Something happened to me the other week and it made me think of what you've said about manifesting.
I was sitting in an online meeting in my day job, and felt like I was prattling on (I'm stuck at home so online work meetings are pretty much my only socialising). So I said, jokily, "Oh, SHUT UP, Helen!"
Then, about two days later, I woke up with a painfully frozen jaw. I could barely open my mouth! It was as if my body had been listening and decided, "ok, we'll shut you up!"
It's slowly sorted itself out thanks to painkillers, but I think the relaxation I experienced after tapping last week really helped too. And I'm not going to jokily tell myself to shut up again!
Oh Helen, absolutely! There’s no way those two things are disconnected. Your body absolutely listens to you! Pretty much like a genie it will do what you command so you have to be awfully careful what you say! I have so many stories along this front both from my life and from other people’s. That’s quite a memorable one, though which should help you not do it again! I’m really glad the tapping helped.
I wanted to do a training with a big renowned trainer, cost was over £2000, far more than I could justify spending. I offered up my wish to do it, accepted that I couldn’t and moved on. Then I got a tax rebate for the exact amount the training cost. I took the training!
When I was reading this and you described how your house was your “home” and the reasons it felt it, you reminded me of when I walked into this flat. My son was three, it was a “home swap” that a friend had contacted but it wasn’t going to happen for her. She didn’t know I was even looking, so she gave me the details and I phoned the woman. Several weeks before, a friend had done a tarot reading and “saw” me moving (I wasn’t even thinking of it at that time… and then suddenly I needed to move) and saw a NW London tree-lined street. I came to see it — tree-lined, NW3 — and in the kitchen I thought “if I close my eyes, when I open them these people will be gone and it’ll be our home”. We’ve been here 24 years now. The day I moved, the friend who did my reading was in the taxi bringing us from my old Covent Garden flat, and she said “this is the street I saw”!
That’s such a wonderful story, Kay. I know we’ve had these similar elements in our past. Home has a special resonance when you’re finally in the place that holds you with love. I love that your friend saw it; it was waiting for you.
It’s exactly that resonance — you feel it viscerally. She saw it, even when I didn't know I needed it. Other flats I’ve moved into, I’ve known wouldn’t be “home”. Our Covent Garden flat was beautiful, newly refurbished small block right on Neal Street above the shops, but I just knew.
I've said it elsewhere - The Marlowe Papers is one of those truly exceptional experiences (maybe I am an experience gigolo?) as well as a bloody good story and a tour de force in etymological education, historical exploration, not to mention being an all-round phenomenon.
Actually, I may not have said this elsewhere but I have here, now.
Oh Ros, sometimes you get me exactly where I am. I had my feet nibbled a couple of days ago, giggling with my children in delight. I also just wrote the story of how I manifested the man of my dreams by writing down his attributes on a piece of paper and forgetting about it until he showed up. The 75k sounds pretty cosmic to me, but I don't know if you can skip the doubt. We all live through too many disappointments for them not to be part of the experience (which I'm a whore of the highest order for too).
A couple of days ago, with your kids too, and you’ve just written your very similar manifestation story? Now that is fantastic coincidence! I confess I’ve had so many of these experiences now (both large and small) that doubt is no longer part of the equation. The elements are consistent, and if I can just get the letting go part licked…
Shoni, I hadn’t seen that, what an absolute masterpiece! Thank you for sharing! I love it so much I’ve shared it on my family chat. “Leave the weird ideas to the Danish” 🤣
It's a banger, hey? Every time I miss out on a job because I can't sell myself in interviews or I get a rejection in a short story comp or I post something and immediately lose subscribers, I put it on. Which is a lot!!
No on the feet nibbled by fish, thinking doubt to fear conversion is indeed what I need, and as for an experience whore …. For various books I have learned to fire a replica 1840s muzzle loader and a Browning Model 1911 .45, spent 3 months on the far South Pacific coast of Mexico trying to get caught in a hurricane, crossed the Atlantic in freighters four times and the QE2 once, taken courses for a Pennsylvania bodyguard’s license, spent a very pleasant day being shown around a functioning pinrail system in a 120 year old opera house in Mexico (such systems were obsolete before WW2; almost none are still up and running), spent most of one summer following arson cops around in Detroit, and had a number of backstage tours and off record interviews that had best remain unspecified for reasons.
Mostly having to do with writing of one kind or another. In my younger romantic days I used to claim that writing was just a way to get access to those experiences, but the truth is I’m timid and lazy until I get a writing-related reason to have the experience.
So I’m more of an older experience tramp sitting at the corner of the bar because it’s where all my friends drink.
Well, I was working on a science fiction novel about a giant superhurricane. And I had never been in a hurricane at all. And the Pacific coasts of Oaxaca and Chiapas get a lot of hurricane landfalls, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately the summer of 1992 was one of the very few on record when no hurricanes came in. (Lots of alerts though; it is a strange experience to drive the only car headed your way when the other lane is full of vans, pickups, buses, small trucks, etc, piled with kids, pets, possessions etc.
John, clearly you are the most experienced experience whore here! That is one hell of an impressive list! I especially like “spent 3 months on the far South Pacific coast of Mexico trying to get caught in a hurricane”. That is effing magnificent. I had to write a hurricane too for the last novel and what a cheap coward I am I simply used my imagination!
I loved reading this and yes, I have had my feet nibbled by fish once in an aqua park in Portugal, mostly cos I was a little over the slides! It made my feet feel very smooth and I enjoyed the experience far more than I thought I would… and strangely have enjoyed water slides and jumping off walls into the sea more since I stopped feeling I couldn’t do those things during cancer treatment… which takes me to the expression ‘experience whore’… I like this; am I one? I certainly feel I’ve got through many of the hideous experiences of the past year (treatment) by finding a certain fascination in the experience (I wrote about that in relation to radiotherapy). But sometimes I am definitely not up for the experience - bungee jumping for example - so now I wonder if I should embrace all these things I think I don’t want to do. Thank you for your writing - it was so energising.
What a phenomenal story. I love my Substack algorithm bringing me greatness! Can’t wait to order The Marlowe Papers (gotta see if it can be delivered to Korea!).
You’re so right about what you put out in the universe - I’m learning to let go!
4 people have told me to write a book or seen me at book signings in their mind but I haven’t taken that leap. Maybe it’s time? Thank you again for the honesty, inspiration and downright nostalgia. Bowie & nibbly fish 🥰
I’m a big fan of the Substack algorithm too, since it brings me enthusiastic readers like you! It sounds like you’re getting definite hints about writing a book :-). Let’s hope the Marlowe Papers can get to Korea!
I loved this. It immediately brought back memories of hitchhiking across the Baja California desert. I was in my early 60s and the incredible people I met and adventures I had.
I’ve posted some of them on my Substack, and then I remembered kayaking across the lake at Saint Ignacia, beaching at the head of a stream, sitting on a log with my bare feet in the water, and then watching entranced, as these tiny blackfish came to nibble at my skin.
It was magical. I only wish I could post the photograph I took – but alas, it has vanished, but the memory of 20 years ago remains.
It’s so vindicating to hear other people - and successful, creative, non-“woo” people too - talking about this spiritual stuff.
I’ve only come around to my spirituality - discovered it within myself, I guess - the past couple of years after much radical life disruption, but I still haven’t kicked that lingering sense of unease that comes with doing something many people think is utterly batshit.
Now I believe spiritual connection is fundamental to creative connection. Life force energy.
Thanks for sharing this. A slice of relatable and aspirational humanness.
Brilliant. I've never read the Marlowe Papers, so I just ordered it. Can't wait. I've had my feet nibbled by fish on the regular when I was a child. If you stood still enough in the lake, minnows just swam up. Once, I was sitting on the bottom stone step, waist-deep in Lake Maggiore in Italian Switzerland, and a white snake swam between my legs and nipped my inner thigh: a potent symbol, that.
I've just sent out my first novel to a small press, and you piqued an interest in tapping. People have mentioned it to me before, but honestly, I don't really understand it. I've done lots of other things, though.
This is so fun and yes, I’m a total experience “yes!” person! Living life to be able to understand what all the different experiences are like, filing it away for future writing fodder, of course.
As I think about it, it’s been lots of sporty things— rock climbing, adaptive ski instructor, hiked a 14k mountain, biked 100 miles, joined a mountain bike team at age 53, zip lined canyons, kayaked with crocodiles 🐊!
I hear you on the “letting go to let things in” part… I had a feeling a few months ago that it’s time for me to leave my home and someone else belongs here and is on their way. I also feel drawn to a move that puts me in a supportive place near friends I love. So I listed the house for sale, and will see what comes!
Wonderful, Tammi. KAKAYED WITH CROCODILES? That little phrase was enough to take my breath away. I like experiences, but I think I might draw the line ahead of some of yours!
How exciting to have a new chapter unfolding ahead of you.
Something happened to me the other week and it made me think of what you've said about manifesting.
I was sitting in an online meeting in my day job, and felt like I was prattling on (I'm stuck at home so online work meetings are pretty much my only socialising). So I said, jokily, "Oh, SHUT UP, Helen!"
Then, about two days later, I woke up with a painfully frozen jaw. I could barely open my mouth! It was as if my body had been listening and decided, "ok, we'll shut you up!"
It's slowly sorted itself out thanks to painkillers, but I think the relaxation I experienced after tapping last week really helped too. And I'm not going to jokily tell myself to shut up again!
Oh Helen, absolutely! There’s no way those two things are disconnected. Your body absolutely listens to you! Pretty much like a genie it will do what you command so you have to be awfully careful what you say! I have so many stories along this front both from my life and from other people’s. That’s quite a memorable one, though which should help you not do it again! I’m really glad the tapping helped.
I wanted to do a training with a big renowned trainer, cost was over £2000, far more than I could justify spending. I offered up my wish to do it, accepted that I couldn’t and moved on. Then I got a tax rebate for the exact amount the training cost. I took the training!
Perfect example!
When I was reading this and you described how your house was your “home” and the reasons it felt it, you reminded me of when I walked into this flat. My son was three, it was a “home swap” that a friend had contacted but it wasn’t going to happen for her. She didn’t know I was even looking, so she gave me the details and I phoned the woman. Several weeks before, a friend had done a tarot reading and “saw” me moving (I wasn’t even thinking of it at that time… and then suddenly I needed to move) and saw a NW London tree-lined street. I came to see it — tree-lined, NW3 — and in the kitchen I thought “if I close my eyes, when I open them these people will be gone and it’ll be our home”. We’ve been here 24 years now. The day I moved, the friend who did my reading was in the taxi bringing us from my old Covent Garden flat, and she said “this is the street I saw”!
That’s such a wonderful story, Kay. I know we’ve had these similar elements in our past. Home has a special resonance when you’re finally in the place that holds you with love. I love that your friend saw it; it was waiting for you.
It’s exactly that resonance — you feel it viscerally. She saw it, even when I didn't know I needed it. Other flats I’ve moved into, I’ve known wouldn’t be “home”. Our Covent Garden flat was beautiful, newly refurbished small block right on Neal Street above the shops, but I just knew.
I've said it elsewhere - The Marlowe Papers is one of those truly exceptional experiences (maybe I am an experience gigolo?) as well as a bloody good story and a tour de force in etymological education, historical exploration, not to mention being an all-round phenomenon.
Actually, I may not have said this elsewhere but I have here, now.
Thank you, Matthew. I’m so glad I managed to get a big publisher to champion it so that more people would get to enjoy it!
Oh Ros, sometimes you get me exactly where I am. I had my feet nibbled a couple of days ago, giggling with my children in delight. I also just wrote the story of how I manifested the man of my dreams by writing down his attributes on a piece of paper and forgetting about it until he showed up. The 75k sounds pretty cosmic to me, but I don't know if you can skip the doubt. We all live through too many disappointments for them not to be part of the experience (which I'm a whore of the highest order for too).
A couple of days ago, with your kids too, and you’ve just written your very similar manifestation story? Now that is fantastic coincidence! I confess I’ve had so many of these experiences now (both large and small) that doubt is no longer part of the equation. The elements are consistent, and if I can just get the letting go part licked…
I confess I don't really understand that part. Maybe I need to watch more Disney movies 🤔
Or just sing that song daily until it becomes second nature? Top tip, Shoni, thanks! 😂
I tend to sing this song quite a lot. Hopefully my subconscious knows it's tongue in cheek 😅 https://youtu.be/QshKJQQyCAE?si=pBSTOpYSDhcN5W9r
Shoni, I hadn’t seen that, what an absolute masterpiece! Thank you for sharing! I love it so much I’ve shared it on my family chat. “Leave the weird ideas to the Danish” 🤣
It's a banger, hey? Every time I miss out on a job because I can't sell myself in interviews or I get a rejection in a short story comp or I post something and immediately lose subscribers, I put it on. Which is a lot!!
Could it be that “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish” occurred to Douglas Adams during a pedicure?
Were fish pedicures a thing in the early 1980s?
Well, the title is in iambic tetrameter so …
Okay, I’m sold.
No on the feet nibbled by fish, thinking doubt to fear conversion is indeed what I need, and as for an experience whore …. For various books I have learned to fire a replica 1840s muzzle loader and a Browning Model 1911 .45, spent 3 months on the far South Pacific coast of Mexico trying to get caught in a hurricane, crossed the Atlantic in freighters four times and the QE2 once, taken courses for a Pennsylvania bodyguard’s license, spent a very pleasant day being shown around a functioning pinrail system in a 120 year old opera house in Mexico (such systems were obsolete before WW2; almost none are still up and running), spent most of one summer following arson cops around in Detroit, and had a number of backstage tours and off record interviews that had best remain unspecified for reasons.
Mostly having to do with writing of one kind or another. In my younger romantic days I used to claim that writing was just a way to get access to those experiences, but the truth is I’m timid and lazy until I get a writing-related reason to have the experience.
So I’m more of an older experience tramp sitting at the corner of the bar because it’s where all my friends drink.
Well, I was working on a science fiction novel about a giant superhurricane. And I had never been in a hurricane at all. And the Pacific coasts of Oaxaca and Chiapas get a lot of hurricane landfalls, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately the summer of 1992 was one of the very few on record when no hurricanes came in. (Lots of alerts though; it is a strange experience to drive the only car headed your way when the other lane is full of vans, pickups, buses, small trucks, etc, piled with kids, pets, possessions etc.
John, clearly you are the most experienced experience whore here! That is one hell of an impressive list! I especially like “spent 3 months on the far South Pacific coast of Mexico trying to get caught in a hurricane”. That is effing magnificent. I had to write a hurricane too for the last novel and what a cheap coward I am I simply used my imagination!
The image of you and your daughter giggling as fish nibbled your feet - magic.
We loved it!
I loved reading this and yes, I have had my feet nibbled by fish once in an aqua park in Portugal, mostly cos I was a little over the slides! It made my feet feel very smooth and I enjoyed the experience far more than I thought I would… and strangely have enjoyed water slides and jumping off walls into the sea more since I stopped feeling I couldn’t do those things during cancer treatment… which takes me to the expression ‘experience whore’… I like this; am I one? I certainly feel I’ve got through many of the hideous experiences of the past year (treatment) by finding a certain fascination in the experience (I wrote about that in relation to radiotherapy). But sometimes I am definitely not up for the experience - bungee jumping for example - so now I wonder if I should embrace all these things I think I don’t want to do. Thank you for your writing - it was so energising.
Thank you, Sarah! I don’t know why I’ve only just seen your message but this Note went a bit viral and I think I got swamped!
What a phenomenal story. I love my Substack algorithm bringing me greatness! Can’t wait to order The Marlowe Papers (gotta see if it can be delivered to Korea!).
You’re so right about what you put out in the universe - I’m learning to let go!
4 people have told me to write a book or seen me at book signings in their mind but I haven’t taken that leap. Maybe it’s time? Thank you again for the honesty, inspiration and downright nostalgia. Bowie & nibbly fish 🥰
I’m a big fan of the Substack algorithm too, since it brings me enthusiastic readers like you! It sounds like you’re getting definite hints about writing a book :-). Let’s hope the Marlowe Papers can get to Korea!
I loved this. It immediately brought back memories of hitchhiking across the Baja California desert. I was in my early 60s and the incredible people I met and adventures I had.
I’ve posted some of them on my Substack, and then I remembered kayaking across the lake at Saint Ignacia, beaching at the head of a stream, sitting on a log with my bare feet in the water, and then watching entranced, as these tiny blackfish came to nibble at my skin.
It was magical. I only wish I could post the photograph I took – but alas, it has vanished, but the memory of 20 years ago remains.
Maybe, we are our memories?
Wonderful, Tom. What a beautiful memory.
You took me right back to 2011. The world was better with Bowie in it. Great opening!
Wasn’t it! I found writing it that I was getting seriously nostalgic about that year.
It’s so vindicating to hear other people - and successful, creative, non-“woo” people too - talking about this spiritual stuff.
I’ve only come around to my spirituality - discovered it within myself, I guess - the past couple of years after much radical life disruption, but I still haven’t kicked that lingering sense of unease that comes with doing something many people think is utterly batshit.
Now I believe spiritual connection is fundamental to creative connection. Life force energy.
Thanks for sharing this. A slice of relatable and aspirational humanness.
Brilliant. I've never read the Marlowe Papers, so I just ordered it. Can't wait. I've had my feet nibbled by fish on the regular when I was a child. If you stood still enough in the lake, minnows just swam up. Once, I was sitting on the bottom stone step, waist-deep in Lake Maggiore in Italian Switzerland, and a white snake swam between my legs and nipped my inner thigh: a potent symbol, that.
I've just sent out my first novel to a small press, and you piqued an interest in tapping. People have mentioned it to me before, but honestly, I don't really understand it. I've done lots of other things, though.
Wow, what a symbol, you’re right!
With EFT you don’t really understand it under you experience it for yourself, I think.
I hope you enjoy The Marlowe Papers!
I’m sure I will. I loved Devotion.
This is so fun and yes, I’m a total experience “yes!” person! Living life to be able to understand what all the different experiences are like, filing it away for future writing fodder, of course.
As I think about it, it’s been lots of sporty things— rock climbing, adaptive ski instructor, hiked a 14k mountain, biked 100 miles, joined a mountain bike team at age 53, zip lined canyons, kayaked with crocodiles 🐊!
I hear you on the “letting go to let things in” part… I had a feeling a few months ago that it’s time for me to leave my home and someone else belongs here and is on their way. I also feel drawn to a move that puts me in a supportive place near friends I love. So I listed the house for sale, and will see what comes!
Wonderful, Tammi. KAKAYED WITH CROCODILES? That little phrase was enough to take my breath away. I like experiences, but I think I might draw the line ahead of some of yours!
How exciting to have a new chapter unfolding ahead of you.
When in Costa Rica… 🤣 and after the week the croc experience seemed tamer than zip lining 😬
Thank you! Cheers to tea and something new.
Oh, now zip-lining I’m really happy to do. When I went to Costa Rica, I did something very, VERY different, no crocs involved: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/style/modern-love-just-here-for-the-sex-please.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ck8.1X9K.AORMD31ryDA3&smid=url-share
What a read! so glad I stumbled across this this morning, Ros. Thank you so much!
Glad you enjoyed it!