Be Walking with Nicky copertina

Be Walking with Nicky

Be Walking with Nicky

Di: A podcast for the lone walker who just wants to hear the voice of a friend or something calming to listen to in a world of busy thoughts about being human when the instruction manual never arrived
Ascolta gratuitamente

Offerte di stagione | 0,99 €/mese per i primi 3 mesi

A seguire 9,99 €/mese – si applicano condizioni. Puoi disdire mensilmente.
Walk somewhere. Think about something. See it differently. A walking podcast about life, identity, change, relationships, community and the things we usually don't have time to think about. I want anyone who thinks walking is hard for them to listen and just ▶ Start walking Nobody knows what they are doing. So, we are all just figuring it out. This is about the messy funny and mad business of being human.This isn't really a podcast about walking. Walking is just how we get somewhere. While we're getting there, we'll talk about the things we normally don't have time to talk about.

spirandiombrevtre.substack.comNicole Wallace Filosofia Scienza Scienze sociali
Episodi
  • Episode 7- They Loved Me Until I Started Doing Better.

    Episode 7- They Loved Me Until I Started Doing Better.
    Oct 13 2026
    Thanks for reading Spirandi Ombrevôtre! This post is public so feel free to share it.They Loved Me Until I Started Doing BetterI have been thinking about a kitchen table.Not a particular one.Just a table.The sort where people sit down without arranging themselves first.Someone puts the kettle on.Someone has brought biscuits.Someone is telling a story they said they weren't going to tell.Someone else is laughing too loudly.There is usually something left on a plate.A cup nobody knows whose it is.This is where I think women have always done some of their best thinking.Not in the meeting room.Not necessarily in the places where important decisions are supposed to happen.At the table.Someone says, “Right. Let's work this out.”And everybody leans in.I have always liked making those tables.Making room.Introducing people.Listening.Connecting things.Sometimes just sitting with someone until they can hear themselves again.There is a particular pleasure in watching a person arrive at the table carrying something they have never quite said aloud.A ridiculous dream.An impossible idea.A plan they are embarrassed to admit they want.You listen.You say, “Go on.”And for a while, that is enough.I have been thinking about what happens afterwards.When the dream stops being a dream.Because it is easy to encourage someone when they are still sitting beside you saying,“One day I'd like to…”You can smile.You can say, “You should.”You can tell them how brilliant they are.Nothing has happened yet.Then one day something does.She gets the job.She starts the business.She finishes the book.She makes the money.People begin to notice her.She changes her clothes.Changes her voice.Changes her mind.She stops asking whether she is allowed.She starts taking up the space she used to leave empty.And suddenly the room feels different.I have noticed this.Not with everyone.There are women in my life who have stayed.Women who have clapped without looking around first.Women who have recommended me in rooms I wasn't in.Women who have remembered what I said I wanted before I had done anything about it.I treasure those women.But there have been other moments.A conversation that used to happen every week becomes once a month.Then occasionally.Messages become shorter.The enthusiasm changes.You mention something you are doing and there is a little silence before the subject moves elsewhere.Nothing dramatic.Nobody says:“I don't want you to succeed.”People rarely announce themselves so clearly.You simply begin to notice the empty chair.And there is a temptation to explain it.She's jealous.They don't like women who change.People don't want you to do better than them.Perhaps.Perhaps not.I don't know what is happening inside another person's head.I only know what happens in the room.And sometimes that is enough.There is another kind of table, too.The one where everyone comes because you are useful.You listen.You organise.You remember.You know what to say.You know who to call.You make things happen.You are the strong one.The capable one.The one who always has time.People can love this version of you very easily.She is convenient.Then one day she says,“I need you.”Or:“I can't do that this time.”Or:“I've got something of my own to deal with.”And suddenly the chair seems to have moved.I have wondered about that.The difference between being loved and being useful.The two can look very similar from the kitchen table.Someone calls.You answer.Someone needs something.You help.Someone is struggling.You stay late.It can feel like intimacy.Sometimes it is.But sometimes you are not being held.You are being relied upon.There is a difference.I think we learn it when we stop giving.That is when the room tells you something.I have also had to look at myself.Because it is easy to talk about other people's discomfort with success while ignoring our own.Can I watch another woman get the thing I wanted and remain at the table?Can I hear her talk about her success without immediately measuring my life against hers?Can I say:I'm happy for you.And mean it.Can I recommend her?Can I say her name when she isn't there?Can I open a door?Can I clap without wondering who is watching?I want to be that woman.Not because I have mastered jealousy.I haven't.Not because comparison has disappeared.It hasn't.But because I don't want another woman's becoming to become a threat to my own.Her chair isn't mine.Her money isn't mine.Her beauty isn't an accusation.Her opportunity isn't evidence that I have been rejected.There is room.And if there isn't, perhaps we have been sitting at the wrong table.Pull up another chair.Or make another table.I am beginning to think this is what growth does.It changes the furniture.You become different, and suddenly the old arrangement doesn't quite work.The person who was always available becomes busy.The person who never asked for anything begins asking.The person who listened to everyone begins speaking.The person who used to ...
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    20 min
  • Episode 6.1-What do you remember? Write more

    Episode 6.1-What do you remember? Write more
    Oct 10 2026
    What Do You Remember? Write MoreI thought about Mrs. Oxford today.I don't know why.Perhaps it was the weather. Perhaps it was nothing at all.She had been an old woman when I knew her, although now, when I think of her, I realise that she must once have been young.This seems obvious.But it wasn't, when I was five.When I was five, she was simply Mrs. Oxford.Sometimes my grandmother left me with her.There was no discussion about it. Adults said things like, “You're going to Mrs. Oxford,” and you went.Her house had a veranda.There were lizards everywhere.They made a sound I found disgusting.I can still hear it.She didn't seem to mind.She had beautiful teeth. Hazel eyes. Long silver hair that she kept carefully.I remember her hands.I remember the radio.Six o'clock.The news.Then seven.Then eight.The news went on while we were there, the world coming into the house through that little radio while I sat somewhere nearby.Sometimes she gave me jam.Guava.Cherry.There was sorrel.There were things she cooked that I cannot make now.This annoys me.She had shown me.I had watched.At the time I must have thought there would always be another day when I could ask her how she did it.There wasn't.That is one of the peculiar things about being young.You don't know which moments are the last time.You don't know that you are collecting them.You think you are simply sitting on a veranda.There are photo albums in my memory.She had many of them.She would turn the pages and tell me about people.Her children.Relatives.People who had gone somewhere.Canada, I think.There were faces I didn't know.Names that meant nothing to me.She knew them.She would tell me who they were.I listened in the way children listen.Not carefully.Not carelessly either.Just without knowing that one day the story would matter.I think that was when I first understood, without having the words for it, that people had lives I couldn't see.Mrs. Oxford had a life before I knew her.Of course she did.She had been a girl.She had friends.She had fallen in love, perhaps.She had quarrelled with people.She had been frightened.She had wanted things.There must have been things she was proud of.Things she regretted.Things she had never told anyone.But I didn't ask.I knew Mrs. Oxford.I did not know the girl she had been.I did not know the young woman.I knew the old woman who gave me jam.When you're five, this is enough.Later, it isn't.Years passed.Then Alzheimer's came.By then I was old enough to understand what it meant, although understanding did not make it less strange.She didn't recognise me.I remember being hurt by this.It was an unreasonable hurt.She wasn't choosing not to remember me.But some stubborn part of me thought:How can you not know me?I knew her.I remembered the veranda.The radio.The lizards.Her hair.The jam.The photographs.The sound of her voice.All these things were still inside me.And yet she could no longer reach them.That was the strange part.Something had happened between us.I knew it had.I carried the evidence.She couldn't.Perhaps this is what we mean when we say someone has disappeared.Not that they have gone somewhere.They are still sitting there.Still breathing.Still themselves, somehow.But parts of the person you knew have become inaccessible.And then, eventually, there is no one left who remembers those parts.That thought has stayed with me.Because people disappear in pieces.A recipe goes.A saying goes.A story.A name.The reason your family always did something in a particular way.The song your grandmother sang.The smell of a kitchen.The person who lived at the end of the road.Nobody thinks these things are important enough to record.Until the person who knew them is gone.Then someone asks:“Why did we used to do that?”And nobody knows.So lately I have been writing things down.Not properly.Not beautifully.Just enough.A sentence.A memory.Something somebody said.The ridiculous thing your child did when they were six.The story your father always told.Your grandmother's expression.The smell of the kitchen where you grew up.The song they always played at church.Write it down.You think you will remember.You will remember some of it.That's the trouble.Memory is selective.It keeps the strangest things.You may forget the recipe and remember the taste.Forget the conversation and remember someone's hands.Forget the year and remember the light coming through a window.You may forget what happened and remember how it felt.I think about Mrs. Oxford sometimes and wonder what I would ask her now.Not about church.Not about being a good woman.Not about the things I thought were important when I was five.I would ask:Who were you?What were you like at twenty?Who was your best friend?What did you think your life would become?What frightened you?What made you laugh until you couldn't breathe?Who broke your heart?What did you regret?What did you never tell anyone?But she isn't here to answer.So I am left with the veranda.The radio.The lizards.The jam.A handful of ...
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    11 min
  • Episode 5 On friending

    Episode 5 On friending
    Oct 4 2026

    Thanks for reading Spirandi Ombrevôtre! This post is public so feel free to share it.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spirandiombrevtre.substack.com/subscribe
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    11 min
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
Ancora nessuna recensione