Lost and found

One of my favourite things is getting lost. As I child I loved riding out on bikes with my brother and I would say, “let’s get lost”. I am not sure that he yearned for it as I did, but he did indulge me, or at least, he would pretend that we were lost and let me find the way back home.

Norah Jones said it beautifully in a Hat Full of Sky - no, that is a Terry Pratchett novel - I mean, a hat full of something, in I Always Take The Long Way Home. If that was the name of the song...?

This is menopause, for me, I start telling one story but soon veer off into another, and then sooner or later, sometimes days later, I remember where I began. Ah, rain, that was it, Norah Jones had a hat full of rain.

It is so lovely to give into my menopause brain, as my mind wanders and forgets and then picks up the trail again.

Because of course, the beauty of getting lost is being found again.

Thanks to an Instagram story a friend sent me, I learned about the heavenly beach huts at Holland-on-Sea in Essex.

I spent a day there with my parents and waded in the chilly sea with my dad. He is partially sighted at the moment, but does not lose his courage as he pulls me deeper into the water that he cannot really see but by some natural navigation knows where he is, I think he would swim to the original Holland if he could.

Fear of losing ourselves is easily remedied, just Lose Yourself, as Eminem told us. "You’ve only got one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, 'cos opportunity comes once in a lifetime" - but hopefully, neither menopause nor meditation will give us just one chance.

When we meditate, the opportunity to come back, to find ourselves, is always there. As my teacher, Michelle Locke reminds us, we never really left. Our energy, our awareness, the source of our being, is there waiting for us, to acknowledge it, use it, enjoy it.

Sitting in our superb beach hut, at £27.50 for the day, it is not much for a little piece of heaven, my eyes rested as I looked out to sea, I noticed myself breathing more fully and I felt gratitude expand within my chest and head, and realised. As much as I love getting lost, it only works because I love being found.