Writing

**A Courageous Choice - a chat with Simon Drew in the Paths to Flourishing blog**

When I heard Simon Drew speak at the Stoicon Women Courageous Paths to Flourishing online gathering on 1 October 2022, I knew I would love to speak with him. He had interacted with only one person in that small-group coaching breakout room – me –so it was remarkable that the universe answered: I did indeed get to have a free coaching call with him. It could not have come at a better time. For the last two years, I have been publishing a monthly newsletter called Some Little Language. The October post had been due on the 8th, and, in the wake of the Iran unrest, I was driven to write about hijab. But the disturbing events in Iran made writing very hard. I felt there was a danger (real or imagined) of my writing being hijacked by either of the opposing sides for their own agenda, and my first impulse was to keep quiet.

On the other hand, keeping quiet was oppressive. I have been working on my own healing by speaking out on my needs and wishes. I felt it was important for me to stay courageous and speak my truth about something I felt so strongly about. Even so, I did not publish the post on the 8th. I felt like a coward.

This was the ethical dilemma I brought into the coaching call with Simon.

I am grateful for the space that Simon held for me. His calm and calming presence, his probing questions nourished by authentic curiosity, and his overall heart-warming energy opened up the opportunity to bring my ideas to light, sound them off a fellow Stoic and achieve some clarity.

Fresh from the Courage Conference, we recalled that Courage needs to be tempered by the other three Stoic virtues: Justice, Temperance, and Wisdom. Publishing the piece seemed like the courageous thing to do, but would it also be temperate, wise and just? We worked through my dilemma with this Stoic approach.

Writing and publishing my immediate thoughts and opinions might at first glance seem courageous, but we questioned whether it would indeed be temperate and wise. It certainly would not be just for my nearest and dearest, who might find themselves implicated in a situation not of their own doing.

The key lay in the act of publishing. I recognised that nothing stopped me from writing down everything I wanted to, put it aside, let it mature and revisit it later.

The coaching call with Simon eventually helped me to strike a balance, homing in on my own personal experience in Iran, and bringing in some insights from a recent conversation with a new Iranian friend. The longer piece on hijab will eventually be written when the time is ripe.

Our conversation with Simon then ventured into the commonalities between Stoicism and other religious and mystic traditions, all essentially being different fingers pointing towards one and the same moon. We agreed that the appeal of Stoicism in our times is its inclusivity and universality. The coaching call with Simon was an inspiring experience which I recommend wholeheartedly. I am grateful to Modern Stoicism and to Courageous Paths to Flourishing for this opportunity and I look forward to following more of Simon’s events at The Walled Garden.

Originally published in the Paths to Flourishing blog on 21 December 2022.

Spread the Word Home Story Competition - Highly commended entry

My story Where the Hand Is was the highly commended entry for the London Borough of Ealing and was published in the competition book. I took part in a live reading in Ealing Central Library on 28 June 2022. Scroll to read the story and to listen to me reading it.

You can download the anthology here

Spread the Word Competition 2022 call for entries

Where the hand is

Long before London became home, it had been an idea in my head. Grandma was hanging out the laundry in the rear balcony of the Athens block of flats, my first home. An aeroplane crossed the small turquoise tile of Attic sky among the tall blocks of flats.

“Wave hello to Uncle Manos,” she said. The plane was bound for London, the magical placewhere uncle worked in a shipping company headquarters. Every time he visited, our flat was enveloped in the smell of Embassy cigarettes and the fresh fragrance of a laundry powder that smelled like something out of this world. It was the smell of London: an elsewhere, magical place.

After one of my first English lessons in year 4, I skipped all the way home waving a spelling test with “excellent” in my teacher’s red flowery handwriting. At 18, London took a definite shape and started living between the onion-skin pages of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, in the language of Virginia Woolf and EM Forster. I was still in Athens, studying English Literature.

Five years later I arrived in London with a battered suitcase full of books and winter clothes, and lodged at Hughes Parry Hall, Cartwright Gardens, London WC1. Room 118 in the student halls was like all the others: bed, desk, fitted wardrobe – but they were not mine. I put down the suitcase in the bare room and opened the only window: the air smelled of open horizons and refuse bins. I took out the London guide map and went off to trace the places where Virginia Woolf and EM Forster had lived and walked.

The sun was out. My twenty-three-year life experience in Greece confirmed the Greek proverb “you can tell a good time from its morning”. I walked towards Gordon Square, got into a red phone box, and rang home. I wanted to tell them about my flight from Gatwick, the taxi ride from Victoria that passed in front of Buckingham Palace, the separate hot and cold taps in the wash basin that I was unsure how to use. Baba answered. We already miss you – CLICK. Already spent, the £1 coin did not even give me enough time to say, me too. I put the phone down and stared at a card with an image of a blond, semi-naked woman with watermelon-sized breasts. I had no more change. I finally let myself cry – I was miles away from home, alone for the first time.

I retraced my steps. The sun had disappeared, and it was drizzling. By the time I got home – the student halls I mean – it was pouring down. The first of many old certainties was demolished.

In time, London became home; it breathed the language that became mine. Home is now where the heart meets the left hand, and they cruise together along the blank paper, sketching the places and the people that populate the homes – past and present – that have been mine.

Some Little Language newsletter

A monthly newsletter where I roam along language, culture, literature, ideas, practical philosophy and spirituality.

It was launched on 2 January 2021 and usually (but not always) goes out on the first Saturday of each month.

The impact of Stoicism in my life (Paths to Flourishing, May 2021)

“I have written out the Stoic teachings out and keep them pinned on the noticeboard over my desk, together with Marcus Aurelius’ contemplation of how time is limited, and will soon run out, because this is what the world is like (Book 2:4).”

Read the full story here