Fallow time

For thousands of years farmers have been voluntarily letting parts of their land go fallow, rather than sowing crops. This helps the ground to rest, and restore its fertility.

Sometimes we need a fallow period too. A few weeks, or months or even a year or more away from your mundane life can help you revitalise yourself, and your thoughts and experiences will ultimately cause you to bound ahead in life.

This ‘fallow time’ as I call it, is like a mini retirement or a sabbatical. You might use it to think, or read, or write, or travel, or just be. You don’t need to be productive, in fact, being unproductive can encourage new thoughts and ideas to visit, like frogs to a pond. You can get to know yourself a bit better too.

Some years ago it hit me that I was experiencing a fallow period in my life. I was taking time out for a year on the island of Lipari, off northern Sicily. My wife was making good use of a year’s maternity leave from her company, and I was learning to be a farmer in the island’s hilly interior, with occasional forays out to sea to catch shrimp with my fishermen friends. Ultimately, I used the opportunity to research a book I would eventually write, called Finding Nino – A Seachange in Italy.

Up until then I had been rushing around for years, caught up, thinking things were more important than they were, with nights and days coming and going like the wind. But after a while it was obvious that I was stale and unproductive. Everything about the city I was living in seemed worn out. Even my relationships were losing their crispness.

After a few months on the island I realised that, unconsciously, under the surface, things were breaking up.  The soil was mellowing. I didn’t know quite where I was heading right then, but I was sure I was being reinvigorated, deep down. I also realised that there was no need to worry too much, no hurry to see where things led, no necessity to question myself too deeply.

After we returned home after our year out, my wife and I rocketed ahead, while most of those who had stayed at home seemed fossilised, their plans and dreams choked by the undergrowth of their lives.

That year away also stands out more sharply than just about any calendar year I’ve had on this planet. I have so many sharp memories, made all the more acute thanks to my diary of the time and the book that was published.

If I think of that year, it stretches and contorts and bulges in all directions. There are so many memories: some good and some a bit more challenging (like some revolving around our attempt to survive with a newborn baby, with no help, and little advice on hand).

Ask me about the year before and I have virtually no memories of it. It’s like it didn’t exist. Like I hadn’t lived it.