The Queenager: Eleanor’s Letter (June 2nd 2024)

Dear Queenagers

So it is officially summer and the sun has finally come out! What bliss to dry off in the warmth after swimming next to towering daisies, campion and a huge fleshy plant taller than me which I am told is a horseradish. What a difference a day makes; yesterday afternoon I swam then shivered my way swiftly into a thermal, a t-shirt, a shirt, a jumper and a puffa and needed hot soup and tea to warm up.

Today I feel like I have finally landed again after all the excitement of our NOON Purpose and Power Retreat at Broughton Sanctuary last weekend. I got home late on Tuesday, went to HarperCollins to sign 50 special proofs of my book

and send them out on Wednesday (which was epic, a true ‘pinch-me’, birthing kind of moment to see the finished copies looking so beautiful) and have pretty much slept ever since. Holding all 36 of you lovely Queenagers at Broughton was a lot! Wonderful, but knackering. I woke up this morning feeling rested at last and full of beans again and got a message from Jen our NOON Editorial director saying she’d just unpacked her last bag and been wafted instantly back to the Fire Temple by the smell of woodsmoke in a truly Proustian moment.

It is hard to know where to begin to describe our wonderful five days at Broughton; there were so many highlights. A big one was reading aloud from my book (preorder on that link) for the first time after dinner in that beautiful dining room and seeing it move some of you to tears (which was good as I certainly cried writing it!). It is such a strange process writing a book. The doing of it is so private; months spent just me and the keyboard in my study. Very lonely. Unearthing all my truthiest truths, committing them to the computer, honing the language and the expression, refining, cutting. It’s a very solo process. And then suddenly like a baby grown in the womb exiting and making its entrance into the world this very inner journey is suddenly manifestly outward and out there. It feels incredible and bizarre and fabulous, a dream come true. Reading to you all, signing the copies… it was an out of body experience for me! What I hope is that the book will start to change the narrative society has about the later lives of women to something more positive and fit for purpose. I want it to act as a map, a new set of signposts for our pioneering generation of women as we hit midlife and beyond. But it is also intended to inspire the women coming behind us that there is, as the title says: Much More to Come – that we are never too old and it is never too late to become the women we always wanted to be. I could never have written it without the support, wisdom and insight of all of you wonderful Queenagers so my heartfelt thanks for all your stories and love on the journey.

The community that we have built at NOON.org.uk (this Queenager newsletter is my weekly missive to you all) was so concrete and alive over our time at Broughton. From the very first evening where we walked through the arch of transformation, all calling out what we wanted to bring into our lives during the retreat and our first circle in the fire temple, it was magic. If I close my eyes I can still see the vivid purple of the rhododendrons in the forest where we all slowed down and spent three hours in the sunshine convening with the trees and bugs and water during our forest bathing with Liz Dawes. It was so moving to me to see so many of you revert to your childhood selves, mooching about in the ferns, sploshing in the stream, hugging trees, drinking tea made from northern spruce (and yes General Jackie, thanks for removing the bugs…nature has its limits!) From there we moved to our first Eidetics session – a chance to deep dive in to the images we store in our brains. I recovered so many forgotten memories – most powerful was the chance to reconnect with my most joyous moments of my childhood self. I discovered a memory of swimming (of course) in a green pool in Italy, surrounded by peach and nectarine trees, the lake below me, mountains behind. A feeling of being entirely free and care-free – in body and mind. It was on a holiday I took with my dad and stepmother where we drove to northern Italy in a yellow Ford Escort across the Alps, just the five of us, a soundtrack of Diana Ross – a precious lost family unit for about a month. I had completely forgotten about it but since I rediscovered that memory I can sense that little girl joyously swimming inside me. I talk to you Queenagers often about how the pebbles that guide us out of the dark wood of our midlife clusterfuck are created from what reliably brings us joy. So it was very sweet to discover this golden memory which underpins my own renaissance which has been brought about through cold water and the pond and swimming. (The other happy memory is of lying on my bed reading, losing myself in books). Writing and swimming have been my reliably joyous pastimes all my life; and of course they have been the bedrock of my last four years of transformation. That connection across time is still buoying me up. It was wonderful to make those connections myself and also to see so many of you weave your own webs, find your own wholeness again through Jackie Sussman’s calm and wise invitations. (She is offering an online continuation of the work, open to those of you who haven’t been to Broughton of course, do email me eleanor@inherspace.co.uk if you are interested in taking part).

Big thanks to the brilliant Avivah Wittenberg Cox my mentor and friend for her session that afternoon on four quarter lives and midlife pivots and for the lovely article she wrote about Noon, me and the retreat last weekend. If you haven’t yet checked out her Substack Elderberries I highly recommend it!

Monday morning brought a deep session of relaxation and calm as Paris (the lady of the manor) beguiled us all into “letting go” and embracing our own body’s wisdom and peace with a world-class yin yoga session followed by a magical soundbath. I’ve been privileged to attend a lot of this kind of thing but Paris’s version is of an entirely different order. Her playing of the crystal bowls feels like liquid rainbows and moonbeams soothing the nervous system – and coming after gentle yin session (so relaxing I heard more than one Queenager snoring) brings about a kind of trance of peace, wellbeing and receptivity. That was followed by a long steam, swim and jacuzzi in the glorious Broughton spa and a top lunch – followed by more Eidetics where we ended up in King Solomon’s court all being presented with our own personal symbol of wisdom. And then, shaking it up after a cocktail party (thanks Jen and Jackie) final supper (compliment au chef) we had perhaps my true highlight of the weekend our Salsa drumming workshop in the fire temple.

Dear reader just imagine if you can the childish delight and glee of 36 somewhat tiddly Queenagers unleashed on forty drums, cowbells and myriad instruments. Brazilian musician Claudio Cron told us about the origins of this carnival music in native Bahia, instructed us in the rhythms and let us loose. Oh, the glee. The laughter, the euphoria of 36 Queenagers free to be like kindergarten kids with a triangle. The whumping of drums. The clanging of cowbells. The childlike ecstatic laughter. The camraderie. The noise!! They could hear our carnival call miles away. I looked around the fire-temple in the midst of our joyous din and saw every single face lit up with fun, childish glee and exhilaration. It was magic!!!

This time of our life is all about shedding what no longer serves us (and yes that can be the thing that was slam, bang centre in our lives) – that does not happen with out pain. It’s a bit like a massive pruning; snipping off the old tendrils, the dying shoots. Christ it hurts. But the good news is that the aftermath, the return to juicy green shoots of purpose and joy is worth it. And joy and fun for me have always been at the very heart of the Queenager project and what we do at NOON. Looking around that fire temple at all of your beloved ladies having the time of your lives (one of you said it was ‘my best night ever’) brought tears of happiness to my eyes. I couldn’t believe that what had begun as an idea in my head and a dream expressed through my fingers on the keyboard had manifested into this wonderful thing. I was humbled and speechless with delight.

And then our final morning. Another delicious breakfast of eggs and toast, berries and granola followed by walking the labyrinth silent and barefoot. I love the way we all circle in – on the same path, together, but alone, some in front, some behind, on the same journey thinking our own thoughts but there as one.

And then the final circle – so moving. Many of you had personal epiphanies around power and purpose, finding the way forward when only a few days before you had felt lost. So many new friendships had been formed. So much shared and shed. And then the exit through the arch again – calling in what the retreat had shown us and what we want to keep in our lives. Vowing to enact this promise to ourselves in the days, weeks and months to come.

And throughout it all – camraderie, so many hugs. Mutual support. Coming together in hard moments. A community of women truly supporting each other with no undercurrents, no bitchiness just love and humour and trust and care. I am so proud of what we have all created and of all of you.

So much love and such huge thanks to all of you for coming and to Broughton for hosting (particular thanks to Liz, Roger Tempest the owner and his partner Paris for all their cherishing) and to my amazing NOON team; Jen and Jackie, thanks darlings, I couldn’t have done any of it without you.

And – I don’t usually share my poems but it seems appropriate to today as it is all about Broughton where the Tempest family have lived for a thousand years.

Broughton

From this place of wholeness

What is broken can be healed

In this place of wholeness

Where love has ploughed the fields

A thousand years of kith and kin

Bred of this soil and stone

Creating this place of wholeness

With nurture in its bones.

By the waterfall

Flowers glow purple

A heron  soars

White water roars

Life pulses.

And stills.

And suddenly

As the lamb bleat and the fish bubble

Pure joy gushes through my tender heart

as my soul surrenders.

The healing magic

Of this place of wholeness.

xxxxx

Eleanor

By Eleanor Mills