Sarah Jane Adams

Interview by Madeleine Dore

Sarah Jane Adams: antique jewellery dealer, designer and model

Full transcript

“The whole foundation of the way this world that we live in, is built to make us feel insecure and to feel that we have to tick all these boxes.’’ 
– Sarah Jane Adams

Madeleine: In last week's episode, I spoke about how we are all going through vastly different experiences right now. That’s something that I really want to highlight in this podcast… those variances. As a weekly podcast though, there are limitations. For instance, the last few episodes have featured those that are embracing the quiet, they’re finding this as an opportunity to rest. Then we also hear how other people are busier than ever during this time and really scrambling, so for me, it's really important to highlight those stories too.

I’ve put together an open survey where you can leave a voice message and written responses to share how you’re doing, what has changed about your days, what's working and what's not. In a special episode of this very podcast, I’ll be sharing your reflections and challenges, your routines and your ruts, in these extraordinary times. If you’d like to share and take part, you can find the link in the show notes, or over at www.extraordinaryroutines.com/survey. You could also email a voice note directly and that will be part of the podcast I really hope shows the diversity of what’s happening now.

Irrespective of the circumstances or the varying experience, many of us have had to rethink our relationship to routine. We might be working from home for the first time or navigating our approaches to our work and life. Many of us have been required to build new frames. The difficulty with that, with building a new frame, is figuring out where to begin.

One of my favourite writers, May Sarton wrote about this challenge in a book called Journal of Solitude, published back in 1973. She writes, “This whole month is bits and pieces of time with every week absorbed in one way or another. Poetry has gone, no lines jump into my mind, the taught thread has gone slack. I myself am slack. What is needed is a frame, an order, to be once again established against the powerful current of letters to answer, and the excitement of kinds of love coming out. I am in limbo that needs to be patterned from within.” 

Ordering a day that has no pattern imposed on it from the outside can be a difficult task for anyone. I myself really struggle with it and I guess that’s what drives this project. Many of us thrive on external accountability: a place to arrive to, a start time, a finish time, expectation from management or a client. But when we create our own structure, as difficult as that might be to stick to perfectly, we actually begin to create our own ballast. A way to navigate a turbulent sea, like right now. 

As May Sarton continues in her journal, “I have been thinking about the fact that however terrible the storms may be, if one’s life has a sufficiently stable and fruitful structure, one is helped to withstand their devastating after effects. For most people their job does this, it provides a saving routine in times of stress. I have to create my own to survive.’’ 

For Sarton, without a 9 to 5 job providing structure, she created her own self imposed routine: Poetry, gardening, sleeping and waking. Seems pretty straightforward and simple. It actually reminds me of Austin Kleon’s check box routine he shared with me when I interviewed him. As long as he ticks four checkboxes: Journaling, writing, walking and reading... that’s a good day. It doesn’t mean that has to be done in a certain order or done perfectly everyday, it’s just the guide to go by. Something to aim for, softly.  

So maybe that's where we start, not with the perfect structure or frame, but a checkbox of small things that we can do each day.

This week’s guest has long resisted any structures imposed from without. Sarah Jane Adams is an antique jewellery dealer, designer and model who started the hashtag, #mywrinkesaremystripes on Instagram. Her new book, ‘’Life in a Box” illustrates the deeply personal connection that we have with our belongings and our lives. 

As you’ll soon hear, Sarah Jane Adams lives her life very much outside the box. We talk about how her daily life resembles a sliding tile puzzle toy, how there is no such thing as certainty, being a misfit, living with openness and joy, solitude, self-sabotage and pressing the reset button. Given our daily lives ebb and flow so much, even when we have the ballast things can be rocky, here is Sarah Jane Adams on how she is today.

Sarah Jane Adams: In these crazy times, every day is so different and it’s basically a reflection of everyday in our ‘’normal’’ life, which is that we don’t actually know what is going to come tomorrow. This is something that I’ve been trying to explain to people when they say, ‘’Oh, but I don’t know what to expect for tomorrow.’’ We never know what to expect for tomorrow because there are so many things that influence how we feel. 

Today, I am feeling incredibly calm, incredibly relaxed. I had a bad night’s sleep, I don’t know why. Sometimes I think it's just my age. I have woken up this morning feeling really-really calm, really-really accepting of the situation that we find ourselves in. Almost grateful for being able to have the time, without having a whole load of emails coming in and being bombarded with all the stuff that my previous life would entail. I’m always awake really early and I started this morning with an hour of yoga practice, a meditation practice, all done in the comfort of my own home and I'm feeling remarkably focussed.

MD: So beautifully put Sarah. Something I’m really trying to delve into a lot with this project is showing the variances and I think that this crisis is definitely highlighting the variances. Some people do have more time right now and can feel that gratitude for that extra time, some are maybe feeling the squeeze if they have to…

SJA: …juggle children, families, careers, husbands, yes.

MD: Exactly. It's lovely to speak to you because there will be lots of people, myself included, in your situation where there is more time. I just wanted to kind of circle back to what you were saying about uncertainty, and how we’ve always faced uncertainty day by day. When did that become really clear to you?

SJA: When I was very-very young Madeleine. Since the crunch came when I was absolutely destitute, basically living in squats with nothing in terms of possessions or substance - monetary, financial substance behind me - and I had to make a decision. I think, even then, I knew that I would not be able to work a proper job. You know, a routine job, because my early childhood and my early life was very much, very routined and it just about killed me. 

I went to boarding school from a very young age, and then I did all the things that I was expected to do until I didn’t need to do it any longer. I went to university which I probably shouldn’t have done although, clearly it’s enabled me to develop thinking skills I would imagine and analytical skills. Even when I was at University, I was doing things outside of the box. Which is strange that my book is called ‘’Life in a box’’ because I've always lived my life very much out of the box. I’ve always been a misfit. Really, in a nutshell, I would say from very-very early on, from being as young as seven, eight or nine, when I’ve started feeling incredibly solitary. I realised that I don’t live the same structured life that other people do and I'm happier not living that sort of a structured life. 

Within my non-structured life I am incredibly disciplined and very structured. I'm not somebody who needs an external structure, in fact I fight and battle against any form of external structure. At times I know I've been quite tricky to work with because as a creative and also as a business woman, I have very definite ways and structures that I have set up. When a structure is imposed on me, I do actually find that incredibly restricting and very frustrating at times.

The way I live my life Madeleine, is always open and joyful and even finding joy in the most absurd, ridiculous and tragic moments, which I’ve had to do because I’ve had some fairly hardcore times in my life. I’ve always been the eternal optimist, albeit, often very angry, often very stroppy, often very confrontational, because for me, that’s how I question and then move into a new phase and a new situation.

MD: I love that, it really highlights how you can hold both kinds of contradictory emotions at the same time to propel you forward.

SJA: It’s essential. That’s life. That’s what human beings should be able to do. That’s who we are. So even within this frame that we're living in now, this reference of corona, I have to completely fight against the negativity that we’re being fed. The control that’s being put onto us and the fear, the fear that we’re all being bombarded with. Actually, be angry with that and understand that and try to work out - should I accept this or not?- and then I can move internally and work out - how do I navigate this? Which is actually not very differently from how I live my normal life.  

Therefore for me, this is not nearly as desperate and as bad a situation emotionally. I'm not going to delve into the financial, we are all born into a situation. Some of us are born into situations that are far more blessed than others and I totally acknowledge that I am clearly one of them. However, I have always had to fight for my independence. I have always had to fight my own battles, look after myself, really from quite a young age and given that we each have a frame of reference, we have to move on with how we intend to expand our life.

Life is made up of opposites and until we recognise and embrace those opposites and not be fearful, we have to be able to acknowledge the bad, even within us… within my own bad behaviour of which there is a lot. I have a lot of bad behaviour and my task for moderating myself or achieving a higher level of consciousness, is to understand those bad aspects of my personality. Because I have them, we all do. Only I can be responsible for that and only I can be responsible for those changes. 

Once we acknowledge what our responsibilities are and accept them and move with them, then we can start to make a change externally. We have to really start working on ourselves at the same time as trying to change the planet and change others behaviours and others thought processes. It starts with us. Everything starts with us. We have to acknowledge and accept that we are very responsible for a lot of negativity. That’s all we can do really Madeleine, I firmly believe that.

MD: I think that was so important what you were saying about our frames of reference and how it is different for everybody, but we still have to figure out how we’re going to live our days in that frame of reference. So coming back to that, especially when you’re talking about how you are driven to find the joy in things… What does that look like? Whether it's figuring out your own structure for your working life or whether it's figuring out your mental kind of outlook. What kind of questions do you ask yourself?

SJA: I’m not a deep thinker, Madeleine, but I…

MD: I’m surprised...

SJA: Well, I sort of am a deep critical thinker but in terms of that sort of thing, I do go so much by listening to my heart and my gut. For me that is understanding my moods and understanding whether or not I'm feeling content with how I'm living my life. Contentment doesn’t mean, ‘’Oh yes, I’m really happy’’, it doesn’t mean, ‘’Oh yes, everything’s going really-really well.’’ It means, am I negotiating and navigating the situations and the circumstances that I find myself in, unto which I contribute? Am I feeling ok about that?  

I basically start working within my initial frame of reference - my close relationships - which is obviously my husband and two children. If you can imagine just consciously throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripple effect. Just imagine that you are that pebble and the first ripple that is emanating from the pebble landing in the water is where you have to start. If that pebble and that ripple is a perfect circle, you can feel, Ok, I'm starting from a good place. If there’s something like a wind, tide, or insect that lands on the surface, or a fish that’s jumping - something external that’s affecting that ripple - you have to learn how to navigate, negotiate and sort out - How am I going to exist as this pebble in the middle of this circle, where there’s this interruption? 

Daily things will come at me, in life they come at all of us. Some are my own creation, some are just the shit that we have to deal with but basically it's starting again from the very core of that, and that is a feeling. When there are the blips and things, that’s when the emotion comes in. The first response is generally an emotional response. Certainly with me. Again, that conveys as a feeling. I’m not using intellectual thought, my emotions kick in and I think, Oh, bloody hell, shit!’ You know, that starts and I think, Ok, how do I deal with this? How do I make this work? – depending on what it is that hits us as soon as we wake up and become conscious again – that’s how I live my day.

I mean of course, as someone who is juggling many-many balls, like all people, particularly women. More so I think of women who are slightly younger than me who are child rearing, you know when the children are in the homes and the husbands there.

You know I can’t imagine how some people live their lives, but for me to remain focused and clear, I live in total solitude. I live on my own. My family live elsewhere, including my husband who I'm very close to and with still... but he lives elsewhere. We’re very fortunate to have that opportunity. 

I have no television. I have a radio which I only switch on very-very rarely to listen to the national news or international news. That’s even a choice whether I do that. I don’t have music on. I don’t like music in my house, I like silence. I'm now looking out of my office window, which doesn’t look like your average office. I'm looking outside at the trees and the birds and corrugated roofs. I mean, I live in the inner city of Sydney but it's all corrugated and old lattice and outdoor dunnies and people’s backyards. I’m very-very conscious of how my surroundings are in my home. Completely conscious of what I have in my home and what I don’t have in my home and how we’ve restored the property that I live in… so we’ve not done a renovation. You know, I still shower outside in the garden under the stars. I have an outdoor dunny. I haven’t got a plastic fantastic kitchen with loads of gadgets. I still use a cooker from the 1940’s. I’m very-very conscious as to how I have set up my worlds that I live in to suit what my needs are, which are very-very simple.

MD: That is really crystalizing that idea of how you can resist external structures but be very-very conscious with your own. That’s starting to really sink in and gosh, you’ve painted this picture that I would just absolutely relish, like this solitude. There’s so much talk of loneliness but I don’t think people are really paying attention to the power and wonder of solitude and how enriching that can be.

SJA: Exactly.

MD: There’s so many questions I want to ask... I feel like I'm going to try to cleverly bundle them. One of them is back to this idea of you’re someone who juggles a lot... What is the role that solitude plays in order to allow you to do that? Do you think that they’re connected?

SJA: 100% connected. Yes-Yes-Yes. I mean, I've been with my husband now for over 20 years. We don’t sort of talk about it, we don’t celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and Christmases… we’re very odd like that. We celebrate life and moments rather than formal things.

I was born a twin and I lost my twin whilst I was being born, and so I've always felt incredibly alone but I've always felt her presence is with me. Whether or not that’s me imagining things or not, who knows, but as a young child I sort of grew up very alone.  Solitude for me is actually my comfort spot. 

I can feel my energy in the atmosphere around me. That sounds like I’m such a weirdo but I can actually feel that. I guess that’s what people are talking about when they’re saying, ‘’We are united,’’ because I can actually - when I’m sitting here quietly and focusing - I can feel and sense my energy, which obviously is a vibration, which will be picking up with other beings' vibrations. So clearly, I know I’m not alone. I know I’m not alone, I can feel the vibrations from other things. I am a weirdo but I think I need to try and bring this back to more of a regular, ordinary life, which is what we do live from you know (…) some people, very long hours, I am one of them. Some people from 6 to 9, they’re doing the children. From 9 to 5 they’re doing the job. From 5 – 7 they’re juggling the children. From 7 – 8 they’re with the husband and then the television goes (…) That’s what other people's lives might be and I'm not being condescending or judgemental here but I'm just looking at how other people's lives are structured.

My life has none of that structure, even when I first was running my business before I had my children. My life work structure was a very different time frame, in as much as, I was living in London (...) I’ll only really start from when I started my business because that was when I clearly became independent, not reliant on anybody else financially. I think until women can be financially independent, they can’t be liberated. Until we are working to support ourselves in some which way, I don’t think then we realise how important structure in the life can be, and should be. Because we need to be able to recognize why we’re doing what we’re doing and how to allocate our time to whatever the tasks, the roles are. 

For me that started at a very young age because I became self employed pretty much as soon as I left university and stopped getting the grant. In England, it was a different system back in those days. I moved in with a boyfriend and I did a few babysitting jobs and I would do a few things and we would go on the road... I was a lighting technician. We shared a lot of that but I wasn’t really independent. We were kind of co-existing which is how I think most people are these days. They’re sort of co-existing and juggling. 

When I left him - well I started my own business - one thing led to another and then I left and basically moved into a squat. I knew I had to be completely free of anything, anybody, any possessions. I just needed to take on my own life. I can’t even say be responsible for, because at that stage in life, I wasn’t aware. Well, I kind of was aware of responsibilities but it was in those early days that I realised that the way I structure my life is incredibly important. 

I was working in the markets in London and living basically off my wits and learning a trade, learning an apprenticeship which started out not with jewellery, because I started out with no money whatsoever. Somebody lent me 50 quid - that's a hundred dollars in today's money - and I started my business. That was what I started with and I used to have to go to the markets, which started in England at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, because it was basically first in best dressed. If you’re the first person there, you’re the first person to find what was the wonderful thing that was found then – but had been sold to that person by quarter past 2. In those early days I learned that I didn’t need to live by the norms of – well you get up at 6 o’clock, and you brush your teeth and you have your shower – already by that stage I was living in a different time frame. That’s how I started and that’s how I started to learn that my life has to be structured in a different way.  

MD: I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the poet, May Sarton?

SJA: No

MD: She has this beautiful quote which is, ‘’People who have regular jobs can have no idea of just this problem, of ordering a day that has no pattern imposed on it from without’’. For you, you’ve completely embraced that and I was wondering how you’ve started to find what works for you?

SJA: It's all about responsibility and it's all about learning to understand what to prioritize. If you’re poor you have to prioritize how to earn a living, how to put food on your table to be able to feed your children. If you’re not earning a lot of money… You know for me at the beginning it was desperate straits and so the priority was work when I was a single woman. The joy for me is that because the work I was doing, it didn’t seem like work. I took risks and I took gambles and I was - you know, people said well you were in the right place at the right time – yes I was in the right place at the right time, but I also took immense risks. I have always taken immense risks. 

I was very-very fortunate that I found something that absolutely sucked me in, in terms of the thrill, the beauty, the excitement, the learning. I learned through necessity. Necessity for me, was the mother of invention. Necessity is the mother of invention. I didn’t pay rent at the beginning, I was living in squats. I couldn’t afford to pay rent at the start of my brilliant career. I was doing it pretty bloody tough, really tough. Learning how to compromise and learning what was important and who was important… and the most important person was me because without being able to feed myself and look after myself, there was no life. 

Through learning that, some people would say that was being selfish, to me it was survival. It was that nitty gritty. I had my standards, I had my ethical situation, I had my choices about who I was going to be asking for help from, and I chose very early on… nobody.

MD: You’ve been able to pave the path as you walk it sounds like…

SJA: Absolutely, I had to answer to nobody but myself. My moral compass is my own moral compass. My moral judgement, my ethical decisions, my business decisions, the way I’ve reared my children, how I chose to have my children… everything was my own thought process. Everything was very-very consciously done. I have had my critics and I still do have my critics, but I can go to sleep at night and sleep knowing I don’t feel as though I’ve screwed anybody over really too badly.  

Of course, as somebody who is now producing, there are all the ethical problems around manufacturing. As someone who is buying and selling from other people, one could say there are ethical questions about that. Even amongst that - and I’ve made this clear in my book - I made the decision to only buy from other people who were selling willingly, who considered themselves to be in some which way within the trade. I’ve never knocked on doors and said, “Have you got anything you want to sell?” I’ve only ever worked with people who have put themselves out there in that position. Every decision that I've made, I have tried from a very-very young age to be thoughtful about how I've come to that decision. A lot of it now is so ingrained in me that it now is a gut reaction.

MD: I’m really curious - and maybe there’s no answer to this - but I’m really fascinated by your opinion on it anyway. The way that you’ve laid this out in terms of you having the courage to take the risk for e.g. Why do you think so few people do that? Why do you think so few people take the time to get to know themselves, to put themselves in situations that they know will be fulfilling in terms of they’ve found the thing that they want to do and nourishes them, but they just can’t take that leap to risk?

SJA: I think unfortunately in the modern world (...) You know the world is very different now that what it was 40 years ago when I was 25 and starting my - well 45 years ago - because the internet has changed so much. I think things were so different back in those days and I think we almost have to look at the world pre- and post- internet. I think with every industrial revolution, technological revolution or whatever, those things are the things that impact so strongly on human development and human psychological and social development. 

I think that I’m fortunate. I really can’t answer that question for young people because I cannot imagine how it would be like to have been born into the world knowing only that there's internet and computers and iPhone. I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine the terror and the sadness that people feel and it's in their core because they are so bombarded with everything. The things that they follow and the things that they do, they just get filtered and filtered and filtered into this vortex of a life that people have just (…) I mean, I am a conspiracy theorist to some extent and that’s why I think to some extent you do actually create your own reality. What you don’t realise is how you are being so massively controlled by the media, big corporations, advertising agents… all of that world. It’s such a control. 

I don’t know how hard it would be. I feel that to have been born much later than I was born, it would be almost impossible to live the independent sort of life that I have lived. When people say to me, “Yes, you know you were lucky you were born in..,’’ of course I acknowledge that. I think that the internet has been the biggest shift in how human beings are now evolving and I think pre that – and I often discuss this with my husband – we just had to learn how to duck and dive. We just had to learn how to stand on our own two feet. This is one of the things that you know, I truly miss.  

This is going to sound awful because obviously I don’t miss poverty of course – that would be a terribly arrogant, awful thing to say – but I do feel there are now too many choices. You know we have to find the balance between the terrible hardship that a lot of people are still suffering. I feel that’s one of the things that is so criminal - I use the word criminal - and so devastating in the world that we live in, that there are so many people living under the poverty line. In this world, where there are people that have no clue about that part of the world and yet they’re living these unbelievable lives and it’s all out there on …(sigh) 

That’s not a reality. How can that be a reality? How can that be an authentic, true, meaningful life? How can it be? I cannot understand how it can be and I think that’s where the struggle is. It's so much the internet and the media is so much to blame. Today, we just live in such a warped world. I just don’t know how anyone can lead an authentic life if they’re switched into that warped world.

MD: Back to this idea of your ability to protect your joy, I’m curious about how you still experience joy in your daily life with the knowing of the suffering that still exists, which is the crime? How do you kind of find that balance of... I can still experience joy even though I am devastated about the suffering and something needs to be done?

SJA: Because as a human being, I, we, my husband, we do - I mean I'm not going to bang on about what we do - but we do, do things. Right, that’s all I'm going to say because, not as much as I can, not as much as I could, because I still am juggling my daily life. But I do...how do I put this...I can’t take on the responsibility for everybody and everything that’s happening in the world. I simply can’t.  

MD: No one can.

SJA: Therefore I have to forgive myself for knowing that I can’t. I have to do what I can and what I feel that I can and depending on the situation that I’m in and what I decide to involve myself with, sometimes that’s more challenging than others. Sometimes it's more joyful than others. Sometimes within the tragedy I find joy, and that to me is what life is about. It's learning to find the joy within the tragedy. Because when you delve into those tragedies, trust me, there is joy.   

MD: Mmm, like right now.

SJA: Like right now. Like now there is joy. Madeleine you can tell I’m emotional, you can tell I am shameful of so much that I live my life. We can come up with all the ifs and buts and justifications and I still do. I still find myself doing that. I still do. Yet I still feel that I have to provide for my children. In fact, the book that I’ve written was written for my children. I mean it's wonderful and I'm very grateful that it's been published and it's out there in the world, yet it was really written only for my children. Interestingly, that corona has come in a time when I was supposed to be out there doing lots of public appearances and things and yet here we are in this stripped back world. 

I’m very happy because my book now, it's not gone out with all the bells and whistles, it's not gone out with all the functions. She will sink or swim, she will fly or not on her own merit, without too much ballyhoo, without too much hoohaa…which is exactly who I am and how in my perfect world, I would like things to be.  

Because a thing is only a thing. It's not a being. It doesn’t have the life, it has a different life force. All the bullshit of the advertising and the rigmarole of - I'm not talking about my book, I'm just talking out there in the world - it's all based on nothing. Except its based on making us feel insecure. Making us feel fearful. Making us feel inefficient, and useless and sad. I mean advertising just - you know, the beauty world, the fashion world, the make up, all of that stuff that people do to their bodies and their faces- it's all based on making people feel insecure and not comfortable with who they are and how their bodies are. Not allowing them to realise that actually, I do have some ability to do certain things gently to my body. A walk, an exercise, look at my diet….all of that stuff is within our control and yet it's being stripped away from us.  

The whole foundation of the way this world that we live in, in the western world particularly is built on, is built to make us feel insecure. To feel that we have to tick all those boxes. We’re made to feel - Oh yes, you have to get a proper job, you have to do a proper job, you have to work for the man and you have to have a safe job and get an income. You have to be a professional. Oh, it's not so good to be a tradie or to be someone who's working in a… whatever, you know. You get a degree and you end up being a barista. We are all told that we have to tick these boxes. We leave school, we have to do well in our HSC. Fear already instilled in these children, in these humans from the day dot. Extra-curricular activities, extra school tuition. Fear. Fear. Fear. We’re never going to be good enough. 

I mean I suffered this when I was young and my father used to try and teach me fractions and decimals. I still am numerically dyslexic. Nobody recognised it. But the fear that put into me, I basically rejected that whole thing. I've never learned how to do it, I just rejected it all. What I'm suggesting is that perhaps we should look at resetting what is expected of people in a life. 

It is already happening. This corona is already making this happen. We are looking at our lives. God forbid I will be crucified for saying this, but we have needed this reset. We have needed this reset. The planet has needed this reset. It's terrible, the suffering, but we need to look at… Is it really the right thing to be working 9 to 5 and having a horrible great big mortgage? Then having a marriage that’s going to last us however long, spending all that money on a wedding that’s just for Instagram photographs and baby showers and all of that. Is this really the right way to live out lives? Is this what's actually going to make me happy? Then at the end of it, you look back and you think, well you know, I don’t know. I'm not saying it's not right, but to me, I can only speak for myself in this whole conversation Madeleine. I need to say that I am only speaking for myself, I can’t represent women of a certain age or even my family. I’m only able to speak for myself.

MD: Of course, I think that’s incredibly important to do because even though it's subjective, your experience, we need to feel less alone in our suffering and also also our joys.

SJD: Yes.

MD: I love what you’ve just said. I guess it comes back to what's happening now is this great shift in the definition of success. We're seeing people working at supermarkets celebrated now.

SJD: Exactly, exactly.

MD: It just goes to show the disparity, this has been here all along. How do we want to live our lives rather than the prescription we’ve been provided with? I’m curious in terms of your idea of success, you were in many ways lucky to find the thing that you enjoy. I think so many of us search for that for a long time, myself included. You found that early on and then you almost had the recognition for it much later, in terms of your ‘’fame’’ or ‘’recognition’’.

SJD: That did happen to me totally by accident. You’re talking about the Instagram hoohaa presumably?

MD. Yeah, and I guess I'm asking more about the feeling of it. Has it just proven to you that it just doesn’t even matter? The recognition or the success?

SJD: It's become a big burden actually, to be honest. It's gone through stages. At the beginning it was a fascinating, sociological observation for me to watch this situation. Very quickly I went through a gamut of emotions like... holy moly. That culminated very quickly in me realizing I have to unplug myself from this as much as I can, so that’s why I unfollowed everybody. That’s why on that platform I don’t follow a single soul because my brain, my visual, my social obligation… I'm a very well brought up child who was taught to say please and thank you and to respond to a letter and respond when somebody makes a compliment, and it became very evident that I couldn’t do that. I was completely overwhelmed with basically what was a load of polite but non-flippant stuff that I didn’t have the time in my life to contend with, because I was busy juggling like a madwoman at that stage, running two or three different businesses and the children and whatever. 

Then basically what happened, Saramai Jewels as a platform just got picked up by numerous media outlets and basically became pulp fiction. Saramai Jewels is now pulp fiction. Now with the corona, I'm actually using this opportunity to press the default button on Saramai Jewels and things are going to change very dramatically. 

MD: When you say press the default button, what do you mean with that? I guess not even just Instagram, but anything in our lives. Do you often reach for the default button?

SJD: Yes, I call it self-sabotage. I've done it throughout my entire career, probably every 15 months to 3 years I will do it.

MD: What's the consequence of that...If it's self-sabotage?

SJD: The consequence is it opens new horizons and new things come into your life. It's clearing, it's clearing all the shit. It's clearing all the things that don’t work for you, all that you’ve become comfortable with. I’m not somebody who likes to be comfortable. So when my business structure or my (...) I generally have to explain this with regards to business because daily life with humans sort of sabotages itself, that's what human relationships are all about. Navigating human relationships when other people are involved, of course, everybody sabotages at different times and that's called navigating relationships. 

I’m talking really specifically with my business life, my public life now on Instagram.  Yes, self-sabotage is when I'm just so bored or it’s become too comfortable or I’m no longer comfortable in this comfortable situation, so I will change things up. I've done it numerous times throughout my life. I'll just pull the plug, for e.g. I had a phenomenal business, not my first business, not my antique jewelry business. I started a secondary business with my husband probably now, I don’t know, 15 or so years ago, working with a number of artisans and manufacturers across the world. That business became so huge and so successful in that world frame of reference and eventually one day I just thought, well, I don’t want to play this game anymore. 

The reasons are explained in the book. I won’t talk about it now, it's all in the book. I just one day, I pulled the plug. I didn’t even warn anybody. I didn’t even tell anybody. It just came to me. I woke up one morning and I said to my husband, ‘’I don’t want to play this game anymore. I’m not doing this business anymore. We’re going to sell the big family home. We’re going to downsize. I'm just getting rid of a whole lot of stuff.” Clearance-clearance-clearance. 

Everybody thought I was completely insane. It was all a part of acknowledging menopause and listening to myself truly and knowing where I want to see myself in five or 10 years' time if I'm still here and working towards that. I think in this world we unfortunately aren’t given enough time to make those changes because we’re so much on that hamster wheel with the mortgage and the children and the husband and the duty for whatever we are. I was fortunate because having been self-employed, to me it was a necessity, not an obligation 

MD: Oh, it's so empowering to have that position. To pull the plug and I think that's the way to rip off the band-aid in some way. I’ve definitely got some of my own that I've just been picking at and it's like… No, just wake up one morning and rip it off.

SJD: Do it, Madeleine. Otherwise you’re going to have to soak it in Dettol. It’s going to be stinging, it's going to turn septic and it will be awful. Just rip it off. Do it, because as soon as you do it, as soon as you get rid of all of that, you will breathe. You will feel lighter and I promise you stuff will come to you. I promise you. I've been saying this to people for years and years but unfortunately, my manner has been incredibly confronting to people, because I am really bolshy and really bossy. I’m a true Aries.

I know the worst part of any decision is the thinking about it, but once you have made the decision and you act upon it, everything changes. The whole energy around who you are, and what you’re doing and who you’re working with or not. Everything changes. Now of course, what I'm saying to you is, I am going back to my default situation, which was… I'm not really interested in standing up and selling dresses and selling very much at all really, other than lifestyle. My happy place is working with jewellery. So read into that what you may. 

Corona, this time, this quiet time, the total lack of emails asking me if I want a new yoga mat or do I want to buy some sunglasses or will I do a post in my underwear to empower women. That sort of bollocks is not fortunately landing in my inbox anymore, which is giving me the time to be creative in another way, in areas of my life that I feel comfortable and love. So just watch this space with Saramai Jewels. I feel sure that a lot of people will unfollow me, which again is something that I love because I see unfollowing as sifting out the wood from the chaff. For me this is a very cathartic time because I have got the courage to say, “I don’t want to play that game anymore thank you very much. See you later alligator.” 

MD: I think you’re going to inspire a lot of other people to pull the plug too. You mentioned earlier your beautiful morning of waking up and doing the yoga at home, and you’ve also mentioned that you work quite long hours and I just wanted to know… what does a picture of a day, however changing it is, what does it look like for you at the moment? Or what do you want it to look like?

SJD: My life now is a very different world than what it was pre-corona. Maybe I'll just do a little bit of a juxtaposition. Pre-corona, I was juggling my family, and trying to connect with my children as much as I possibly can, and with my husband as much as I possibly can. I was also working with my family, both my children are in the jewellery industry so I'm trying to act as some sort of a mentor to them. They both do different things but we’re juggling because they’re also trying to reinvent the wheel, they've been in the process of reinventing their wheels. I haven't been supporting them financially but if they’ve needed advice or questions, I've always wanted to be able to be there for them. They’re 30, they’re twins. I do have a cabinet in Dirty Janes of Bowral, where I sell direct to the public. 

Oh, and I was always often on conference calls. I would always be waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning, which is fine, that's my body clock. My average day would start at 4 o’clock and I would be on international calls to America to brands, clients or friends...just people I've connected with in America. Then I would normally trot up the road to do a 6:30 yoga class, then I would come home and go out and have a shower and have some juice, or a coffee and some toast, or porridge or whatever. Then I would open all the post and get down to the business of the day.

There would also be piles of jewelry stacked up behind me, things that I needed to sort. Then I would have to often go into town, because of course, I don’t have much at home, it’s generally in safes in the city. I would have to go and get stuff out, just moving, shuffling things around from one thing to another. Then maybe I'll meet somebody for a lunch meeting, or meet with my manager or have a talk with my manager, then sometimes I'll have to do a job which means I'll have to see my husband who's down the road. He’ll come up and see me. He generally comes up sort of mid-morning and if I haven't got the post I'll call him and say, “Can you pick up the post on the way through?’’ Then he’ll come through and it's head down and it’s kind of social isolation because I do have to focus on my tasks. 

Meanwhile he’ll go and do the shopping and buy the veggies cause he’s the cook in our situation. He’s like my gopher really and has been for quite some time. In fact, when people say to him, “What do you do?” He now says, “What she tells me,” because he truly is, he’s kinda like my PA. We juggle between us and he does do as he’s told and as he’s asked. Often at some stage I'll have to take a photograph for a post, for a brand and do a video or something, and sometimes we’ll have to go off and do that and then I have to work on what I want to say and the words and blah blah blah. Somewhere in this I’m supposed to be doing Instagram, which really is absolutely the last thing on my list of things to do. Instagram is the last thing on my list of things to do, I promise you that. That's my day. 

My day is that little game where it's all random and you have to shuffle things to get things in the right order. My day every day starts off like one of those little square games which has got 12 or 16 squares that you move, and they’re all random at the beginning, and I spend my entire day shuffling things and readjusting which takes priority. I start the day with me taking priority as in taking a yoga class, but then it's open slather and it's the squeaky tap…. What's the most important deadline? I’m juggling and by the end of the day, hopefully I finish that, because I do like to have attended to everything that certainly has that deadline and put everything into very neat piles on one of the three tables in my office where I lay stuff out and put things. I’m very-very organised.

MD: I love that analogy for a day. I think that's so accurate. We can be organised, we can have a structure, we can work hard but it’s gonna get jumbled.

SJD: Yeah exactly. Things are going to jump in and suddenly like today, I'm juggling legal stuff and daughter stuff and husband stuff and interviews and at some stage, hopefully dropping some jewellery off. That's my day. 

MD: I love that idea of your day being like a sliding puzzle toy. This podcast is called Routines and Ruts and so to end, I’d love to hear maybe your advice or any parting words for someone who is finding it difficult to navigate this rut that we’re all in together?

SJD: It's very simple. I would suggest that you turn off a lot of the things that are switched on around you and really-really sit quietly and think, or sit quietly and don’t think. One of my favourite expressions is from Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne. It’s Pooh or it might be Eeyore, one of them says, ‘’Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.’’

MD: I hope that you were able to be as inspired and maybe challenged or provoked by Sarah Jane Adams as I was, and really note how crucial it is to really listen to yourself and find a way to connect with what your gut is telling you. Even if that means letting go. I'm keen to hear about what the days look like for you at the moment and so as I mentioned, I’m inviting you to be part of the podcast as well. In a special edition of Routines and Ruts, I’ll be sharing what works for you and what doesn’t. 

Perhaps there’s no better illustration of this than the poem, ‘’Things to do in the Belly of the Whale,’’ by Dan Albergotti. He writes, “Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organise your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review each of life’s 10 million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet and listen for the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart. Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done. Remember treading water in the centre of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down in the black depths.”

Maybe today ask yourself… what will you do in the belly of the whale?