Welcome to the season of: “What if night began at lunch?” Thanks to Daylight savings!

What a week & a half it has been! From seeing President Barack Obama speak live in Manchester, to standing on a TEDx Doncaster stage myself (can’t believe it!!). From Cast Doncaster board away days & the wonderful People's Voice CIC Xmas-Halloween dinner, to watching ace art students make extraordinary things. Steak lunch breaks with council friends, creative health adventures, convos, laughter, ideas, people doing incred things in the world. & somewhere in the middle of all that, hospital treatment. That always makes me feel both more & less like myself, at the same time. Because life doesn't arrive neatly, 1 chapter at a time. Joy doesn't wait for suffering to finish. The extraordinary& the difficult don't take turns. They sit beside one another. Sometimes at the very same table. And I think this is what makes being alive so amazing. Today, walking to catch the bus in the middle of a storm, with dramatic OST classical music playing in my ears, the wind nearly sweeping me off my feet & leaves dancing wildly through the air, I found myself stopping. Just to watch. The leaves spinning like confetti. The trees bending. The last golden light of an autumnal sunset breaking through long full dark clouds. The wind pushing against my whole body, reminding me that I was here. Really, wonderfully, impossibly here. And I felt this overwhelming gratitude. Felt it in my chest. Not because everything is easy. Not because life has been particularly gentle. But because, despite everything, there is still so much beauty to be found. So much to learn. So many people to love. So much world left to encounter. I think sometimes we mistake a good life for an easy one. As though happiness is somewhere we arrive once all the difficult things have been resolved. But perhaps a good life is one in which we keep allowing ourselves to be astonished? Even in the middle of uncertainty. Even when our bodies remind us of their fragility. Even when the storm is quite literally blowing around us. Nietzsche wrote that no one can build us the bridge upon which we alone must cross the river of life. And I think about that often. Because none of us quite knkws what lies on the other side. In that moment, I thought about Seamus Heany’s poem: Postscript -a poem D introduced me to- “You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known & strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard & blow it open.” We build as we go. Through courage & curiosity, through friendship, through the things we make & the people we meet. Through all the ordinary, miraculous moments that somehow become a life. maybe the point isn't to reach the other side untouched. Maybe it's to cross with our hearts still open. To feel the wind. To notice the leaves. To keep saying yes to this wild, complicated, fleeting gift of being here. What a privilege it is to be alive in a world that can still take your breath away.

It's Invisible Disability Awareness week, and I've written something to acknowledge what it's like to live with an invisible disability. At 23/24, I became seriously ill. I spent years trying desperately to return to the person I had been. Grieving everything I'd lost, whilst somehow feeling ashamed that I couldn't do more with what remained. I hadn't realised just how deeply I'd absorbed the idea that my worth was measured by my productivity. That being useful was the same as being valuable. It took a remarkably patient GP, many tears, amazing friends, and more than a decade of learning to live differently to begin unlearning that. And I'm still learning. Because disability isn't always visible. Neither is the work of living with it. The calculations, compromises, grief, courage, and small victories that nobody else knows are victories. But neither is all the possibility that lies ahead. I've written about loss, ableism, the world we've designed, and why a life interrupted is not a life diminished. And about something I wish I'd understood much earlier: We do not have to be well to deserve a beautiful life. For anyone finding their way through a life they didn't choose, and for anyone who has the power to make that journey a little easier for someone else. There are greater things lying ahead. Read the full piece: The Extraordinary Labour of Appearing Ordinary, on my Substack here: ❤️ smizz.substack.com/p/the-ext…

Start of my 12+ hour day. How is it this dark at 7am?? And it’s only middle of October.

I don’t get why transpenine trains only put 3 carriages on (on a Friday no less) from Manchester to cleethorpes - via Sheffield & Doncaster - & there’s not enough seats & decide to send someone with a Trolley to sell overpriced drinks down. 🙈🙈🙈

Who needs melatonin to help you sleep when you can be lulled by the calmness of pottery throw-down. I love the show but it always makes me feel mega sleepy, even the celebrity version.

IN. *On the extraordinary privilege of being here.* / Today I stood on a stage at TEDx Doncaster and completely forgot what I was supposed to say. It was our dress rehearsal. The lights. The microphone. Amazing humans looking at me. I was absolutely bricking it. Practising in the bath, or in an empty library where the books are your only audience, is rather different from standing on a stage with nowhere to hide. About halfway through, my brain decided it had contributed quite enough. There was a silence. Then a longer silence. If anyone has seen that clip of russel brand on piers Morgan’s show where he spends 2 minutes looking for a bible verse and it sounded like the bible had been mic’d up. Well, mine was picking up my increasingly panicked breathing. A TEDx ASMR experience nobody had asked for. 😆 And yet, somewhere between the terror & the desperate search for my next sentence, I thought: *What an extraordinary privilege it is to be here.* . To have something to say. To be frightened about something that matters. To be alive enough to feel all of it. There have been times in my life when the future wasn't something I could confidently assume belonged to me. Perhaps that changes how you experience things. The ordinary business of being alive becomes something rather extraordinary. / 2 weeks ago, I was eating banana splits and drinking Coke floats with Vanda and Martin in a New York City diner, 5 hours behind everyone back home, when Debbie and I won an *Unsung Hero Award* as part of the Pride of the North Awards. What an honour. Especially to share it with Debbie Hutchinson, my wonderful partner in crime, and to be recognised alongside so many remarkable people. Including Liz Barnes and Zophiya Addinell, whose commitment to Woodlands Community Librar, & beyond, seems to have no opening or closing hours. People who keep turning up. And turning up. And turning up. Growing roots like trees, creating the conditions for others to grow alongside them. / I've been thinking about how much of community is made from things nobody necessarily sees. The kettle put on. The chair pulled out. The familiar face noticed missing. The person who stays another hour because somebody needs them. Little acts of love and attention, accumulating into something big enough to hold us. I think we underestimate how profoundly our lives are shaped by the people we get to do ordinary life with. . And none of us knows how much time we have. We make plans as though life is an endless succession of Tuesdays. We postpone coffees, promise to catch up, imagine there will always be another opportunity. But none of it is guaranteed. Not the Tuesdays. Not the people. Not even the next breath. / Perhaps that's why I'm so interested in the ways we make things together. Communities, friendships, art, places to belong. . The extraordinary human capacity to imagine something that doesn't exist yet, and then set about bringing it into the world. It's what my TEDx talk is about. That creativity isn't reserved for artists. And changing the world isn't reserved for extraordinary people. It's something we practise every day, in the places we share, through the things we make and the ways we care for one another. // I've been thinking about the word *in*. Such a tiny word for something so enormous. To be *in* a community. *In* a friendship. *In* a room full of people who believe things can be different. To be *in* a life still unfolding, without knowing quite what comes next. . To turn up while we're still learning. To make room for others. To contribute something, however small, to the great unfinished work of being human together. Because what an extraordinary privilege it is to be here, to belong somewhere, and to have the chance to leave the world a little better, more playful, more compassionate from how we found it. And goodness, I'm glad I'm in it

Too early commute 😹

Brill 2nd day back teaching!

Seriously, Channel 4 (film4) got such a great curated offer of amazing movies RN! Here’s some of my favs: 🎬 The Holdovers (Xmas & autumn vibes all the way!) 🎬 Bob Trevino Likes It (best movie of the year!!!) 🎬 Broker (trust me!) 🎬 No Hard Feelings 🎬 Shang-Chi (best Marvel ofc) 🎬 Official Competition 🎬 Premium Rush 🎬 The Beautiful Game (change your life kinda movie) (Some of these movies only have days left on @Channel4 so catch them now!)

Most incredible phenomenal sunset tonight 😻🌅🌅🌇🌆🩷

Got caught out a bunch of times in New Hampshire, the other week, thinking I could just use Apple Pay. But NH is full of small independent stores everywhere.

Had a great time visiting @DayDoncaster - thinking about the future- what a brilliant community and incredible, compassionate & creative staff members. They meet with the people who attend, carers, families & community members to plan for the next 3 months, every 3 months! Check it out! Also got a cool gift! 😎