coffee off the clock is a weekly column full of musings on life since i left my 9-5, and building a life around writing. join me for a coffee every week and follow my journey!

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i’ve been awfully wanderlust recently, reader. and no matter how many new cafés i go to, there’s an itch that remains unsatisfied. that’s why i’ve been dreaming of foreign cities and raging monkeys, wild and primitive.

that’s why when i seen an injured pigeon, my first instinct was to care for it and domesticate it. all wild things must be tamed. that’s been my mantra in these slow, quiet years. but it just doesn’t feel right anymore. in fact, there’s a kind of cruelty in domestication when it’s too heavily identified with.

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the outfit is too small

the thing is, i never knew how to hold that wild instinct in my early 20s. it spilled out everywhere, and for the last few years, i’ve had to learn how to contain it. routine, discipline, structure, chop wood carry water. feed the pigeons. do the dishes. do your workshops. your morning pages. devote, dedicate, build. and all of that brought me peace – but with no desire. because desire once fell into naïve hands and became dangerous.

don’t get me wrong, these things are needed. but in balance. and for me, it’s quietly become lopsided. like a jacket with one arm slipping off the coat hanger. just one side a little too heavy. and this year, i have discovered so many sides to myself that i didn’t know existed. i didn’t know that i had the ability to lead. or sustain. to nurture and facilitate.

these things remained tucked away in the shadows, under the accumulation of harsh comments acquired from teachers, mentors and friends in adolescence. so, to reconcile with these repressed traits has been essential to the life i’m slowly trying to build. but there’s another angle of me waiting to be explored.

who do you think that you are? who put that thought in your head? it just seemed such a fitting song for this week’s column. i’m beginning to dream a little bigger. of more than the small, domestic and local ‘me’. to shake off the dust from the still years. and all of this came as i continued reading man and his symbols, a collaboration between carl jung, joseph l. henderson and m.l. von franz.

do you ever get that, reader? where you find the right book at the right time with the right passage? henderson says…“any of us can see that there is a conflict in our lives between adventure and discipline, or evil and virtue, or freedom and security…and to which we never seem able to find an answer.”

we convince ourselves that we cannot hold both. that we cannot be all. that we must be the one at home, or the one who never comes home. or wear the pristine white dress or no dress at all. we swing violently to extremes, constantly trying to compensate one identity for another. “there is an answer. there is a meeting point between containment and liberation.”

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the mirror

as i read this passage, the wind throwing a violent tantrum against my living room window, i understood where i was and where i had been. the dream that told me to leave my job on boxing day, the dream that assured me that i will have no tangible proof other than this feeling of quiet certainty about a path less taken.

it was, as Jung calls it, an initiation. i could no longer see my work nor the world the same way after that day. you can read all about it in my article how a dream led me to leaving my corporate job.

and this is nothing new, nor exclusive. whole tribes have initiation rites and we’re all capable of experiencing them at one point or another in our lives. think about the ‘mid-life crisis’. that’s often a typical initiation period into a new aspect of our being. to see ourselves as more than a dutiful parent or good employee.

and the suppression of desire will erupt if too heavily contained and domesticated. if one side of the jacket leans too heavy, it’s going to come off the hanger. that’s why a lot of mid-life crisis lead to divorce, cheating and reckless impulsive behaviours.

“initiation is a process that begins with a rite of submission, followed by a period of containment, and then by a further rite of liberation. in this way every individual can reconcile the conflicting elements of his personality: he can strike a balance that makes him truly human…” so, this is how it looked for me and why i resonated so much:

• the rite of submission: the dream i had telling me to leave my job. this required a full submission to the unknown with very little knowledge and guidance other than my own compass.
• the period of containment: the two years that followed where life turned inwardly. getting a house with majd. writing a book in solitude. walks in nature. aversion to the city, crowds and stimulation. i call them my ‘hermit’ years, where i ‘stayed in the cave’ and began to heal the accumulation of deep wounds, uncovering new and previously repressed aspects of myself.
• the rite of liberation: the period i believe i’ve either entered or about to enter. life begins to turn outwardly. the image i keep getting in my mind’s eye is of the rest and be thankful on the way to colintraive that always has one lane shut for roadworks lol. one lane of energy has previously been closed in my life (turning inwardly) to build containment, and now they are both beginning to open again.

all of this has been heavily on my mind and because i can feel my desire coming back online, i’m still careful not to jump to any impulse. being aware and conscious of it is enough.

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the denied explorer

a few weeks back, i did a class with my group on archetypes and we all selected the one we were most drawn to and embodied them (listened to the music they’d listen to, eat what they’d eat, move like they’d move) and wrote from their perspective. it was almost like a type of method acting. i say ‘we’ but i avoided this task when i usually engage. and what we avoid often reveals more about ourselves. and i now know why.

the archetype i felt most compelled by was the explorer. and for a past version of me, exploring was channelled in all the wrong directions: alcohol, afterparties, becoming so porous and open that i didn’t know the type of people i was letting in. i never knew how to hold.

at 18, in my first year at uni, i wanted to go to america for the summer and work. but my mum wouldn’t let me. and i get it. she wanted to protect me. but i ended up experiencing one of the most dangerous years of my life, paradoxically, on my own doorstep.

then, at 24, i wanted to leave for australia. i was so close to buying the plane ticket while contemplating leaving my job. but then i fell in love and majd gave me a reason to stay.

at 15, i remember sneaking off the island alone, listening to there’s a light that never goes out, my head against the train window like a coming-of-age film, headed for glasgow. i wanted to walk between the tall glass buildings and find myself lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces. i was in awe. the world felt like such a big place. but i had my family worried sick.

that’s the forgotten part of me. the part of me that’s went underground because she had nowhere else to go, but stay home. but i feel her waking up after a long sleep. i’ve been flicking through travel blogs and websites, finding myself craving a little solo weekend in some odd european city. to find an odd part of me. if you have any recommendations for cheap, european city breaks for a solo traveller, do let me know!

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trying on new outfits

i said to my mum “there’s an ailsa-shaped hole in some place out there.” and i’d love nothing more than to take this column with me while i find it. but right now, i just have this feeling to watch and wait. the next step is always revealed after you bring something out into the light.

in the meantime, we chop wood and carry water & let the flame of desire slowly ignite. we hold the tension of opposites, waiting for the birth of that secret third way of being that brings the domestic and the wild, the free and the secure, into balance. so, i’ve been living how i mean to go on: as an explorer. my outfit today did noooot scream explorer but the red hoodie did reflect my… readiness??? lol. i loooove this van gogh print tshirt a little too much. and a pair of leggings WITH pockets. about time.

i got to chat about all of these things with majd over a cosy little good friday brunch at cielo café on great western road, glasgow. he has a way of making me feel less insane when i go through these revelations or have these little insights about myself. and i guess there’s a question we’ve both been asking me: who are you when you’re no longer healing? therein lies my task. anyway, philosophy out of the way. coffee…

i prefer lattes in a tall glass (feels like you get more!), and of course, it was hazelnut. yap score was off the charts today, but i’m still giving it a 9.5/10 so i’m not being tooooo dramatic, cause we’ve still got a lot of coffees to try.

there was a lot of songs being played on the car ride home, useless facts being flung around and ailsasplaining band lore to majd. oh, i also got pistachio pancakes which were deliciooous and i ate the flower! you are what you eat, as they say.

it’s been a subtly illuminating week, reader. i can see the threads in the tapestry of my life being sewn seamlessly. and everything that once felt like a tragedy and disaster of my character has only revealed something more honest and human in me. my life feels pregnant with possibility. who else am i when i dare to hold the repressed parts of myself up to the light?

anyway, until next week reader, may all your coffees be served in a tall glass so that you feel like you’re getting more! you deserve it.

– ailsa x