Sweating out the Shark

For my last birthday, my son gave me a voucher for two weeks of unlimited access at a place called RCVRI which has a range of wooden rooms for sweltering in.

Though I loved the saunas in Finland, I don’t love vouchers – I file them away and find them years later, wilted in a purse or tucked in a drawer, expired, unforgivably unredeemed.

But since witnessing the shark attack in Coogee some weeks ago, my body has been in spasm. I figured the heat might help unclench things, so I committed to the voucher, downloaded the RCVRI app, and turned up for my first sauna and icy plunge.

The place was boisterous with muscular under-30’s in towels discussing their macros, roving between saunas, ice baths, and zero gravity chambers.

Though I am a personal fan of my ageing body, it is a small ask to sweat alongside pert people on peptides and intermittent fasts when your skin is tissue-paper, and your knees click as you sit.

I am old enough to be everyone’s mother there; so it may be inappropriate to mention that I may have seen abs that were once on a visionboard.

But that is entirely not the point.

Even as I am sweating out the shark, I am engaged in a different exchange with life right now, summed up by James Hillman in his book The Force of Character like this:

‘Ageing deliteralizes biology just when we are most enslaved by it. Later years allow a second reading of what had seemed only literal biomedical problems. Other cultures speak of opening the ‘third eye’ of consolidating the subtle body… one’s primary ground of being has moved into the soul.’

If this sounds earnest, I assure you, it is. The price of everything is high right now - my time, energy, consternation, effort. Whatever frivolity and empty gestures I had in me (probably not a heap to begin with) are now vanished.

Nazim Hikmet in his poem ‘On Living,’ writes:

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example—
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.

Look, I was born serious. Photos of me as a baby are invariably of me with a frown.

The circumstances of my family placed me in a position of assignment. I was needed to help my deaf sister Carolyn be understood. It has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.

This sense of responsiblity and purpose has been difficult to shake off. I have lived my life from one mission to the next, some practical, others spiritual, some both.

But in the quiet chambers of RCVRI, I have taken stock: at the two-thirds mark of 2026, I’ve published five books - my memoir Bring Us Home from Sorrow; a new edition of my father’s memoir Out of Line; my grandmother’s poetry book Quiet Songs; and two editions of my grandfather’s memoir (in English and Lithuanian) which I will launch in Lithuania between my two European retreats at the end of September.

Even for me, this has been a little on the crazy side.

Already my 2027 calendar shows:

• a writing retreat in Queenstown at the end of January

• a visit to Cape Town in March to launch the South African edition of Bring Us Home from Sorrow

• maybe…. a son’s (wedding??…)

• a daughter’s 30th birthday

• a writing retreat in Bali in June

• my 60th birthday in August

• a memoir writing retreat in Portugal in September.

When am I going to find time to make ‘living (my) whole occupation’?

In the winter of his days, Leonard Cohen wrote that he was learning to ‘live with defeat.’ My sense is that he meant everything we strive for and achieve, we will have to someday let go of - including our health, bodies, people we love, this very world.

Nothing is here for the winning. Everything is here for the losing.

I have spent my life filling things up - wardrobes, arrangements, bookshelves, fridges, bank accounts, achievements and calendars. But now, it’s emptying I’m drawn to.

Francis Weller writes about ‘vesselling’ in his new book, In the Absence of the Ordinary: soul work for times of uncertainty. It’s not the loveliest word, but it is a glorious concept.

I’m envisioning the next act of life as one of emptying and growing strong around the hollowness, like a pregnant womb gestating emptiness. To contain all that life will surely bring - grief, loss, tragedy and disappointment, all we can do is practice voluminousness.

And here’s the thing - this is a serious undertaking, not for ourselves, but for others, our children (whether biological or not). We do it in service to the younger generation for that is the meaning of our lives now.

Can we be safe and steady enough that a young person can turn to us when life bewilders and hurts them?

Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously….

… living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees—
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

In the days before she died, my mother said to my father, ‘I love my life.’

I believe her final instructions for living ‘seriously’ are in those four precious words.

With love,

NEWS

I recently had a wonderful conversation with Dr Linda Friedland, whose Substack, The Gift of Age is an incredible resource of insight, wisdom, tips and philosophy about ageing. We spoke about vulnerability, ancestral projects and learning to look at ourselves with a softer gaze.

Perth booklaunch of Bring Us Home from Sorrow on Sunday 16 August where I will be in conversation with Dr Linda Friedland. A few tickets are still left. Please come join me.

Portugal Memoir Writing Retreat 8 - 20 September 2026: this retreat has been oversubscribed for months, but a spot has just become available at the last minute if you’re keen for a spontaneous YES to memoir writing in Lisbon, Evora and an ancient monastery, including making our own journals.

Hydra writing retreat 9 - 15 October 2026: there is still one spot available.

Queenstown writing retreat 29 January - 4 February 2027: two spots left. Please email me for application forms if you’re interested. joanne@joannefedler.com