Life Circles Back When You Let It
Listening to the Light
NOT KNOWING
Medium: Painted intuitively by hand using the iPad Pro
If the universe had been trying to send me a clear message, this was it. Louder than usual. Practically handwritten in bold.
Years ago, a job interview pushed me to the edge of something I wasn’t ready for, and that’s where I began to ignore fear and trust life’s timing.
My line manager at the time was a big part of why I started looking at new opportunities. She’d supported me from the beginning and was more than happy to provide a glowing reference. And in the teaching world, where everyone in senior leadership seems to know everyone else, that kind of name-drop carries serious weight. A recommendation like that doesn’t just get your application read, it gets you plucked from the bin and placed delicately on the headteacher’s desk.
But after that, it was all down to me.
I was confidently nervous, if that’s possible. Like a firm, sweaty handshake before the interview.
I had to prepare. Rise to the challenge. Put on a blazer and tie that didn’t feel like a costume.
And walk into what turned out to be one of the most surreal interviews of my life.
At the time, it was a gritty inner-city school in Clapham, South London. Still raw around the edges. But it was already starting to have a reputation for positive change, thanks to its formidable headteacher, Dr Margot Everstone, or Mimi, as all those in her inner circle eventually called her. She had the kind of presence that made people straighten up when she entered a room. Not through fear exactly, but through something harder to describe. Command. Vision. A refusal to waste time on nonsense.
Years earlier, she’d helped the school gain one of the first “Visual Arts Specialist” statuses in the country. It came with serious funding. And she’d poured much of that directly into the art department.
I didn’t know any of that when I arrived for the interview.
What I did know was that I was about to be interviewed for the Head of Art role at a specialist arts school with a national reputation. That should’ve been enough to rattle me.
But what really shook me was the tour.
It began with a guided walkthrough of the department, led by Tess, the technician, who was clearly one of the last remaining torchbearers of a once-glorious department. Dyed red hair, black T-shirt and jeans, burgundy Dr Martin boots, Tess looked like she’d never left art school. She had clearly lived through the good years of the department. There was pride there. Quiet respect from the other staff annd students. And also… fatigue.
From what I gathered, the department had once been a real force within the school, even before the arts funding came in. But for reasons never quite explained, perhaps a government initiative to renew an ageing workforce, much of the original team had taken early retirement. Including, crucially, the former Head of Art. I always suspected this was partly Mimi’s doing. The old art team were successful, yes, but they weren’t exactly easy to influence.
Since their departure, the place had slowly come undone.
Despite all the funding, the facilities were chaotic. Student work was everywhere: unfinished, unsupervised. Materials were left out, wasted. I saw hundreds of neglected paintbrushes, left out to harden; stuck to palettes and beyond saving. That actually made me so angry; it was one of my pet peeves. When no one cared to rinse a brush, that spoke a thousand words.
There was no structure. No clear system. Just a slow erosion of purpose.
Just breathe, I told myself… Half of me wanted to walk away and the other half wanted to stay and fix it.
The rest of the school felt even more austere to me. Groups of students clustered in shadowed corners, hoodies up, eyes locked on visitors. There were areas I instinctively knew to avoid. The atmosphere was tense, like something waiting to go wrong.
And already, in my mind, I’d begun drafting my polite exit speech.
Something honest but self-effacing, because, truthfully, I felt out of my depth. I wasn’t sure I had the experience, the resilience, or the authority to step into something this complex.
The interview process began with six shortlisted candidates and a two-part timed assessment that felt more like a policy pitch to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. How would I raise the department to its full potential? How would I engage the community? Build links with primary schools, run artists-in-residence programs, lead local commissions, create international exchanges?
I had little idea.
I did my best. But I didn’t finish the second half in time, and I walked out of that session convinced I’d blown it.
Then came the panel interview, an actual panel, with governors, deputies, specialist teachers, and of course, Mimi. I sat there expecting to drown. But what came out of me was something simpler and more real: my love for the arts, and the small but real transformation I’d led at my last school. I told them about the trips: St Ives, Paris, New York. The impact on students. The impact on me. And they listened. They leaned in.
Still, over lunch, I knew. I knew I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to fake it or push myself through a door I wasn’t meant to open.
So I did something that surprised even me. I wasn’t sure why, I just knew I had to.
I asked to speak to Mimi.
She invited me into her office, serene, commanding, and looked at me like someone about to receive news she already suspected. In the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a large tea mug with Mimi printed in bold, and a sweet picture of what must have been her two daughters.
With a hint of motherly disappointment, and looking at me straight in the eyes, she spoke softly, “Help me out, Adam. What can I do for you?”
I told her it wasn’t for me. That I wasn’t qualified. That I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.
She asked if I was sure. I said I was. I thanked her. And I left.
As I stepped through those heavy security gates, topped with barbed wire, which I’d assumed were to keep students safely in, but later learned were there to keep local intruders out, I felt strangely at peace.
A few days later, back in my comfort zone, quietly wondering if the real purpose of that interview had been to show me what was possible. Maybe I could apply for arts status in my current school. Maybe I could raise my own funding. Maybe I didn’t need a new job, just a bigger vision.
The days passed. The silence suited me.
Then the phone rang. It was Mimi.
“Adam,” she said, “I want you to reconsider.”
She told me they hadn’t appointed anyone yet. That despite the other five candidates completing the process, they still were not sure and she thought I could be the right fit. That she wanted to talk through my doubts, face to face.
It wasn’t what she said that changed my mind. It was the timing. The strange synchronicity of it all.
By now, I’d learned to pay attention to moments like this. When something unlikely shows up twice, once as fear, then again as a kind of invitation, I’ve learned not to ignore it.
So I said yes. Yes to meeting with Mimi once again and yes to her renewed offer.
Not because I was ready.
But because I wasn’t.
In the end, it wasn’t ambition that led me forward, but the quiet wisdom of letting go, long enough for life to circle back and meet me where I truly was.
I didn’t walk into it alone.
Virginie was with me every step. When my current line manager and her husband (who’d by now become a significant influence and support in our lives) heard I’d turned it down, they were stunned. Somewhere between disappointed mentors and parents watching their child run from a really good school. I think they reserved a kind of reluctant admiration for my honesty, or, depending how you look at it, a kind of naïve bravery that could easily be seen as stupidity.
But here’s the thing: had I not walked away, I don’t think I would’ve had the strength to walk back in. Saying no gave me the clarity to say yes on my own terms.
By surrendering and stepping away, I allowed the right path to return, not because I chased it, but because I finally aligned with it.
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