Getting 2 Know Sheila Dalton

Where do you feel most comfortable and why?Sheila Dalton: I feel most comfortable alone in nature, with only a still mind for company, and only the sounds of nature for conversation. I like to feel as though I am transparent, with the wind blowing right through me. The still mind is important because, without it, I can’t properly feel all that is around me, but with it, sights and sounds and smells are not blocked or relegated to the background, with MEMEME centre  stage.

It’s like this: if you smell a rose while distracted by worries, or even thinking about what you will have for dinner, the aroma can’t penetrate you fully. If, when you smell a rose, you are only smelling a rose, and not thinking of anything else, then the wonderful feeling a gorgeous scent can give you is allowed the space it needs to grow and spread inside you. Whoever said, “Stop and smell the roses”, had it right. Every day brings opportunities for happiness and peace; but every day we miss them, because we cannot seem to stop.

Alone in nature is also one of the few places I feel safe – no one is watching or judging me.

What charms you?

Sheila Dalton: Many things, actually, but animals and innocence, mostly. I find domestic animals can make me utterly, foolishly daffy – everything they do seems delightfully eccentric, deliciously weird. And, of course, cute. Wild animals are more awe-inspiring than charming, but in the sense of pleasing, they fit the definition, too.

As for innocence, I’m not talking about things like virginity or sweetness, or the innocence of children, more about trust, the kind you see in certain peoples of the world who perhaps grow up in more loving cultures than our own. I’m not religious in the traditional sense, but I can be easily charmed by the utter and complete devotion of someone who believes in their god or goddess without question or hesitation. Religious belief abruptly ceases to be charming when it is ruled by dogma and “holier than thou.”

Read an INTERVIEW with Sheila Dalton.

Read more about Sheila Dalton’s Novel The Girl in the Box

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