Pilates mat-to-mat with my friend Becky at our local studio is a highlight of my week, and not just because she cracks me up with her cries of “Hideous!” and “Impossible!” throughout.

It’s the showing up, with a group of women of all ages and fitness levels, united in the same goal: to get fitter and stronger, together, in body and mind.

Our teacher gives the gentlest of guidance, and kindest correction—even when you collapse in an uncoordinated heap mid-“threading the needle”. 😳

Another friend, who has been though an incredibly hard time since Christmas, told me this week that she decided to take a ballet class for the first time since childhood. Her teacher was in the same mould as mine, and would use a cane to tap out the rhythm of the music on the studio floor.

She was in at the deep end, but she loved it.

Just earlier today, I came across Pilates instructor Nicole Field, who focuses on the mind/body connection in her work and the role of movement in recovering from trauma. I’d love to learn more about her approach (I might ask her onto the podcast. More about that soon!).

I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to draw up our mats alongside each other.

To dance, live and love like everyone’s watching.

And to know that it “matters not”.

Last but not least

As much as possible, I’m embedding pics and pasting captions from social media when I mention them, so you don’t need to click onto social if you don’t want to, don’t use it or are taking a break. More about this soon, but on that note, I 100% recommend listening to this episode of A Drink With A Friend, and following the ongoing conversation between Seth Haines and Tsh Oxenreider.

I’ve also been enjoying the new season of Joy Clarkson’s podcast, Speaking With Joy—especially the launch episode, in which she makes a defence, of sorts, for being “Aggressively Happy”, the title of her upcoming book.

Coincidentally, I’m reading Joy’s sister, Sarah Clarkson’s book This beautiful truth, on the recommendation of a friend who said I’d love it, and she was right. Have you come across it yet?

In a similar vein to Joy’s defence of “aggressive” happiness, Kelly Corrigan’s latest pod interview with science journalist Catherine Price, about The Power of Fun, left me wanting to take singing classes.

If not ballet.

I’ve linked here before to Florence-based tour guide Denya Pandolfi’s Instagram page, which I love for the way she captures the city, its light, colours and everyday buzz.

On Thursday this week, she posted these beautiful photos from Venice to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Finally, these words, by St Gianna Beretta Molla, helped me to take a deep breath at the end of a long week of feeling in limbo with an ongoing situation, in which we want to honour and care for family and it’s difficult. I’m sharing them, in case they might speak to you, too.

“As to the past, let us entrust it to God’s mercy, the future to divine providence. Our task is to live holy the present moment.’

—St. Gianna Beretta Molla

Much love, and more soon. I’ve so missed being in touch, and I’d love to hear from you.

Jen XXX

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