not feeling well

hi all,

I did promise to post again soon. I'm just not particularly feeling well right now. Good news is that I am writing every day - doing the Artist's Way. Bad news is that I'm feeling sick and just cleaning up a tiny bit before I go to bed.

How's everyone out there in blogland?

xx

Boo!

Happy Hallowe'en!


I had a momentous night last night. I rarely get to entertain for business but last night I took a client out for dinner. I was joined by a colleague. Since I never order wine in a restaurant and usually eat one or two courses (max), imagine my surprise when the bill was £254! Thats like...$400-500 in north america! I think this isn't unusual in London or in business dining. Thats criminal.

Good lord! I'm saving for a downpayment on a home and pinching every penny 5 ways till it bleeds at the moment and I'm still doing okay relative to so many others. Thats 6 weeks grocery/spending money on my current budget. And...I'm middle class!

Maybe my year of tight economics has really changed what I value but, I find it hard, in the current economic situation in the UK, to understand how the restaurant could be completely packed. All I can say is the gap between rich and poor (or rich and middle class, even!) really is right in front of us all the time.

I am running in on Monday to get the expense claim signed off! If I were the boss, I'd question me hard on spending that sort of money but, as I said, I think I'll be more shocked if they don't.


How are you?

Maybe... Maybe not

So I may or may not have had swine flu this week. Here in London, if you have the flu, you call NHS Direct, (National Health Service Telephone Assistance Number), answer a few questions about your symptoms and then get transferred to a nurse or doctor who does a secondary assessment and then decides (hear angel music) whether you need Tamiflu or paracetemol.

They're no longer doing swabs in London if you're sick. You can't even go to see your GP. I called mine Friday and he said monitor my temperature and call again if it gets worse (and then maybe they will give me Tamiflu?). But the one message I got from all of them was loud and clear: Stay home, don't go out, don't see anyone (and if possible, don't even breathe) until your symptoms are clear.

Well, I may or may not have just survived the first round of h1n1.

Doesn't really give me much faith in the system.


So...I've been home from work 3 days - 2 days were impossible to work really, but I did take 2 calls that seemed urgent, and on Friday I worked from home, not sick enough to bore myself by confining myself to sleep all day but neither well enough to go in and spread my germs; or, as it turns out, to work all day without an hour long nap.

Hopefully Monday I'll be back to work.

Another creeping crud has got hold of me at the same time: depression. I don't know if I'm sick because I've gotten depressed or if the depression is an emotional response to being physically unwell. There is certainly enough to get me down these days - threat of job loss, swine flu, middle age, lack of and adequate pension/retirment fund, ailing father, tubulent love life, a project that has suddenly lost its sponsor to other cares......... oh and did I mention my darned washing machine is on the fritz?

It could be worse. I know that. And I'm grateful its not.

So how come I still feel lethargic and glum and unable to really feel like I've got the power to progress towards something new?

Like so many of my friends, I think I've hit a point where I really don't know what I want to do. This career change has been uber disappointing and either I need to stick it out and make lemonade or I need to cut and run and find what will make me happy.

I've read the book Eat Pray Love and I loved it till the last 50 pages. She decided mid way through life to take a year out and travel - 'find herself' as we say. And I was thinking - why don't I do that? Well, maybe because she writes for the New York Times or something like that and earns kagillions. But also, after all this finding of herself, it ended up she lost herself in love.

Phhhhht.

This is not the only dream a woman can have. But how come she copped out and summed it up with the fairytale ending? We don't all (most of us don't) get this silly fairy tale ending of the man who takes care of us. And only when we wake up from that dream, will a woman, I think, really start taking care of HERSELF. I've seen too many friends wake up too late, when the husband is filing for a divorce, found a younger woman and hidden his money in a tax haven. Lucky I've avoided that. But I'm feeling that the rules of this lifetime's engagement and the role for a woman, particularly in patriarchal business structures no longer fit the scope of my life. Some would say re-negotiate, find how to navigate the waters. I'm beginning to think that re-negotiating is a compromise of self. I'm beginning to think that the only way forward is to realise that if the rules don't work, re-write them!

How? Which? I don't know. But I have to keep reminding myself that I'm a fighter, not a negotiator.

Pink: 1 Swine Flu: 0

xx

I'm still here

I've not blogged in a long long time. I've returned from Canada, met up with the ex-lover to iron some things out, travelled to Budapest and Vienna and had a birthday. This week the only person who was a ray of light in my workplace left to work for an NGO in Indonesia, leaving me wondering if things would go back to the way they had been before, when I was bullied and treated like crap.

I've woken up every morning depressed for the last month. I am afraid that with my only ally and the only decent person in the team gone, I will again suffer and I am not interested in going through that again.

I don't know what to do...well I know what to do but the climate is not good and I'm depressed. Its very hard to find something else when you are depressed and you have no support. I supported and pushed the ex to get a job but here I am alone just trying to wake up and go to work and keep my head above water, keep my house clean (I'm failing again at that)and be healthy (I'm failing at that too). Its hard but I need to figure out what is next for me in my life and then find the way to make it happen.

Attachments are like anchors that weigh you down, if you've become attached to an unhealthy situation.

But its a beautiful day so I'm going to clean for an hour and then go out and take my writing book with me and do some writing about whatever is on my mind. Last time I started that, a lot of anger came up and it was disturbing my mood so I quit -- but maybe I just need to get through that to see whats beyond it.

Anyway...thought I would write just to let you know I'm still here and I hope you haven't forgotten me even tho I've been a bad blog pal.
xx
pinks

PS - I know I'm depressed but I do have a therapist - have had one for years. I do not take anti depressants because I've had such intense reactions to them in the past and - frankly - I don't trust my doctor here in the UK. I've always managed to pull up my socks and get on with it, so I'm going to try that for a little while longer.

PPS - even though its supposed to be funny, this is really how I felt this year. A friend was teasing me about my age and I had to tell her firmly - that's enough. 44 is tough for me...I am not where I want to be - not by a long shot. And what is worse is that I think I've lost touch with where that destination really is and lost my compass pointing there.

What now?

I am in Vancouver. Life here is the usual mix of wanting to move back here but experiencing a feeling of being invisible and unimportant to my family. A friend of mine says that sometimes families fail to pay attention to the 'capable' member of the family and the one who is incapable gets the most attention. I think some kids learn to play up that helplessness as well.

Whether my friend is right or not, it hurts. I would like to arrive here, just once, and have my Dad ask how I am, whats going on in my life, rather than tell me all about my helpless sibling.

I'm flying back to London tomorrow. It feels like a really empty existence there, but its also an unfulfilling existence here now. Maybe its always been this way with my family and I've just grown to find it intolerably painful and disappointing.

I've felt this poignantly for the last 2 years. Christmas, two years ago, I arrived, after spending the previous day being interrogated and videotaped by City of London police officers. I had dared to report being drugged and gang raped in a London night club. In my neighborhood, they have specialist rape officers who first attended to the call when the drug wore off an the memories returned; but in City of London (where the rape occurred) they do not. I had been treated like the criminal, brought in for questioning and without warning, put in a videotape booth for the deposition. I asked - hold on here - I'm not ready for this; I wasn't told this would be a videotaped deposition, just asked to come in to answer a few questions. What are my rights here? Guess what - I have none. I am the victim. Apparently in the UK criminal justice system, only criminals have rights.

It is no wonder less than 20% of rapes ever get to trial in the UK.

I felt like I'd been victimised all over again.

I landed in Vancouver and the minute I stepped off the plane, I was told to tread carefully around my helpless sibling and her kids because there had been an incident at the company christmas party the previous night, where one of the kids thought her present had gone missing (it was found, but not before tears erupted).

It felt surreal. Here I was, facing the worst event in my life, being victimised by those meant to be there to protect me and I was in a state of post traumatic stress. I wouldn't have told my Dad what happened. I've never told anyone in my family. They blame the victim. Experience of disclosing to a few friends who I judged would be supportive proved to be more isolating than helpful so not many folks know anything about this major event (burden) in my life. Still, while I wouldn't have revealed myself, I wanted at least to be acknowledged and asked how I was. I might have at least had the chance to say I'm having a tough week.

I was shocked by the pettiness that passes for problems in some people's lives; and the way that people who cope with ordeals they wouldn't wish on their worst enemy can feel so isolated and alone.

I don't know what I want to do. London feels empty for me now. The job is an abusive relationship and the love relationship has really battered my self esteem. Last year at this time I discovered I was clinically depressed and I've tried to deal with it without medication; I think I'm really seriously depressed now.

I don't know what I want to do but I do know that its time to be really very gentle with myself. I've found myself in one ordeal after another for years now and I've had very little support. I've supported others, instead. And now, I'm feeling very fragile indeed.

I wish I could just drop out of life for awhile to recharge my batteries. But life goes on and I will, too. Gently, gently, finding my feet again.

See you from London.
xx

I'll Stop the World....

I planned a trip to Vienna and Budapest for my birthday, today. And all the while I was doing it, I cried. I cried today thinking of the lover. Last birthday I had been excited to get his text messages - love was brewing and I was hopeful. A year later my lover found it too much of a hassle to listen to my plans for a weekend away for my birthday.

We've all felt that camel's back break...and for me, it was this moment. Don't get me wrong...this wasn't about a birthday party. It was the last in a series of hurts spanning from being told he was into younger women to arriving in another country to meet his family only to be told he didn't really want me there but as he'd not had the courage to tell me that before I arrived, he would make the best of it. The best of it, it turned out, was a weekend of humiliation for me.

It came, that day, along with two other very big insults from him, on a day he knew would leave me feeling vulnerable and beat up by the goings on at work. There had been hurt after hurt after hurt for months. But making the worst day of my year a little happier, by helping me to plan a small weekend away to look forward to for my birthday was too much hassle....so I knew it was time to stop the world, right there, get off, and give it a good think.

I didn't talk to him for a week. We made up for 2 days; then we broke up.

I wonder how I could have stayed for so long in what I suspected might be becoming an abusive relationship. I feel ashamed to admit to the many ways he demonstrated his disdain for me. And more, I'm ashamed to admit that it brought out the worst in me. I didn't like the person I became in this relationship, yet the thought of ending things was so so painful. After my mother died, endings have been so much more incredibly painful for me than they were before. We are frail human beings with needs we are loathe to admit: needs for affection, for love, for companionship, for someone to give a damn if we live or die.

Its been 20 years since I've really loved and been loved in a real relationship. Probably thats why it was so hard to let go of this one. I'd been waiting so so long for to feel there was someone I could count on and who would love me again. I'm not really sure this guy ever did love me. He compared me to the women he had 'loved' - all the women he had loved from afar and never dated. I came up lacking - but how could I not? You can't compete with an ideal.

Unrequited love is usually unexpressed love. Its anxst ridden, dramatic, feels intense but its incredibly safe. You can love someone with 'all your heart' and never risk being vulnerable to being hurt. You never risk failure, disappointment, and not being loved back. You never have to work at it.

There were times when I've loved people and never told them. Twenty years ago - the year my last really deep relationship ended (coincidentally, also the year my mother died), I fell for my Economics tutor. Lets call him - for the sake of argument - Professor Hunky. I had a desperate crush on him, but in the depression of losing the love of my life, I had gained 20 pounds and I doubted my attractiveness, desireability and dare I say? Loveability.

I invited him to a dance in the dormitory - and - HE CAME! It was a way too young crowd for him. But he stayed and he danced with me. For a moment, time stood still in a perfect moment where anything was possible between us, and there was no disappointment looming. We danced to the tune by Modern English.

And for that moment, I stopped the world.

This small moment has been preserved, in my heart, like a secret treasure for 20 years. But, who knows who Professor Hunky really is? I am sure he's a lovely man, but how would I know? The fantasy of meeting the ideal partner you've always dreamed of, of love at first sight, of finding 'the one' you'll spend your life with, of that love that would be so intense it conquers all and everything just falls into place - and you just melt into one another and all your failings with relationships would fall away because it is all so effortless - I think that is just a load of bollocks. The fantasy that he really loves me if he brings me a cup of tea when I'm sick, but says insulting and demeaning things to me is partial. You have to reconcile the whole relationship...not just the parts you want to see.

It shouldn't be a battle; but yes, love is hard work. To me, loving someone means being able to trust them and being trust worthy in return; it means putting their happiness at the top of your list; sometimes even before your own. Loving someone means approaching them with kindness and a desire to see them happy. Loving someone means wanting and trying every day to be your very best for them, not giving them your worst.

Idealisation is a hindrance. My rose coloured glasses - even at my waning age - gave me to believe he has to be 'into you' if he's living with you and sleeping with you. Of course there were good times and sweet times and thats what made it so hard to see - in the end, his actions gave a clear message: He's just not that into me. And worse: I was becoming his emotional punching bag.

I'm no longer into anyone who isn't into me enough to treat me with kindness.

My birthday is 2 months away but I planned a trip for myself today. I'm giving myself the love I want to receive from another. I've never considered myself to have been in an abusive relationship before, but now I think I may have slipped unawares into the ranks of the silent majority of women who have been in one.

Yes, I'm hoping 44 will bring a whole lot of good things...a renewed sense of self esteem, a real confidence in myself and a resolve about new standards in how I want to be treated. And, the courage to face the pain of walking away when those standards are lacking. Maybe, then, there WILL come a day when I will find someone who is so into me that he will want to work to earn my trust...someone in whose realistic, flawed, but basically kind, vulnerable, honest and decent arms I really can stop the world, and melt...

G20 Protests in London

At some point in my life, maybe I'll quit living in cities prone to terrorist attacks...

But yesterday, it was inspiring to see the many faces of protest. I was walking home from brunch when I came upon the march and I didn't have my Nikon, just a Canon pocket camera in my handbag -- so they're not all in great focus, but I hope you find them as inspiring as it felt to be there...

Photos by Pink: London, Canon Powershot, 2009

Grey is the new Pink

Despite the fact that Callalilly tells me that Grey is the new Pink, I know I can't deny it anymore...Its time to BLEACH MY HAIR again....


Saw this and laughed out loud. If you've had the kind of week I have, you could use the giggle.

World Water Day

At the risk of sounding like a broken recording....

No matter where we live, we are affected by climate change. We who live in water rich areas are part of the problem via the international 'virtual' trade in water. Please be mindful in your choices.

For Foamie and Indigo

Seems a cobra in the underwear drawer's been done before.

A long lost love

I re-connected with a long lost love on facebook today. Oh boy did I fall for him back when I was...er....lets see...23? He's forever associated with the year my mother died. He was a good friend to me then but a bit daft about women, I must say. Well...it was nice to see him on facebook, all married and having an 8 year old son. Lost his job this year it seems, though and that kind of sucks. But...funny how years later, something that caused you so much heartache at the time can be the source of memories that now make you smile.

Having just broken up with the recent love, I'm holding on to that promise of a smile at the memory, one day.

Hope you had a good weekend.
xx

Its hard to bargle nawdle zouss

I have been loving weird al this past week...like I said...when you're really stressed, humour is the only thing that can keep you sane.


I actually bought the Nirvana album AFTER I heard this version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XioE3xpYM-o

and this is still the only version I know all the words to...

well,

It sure beats raising cattle!

;)

Do it anyway

I went to the Natural History Museum wildlife photographer of the year exhibit today. I had bought tickets to see it with the boyfriend this weekend and had, in fact, delayed seeing it so I could see it with him. Well, we've broken up and he wasn't here, and I decided to do it anyway.

As I was viewing the photos, it occurred to me that last year, seeing the beauty of the glaciers I had wanted to make a trip to the Antarctic to photograph the landscape. The boyfriend has been on a science expedition to the Arctic and somehow I got it in my mind that we might do it together one day. Whenever you break up, the could have beens seem rather poignant and can get you down.

Instead, right there, in the Natural History Museum I decided - I'm going to do it anyway! I turned to my friend (and fellow environmentalist and photographer) and said I'm going to go to the Antarctic to photograph the glaciers. She said 'me too, 2011.' I said, I'm serious. She said 'so am I.' Well, I asked her plan and I said can I come? She said yes.

Ok its two years away but I need to save up for some good camera gear and the cost of the trip. Whether I go with her or not, I'm going to go. And I'm going to go to the Arctic too. I've been before - just as a kid. Its time to go again.

Here is my favourite photo from today's exhibit. Usually I go for the landscapes, but this one really surprised me. Brilliant. Polar Sunrise by Miguel Lasa. Check it out:

www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/photo.do?photo=2428&category=50&group=1

Dream a little dream

Have I mentioned how much I love these guys?

This has been a rather shit week. Work concerns woke me up at 6 am this morning just after I promised my dad I wouldn't let it affect my health. I can feel my adrenal glands working overtime from the stress of the work situation. Add to that a break up this week with the boyfriend, some health issues of my own and Dad having surgery next week which could make him blind...I need all the humour and happiness in my life I can get.

A consultant that I may be partnering with asked this week - how come businesses don't ask their employees where they want to be in 5 years. My answer was: they don't want the answer cuz the truth is, where I want to be in 5 years is RETIRED WELL. Sooner if I can get it.

Well, we can dream, can't we?

And here two favourites - Canadian's own Barenaked Ladies and Pluto's own Weird Al ;)

Oh Ya, Baby, Damn Right!

Relax and stop trying to hold on...

Sometimes the universe conspires to make all points of your life converge into a single splotch of poo. My personal, family and work life have all given me one clear message this week: this isn't working and its time to stop trying to hold on...

Holding on is something I've done in response to so much loss. So many friends, lovers and loved ones died when I was so so young. I had the misfortune of watching my mother die when just as I was coming of age. It is a defining factor in my life. The loss of her and that mother love that I've never been able to replace has left me wounded in a deep deep way and letting go is so so hard for me. And yet, every wounding is a gift, if you can go deep enough into it to find the strength and wisdom it confers. I couldn't save my mother and I have held on to that guilt for 20years.

Maybe its time to relax and stop trying to hold on...Paradoxically, I do believe that destiny is largely (if not entirely) self directed. I couldn't save my mother. Neither could I could save my manic depressive friend. I couldn't save the man who said he loved me. I cannot save any part of this world. But I have life left to live...and I CAN save me.

I can't tell you the details of what is happening until everything gets settled and I am out the other side...but no matter how long it takes to emerge to the other side of this...even if it stretches on forever...like an ocean of time...I just now need to relax and stop trying to hold on.

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but its hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world...(and even if I don't feel it now, I hope one day I will find that) I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life....

Dil Se (From the Heart)

I've been sick with the flu and cold for more than 4 weeks now. I've spent a lot of time on my own in bed watching a few minutes of something on dvd before going back into drugged out sleep every night.

What I've been watching has me feeling rather melancholy. Northern Exposure, reminding me of home and of a time when I was in writing school, living a creative dream. World cinema masterpieces that take me back to a time in my life, some ten years ago when I had a rosier view of the world and a lot more romantic dreams. I travelled outside my comfort zone, across the world on what was a heros journey; a spiritual and romantic quest.

I don't feel particularly romantic or spiritual anymore. Maybe a history of dissapointment has shattered those rose coloured glasses and left me protective of my vulnerable heart and unable to live anymore- Dil Se - from the heart. Maybe we just get to an age where we physically don't have the enthusiasm to chase dreams any more. Maybe I'm just worn out from being sick. Maybe hormones just take their toll for a woman eventually. Maybe I am cynical.


Anyone got any wisdom on living enthusiastically in the Post Romantic world of mid life?



For those of you who think the Oscars unearthed a new talent, here is something I've been watching and re-living again - AR Rahman a decade ago, making music along with the cinematic master Santosh Sivan and the actor Shah Rukh Khan in a classic of world cinema, Dil Se, a clash of love and ideology, where improbably enough, love has a tragic triumph. It takes me back to my first trip to India and a time of innocence and faith...

I'm sorry I've been away so long. I've been working like a madwoman. You may have noticed, I have a re-invigorated passion for an issue about which I am devoting a great deal of energy. I don't mind devoting my energy either - in fact, the more I do, the more I want to do. For the first time in a very very long time, I feel that what I am doing is could actually make a difference. For the first time in a long time, my voice on this issue is finally being heard.

Motown Grows up....Can we?

Those of you in the USA will doubtlessly have heard all week long about how Motown Records turned 50 this week. Seems there are some bigger news items out there, but I am all for escapism here and there. Here in the UK, a few news features have really made me homesick in these difficult times. Part of that homesickness is for the sounds that are so much a part of my culture: American Jazz, American Blues, Bluegrass, Country and not the least of all...Motown.

The four tops recorded this song the year I was born:



I had the incredible good fortune (though I admit, at 17, I didn't see it that way at the time) to see the Four Tops and the Temptations in concert in the 1980s. Then again, with a greater appreciation I saw them again in the 1990s and it meant a whole lot more.

I had a boyfriend all the time I lived in New York who was a black musician and in the midst of hateful, violent Gansta Rap lyrics, we both wondered -- what ever happened to all that sweet music.



Sweet music indeed, which strangely harkens back to a time of inequality in America, of a time of struggle for so many.

And with Obama being sworn in this week...I guess its not unusual that we are looking back sentimentally on the days of sweet black music and when Martin Luther King was at the apex of his work,




when artists were quietly playing their part in a revolution....




We underestimate the power of culture to shape the thinking of a generation. To me, they ingrained integration and when I was a small child, I wanted more than anything to be Diana Ross on the stage singing that song. And my first love was Sidney Poitier (or was it Bruce Lee?).



Oh yes, I know, some might call them oreos (black on the outside, white on the inside) but they served an important cultural imperative of bridging a gap between two very different circumstances where one people had so long been legally denied their personhood in America and many other countries around the world.

A few years later, being a burgeoning performer child, I begged for a wig for dress-up for my birthday. But by the time I got it, a mood in the culture had shifted....and I was the product of my times....I turned that cutesy page boy style backwards, tossled it good, shook it up some more and wore it and pretended I was Tina Turner...




Oh yes, I know....that voice of Ike behind Tina Turner is sinister when you know the pattern of beatings and abuse he inflicted on her. Its an eerie betrayal of the dark side of the happy picture of mowtown, isn't it?

Oh I'm not buying all the sweet stories on the television about motown and the civil rights movement just in time for Obama's swearing in. I know that for every pacifist movement the balance of yin and yang forces a violent expression. I know that Martin Luther King couldn't exist without Malcolm X and they both were necessary to move the cycle of karma forward.



I know that underneath peace is a hidden violence. I know that Guiliani cleaned up New York and made it 'safe again', but his cleanup came at the cost of a crack down on a lot of black people. And I know that Gansta Rap is really a cry for power among the marginalised.

But perhaps there is a new way to power now. Motown turns 50 this week. Tina Turner has grown up and she has grown strong. And with a truly integrated, mixed race, black and white, President, maybe America can too.

Oh some may say I am not black, I have no right to talk about this. But I've been there along this journey from the 1960s and I've been marginalised myself because of my gender, my religion, my people and, since leaving Canada, my nation. I was shaped by the popular culture and sentiment of my day and by my own sense of marginalisation. I'm not American, but I have lived there and loved that country. I am a Can-Am and I believe in the dream.

But remember, without knowing it, our popular culture is shaping the next generation. Remember, they are growing up on gansta rap and not that sweet motown innocence. Remember that as a culture, given to identify Obama as African, we are strangley doing the same as Malcolm X, who self-identified as African (not American). Without knowing it, with the new President elect, we have adopted a main tenant of black nationalism.

Remember though, that Nationalism (of any kind) can be dangerous. It is the ideology that underpinned Fascism in the wake of a deep economic nightmare.

Is it nationalism? Or is it denial? Can we only accept a black president who is African and not American? And must he have at least some white in him?

In a failing society at a time of such despair, Nation Building upon a realised dream cannot come too soon. Nationalism could be the dark side if we are not careful. Denial is another pitfall that. But maybe like the 'oreos' of the 60s it doesn't really matter because in time, this will be seen as yet another psychic bridge.

I don't know....but I'm proud of my American brothers and sisters and I'm excited to be living in these interesting times...these next 4 years will be history in the making. Either way, I look on this first 'black' president with hope and I'll be watching on the 20th....see you there!

Some peaceful thoughts...

Some things I've learned (can't remember where I learned them) but they give me peace (when I can remember to apply them):

Never try to teach a pig to sing;
you just end up frustrating yourself and annoying the pig.

and...

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results

and...when I think about it....it really just amounts to one thing:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Breaking patterns is hard work. Have a peaceful weekend, folks.
xx

Ex-Pats

All expats hold the dream of returning 'home' one day, a romanticised notion of the homeland. But I wonder...how many of them really do, happily, return?

Auld Lange Syne

Well Christmas was a white-out. Thats a wash-out, Canadian style. We've had snow from Sunday to Friday. Sunday I was verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry lucky to arrive. I had a change of planes in Calgary and when I got there, my flight was cancelled - along with 6 other flights during the day, to Vancouver. Now, when a flight is cancelled at Christmas, its pretty darn difficult to get a standby seat before the holiday. Somehow I lucked out and managed to get on a standby flight the same day. There were thousands who did not make it home by Christmas and who spent the week in the airport. (There were NO hotel rooms left anywhere in Calgary - or Vancouver, for that matter!) My nephew made it home by bus from Penticton and my neices by ferry from Victoria. We all got home to Vancouver for Christmas...but then we couldn't get together! Where my Dad lives (and where I stay), the weather was so bad, the roads were impassable until noon Christmas day - and then it started snowing again boxing day.

*sigh*

The folks are particularly cranky right now and that makes staying with them pretty uncomfortable. I just stay in my bedroom as much as possible.

Today I hope to get to my sister's house to see the neices/nephew one more time before I leave on Monday.

This has not been a great Christmas. At the same time, the lover and I are arguing long distance.

The holidays suck.

I'm looking forward to a new year. Most folks I know are. 2008 will go down in my books as one of the worst years for work, a difficult year emotionally and one of a lot of depression for me. Dreams fell apart this year. But before you can really move on, I think its important to grieve the losses.

So, I'm repeating again this year a tradition I created several years ago...Its a New Year's releasing and claiming ritual.

I. Releasing:

Take some time alone. Think about your year...reflect upon your happiness and upon your disappointments. Feel the disappointment deep within you. Ask yourself if you want to carry this into the New Year. If you don't, then ask yourself if you're willing to let it go and move on from this disappointment. If so, write or draw your disappointment down. Keep doing this till you feel you've emptied your life of all the year's disappointments.


II. Claiming:

Having decided to let go of some dead dreams, its time to dream up some new wishes and goals. Its time to get positive. Imagine what you'd really like to have in your life. Maybe its something you've wanted for a long long time but haven't been able to bring into your life. Feel how it feels not to have it. Then imagine how it will feel to have this dream fulfilled in your life. Ask yourself if you're willing to allow this dream to manifest in your life. If the answer is yes, take a separate page of paper and write/draw the dream. Keep doing this till you feel you've written down your hearts truest desires.


III. New Year's Eve

Release:
Before midnight, take out your disappointments list. Read/look through each in turn. Feel again the sadness/anger/frustration/disappointment that accompanies this loss. Then, when you are ready, say - I release you from my life.

I like to burn the disappointments but if you're in a home where that won't be safe, you can tear it up into pieces. Once you've gone through them all, take them OUT of your house, before midnight.

Claim:
Just before midnight, take out the dreams again and read through them. Feel the feelings (fear, excitement, whatever) that accompanies these dreams and let those feelings be present while you say - I welcome you into my life.

If you want, you may keep these pages as a reminder. Personally, I prefer to tear them again and to use them as confetti at midnight. This way, to me, I offer them to 'the Universe' to bring these dreams to me in whatever form is best. It helps not to remain attached to the form of the dream, but allows the essence to be revealed to me during the year.


I offer this to you, if you too have had a sad year, perhaps this will help you turn over a new leaf. No resolutions, just a clearing and an opening of the heart.

May 2009 bring you many blessings.

xx

Today is my first day off in the last 11 days...I'm tired! I came home early from the xmas party last night and just lay on the sofa, exhausted. I feel like this is going to be a Wiped Christmas...Anyone else feel that way these days? ;)

Christmas is too much of a rush. But we do alot of it to ourselves! When the lover was last over, we spent two hours wrapping gifts and then he was too excited to open them all so literally, the minute they were wrapped, we poured a glass of wine and unwrapped them all. Oy!

Anyway, wishing you and yours a happy holiday and if nothing else - get some rest and eat some good food and watch a few DVDs! I'm waiting for Christmas Vacation and my all time favourite - White Christmas (with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Cloony) (the costumes are amazing!)

Tomorrow I go home - just for a week. The flight this time is 14 hours to home and then there is the 8 hour time difference. If I wasn't tired at the start of the holidays, I will be by the end of them! The weather is supposed to be bad so I don't even know if I'll get there tomorrow. And if I do....I'm sure to have a White Christmas. I plan to get at least a little rest.

xx
pinks

Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

I got the most lovely note from a friend today. She said:

"Tomorrow is a new day and hold onto hope if you can my dear friend pink. And if you can't I will hold onto it for you. I beleive in you. "

I decided to post it here...because there is more than this sense of isolation and disappointment and grief...and I want to remember that...

Sometimes you just can't hide things....even in plain view.

This has been a particularly bad week. The fellow who was bullying me last year and went to great lengths to try to get me fired has started bullying me again just around the mid-year review. Clearly he's not given up on trying to get me fired.

Being under the influence of an abusive person, whether in the home or at work, is extremely isolating. You would think that someone senior would start to believe me on this. I just hope they believe it in time.

Its clearly worn me down. Colleagues at work have said they can see something is wrong with me. I didn't realise how apparent it was, because, given my position at work and trying to prove myself, I've been trying to appear energetic and happy. I guess some things you just can't hide...even in plain view.

I didn't know how apparent it was until I met up with a friend last night for dinner and (many) drinks. In the bar, a man came over and offered me a Christmas ball. He said I looked like I could use it. He proceeded to chat me up and later, on the way out, we had to dodge the dance floor. A girl grabbed me and started dancing with me and said - "you're going to have fun with me!"

Clearly, the weight of my problems is apparent on my face. To be fair, I haven't had fun in a long long time. I had a lover living with me for awhile and while it was nice to have someone to come home to and to go out with, he wasn't working. Facing the strong possibility of losing my own job because of the bully I've struggled with that.

Last year around this time the work bullying began and I remember what a depression I fell into. I need to work very hard not to fall into it again, because attitude is everything (or PERCEIVED attitude is everything) when your job is on the line. But, its hard to exude energy whilst I'm fearing for my job, especially since I'm working 6 am till 1 am many a night to satisfy the demands of the managers.

You may wonder why I don't just leave. Maybe I'm fooling myself but I believe that with a bully, in order to feel empowered, you need to choose the time you leave and if you let yourself get pushed around and out, it can be a huge blow to the confidence.

I'm working this weekend but I'm going to meet up with some friends too. I'm not going to talk about my problems. I've written them here and thats enough. Perhaps I'll have a massage. What I could really use right now is to feel loved and stave off this feeling of isolation. Probably its just pride, but I like to put on a false front and pretend things are ok but right now this is not something I can hide...even in plain view.


Photo: Of Pink! Taken in Marrakesh

American Beauty 1999

Do you remember that film? When I saw it, I remember thinking how well crafted the script was and how fantastic the acting and direction had been.

I also remember thinking there was a small kernal of truth to it. That was when I was 30 something. Now in my 40's, I find myself in something that looks a lot like Kevin Spacey's life.

We have so much literature and so many films of this mid-life ennui and yet we learn nothing. We are a culture that values nothing but youth and progress and the false hope and delusion that the world is your oyster.

There comes a point in all our lives when we can no longer compete in a world of faster and faster change. The sad thing is that our culture does not value wisdom.

I'd like to come to Kevin Spacey's epiphany. But in real life, nobody cares about our epiphanies.

The idea of a mid-life crisis is hogwash. There is no crisis. It is simply the experience of ageing in a world that glorified youth. Unless you've lived your life on the edges (as an artist or philosopher), it happens to us all.

We focus a lot on the coming of age story, of the young woman or man trying to find their way, discovering their sexuality, and the beginnings of understanding that life is more complex than our sheltered childhoods have led us to believe. But we have little support for the real coming of 'age' and the death of our dreams. With an ageing population, facing redundancies, we continue to treat our middle aged workforce as if they are 'lacking enthusiasm and too slow' rather than 'experienced and wise.'

For we who are over 40 - who is there as our support network? Who cares for us and helps ease our transition to the next phase of life? We who sacrifice ourselves for the young have no support in our own ego annhilation. The generation gap is more hog-wash. It is not innevitable. It comes from a sudden collision of the former 20 year old with biology and the inevitable changes of age. At the one end, those who are still young lack empathy or real concern for the future and live under a delusion of invincibility. And, at the other end, there is no support in this adjustment from youth to aged from our own parents. They are likewise needy and looking to us for caretaking.

We in the middle are neither valued nor supported, yet we are like Atlas, holding up the world. When will our knees give out and we drop that globe? I don't know, but I can certainly see a rapid rise in over 40 depression on the horizon.

I know there is a theme of ennui in my blog. There are no real-world epiphanies in 92 minutes, and our lives are not beautifully shot and scored.


The old path fails me and I'm coming close to bottoming out. Old dreams have to die. I'm just trying to understand it all, and find my way. I've chosen not to be a parent and I no longer want to try to hold up the world. I'm trying to find my way to freedom and my own sense of contentment in a world so full of repression, alienation, neediness and loneliness.

In the words of the narrator of American Beauty:

"I'm 42 years old, and in a year I (could) be dead. Of course, I don't know that yet. And in a way, I'm dead already.....You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry. You will someday"

.

Photo of Palace Bahia, Marrakesh, taken on Sony Ericsson telephone

Inspiring Words

I've been noticing lately that there are a lot more people on the train reading Paolo Coelho. I read PC whenever I am at a crossroads or feeling low and I need some inspiration. If its just a quick pick me up I can listen to Wayne Dyer to keep me focussed on things...but when its something deep...when I'm re-thinking my life...I need inspiring words. After my mom died, I went through a phase of reading comedic stories as a form of escapism. I then started reading the Tao te Ching, books on buddhism and books on being an adult survivor. Then I moved back to Vancouver and found Polly Young Eisendraths work on resilience, many books on Jung and mythology whilst I was at writing school a la Sam Keen and others. When I moved to New York, I continued reading Thomas Moore and had the pleasure to meet both him and Polly Young Eisendrath. Somehow I moved away from Jung and into yoga. And there I stayed for many years.

When I moved to London I started reading and hanging out with Sufis. And when I graduated from my Masters degree, feeling completely disappointed and depressed, I first read Paolo Coelho - The Alchemist.

I've read it many times since and always vowed to go to Morrocco one day as a result of reading that book. It inspired me to dream.

I wonder what all the folks on the tube reading Paolo Coelho means. I suspect that in an insecure world, where you are never sure you'll have a job today, people are rethinking their lives. I hope that this shakeup reveals some artists and healers and world travellers hiding under their suits. I know that I am all of these in this suit I wear...and still I need to find a way to integrate it all.

I'm going to Morrocco this weekend, after so many years. And of the things I'm taking (a camera - not sure which one yet) I will carry Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist with me. Perhaps I will find some new meaning in my life again.

What do you read, when you need inspriration or you are searching for meaning?

Simple Pleasures

I was in Zurich this weekend for the baptism of one of my best friends' first child. It was lovely. I'm always impressed by Alicia and Ste and the huge circle of friends they manage to create for themselves, wherever they go. Alicia is amazing at social graces and making people comfortable and, in his introverted way, so is Ste.

It was really wonderful to meet their daugter (AY) and see her expressions mimicking her mother's. Some things you really ARE born with.

On Saturday morning I got up and had breakfast at 7 and then went back to bed to read time magazine. It was an incredible indulgence, but Alicia had said come over around lunch time. I lay in bed reading what I consider a trashy magazine (fluff thought pieces on world news) and snoozed. I took a full 4 hours to myself, by myself. It was heaven.

Yes, I have a new lovelife. And very quickly, he's gone from the new flame to the man staying in my flat. Its been nice being so 'together' but at the same time its been very difficult on me adjusting to never having space and time alone. Moving in together causes arguments even after being together for years. This is temporary. And its early days yet for the relationship so I don't want to say too much anyway...but I do wonder if we damaged the possibility to develop goodwill by being too together too soon.

For me, I get some of my deepest relaxation when I am alone and one of the simplest pleasures is just to be able to lay in your bed for 4 hours reading and sleeping and not having to engage in any kind of interaction. There's a lot of stress right now in my work, at home in Vancouver, and in my own mind about myself. I need that peace, and I think I'm going to have to find some time for that in my life again.

Did you know that....If present consumption patterns continue, two out of every three people will live in water-stressed conditions by 2025 (UNEP)

According to a recent report by the WWF, one of the greatest ways we can decrease the impact of our water consumption (beyond conserving water, turning off the tap when brushing teeth, whilst shampooing hair etc) is to avoid food waste.


How are you all? Sorry I don't get around as often as I used to, but I've been busy with tons of work, a new love life and watching the world economy tank. Je parles francais chaque mardi et elke donderdag spreek ik Nederlands :) This leaves very little time for English ;)

Hope you're well.

xx
pinks

Le Francais...c'est difficile

Yep...I'm back at French classes...and Dutch.

I like that I can take evening courses...I spent 3 years working and studying and had no spare time to take classes for pleasure. Its still difficult with a demanding job, but I am determined to get my French back up to speed and to learn at least a little Dutch.

I spent a week in Vancouver and all it did was rain! Oh well, it was nice to see the family. Back to work tomorrow. Boo.

How's life with ya'll?

xx

Lest Lambie Turn Pink

Its a rare day in London...the second sunny day in a row...AND on a WEEKEND...so I'm off, shortly. But lest Lambie die her wool pink in a protest to bring Pink back to blogging...I'd better post something!!!!

I've been quite busy lately. I've had houseguests almost consistently since 14 August and since I've lived alone since I was 17 years old, I'm used to having my own space and privacy and so even if its nice to have company, it does stress me out to have people in my space. On top of it, I've had a cold since 29 August and a week of antibiotics to fend off a chest infection and still the beast manages to linger around.

I finished my french course in a truly unspectacular fashion. Two nights a week for 3 hours and homework in between was just too much, on top of a challenging job. I'm still working in the same job...thinking about what is next. Sometimes I feel like going back to get a PhD. Sometimes I feel like owning a coffee and donut shop (Tim Hortons) in Canada. And there are a lot of options in between.

I've been a bit derailed but its autumn and its time to put the focus back on me. My summer has gone and I've not come any closer to knowing what is next for me. So...its time to work that out. Finance Minister Darling is scaring the British citizens with news that economic conditions are the worst in 60 years and we're all walking around the office well aware that there have already been 2 departments made redundant and ours is being eyed up at the moment. Statutory redundancy pay is very little...so I better develop a plan B. Maybe I'll try out some ideas here with you all.

Anyway...right now...I'm going to have a shower and get my bum to the park and then out with someone for brunch and who knows what else...today is a day for me!


PS - Happy to say I've checked in with 3 very good friends in Texas and all are safe. No power, no water, but safe. Hope yours are all ok too.