A fragment on rest

Self-care can sometimes look like a bus ride

I'm on the bus to Cambridge. My baby just had a feed and is now napping in my arms.

We are taking the long route, along the winding country roads. It's flat here. We round a bend and the horizon stretches and with it my thoughts. But it is a deceptive landscape; these roads dip and rise, down into hidden valleys.

The scene from the window changes continuously without any effort on my part. It's like doom scrolling but without the doom. Or the deleterious mental toll.

My dopamine reward comes from spotting a pair of swans dabbling in a field of fresh green shoots. A flash of yellowhammers rising up from the freshly ploughed field, flushed out by the roar of the engine. The flock surfs alongside the window for the briefest of moments. Glimpsing a particularly pretty house that makes me wonder how I’d decorate the rooms within. Seeing the river has burst it's banks, creating a mangrove that takes me back to monsoon season in Cambodia. 

At home, I get easily overwhelmed by the relentless slog of domestic