Ibizan Retreat

This post was finished in retrospect – some things are hard to process at the moment. Even the good stuff. I’m experiencing some late reactions to trauma I think. Something to do with being told you have only a short time to live and then having to reverse back out of the cul de sac. Mustn’t grumble. Now that the timeline is stretched out again I can imagine an indefinite future. The sort we all live with most of the time if we are lucky. What a luxury even if it’s ill founded. If you think about it this is a strange way to go about things in our everyday lives but we do it all the same. We only survive through a group hallucination of the infinite. Unless you have religion of course in which case I envy you.

The last year is catching up with me and I have to balance my little bursts of energy with slow thoughtful days. I’ve been doing some small scale speaking engagements. You’d think that was ok. Just talking. But too much energy expenditure and I get a low thunder rumble going on in my head the next day. Pulsing and whooshing, nausea and a sensitivity to bright lights. I’m having to relearn what it means to rest. Constantly calculating and recalculating the balance sheet. There are things and people that give you energy and others that take it away. Two weeks ago I took a risk and did something I had often thought about doing because I thought it would be fun, but only really imagined until now…and stepping out of my comfort zone was wonderful. I’m trying to hold on to that feeling as I prepare to go back to work just one day a week. Manage the energy budget. Focus on things that are worth spending it on. But for now…this was Ibiza.

*****

It’s the last day of our Ibizan retreat for people with cancer and I am sitting by the pool at 8am. No one else is up. Even the staff arrive a little late out of season. I’m usually awake at 6.30. Old habits of twin motherhood die hard. The water is still. The villa looks glorious in the sunshine against the clear blue sky. I hear birdsong. A light breeze rustles the Sabine pines. Nothing else.

We have met so much kindness here and it’s hard to express how much difference that has made to the feeling of these past few days. I’m not sure why this should be a surprise but it turns out Ibizencos (as the good people of Ibiza call themselves) get cancer too. Put simply, everyone has lost someone. And they all want to help.

Our numbers were rather diminished in the week before we left by last minute – infections, operations, life and…you know, the normal grind of living with cancer…but I’d anticipated that. The gorgeous folk at Can Vistabella, a luxury boutique hotel on the island I visited with my family in the summer, had kindly agreed not to charge anyone a deposit if they had to cancel. In spite of this, we still managed to bring a small group of seven people with cancer plus partners and older children and together we have done gentle yoga every day, some sound healing and, most importantly for me, we have been remembering how to breathe. It is amazing how much one can forget about this basic function. How tightly wound we can become in a cold climate, with the daily stresses, shallow breathing due to pollution and rushing here and there.

Here I breathe well. Here I feel ‘normal’. Even, dare I say, ‘well’. I have been discussing this with the others. This state of being well. Not necessarily bursting with energy but just feeling neutral. Comfortable in one’s own body. At ease. This for me is a real achievement nowadays. To be pain free and relaxed and just looking forward to the day ahead. Such a simple thing but it’s been a long time. Since I was last here to be exact. Perhaps I should emigrate?

As I stepped off the plane on to the steps the warm breeze from the sea and the tarmac of Ibiza tarmac slapped me gently in the face. An assault of colour, of azure sea and vibrant greens. The outrageousness of seeing palm trees in February. I let out a slightly manic giggle as I gulped the air as if to acknowledge the madness of just being here, of allowing myself to be here and delight in leading others astray with me. It felt like a risk. At this age I rarely do something we’ve never done before. This year has freed me from the burden of conservatism with the thought that if I don’t do the things I want to do now I might never do them. January and February in the UK has been brutal. Relentless. I often defend my country’s weather to others saying it doesn’t rain as much as they imagine. I am, on the whole, someone who remembers only the sunny days and I love early spring the most. Having grown up in the countryside I like to feel the change of seasons. We left on Valentine’s Day, and by February 14th I had definitely fallen out of love with London. Talking to other escapees from colder climes they feel the same. The hotel was unusually full for the time of year. The moment it’s plausible we all flock to the poolside, mainly in all our clothes, to lie out and soak up the rays.

It’s about 18 degrees here most days. The staff say we have been lucky in our choice of week as the weather is changing here.. Their winter has also been full of rain and wind. This is new. As a result the island is greener than I have ever seen it. I used to come in my roaring twenties and thirsty thirties for yoga holidays. Usually escaping the stress of whatever film I was working on. I was never really a massive clubber but I may have strayed into a club once upon a time.

Each day we have had the pleasure of an early visit from Laura, the yoga teacher. This is her winter job although I met her in the summer. It’s hard to describe Laura as she is sort of blinding. This woman has light bursting out of her which everyone notices as it envelopes you the minute you meet her. People feel safe and well with her. In the summer she is the regional supervisor for all the lifeguards, overseeing life and death at many of Ibizas most famous beaches. I guess you must have to be OK with all of that in a job with such responsibilities. Yesterday she told me she lost her son’s father to cancer last year and I feel she has poured her love into us. We have been led very gently. Some of us have spinal issues, all of us have issues sitting cross-legged but it has been genuinely surprising that we have all managed to do more than we thought we could with her gentle guidance. The little yoga deck sits by a veg plot looking out over the hills. You arrive at it through a little path that winds through the chard and tomato plants. A lightly chill wind blows through our practice and provides an ambient soundtrack to our breathwork and gong baths.

In the afternoons we have explored wild beaches, usually packed from end to end with sunbathers, now empty. Only the wind, a few hungry seagulls and the odd brave nude swimmer. We too have braced the waves a couple of times but it’s a notional sort of ‘swimming’ where we get in screaming and gasping, try to get our shoulders under and, as the cold hand of winter grasps your heart, we scuttle back out and say ‘that was fun’.

Last night I was satisfied by finally finding one beach restaurant open at sunset next to a tiny cove and fulfilled my wish of paella by the beach. It was pretty good and I enjoyed pulling the legs off an innocent crab to suck out the meat. I have never managed to overcome my squeamishness to adopt the Spanish habit of munching prawn heads and legs but feel my Chinese heritage should allow me to. Mind you I’ve never sucked a chicken foot either so I remain resolutely timid and British in this respect.

We visited the underground cave at Sa Figuera Borda, a hole in the rock underneath the plateau where the sea crashes in. Two of us have teenagers with us, my daughter has come and is an excellent travel companion. The very first time we have been away together without the others. As she is one of boy/girl twins I realise we haven’t much mother and daughter time. The kids leapt perilously around the rocks and found a mattress and someone’s things on a ledge. Signs of more than an overnight stay. I wondered about this person and what life circumstances had led them here to the edge. Balancing quite literally on the poetic edge of life. Being a catastrophic fantasist I wondered what would happen if you rolled over in your sleep.

I think a lot about bizarre ways of dying these days. Death feels close at times. A side effect of knowing people with secondary cancer. You simply have to get comfortable with it. We’ve talked a lot here about death and the impact on life for our loved ones after we go, about living wishes and planning. I admire Grace and her son hugely for the openness of their conversation and even I find it hard to hear. I have realise with some humility that this is not a conversation I have sought to have or even attempted to initiate very often and I worry about my daughter hearing it all. Which is strange because when my mum got cancer when I was 17 I wished my parents had been more open with me. But 35 years ago it was, perhaps, anybody’s guess how long you had. To an extent this is still true. Despite having no evidence of disease I am still stage 4 but the best my oncologist can say is ‘some ladies go on like this for years’ but the drugs are so new they really don’t know. It’s probably been good for my daughter on some level to hear this very frank conversation about what happens after you’ve gone but I realise I’ve been protecting my kids by not going this far. I stay technical and they know the facts. I know from speaking to other mothers wih cancer that there is a big range of more or less open conversations but stage 4 means many different things. I’m not ready to acknowledge the need for that conversation yet. I’ll just stick my head back in the sand. 

In the evening after we returned from our sunset dining we made coil pots. Grace, in spite of a pessimistic terminal diagnosis has signed up for a two year MA in ceramics.  I admire this sort of defiance. She has kindly brought 2kg of clay in her small cabin bag allowance to contribute to the creative aspect of the retreat. I’ve brought Japanese acrylic paints, sumi-e brushes and rice paper but so far I have only persuaded children to join me. Anyone who sits by the pool too long gets co-opted. 

We worked long into the night on our pots to make small bud vases which Grace will take home, fire and glaze. We’d spent the previous day exploring the pottery at the contemporary art museum and she took herself off to the Necropolis in Ibiza Town to research the shapes of Phoenician artefacts. International research goes down well on an MA. She has a collaboration with the V&A and Wedgewood in the offing which makes me quietly celebrate. Most people expect us to stay quietly at home with cancer. It’s nice to meet someone else as determined to live and squeeze every creative ounce out of life. 

*****

It was a difficult re-entry to London. I’m not sure I really belong in the city and I see why people eventually leave but I think my commitment to live music, theatres, museums and art galleries wins over countryside for now on balance. A few bright days and the appearance of narcissi and snowdrops in the garden have made it easier. The cherry blossom in my neighbourhood has cheered things up, although the cherry tree in our back garden is definitely dead and I am grieving it. I am remembering to reach out to friends when I need them and do things for myself to refill my battery.

Planning the next retreat is cheering me up. One in the UK at the family farm in June and back to Ibiza in October for half term – anyone?