Ch-ch-ch-ch-changing.

Changerous is a new blog about, well, change. It's been set up by Kirsty. Kirsty was the first total stranger to contact me and provide encouragement in the early days of the Thirty@30 challenge. It never fails to move me when anyone takes the time to do this, let alone someone who doesn't know me from Eve, and has absolutely no vested interest in being nice. My friend Julia is one of my biggest fans, and is hugely supportive and encouraging, but I get to make it up to her by feeding her on a semi-regular basis, and by allowing her to talk me into all sorts of ridiculous things, like triathlons and going commando.

So, huge thanks to Kirsty for encouraging me, and for giving me a guest spot on her new blog. Kirsty is undertaking fifty new challenges at the moment, and I tip my hat to such an endeavour, knowing as I do how difficult it is to think of, find time for, and finance a mere thirty. Next week, on the Changerous blog, there will be a guest piece from Geri Girard, who is doing a Forty@40 challenge. These birthday-related projects are fantastic in terms of motivation, and I highly recommend them, especially if you are an undisciplined person like me. But you don't need to commit to a large or specific number of new things in order to enhance your life. Even tiny changes can make a big difference. So the message for today is that change can be good. Change can be great. And, if in doubt, just say YES. (Unless someone is offering you drugs. Then say no. M'kay?)

Here's my guest post:

Changerous

A meeting place for women to share their stories of change, challenge and triumph.Skip to content

Thirty@30

I first read about Joanna’s challenge via Twitter, and I started to follow, because I was working through 50 challenges of my own, for my 50th, next June. I kept following her blog because I love the way she writes–and how she shares the fun of her journey.          –Kirsty

It wasn't so much that I felt I needed to change. It was more that I needed to do something to mark turning 30, and to save me from the vague yet troubling suspicion that I wasn't making the most of my life. So I came up with what I have since discovered was a far from original idea: To undertake thirty brand-spanking-new challenges between turning 30 and turning 31, and to blog about them all. I told anyone who would listen about Thirty@30, to ensure that I absotively-posolutely couldn't chicken out.

Whilst I never set out to change myself, I knew that there was one fundamental shift I would have to make for the project to succeed: I would have to say ‘yes’ a lot more often. Not easy for a homebody with a profound fondness for her purple sofa. But the beautiful thing about this project is that it has a deadline. Everything has to be done by my 31^st birthday, on May 11^th 2013. I may be lazy when it comes to lots of things – right now I am looking at an oven that is badly in need of a thorough cleaning – but when it comes to deadlines, I meet them.          

My challenges began, and so did saying ‘yes’ to some unexpected things. When I was offered a place in a half marathon, I said yes, despite the fact that I had huge – and I mean GARGANTUAN – difficulty shuffling 5k at the end of a sprint triathlon. When I was invited out to a casino on the spur of the moment, I said yes.  When a total stranger on a train platform asked me for a hug, I said yes. When my friend suggested cycling from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle – and then back again – I said yes. MMA session? Yes. Aerial Silks class? Yes? Helicopter ride? (Gulp) yes. You get the idea…

Of course, some yesses were never in question. Blog or no blog, there was only one answer to my friend’s request that I be her birthing partner. I could not have predicted the profound emotional impact of that particular ‘yes’; of seeing the baby reach up to the light for the first time; of being the one to cut the cord binding him to the placenta. In a way, it bound me to him for the rest of my life.

The challenges aren't only about saying yes to other people, though. In fact, it is often far easier to say yes to someone else than it is to say yes to myself. It required tremendous will-power to go through with giving blood, for example, since no one would have been any the wiser had I turned around and sneaked away. Consequently, it is one of the challenges of which I am most proud. In a similar vein, I have just organised a life drawing class of ten-or-so artists, for the SOLE PURPOSE of getting my kit off in a room full of people. Argh! Self-inflicted terror in the extreme. Please subscribe to the blog if you would like to know how that goes. I’m telling you this, incidentally, because now I can’t freak out and decide not to do it….

Over the last eight months I have become pretty good at this ‘yes’ malarkey, and there’s no doubt that with it has come a certain freeness of spirit, as well as a marked improvement in my self-discipline. When there is a challenge at hand, I do it. When there is a blog to be written, I write it. Alas, the same cannot be said for the ever-growing need to clean the oven. For now, I am still resolutely saying ‘no’ to that particular task.

Perhaps the greatest challenge – and the greatest change – is one I could never have predicted or prepared for. My partner moved out two months ago, and for the first time in my life I am living completely alone. It is a sad, difficult time, but Thirty@30 has given me strength and drive where melancholy and inertia could so easily have taken over. All change is a challenge, and with all challenges come change, whether you like it or not. It is the act of consciously inviting these challenges into my life that has helped me to make a whole lot more of it.

Now, all this positivity lets me off the hook as far as the oven is concerned, right? Go on, say ‘yes’.

Joanna Josefina Thomas is a London-based writer with a day-job as managing editor of a legal publishing company. She blogs, writes poetry, and is editing (and re-editing) her first novel. She is also a freelance fiction editor. She is not ashamed to admit to a very dirty oven.

Ticket for One: Fuerzabruta at the Camden Roundhouse

Friday, January 11th, 2013. Lunchtime.

I came back from a long and peaceful stay at my mum's house in Southern Spain yesterday. The day before, I spent some minutes hovering over the 'confirm flight change' button on the EasyJet website, desperately wanting to stay another week.

The only problem was, at the end of that week, I'd still have the problem of having to go home. Home to an empty flat. Home to the cold and grey of London in winter. Home to the office and the responsibilities of real life.

Plus I'd have a week's more work emails to deal with and a week's less holiday to take later in the year. So I decided to man up, finish packing, and get the heck on with it. Needless to say, the whole experience is proving somewhat traumatic.

I took off in bright sunshine, spent the entire flight next to a six-foot teenage boy with no concept of personal hygiene or personal space, and landed into thick fog. Two and a half hours and three modes of transport later, I finally reached aforementioned cold and empty flat, where Sky Plus had lost satellite signal and completely failed to record all the TV shows that were going to cheer me up.

Then, this morning, the greatest insult of all. The dreaded alarm clock. The dreaded office. 400-odd emails and a pressing deadline that caused me to skip lunch. I knew I shouldn't have come back...

But mid-way through the day, an email came in from my friend Jules. It said: 

If you can go to Fuerzabruta at the Roundhouse then DO, it's amazing and joyous! I went 7 years ago when they (Argentinian dance troupe) were last in town and then again last night.

I immediately googled Fuerzabruta and saw this:

'The biggest natural high in town and absolutely irresistible' - Daily Telegraph

Now, an irresistible natural high sounds like just the tonic for these post-holiday blues. BUT tickets are basically sold out, apart from tonight at 7pm. Who am I going to find to drop everything and come to the theatre with me on a Friday night? And anyway, over £40 for a STANDING ticket? Everyone, including me, is broke from the Christmas madness. Any other time, I would have just dropped the idea, saved myself the cash, and headed for home and a blanket on the sofa. But then it hit me. I have never in my life been to the theatre on my own. 

I don't know if this is unusual. I mentioned it to a couple of friends, all of whom seemed to have done it once or twice in the past. But to me, theatre is an experience I have always shared. Isn't half the fun to dissect it all afterwards? Isn't it a bit lonely and awkward to travel there alone, find your seat (or standing spot) alone, have an interval drink alone, and leave alone? ALL ALONE???

Well, sod it. I want my natural high. And perhaps going to the theatre alone will be a noteworthy right of passage, in this year of new experiences. I can't deny that it is slightly liberating, if also slightly scary, to hit 'confirm purchase' on a ticket for one, without reference to anyone else's pockets, preferences, or schedule. I'm not saying I want to live my life selfishly and alone. I don't. But since that's the position I am currently in I may as well explore it. After all, I won't learn anything new about myself tucked under a blanket on the sofa. So I'm booked and I'm about to dash home, eat the lunch I skipped, and make my way to the theatre on my own. Curtain up...

Ticket for one!

Later that evening…

I am home. Under a blanket on the sofa, eating leftover Christmas Stollen for supper. If I hadn’t gone out tonight I might be starting to worry…

Christmas Stollen. A beautiful thing. 

Earlier that evening...

The Camden Roundhouse is packed. I stand in the queue at the box office and watch people scanning the near horizon for their friends. I keep thinking I might see someone I know, unsure if that would be a good thing, or if I’d have to try and avoid them to complete the challenge. Either way, it doesn’t happen.

The hordes file into the Main Space, which is dark and thumping with percussive music. A group of hipsters greet each other to my left, and I bristle with rage as one of them exclaims: “oh my god, it’s just like Auschwitz, hahahahaha.” For all the extraordinary kindness and goodness in the world, there really is some seriously stupid, thoughtless idiocy. A rant rises in my chest but dies there, because I have no one to share it with. I move away, deeper into the crowd.

It’s only about ten minutes until the show starts, but it feels longer. I play solitaire on my phone and wonder if I’m a conspicuous loner, whilst at the same time realising that this is a ridiculous notion. Why would I be conspicuous? The only one acutely aware of the fact that I am here alone is, well, me. At this moment it also occurs to me how ridiculous it was that I tried on three different tops before coming out. But girls will be girls, even when there’s no one to see them, I suppose.

In this photograph, I carefully document my painstakingly chosen outfit. What a surprise. I am wearing black. So original, dahling.

Spoiler alert: If, by any chance, you have tickets for the London showing of Fuerzabruta over the next couple of weeks, you may prefer to read the below after you’ve seen it. The strange surprises are half the fun. Consider yourself warned!

The performance starts with huge puffs of smoke, shuddering drums, and a loud chant that is somewhere between mournful and rebellious. 

Guaira que sigue soplando. Guaira que sigue cantando. Guaira sera. Guaira sera. 

Even though I am not exactly sure what a Guaira is in Argentinian Spanish, the chant strikes chords within me, moves me somehow. A guira, whatever it may be (the wind from the sea? An instrument of some kind?) continues to blow, continues to sing.

The man who ran.

And then we descend into chaos, the Fuerzabruta (brute force) of the title. If I was a creator of theatre, this is what I would like to create. Noise, exhilaration, madness. A complete lack of coherence. On a giant treadmill, a man runs and is shot down over and over again, each successive shirt spattered with blood and then removed and thrown to the ground. He runs through walls of flying cardboard boxes. He hurtles up stairs and falls. He does all he can to rescue tables and chairs that spin away from him, though they are not his tables and chairs. Wind and fine rain blast his face, and ours. It snows strips of fluttering white tissue paper. Girls run back and forth through silver waves, shimmering on the walls. A man and woman struggle and swarm on opposite sides of a spinning disc, suspended from the ceiling.

When the huge (and I mean huge) trays of water begin to descend from the ceiling, bodies writhing in the swishing shallows, I know that I have seen this before, on the TV I think. Eurovision, maybe. (Eurovision Moscow, I discover when I get home.) 

The generally terrible camera on my phone gets big points for this picture.

The pools descend to just above our heads and the swimming, dancing girls fling themselves down with considerable violence. Everyone laughs nervously and we raise our palms to the flexible plastic separating us from the water. I am strangely, unusually aware of myself. This is stunning and magical, but I’m not lost in it. Maybe I'm trying too hard to have a good time.

The water descends.

I TOTALLY had this one! With the cherries!

Later, the audience crowd surfs a huge plastic sheet across the whole room. As it passes over me, the smell of it fills me with a wave of nostalgia, though for what I’m not sure. My Little Pony? I really love the smell of My Little Pony plastic. Don't judge me.

No no no, says my brain. It’s a bouncy castle! And of course, it is. It’s a giant bouncy castle, and we are inside it. Awesome. Old-fashioned aviators bounce above us, and then descend through holes in the dome to pluck up members of the audience. I confess to being somewhat disappointed that I am neither hoisted to the heavens nor – later - selected to have an exploding pizza box of glitter smashed over my head. I want to be part of this experience in a way that I can’t quite achieve. I think this is partly down to a distant, lingering regret that I did not pursue a career in the performing arts, and partly down to being alone tonight, and not quite liking it. I'm uneasy, half in and half outside of the experience.

This blurry man in a suit has a pizza box full of glitter exploded over his head. Now that's one way to unwind after a day at the office.

Somewhat abruptly, the show ends as it began, with drums and singing. The audience roars its appreciation and then shuffles into the crisp, cold night. It’s early, only 8.15pm, and people disperse to bars and restaurants. I start walking home, but it’s cold and I’m wearing a stupidly thin jacket, so when an empty taxi appears I grab it. You know the rest; blanket, sofa, cake etc… And that’s that. As far a new experiences go, it leans towards the anti-climactic. But I’m not in the least sorry that I went. It really was an amazing performance, packed with creativity and energy, well worth the price of the ticket, the cab ride, and the slight sense of solitude that accompanied the evening. I’m not sure solo theatre is my thing, but I’m pleased to know I can do it if I want to. Being brave, it transpires, doesn’t always mean doing something big. Curtain down.

Now, all this philosophising isn’t going to do me much good if it continues to be accompanied by sofa and cake. Thank goodness I’m getting up at silly o’clock tomorrow morning to do my first ever Bikram Yoga class.

Seventeen down, thirteen to go…

Been There, Done That.

I am writing this on January 1^st, 2013. This means that I have four months and eleven days left to complete my Thirty@30 challenge. It also means that I am well on my way to being 31, which, all things considered, is a little disturbing.

I´m just over half way through the challenge, with only a third of the time left. In order to prevent panic, I have decided to look over a bunch of challenges that would probably have made it onto the list, if it weren’t for the fact that I’d already done them before turning 30. Aside from the pleasure of reminiscing, it was a LOT of fun looking through old photographs in search of the pertinent evidence. For NO other reason that that it made me weep with laughter for a good five minutes, I´d here like to include this utterly inexplicable photograph of my mother. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Anyway, now that I have my breath back, here goes the list, in a very ragged chronological order. Some of the things have a story to go with them, some have a photograph. All of them brought a memory, or several memories, into sharp focus in my mind.  I remembered family and friends that I haven´t seen for a long time, and to everyone who features somewhere in this blog post I send my love, and my thanks for being part of my life. If you’re planning a bucket list of your own, perhaps you’ll find some inspiration

Get a piercing.

My mum is from Venezuela, country of seriously beautiful women. If you’re in need of evidence, take a look at this picture of my mum in her youth. HELLO.

In Venezuela, as in many Latin countries, little girls get their ears pierced pretty much before the umbilical cord has been cut. It’s just normal. How else is your daughter going to wear her first pair of gold earrings? I, however, was born in London, where a succession of nurses, doctors and midwifes looked at my mum like she was a child abuser when she asked who was going to pierce my ears. It took her six months to finally locate someone who could be convinced to do it. The day she did, she was a happy lady. My father’s reaction, when he got home, was “YOU’VE DEFILED MY DAUGHTER WITH GOLD.” Oops.

Aged 17, I had my navel done too. I like this slightly incongruous little detail about myself.

Become a Domestic Goddess

Mum trained me to wash up at an early age. To this day, it is one of my finest skills.

Perform on stage

There are SO MANY photographs of me in various costumes, at various dance shows and plays, that I have decided not to include any. Everyone already knows that I´m a show off, there´s no need to enhance the perception. However, I can honestly say that I always did find being on stage to be an enormous rush, and I miss it.

Oh go on then, just for fun, a few pictures of me showing off...

To this day, I still have no idea how to apply lipstick.

Was this entirely appropriate for a school production?

I really have no idea...

Drive a vehicle in a swimming pool.

OK, this might just be an excuse for another silly picture.

Fake an illness to get out of school

Well, you see, the Chicken Pox was going round, but I didn’t have it. This seemed somewhat unfair, since it meant I was going to school when most of my friends weren’t. I decided to remedy this. The scheme must have been schemed well in advance, as when I rose in the deep dark depths of the night, I already had the equipment to hand, and there is no way mum would have let me keep a permanent marker in my bedroom.

To her full credit as a good sport, I seem to remember mum keeping me off school anyway. I do believe that my father (a consummate actor) actually managed to get his appendix whipped out, just so that he could get out of games… Like father like daughter.

See the Taj Majal at sunrise

There’s not much to say about this other than, erm, do it. That is one heck of an extraordinary building.

Me and the Taj. And a puppy I found.

Ride an elephant, a camel, and a horse. Have henna tattoos. Break a bone.

If you go to India, the chances are that at some stage you will end up hitching a ride on an elephant, it’s kind of the done thing. As is having henna tattoos on your hands.

I have this idea that I might secretly be an amazing horsewoman if only my dad would do the right thing and buy me a pony. But I also secretly know that I’m wrong. I love horses, but am useless astride one. My thus far one-and-only broken bone (left clavicle) came courtesy of a white mare that decided she’d had enough. Does anyone know where I can go to ride an ostrich?

Me and the broken bone. And a truly terrible fringe.

Have a radical hair cut

I was in my early teens. I went to visit my brother in Copenhagen. I let a mad Danish hairdresser cut off all my hair with a razor. It was NOT a good look. I will NOT be doing it again. Yes, there is pictorial evidence, but NO, I am not going to show it to you.

Scuba dive

You’re under water, but you can breathe. There are fish. It’s ace. Here’s me early on in my sub-aquatic career.

And here’s me having the correct breathing technique explained by my uncle Federico Cabello,  underwater photographer extraordinaire. Oops, I have inadvertently given you a glimpse of the HAIRCUT OF DOOM.

Play a saxophone to a goat.

There actually IS a photograph of this, but I can't find it. Which is sad. And also probably a good thing.

Drive a jet ski, a snow mobile, and a quad bike.
I shall never, in all my life, forget the sound of my father howling with laughter as I drove the quad bike, full speed, up a bank and into a large bush.

Bungee Jump

My friend Jane and I went camping in France when we were 17. She was determined to do a bungee jump at the local funfair. I thought she was nuts, but when we got there I realised that if I let the opportunity pass I was going to spend the rest of the holiday feeling like a wet blanket. So I stood up in the queue with her, trembling with terror. When the man asked us if we wanted separate jumps, or a tandem jump, the answer was obvious. So up we went together, in a rickety old crane, Jane’s parents standing complacently below with the camera. At the top of the crane, the man holding on to our harness asked if we were ready. My answer was a definite and decided no. He let go anyway. Jane whooped with a combination of fear and delight. As we were falling, I was completely and utterly silent. It was a strange and profound moment.  I knew that I was definitely going to die, smashed on the concrete of a French funfair. I had nothing to say about this imminent death. I was going with dignity. On the first bounce, Jane asked me if I was OK. I regained my senses and started screaming like a madwoman.

Skydive

Yes! Do this! It is amazing! I have never given so many thumbs up in all my life. My face in the moment just before I fall from the plane is absolutely priceless.

What a rush. I don’t want to gush on too much about this, but I still get an adrenaline surge when I describe the experience, or watch the video. It was a fantastic experience, and I highly recommend it.

Crash a car

A mile or so outside Biggleswade South, Jane turned to me and said “Biggleswade South” what a funny name, wouldn’t it be horrible to crash there? So, erm, I crashed there, neatly parking my biscuit tin of a Fiat Seicento right in the middle of a raised roundabout on the A1. A friendly policeman happened by a few moments later. After leaning close to check my breath, and realising that I was not drunk, but rather a moronic and inexperienced driver, he kindly informed me that I wasn’t allowed to park there. Everyone’s a comedian.

Jump off the high diving board.

Scaring my father half to death in the process.

Perform at the Royal Albert Hall

Schools Proms, circa 1997, I think. I danced.

Go to Disney World
Epic waste of money. I was way more interested in the lizards on my hotel balcony than the people in the giant costumes.

Camp
In a tent, and everything.

Go to Glastonbury music festival
Right at the front for David Bowie, I was.

Get a university degree.

Trust me, I've been to college...

Ride a tandem bicycle.

I mostly remember this because I ripped my favorite jeans in the gear mechanism.

Ride on the back of a motorbike
Back when my dad still thought he was Paul Newman.

Get actually-off-my-face drunk

Once, and never, ever again. True story.

Touch a stingray

Is it cheating if this was in the SeaLife Centre in Boulogne? Well, even if it is cheating, I got an almighty rash. Leave the rays in peace, people.

Sleep in a castle

Amberly Castle, to be precise. Another extraordinary and beautiful building. I particularly appreciated the giant bath.

White Water Rafting

I’ve done this twice, once in India and once in Costa Rica. As far as I am concerned, this is the most fun it is possible to have with rubber. Bring on the rapids. But also be prepared for a 20 minute safety briefing that leaves you utterly convinced that you’re unlikely to make it home alive.

Still rocking the neon life jacket, twenty years later.

Skinny dip

Happily, no pictorial evidence of this. Feels nice, though.

Ski/Snowboard

I worked two seasons in a ski resort in the French Alps just after university. I have little technique on either skis or a board, but I love them both.

Drive a dogsled
Mush!

Volunteer

Aside from raising money for charity several times, with sponsored activities and bake sales (I once baked 150 fairy cakes in one session) I have also volunteered my time, working in a homeless shelter on Christmas Eve. The impetus for this was all mum’s though, and I am thinking that the time has come to do something else along these lines. Any ideas?

Shoot a gun

At clay pigeons, I hasten to add. And, whilst I am not a vegetarian, and part of me feels that it would be a valuable life experience to kill something and prepare it to be eaten, I am such a lousy shot that I would undoubtedly cause unnecessary suffering. So I shall pass on that one.

Catch a fish

Obviously, the same boyfriend who was captain of the clay pigeons also had a lake in his back garden. That’s normal, right? The fish went back in the water unscathed. Actually, I have to say that I quite enjoyed fishing, and would like to try it again. It was kind of peaceful and meditative.

I showed aptitude for fishing from an early age. I also make a pretty good gnome.

Watch live sports (rugby, football, ice hockey.)

There was even a streaker at the ice hockey. Seriously, if you´re going to streak, you may as well streak on ice, right?

Canoe/Kayak

Whale and Dolphin watching

Whales and dolphins make you feel good. It’s just a fact.

Climb a mountain

Kilimanjaro was certainly the greatest mountain climbing challenge I’ve ever undertaken, and it beat me right at the end, with a healthy dose of altitude sickness. However, I have been to the top of Borneo’s beautiful Mt Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South East Asia. Oh, and Cader Idris, in Wales.

Buy a house

As with so many of these challenges, there’s no way I could have done it without tremendous help. The deposit is part gift and part loan from my mum, but the mortgage is all me, paid with my own fair hands. It can be a burden, but it feels good.

Soak in a natural hot spring

What's not to love about this?

Go on Safari

Well, it’s only polite to visit the Ngorongoro Crater whilst in Tanzania…

Convince a tortoise to make sweet love to my shoe.

No, I´m not proud of this. But I did laugh. A lot. OK. I might be a little bit proud of it.

I feel there’s no better way too end this reminisce-a-thon than with the delightful image of a tortoise making love to a Birkenstock, so that’s all for now. Except to say that I’m STILL looking for ideas for my final fourteen challenges, so if you have any, please do drop me at email to: 30atthirty@gmail.com

Ohh, and also, for my next post I’m going to be writing about uploading my first ever video to YouTube. I’d love to get a few more page views before I do, so please go and check it out, if you haven´t already. 

Happy New Year everyone! May 2013 give you the opportunity to have a lot of fun and take a lot of silly pictures.