Pink Pages

Letters with tears

2012-02-11T13:09:00.003Z

I had a conversation with a friend of 21 years a few months ago. She told me things about her relationship and her life that really impacted me. I found I was faced with someone's problems for which I had nothing to offer. I had nothing to offer because she had gone so much farther down the road of self-actualisation than I had. As a good friend, and as a Minister, I felt I HAD to come up with something to offer by way of advice or solace. I was empty.

I vowed to give it some thought.

I did. And I still find I come up empty.

This friend has, I think, admired many of the things I've done with my life but what she may not know is that I have truly and profoundly admired her for her skill at intimate relationship and her ability to forge connections and maintain these friendships for life.

I wrote her a letter today, giving up any pretense of being able to offer anything but my wishes for her happiness. I cried as I wrote it but sometimes the truest thing you can offer your friend is the truth that you can't hold her hand because she is so far down the road from you.

I had a heart to heart with the crush the other day. I like him because he is socially awkward. I have only now realised that I, too, am socially awkward. When it comes right down to it, I've never learned a mature way of making friends. I found myself saying to him that I really liked him and caref for him and I want to be his friend and spend more time with him. I felt like a little girl standing there saying 'please be my friend.' He didn't respond, and I took that as rejection. I now realise, after doing some research into introverts, he couldn't respond. It will take him some time.

I was born an introvert and had to learn to become extroverted. For years, I didn't speak more than was necessay and being also a highly sensitive person, I found myself being friends with all the handicapped children. That is probably not your typical extroverted behaviour. It hit home when I was speaking to the crush. He told me he was not very sociable, was shy and introverted. I told him I was, too. And now, I have to consider - is that true? I think it is. And so how do I reconcile that to the way I appear in the world?

I act very extroverted and have people skills. I have a smile that brightens people's day and cheers them up. People say I'm a 'people person'. But, I recharge by being alone or in one to one conversations. My people skills are listening and feeling and sensing. They are not about motivating and enthusing people nor about making small talk. I've learned to make small talk, but it is an effort.

Like him, I am an introvert but, unlike him, in some aspects I am extroverted. And, we are introverted in very different ways, I think. He likes group events where he can observe and listen. At group events I feel I have a persona that requires being enthusiastic. It is exhausting. I prefer quiet conversation with one individual. I prefer philosophical conversations or those about feelings. One on one is best, two on one is tolerable as my friends couple up. Three on one starts to get tiring and any more than that and I have to rest two hours for every one hour of socialising.

At first, I felt the conversation wasn't successful, but I don't know, I am still processing it and my feelings change as I work it through (a classic introvert reaction, as I have learned, from reading) I think I gained a lot of information from our conversation. I still think he behaved badly on the day, but he did apologise. I also understand that he has a particular way of being in the world that is misunderstood. I can appreciate that - I am also misunderstood. Without understanding his way of being, I got on his last nerve and he acted out. Acting out isn't acceptable, but it is forgivable. And I need to change my approach with him. I just wish he could communicate his needs more verbally. I am not good at acting on prickly behaviour because being sensitive, I tend to take it personally and want to understand why I am being punished rather than understand it a sign that it is impersonal and only an indication that he needs space from me.

I need to leave him alone now. And, I think its time to really start to pay attention to myself and how I am introverted and how I am not. If I can understand my own preferences, then I can understand what I need. And...I can understand more quickly whether people are right for me.

I've realised that words are my milieu and that is an introverted side of me. I need words and he is not being verbally expressive. That won't work for me, in the end.

While I'm working through these feelings, I think I'll be writing letter to the crush. Not letters I will ever send, but letters nonetheless. Energetically, these things work wonders because as I move through processing the complex set of feelings that has left me feeling turned inside out, I will change. As I change, so will the dynamic. And that is all that is in my power.

And if there are tears in the writing, let them fall and provide the nourishment for new flowers to bloom.

xox
Pinks

Little Miss Invisible or Little Miss Fatty

2012-02-07T06:47:00.008Z

So yesterday The Crush mentioned that he wanted to lose a stone (14 pounds). Little Miss (UN)helpful that I am, I shared with him the diet plan I've taken on. I've lost almost a stone on it myself, since the New Year.

He was completely dismissive of it. I told him I'd lost 10 pounds in the first 2 weeks of the year. No comment. No comment at all about me losing weight. No 'well done!'. No 'I thought you looked different'. No comment at all. And then, when I said that everyone who has tried it has had success, he asked if Flirty Girl with the Fabulous Figure (who sits in front of him) had been on it!

That is so wrong in so many ways. Firstly, he dismissed me. I was either Little Miss Invisible not worthy, in his eyes, of note (how wrong he is!) or it was ok to dismiss me because I'm not worthy enough of his time by virtue of being Little Miss Fatty compared to Flirty Girl.

Secondly, as a supposed friend, he was completely unsupportive of my own hard work to lose the weight - and trust me - everyone in the office knows I'm on a diet and swimming 200 laps at a time when I'm exercising. Most people are really supportive of the will power and determination I've shown. And, to be honest, getting in the pool is a struggle most days. Support is crucial.

Finally, either he was teasing Flirty Girl about her weight (a no-no for any woman but this Flirty Girl doesn't eat all day and says she has to diet - I suspect she is borderline anorexic, have been a size 16 and now being a size 6). Or worse still, he was saying he would give the diet a go if SHE had done it, because SHE (unlike me, apparently...) is GORGEOUS.

I think it is safe to say that my projected Knight in Shining Armour Crush has proven himself to be an ill mannered boor.

We had an email skirmish over that comment, and I finally put it and my crush to rest late last night, after I was out with a good friend and she pointed out he was probably joking and the latter was his meaning - that he'd try the diet if Flirty Girl had done it because she's GORGEOUS. I wrote him an apology for over reacting but let him know I've worked hard at losing the weight and sometimes he forgets I'm not 'one of the boys'.

Little Miss Invisible Fatty cried quite a bit and felt very sad last night. It was made all the more painful because I had held him in such high regard. Shattered delusions can cut pretty deeply.

I'm done, peeps. I don't even want his friendship at the moment.

Maybe I won't need to transmute this crush - my feelings went on a crash diet, yesterday.

xox
Pinks

The Winged Heart

2012-02-05T21:45:00.001Z

I spent the weekend listening to two inspirational Sufis,Pir Zia Inayat Khan and Llwellyn Vaughan Lee again - this time, online at a conference I could not attend.

Since I split with the ex-boyfriend, I've been trying to come back to my spiritual cente and this requires attention and devotion.

I had a lovely inner weekend. Perfectly, it snowed...condusive to retreat.

In my retreat, I've decided that it is time to drop the crush and aim for a deep friendship. If he's ever interested in more, he'll let me know. I've been longing for a man but beneath that is something truly powerful. At the heart is the deep and abiding longing for the Divine Beloved.

I have much inner work to do....but I am contented that I have the space to do it. And, I have learned that no relationship with a man is worth losing my spiritual centredness or slowing my pursuit of the path. I allowed that to happen when I entered a relationship with an evangelical atheist. I will not do that again. That is a lesson I need only learn once.

So, I have a plan to transmute this physical crush into energy for my spiritual path to the Divine Beloved,which is my heart's true quest. All crushes are really just a projection of our inner lover and at the heart of that is the Divine B.

I am also reminded that nothing makes God laugh more than a human making plans.....

Have a great week, peeps!

xox
Pinks

Why they call it a 'crush'

2012-01-30T22:49:00.003Z

Because it SUCKS! and it crushes your heart.

Oh my God.

So I've had this crush on a fella at work for...um...10 months now. Basically from the moment I met him - which was essentially, the moment I took this job. At first, I used to watch him walk in, watch him go for coffee, watch him stretch (sigh) and well....just watch him.

My friends encouraged me to talk to him and I said - nonono! Its perfect as it is. If you never know the guy, you can just project whatever you want onto him. Presto, instant hero.

Then I made a fatal mistake. I talked to him.

I think he's socially awkward but essentially sweet. Oh dear. Add sweet to sexy and that's fatal. At times, I couldn't breathe when he was around. I'm obsessed with the curve of his fingers when he's using his mouse at work. When he stands and stretches and I can see the contours of his back stretching against his shirt. Aye me! And don't get me started on the deepest blue eyes, blue eyes you see on a baby. Oh my GOD.

This whole not being able to breathe thing kind of interferes with oh...you know...consciousness?!

I've been getting to know him and the more I know him, tragically, the more I like him. Tragic? Yes. Because I don't think he sees me in the same light at all. If he did, I think he'd initiate something. Guys do, you know. If they like you - they let you know it. Or, so I've heard....

Aye me. Why can't I just meet someone who is so into me that he sweeps me off my feet? And it would be nice if said Lancelot would ravish me long before I lose consciousness watching his hands click his mouse or hold his cellular phone. I mean, yes, Guinevere did a lot of fainting, but I always figured that was just the corsets.

Aye me.

xox
Pinks

Stopping the world from this plateau

2012-01-29T23:09:00.001Z

I have decideed that the emotinal tail spin has to stop. I'm hoping that a large part of it (and my lack of weight loss for the past two weeks) might be PMS...but if it's not, I am going to have to stop it anyway.

I'm going for self care - good sleep, exercise, good food, good music, and trying not to focus on the memories that are surfacing and the heartache I'm feeling over a lost love and the confusing and intense emotions I'm experiencing as a result of this crush. However, I'm open to other suggestions for easing the trauma, if you have any.

Change is hard to process - I've been on a diet since 30 December and I lost 10 pounds in the first 2 weeks. Then I stopped losing and I've not lost anything since, despite sticking to my eating and exercise programme. It will pick up again, slowly, but this plateau is frustrating.

However, maybe it is necessary. I realise that I gained all this weight after the rape in the nightclub. Losing the weight is going to release emotions that are difficult to manage. So, a breather to process is probably what the body needs.

I am going to get there - I am going to release this coat of 'fat' armour. I am going to climb Kilimanjaro by 2014 and train this year towards it. And, I'm going to reclaim my right to my sexuality and my comfort with my own sexual expression.

We've got quite a year ahead, folks.

xox
Pinks

Tail Spin

2012-01-27T08:15:00.001Z

Something happened that seems to have triggered an emotional tail spin for me.

I look back over the last 24 hours at what seems to have triggered it, and it seems to be talk with a girl about the sexual prowess of the guy I fancy. He's imminently fanciable. But to hear that he's a stud seems to have sent me into a spin.

Its not jealousy. He's either going to find me attractive or not. I don't compete. I learned when I was 19 and my boyfriend of over a year decided to have an affair with my best friend that I was NEVER going to compete with another woman for a man. If a man doesn't want to be with me, he can just fuck off. And, by the way, the same goes for any woman who betrays my friendship.

What I'm feeling - it's fear.  Since I was raped in the nightclub, I've only been with two men and they've both known what happened.   I suffer PTSD from it. I shake when I'm triggered - either that or I go into a depression. And right now, I feel like someone has taken a razor blade to my throat, cut me open through the heart and down to the groin and turned me inside out. I am that raw.

This guy I fancy...I had seen him as a gentleman and chivalrous; someone who would make me feel protected. I have fantasized about him being a gentle and romantic lover. Someone who takes things very slowly. To think that maybe he's a sex machine really freaks me out. I can't handle such powerful sexuality at this time - I used to be sexually powerful myself, but now I'm just afraid to be preyed upon.  And, getting triggered makes me realise that my rape is still a barrier to new sexual attractions for me. I don't want to have to go through explaining what's happened to me over and over again every time I think I might want to maybe get intimate with someone.

I feel sick and I feel really depressed. There's maybe not even an ounce of sexual interest on his part towards me, but I feel it towards him.  I liked the fantasy of a guy who could be my knight and protector and not a predator. This throws all that into question.

I'm going to see him today and I feel unhinged.

I don't know what to say.
xox
Pinks

Dorian Gray

2012-01-26T23:07:00.003Z

Ever been out with someone that speaks only about themselves but can be charming at times, too? He or she can turn on the charm and turn on you like Dr. Jekyl and Mr Hyde? Mmmm...I think you may have been dating Dorian Gray.

Narcissists are like vampires. They charm you like a vampire. They seduce you. And then they suck you dry and throw you away. It is all about them and their self aggrandized image of themselves. And, they don't even realise that they are completely out of touch with reality.

I've found myself today involved again with Dorian Gray in yet another male form. Thank God I saw it now. In the past, I've gotten sucked in for years. Ok, this took awhile to see, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he is socially awkward but fundamentally kind and genuinely warm. No. Socially awkward? Maybe not. Not giving a toss about anyone but himself is more likely. Not that he realises this, of course. Narcissists see themselves as great guys or great gals with exceptional talents that put themselves well above the parapet. They are completely unaware that they are pathological.

Sad thing is, this narcissistic wound comes from a lack of mirroring in childhood. A lack of love and nuruting and mirroring to develop the child's sense of self. It is a tragedy of his childhood. And the sadder thing is....as far as I have read...there is little prognosis for effective cure of a narcissistic personality disorder.

Dorian Gray is a tragic character and his fundamental fear of rejection tears at my heart strings. But one best kept at a distance.

Rock the Wall

2012-01-22T01:44:00.000Z

Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!

I had the most amazing day today! A few weeks ago I was out with my British ex-pat friend who is now living in Nairobi, 'Bob' and the folks who went on a 'go ape' adventure for his 30th birthday. He has a new love interest who is into rock climbing and I thought that sounded fun.

As part of a year of working to get back into shape so I can start training for Kilimanjaro, I decided to give it a go and took a taster course today on a rock climbing wall at the biggest climbing centre in the UK.

I climbed to the top 4 times!! Ok the last two times (5th and 6th climb) I fell off because I just couldn't pull myself up the massive stretch that I had to take to the next grip, but I had a blast!!! I amazed myself and now have a guage of my strength.

I'm going to keep swimming for a couple more months and maybe add in some dancing (we danced with Bob when we all went out and that was also a lot of fun) and in a couple of months I'm going to give it another go and see if I can't make all 6 climbs to the top :)

I don't categorise myself as sporty in the least, but I love challenging myself to new things and I love feeling strong and working towards feeling stronger every day. Good physical health is sooooo important for mental health.

Hope you all had a wonderful Saturday :)

xox
Pinks

The Game

2012-01-18T22:11:00.000Z

Every now and then I get this naughty feeling that I'm playing a game with my life and not taking it seriously. I feel like I'm sometimes stirring the pot and seeing what happens for my own amusement. It isn't like I stir only when I feel naughty, its that I feel naughty when I catch myself playing the game of life.

In yoga and vedanta, there is the concept of maya or illusion. All that we know is illusion and in reality, our true natue is stillness. All this 'reality' is just like a movie on a cosmic screen. Its kind of like our reality is the event horizon of a black hole where images are projected but don't exist. Its hard to wrap your head around but if you go down this route of maya, then we are all just players in the game of life. For whose benefit is this game? I guess if you have a monotheistic faith, it would be 'God's.'

I'm not sure that my naughty game playing isn't just a bit of boredom acting itself out. I think its not God, in this case, that is bored, but me. Still, I think its fun when I find myself seeing my life as a game because it keeps me from taking it too seriously.

I work in a place where a lot of people are frustrated and unhappy. When I first joined, I was as well. I don't know what's happened to me. I seem to be finding another calling than my real role there. Lately I find people wanting to talk to me about their lives, their feelings, all sorts of things. So many people are so tied up in identifying with their jobs and in being right. Maybe its just a sign that I don't really care about this role (though I care greatly for the people) but I can't help but say over and over to people: it's just a job. The real priorities are outside of this place. Don't forget that.

Life is so so short. Have fun, love people, be kind wherever you can and above all, enjoy the game. Nobody wins and the only loser is one who forgets to find joy along the way.

Night night folks

xo
Pinks

A Cleansing

2012-01-16T22:17:00.000Z

Well, I think its safe to say that 2012 has not started peacefully for me. First day back to work a shit storm exploded. Just as my boss came back and picked up some of the heat, I got knocked over with the noro virus.

Wow.

I spent Thursday night - Saturday night with a high fever, in a state of delerium punctuated with vomitting.

Well...whatever intentions I put into the universe with my New Year's ritual, they are certainly cleansing a lot of rubbish from my life.

Night night folks, I have some healing to do...

A life more extraordinary

2011-12-28T16:14:00.002Z

People see only a few sides to anyone, and I am no exception. People who know me see the career I do now, the place from where I come, the way I look now, the way I carry myself at the moment. And yet, they can't see me.

I had a friend ask me - did I used to do something else as a career? Did I used to be in the film business. She asked this in front of a group of mates I've known for a couple of years. Yes, I said, I did. People were astonished - how did I go from that to this?

Last night I was with a friend of 25 years. I mentioned the time when I worked at Playboy magazine. She was astonished. She either hadn't known that or had forgotten.

Long ago I was on a flight with a young man who was telling me about his family and his hopes and dreams. A mother who taught yoga - so did I; a father who was an accountant - so was I; a sister who ran a charity; so did I....etc...and I could see by the look on his face that he thought I was a compulsive liar. It was at that moment that I quit explaining myself or even acknowledging all that I have done.

In a way I'm proud of my accomplishments but at the same time, I also feel I haven't gone deep enough. I envy the specialists, sometimes. I've done alot but does that make me accomplished? I doubt that these days. I feel very much that I've not achieved what I wanted to as a writer, as a healer, as a minister and as a woman. Some things are time bound and when that time has passed, there is no way to resurrect that dream.

There is someone about whom I care and whether anything happens there or not, it has highlighted how difficult it is for me to really find someone with whom I can relate; someone who has the depth of and courage of soul to meet me and stand firmly with me in the depths.

And, let's be frank: some things are just hard to work into conversation. Just how do you tell someone who knows you as a particular professional that you are also an ordained minister? Whilst I manage reporting for a company in my day job, what burns in my soul is to find a way to tend to the spiritual and psychological needs of both myself and others. What I yearn for is the search for truth and meaning and despite all appearances to the contrary I am really just a vulnerable little girl that is painfully shy, though I pretend not to be, by acting the clown and travelling the world for fear of settling down and being abandoned. Glamorous? Only if you see only the surface.

Friends new and old constantly remark that they are always discovering something new and fascinating about me. It makes me interesting. But it is isolating. And whilst life has been interesting, it has been emotionally dry in many long patches. Everyone, after all, longs to be seen and known. And then, for what is known, to be loved.

I have never been a woman that goes from relationship to relationship. I've spent most of my life solitary and single. But, I am acutely aware that my recent romance has clarified one thing for me: More than any bucket list of skydiving and swimming with the dolphins, once in my lifetime, I want to be the woman that lights up my partners life; the woman for whom my lover would do anything and without whom life lacks joy. I know is romantic, and a lot to ask for, but I want that, just once. And more challenging still....just once in my life, I want to be loved completely; to be seen, to be known and to be loved for all that I am and all that I am not.

That, my friends, would be a life more extraordinary.

Happy Holiday

2011-12-23T08:00:00.001Z

I do love the turning of the year and find it a great time to catch up.

My year in review is a quick one: 2011 has been a turning for me. Since 2001, life has narrowed for me, in many ways. The cycle started to turn for me, in 2011, and I’m expanding once again. I had a series of good job contracts where I met some wonderful people who will remain friends that I cherish. My wellbeing improved and while it isn’t where I want it to be, I’ve re-started by yoga practice, am swimming and have started training again to climb Kilimanjaro before I turn 50.

I’ve come to the end of a long romance this year I feel my heart soft with foregiveness, open and ready for new adventure. I’ve returned to writing and blogging and discovered a passion for photography - you can see some of my latest here:

http://s1123.photobucket.com/albums/l560/taniapink2/?albumview=slideshow

My life is not yet the multi-dimensionally fulfilling mosaic it was in New York, but I am moving to find ways to live in the juiciness of creativity, the earthiness of personal connection and am every day endeavouring to remember truth and dance with Spirit on this journey rather than struggle against the fates.

I’d love to hear your own year in review! In this twitterific world we live in, sometimes this is the best we can do.

Personally, 2012 is starting with financial and personal uncertainty. I have struggled with this and while I do what I can to fulfil my wishes, hopes and desires, every time I pick up ‘worry’ about what is beyond my control, I try to recognise it and let it go. Change, as they say, is the only constant…

I know that the holidays are difficult for many, and this is accentuated by the fact that it is a time we are supposed to be ‘happy.’ If this year is particularly tough for you emotionally, physically, financially or in any way, know that I hold you in my heart and in my prayers. We never know what 2012 will bring…so hang on…the cycle always changes…eventually.

For what it’s worth, I remind you of the ceremony I used to do at the turning of the year, with my nieces and nephews when they were children. It is a kind of ‘calling forth’ as well as a ‘letting go.’ You'll find it posted here in 2007, I believe. I use it as a marker in a fast paced world where we no longer give ourselves the space to grieve and the permission to dream, where we no longer revere the gifts and wisdom of the passage of time. You'll find it posted in Pink Pages Dec 2007.

My deepest hope and wish for you is that 2012 is filled with love, laughter and light.

Pinks

Lancelot and Guinevere

2011-12-03T17:29:00.003Z

I don't know when it was but I think about a year ago I was watching some BBC or Channel 4 documentary about European history and the topic was the romantic love of the troubadour. Yes, you may find it not at all shocking to realise that I am a romantic. I watched as they explained that the whole genre was about the unattainable love and that the woman was meant to be the object of a knight's affection but be unattainable by virtue of being married or betrothed. The great romance was that of, of course, Lancelot and Guinevere.

I don't know what, after 45 years that struck me that day...but I realised something important. I had mistaken my role.

When I lived in New York, I had an accupunturist that used to always say to me - you're the prize. Never forget that you are the prize. I had never understood it, because I had never believed I was the prize.

I had been playing the part of Lancelot. All those years of my youth and beauty wasted because the cosmic script girl had given me a childhood that never led me to believe that I was the prize, and, I guess, that led me to believe I should pine for love.

Good God.

Imagine my surprise, and grief, when I realised I was Guinevere?

I don't know how to turn back all those years of conditioning. It's just so natural to me now. I have spent the last 3.5 years with someone who played right into my Lancelot complex. He thought he was Guinevere and I let him be.

I now have a new crush. Its been about 8 months and I find myself pining for him. He's a lovely man, kind hearted, super intelligent, has a good job and is old enough to be my equal. He's many of the things I'm looking for in a man. I've invited him out several times and sometimes he comes and we have a lovely time. But there is never any follow through and he never initiates.

Maybe I'll never get to be Guinevere. Maybe love has passed me by this lifetime. It's not like there aren't millions of people that grow old alone, so its not unlikely. I feel sad when I think that and people - even my therapist - says its better I'm out of the old relationship and that I will meet someone one day who is worthy of me. I know its meant to make me feel better but it is a bit of a falsehood and one would hope that at least in therapy one can face the harsh reality of life. The thing is, for a woman nearing 50...its more likely that I won't find a mate, and certainly not one that treats me like his queen. I think it is always better, in terms of depth of soul and depth of living, to come to terms with the reality.

The romantic fantasy of Guinevere and Lancelot is one that is not extricated from one's consciousness easily...but...if it is to remain in my hopes and dreams...at least....I don't want to play Lancelot anymore. If I can manage the courage to do so, I'm leaving behind my knight's sword and shield and setting free my horse.

It is Guinevere or nothing for this mannequin.
.

2011-09-11T07:46:00.000+01:00

**Warning - this is a post about 9/11. Don't read this if you feel you might be r-traumatised. Take care of yourself. Take care of your neighbour.**
--

The sky; the most beautiful blue and not a trace of humidity. A clear blue sky. A perfect day.

Parvathy calls. We are under attack. Hysteria. She is going to her daughter's house. It's war!

I turn on NY1.

Dad calls. I guess you aren't going to work today. I don't know. There's fires down there.

What the hell is going on?

I see the first one fall. I reach out and scream. 'No!' as if somehow my hands could hold it up. Shock. How could a whole building collapse with all those people in it. Just tumble down?

My niece emails me. 12 minutes after the fall. Am I ok? (How did she know? It had to be after midnight there - she's 11 - what's she doing up?) I flew in the night before and she is worried I am still on a plane. She is among the first to check in. Many more will follow. I let her know; I'm ok. I Love you. My sister comes online and stays there with me.

The second one comes down.

I go down to Shawn's apartment. Everyone is there, glued to the news. He says come in, don't be alone. I don't want to watch anymore. I only want to know they're all alright. NY1 said give blood, so I'm going.

I walk to St. Vincent's on 13th. It's only 7 blocks from my house. There is a plume of black smoke from downtown where the towers used to fill the end of 7th Avenue.

A clear blue sky above.

I walk against the masses of people moving uptown covered in what looks like baby powder and bits of paper. Someone is yelling on a megaphone: Stay away from downtown. Keep walking uptown! No cars at all.

A clear blue sky.

A crowd has gathered at the corner. They must have seen NY1. They line up to give blood in total silence. We are soon sent away. There is no need for more blood.

Doctors and nurses and stretchers fill 7th Avenue outside St. Vincents. An eerie silence in spite of the mass movement of people. No casualties come. Nobody pulled out. They wait. But its only injuries of the rescue workers. No rescue.

A clear blue sky.

Something is burning. A smell like melted plastic.

I call Terrence several times until I get through. His brother answers and tells me he's already gone to work - he was on a subway downtown. I say I am ok, I hadn't been downtown yet and to ask him to call me when he gets home. I don't hear from him for another two days - he never gets the message. The lines are impossible to get through. For the first two nights, we both think the other is lost.

I email Bavie. She comes immediately over from the photography studio at the Pier just 5 blocks away. It will become the morgue for the next few months.

We hug.

Donna checks in. Frey checks in. Maureen. We all want to know: did we lose anyone?

A fighter jet flies over in a clear blue sky.

We go to Dag's on 21st to get food, hardly talking. 8th avenue is deserted; A ghost town. We watch a Bollywood movie and eat pasta. A lot of pasta. And cake. I make a bed for her. We sleep. Fitful sleep.

Everyone brings food, blankets, money to the cop shop on my block. City folks bring hot food to the firemen. Volunteers come and assemble at the pier. The news is always on.

I can't understand. A total belief in something bigger than myself replaces despair.

A lot of sleep. New threats. Fighter jets and helicopters overhead. Photos everywhere. Union Square Park candlelight vigil and photos. The sweet and acrid smell ever present in lower Manhattan, where I live.

The entire seminary checks in online. We organise.

Exaggerated startle response. Make an escape plan to walk to Donna's in the Bronx. Get emergency numbers of friends into phone. Map out the route to the Canadian consulate.

Turn off the television. One hour of news a day.

Get on with life.

Days pass like a dream.

Images. Fear. Sleep. Anger. And love. Outpouring. Faith. Take care of yourself, take care of your neighbour. Watch everywhere and everyone. And a clear blue sky above.

These are the things that I remember.

Lest we forget...

2010-11-11T12:40:00.004Z

Birth, life, death. Repeat.

2010-08-02T12:02:00.016+01:00

I read through my morning pages (I follow the Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron) from last October to March of this year. I started writing them again when I took a long longed-for beach holiday last year and felt myself relaxing only to have the thought of work cross my mind. When I realised I had 5 days till I had to return to work, I started to cry - right there on the beach. I got myself together, got a notebook and started writing that moment. I could not go back to work without an exit plan in mind. I could not go back to a situation where I felt so vulnerable without some strategies to protect my fragile sense of self.

A recurring theme in all of my writing was how tired/exhausted/sick I was. Last week I finally heeded that plea from myself and I just decided to expect less from myself for a little while. I turned down the job, got to work on sorting out the apartment for a couple more months and decided to take a mini-vacation and rest when I needed to rest. Its been 5 days now. I started reading novels, dozed off, got up to eat something (with fruit and vegetables wherever possible) and went back to reading, napped, had a bath, and went to bed.

I need this time to heal.

And while I’ve stopped, I've just been marvelling at the wheel of life that just keeps turning (didn’t John Lennon sing that?) I learned that a friend and fellow seminarian who is 3 years younger than I am is now a widow. Her husband died in February after a 2 year struggle with cancer. It made me cry to hear that she has suffered the anguishing loss of her love so soon. Saturday, another friend called me to tell me that her father has bowel cancer. I had suspected as much when I heard the symptoms and when I tried to send a healing. She is just 30 and I thought, this is the threshold of real adulthood now. I know the pain she is going through. I crossed that threshold when my mother died when I was 23. Then, I got an email from a friend that told me her boyfriend's ex-wife had died at 39. Cause of death as yet unknown.

I recal my grandmother’s wisdom when one of her kids/grandkids was tempted to feel sorry for herself: ‘There’s always someone worse off than you.’

A friend asked me ‘Why is all this happening to me? Why me?’ I was frank. ‘Why not you?’ Tragedy, loss, suffering. None of it is personal. And none of us gets out of this life without a fair good helping of it. You can pray and pray but things don’t always turn out as you’ve wished. I believe that God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is ‘No.’

I don't think everyone has to have a faith in God. For those who don't, science, the Tao or the theory of chaos can be a fit paradigm. For those who do choose to have faith, the way I see it, you either surrender to God or you don’t. Either you believe in a higher force that created and powers the universe and has an intelligence that we cannot comprehend, or you don’t. Sitting in the middle and hoping for a magical God that acts like Santa Claus by taking your wish list and delivering your wishes – well – that’s really a faith in our own supremecy and a belief that we can control that ‘God’. Somehow I don’t think trying to control ‘God’ is going to work.

Everyone’s suffering is unique and deserves compassion. And yet nobody is unique in suffering.

Amongst all this grief, a friend's sister had a baby boy this morning at 6:30 am. Hallelujah! Welcome to the world, young one.

Birth, life, death. Repeat.

Photos: 1. Florida sunset taken by me on a Canon digital pocket camera; 2. Inukshuk in English Bay taken by me or Paulus, Vancouver.

Stuff and Such

2010-07-26T22:14:00.003+01:00

It was a very strange week and I've had a hard time getting things done the last few days.

I got a job offer. I had a hard time deciding to turn it down knowing that I didn't have another offer in hand. But it just wasn't right for me. I got a loooot of pressure from the recruiter. I didn't sleep for a couple of nights...but a couple of days later, I am just focussing on going forward and finding that right game.

I also found out - via facebook - that an old yoga teacher of mine died. He was murdered by a yoga community member. I don't know how to feel. I kind of feel numb. He wasn't a friend exactly, but I remember him as a kind man with a good sense of humour. I can't understand how yoga centres are not more astute to the unstable minds that are sometimes attracted to yoga. Apparently there were letters written to teachers that were senior to him threatening to kill the man but they weren't acted upon.

What a waste.

I got a call on a job in Canada - for my old firm that I just left. Not sure about pursuing that application anymore. Given my history with the firm....I don't know.....Also, moving back to Canada on a moment's notice seems impossible from where I'm sitting.

On the other hand, my lease is up in 26 days and I haven't heard back from the landlord about whether they are going to renew - I've asked to go month to month with a 2 month notice period which is short by London standards. I'm hoping that since I've been here 6 years they will make an exception.

Life is up in the air and with so much uncertainty it is hard to cope well, but I'm doing my best. I'm really exhausted.

I hope your week is a better one?

"Pink" Pages

2010-07-24T12:43:00.000+01:00

A lot of my new hits are coming from Eastern Europe and parts of the world I've never visited. I was curious as to what was attracting these new readers. I did a little research into search terms. "Pink" seems to be a big one.

When I was in Poland, I experienced the oppression of the Catholic populace against the gay community and I was shocked that in this era, in the EU, that violence against homosexuals could still be so prevalent and so out in the open and if not sanctioned, certainly not condemned.

The internet is a link to a world that is still so underground in many countries. And there are many people in the world who still feel they are in situations where they can not be authentic. I guess for these readers, it must be disappointing to come here and find that I'm not writing about gay rights or about the best places to go in Vienna or Budapest to meet people of the same gender. And yet, I don't want to miss this opportunity to connect.

To the newcomers here:

THIS IS A QUEER FRIENDLY ZONE.
YOU are welcome here.

Let me tell you a bit about me....When I lived in New York, I joined and then started chairing a bi-sexual discussion group at the NY Gay and Lesbian Centre on 13th street. Some people were passing through from the hetero world en route to deciding to come out as homosexual. And, some people were passing through from the gay scene, wanting to be accepted for having feelings for the opposite gender that were not tolerated in the gay community. And some were there, like me, because they felt that love should have no limits and they had recognised that whatever their (perhaps 'current') preference, that it was within them to love someone of either gender. If you are tempted to think that bisexuals have the best of both worlds, let me tell you, in my experience it is not true. Bisexuals are often shunned as 'passers' by the gay/lesbian community and feel incomplete in the "straight" world. We are 'queer.'

I had four cousins that I know were queer when I was growing up. One cousin lived with us for a year when he came out. His mother and father had disowned him and, although he was my father's nephew, bless her, my mother insisted that we take him in.

The cousin who lived with us died in 1985 of AIDS. He was among the tail end of the first wave of men in Vancouver to have contracted HIV and to have died that horrible death, first through isolation and later, through wasting, that was the fate of so many men in the early 1980s. It was then that gay rights and gay pride became part of my personal values.

I know that I am so very very fortunate. I live in a society where discrimination on the basis of age, gender, sexuality and national origin is illegal by law. Many of those who pass by here aren't that fortunate. But even the rule of law can be very different than the practice.

Since moving to London, a large part of my personality has been amputated. My feminism, my inner artist, my spirituality, my inner drag queen (come on - only a drag queen could pull off that pink wig), and my queer values have all been amputated in an attempt to get by in a patriarchal financial world where success is determined by gender, background, sexuality and Britishness. The world of law in the film Philadelphia is not so different from the London world of finance. It is still possible to tease, without reprimand, a colleague, by calling them 'gay' in an open plan office (read: weird or weak) or to laugh with the lads that one should never work with animals, children or women.

I do not wish to be a hypocrite - I know that I am solely responsible for the amputation of my soul. I tried to play the game but I was playing the wrong game, by rules in which I don't believe. I could try to change the rules, and I have tried. I think all that is left now is to change the game and set my own rules.

We know that one cannot live an authentic life being unbalanced in any aspect of one's personality. And yet, even at 45, I still struggle to live authentically. I am not just an accountant, I am not just middle aged, I am not just a woman, I am not just a feminist, I am not just an aspiring writer and photographer, I am not just a minister, I am not just an occasional flaming bitch, I am not just straight or gay.

I am, entirely, Pink.

I won't judge you and I ask that you please not judge me. We are all trying to find our way in this world.

xx

Photo: borrowed from the internet

A "Misfortune Manifesto"

2010-07-16T10:05:00.017+01:00

Recently a friend lost her home - had to do a short sale and lost everything. She used to work with the rich and famous of LA. Her friends could not accept her circumstances and they shunned her.

Most of us have done it at some point in our lives though its not something we care to admit. That aunt that is diagnosed with cancer or the friend that tells you they are HIV positive; We have the best of intentions but somehow we just never get around to the hospital as often as we meant.

I think its denial. There but for the grace of God go we. And perhaps we don't want to believe that only God's grace has spared us. What does that mean for our sense of being in control? And what if we don't believe in God? How can we possibly cope with the idea of chaos and the realisation that there is no such thing as security?

I don't put much stock in the idea of security. I am unemployed. I'm a professional and I am unemployed. I have 'outgo' and no 'income'. And, I don't know when that situation will reverse. Since I left the job, those who were 'so-called' friends have not had the time in their busy lives to meet for lunch or a coffee or an after work drink. Nobody has even called or sent an email to say hello. Never mind that...they don't even return my calls. People I worked with every day for 6 years have no time for me.

I am a pariah. There but for the grace of God go they. And if they don't look at me, perhaps they will avoid turning into a pillar of salt.

Friends who are seasonally employed and are living in a $400 a week unemployment safety net, and those who are continuing to earn a paycheck at a job they despise have both told me that I am sooo lucky to be unemployed when the weather is so fine. They have told me that I have time for myself now.

For any of you who may perhaps likewise feel the need to put a rosy shine on others misfortunes....please don't. It is patronising and insulting.

Frankly, nobody is lucky to be unemployed. If you're lucky enough to qualify for unemployment assistance and are getting that $400 a week you have some safety net but you may be shocked to know that more than 50% of workers (like myself) do not qualify for that kind of help. In the UK, if you qualify (which I don't), the dole is maxed at £65.45 a week. None of the 2.5 million British workers that want to work and can't find employment are lucky. Every minute you are unemployed you are draining your savings and there is no 'time for oneself.'

In order to find a job in this competitive market, it takes one hell of a lot of work. For every interview, I have researched the industry for the past six months, researched the company, their financials and their history. I have done competitor and market analysis, have looked at their values and their strategy and have done a consulting piece of work on each of them should I be called on to give a presentation on my ideas for future strategy. I have reviewed all of my technical studies as an accountant and I prepare for each interview as if it is a test. And it is. The next one is a panel interview where they will be putting me on the spot with an instant case study and presentation. These are no cake walks. When I am preparing for interviews, I am working from 9 am till 10 or 11 pm.

And bear in mind...I'm a professional. I have recruiters searching out jobs for me. I'm one of the fortunate ones.

If I'm feeling misunderstood, I know there must be millions of others out there that feel similarly, or, who perhaps feel worse because they've applied for hundreds of jobs and not had a single call. I've applied for work in Canada at the same time as London. I've not had a single call from Canada.

It is demoralising and as a society we cannot afford to turn our backs on a growing minority of the population that is running on the edge of homelessness and ruin. We cannot afford to be telling them how lucky they are that they may soon get the opportunity to be sleeping al fresco when the weather is so fine.

I know I'm angry...and on top of this anger and frustration...there is the simultaneous ending of the relationship. I was embarassed for so long to tell anyone because he treated me so shabbily in the end.

I feel misunderstood in that too. My grief over that has been delayed by the necessity of taking care of my basic needs of finding a job. But when I stop for a few moments, thoughts of him come flooding over me and its heart-breaking. We say all kinds of things and profess our love when we're in a relationship...and the minute its over, we are nobody to one another anymore. I was with him nearly 2 years. And the day I found out that I was leaving my job, he decided he had to end things. It had to be that very day. I was immediately reminded of the boy who broke up with my niece two days after her father died. I think the situation made him uncomfortable and he didn't want to deal with death, so he dumped her.

I loved another man once - we were together for a similar length of time. We broke up just before I found out my mother had cancer. When I got the diagnosis, I called him. He had been my best friend and I needed to talk with him. Even when he started seeing someone else, she and he both understood that I was going through a difficult time and they were there for me. After my mother's death, we slowly drifted apart but I am always grateful to him and I know that even though we weren't meant to be together, when we were together our love and friendship was genuine. He demonstrated that by caring for me in my dark hours, even though we'd broken up.

The latest ex has never sent an email to see if I'm ok. Like I said, it seems hard for people to understand that it is still a loss that is heartbreaking to me. They expect I should be happy. I'm lucky to be out of it. But believe me, nobody is lucky to feel unloved and discarded. It is never the loss of a bad situation that we grieve. Its the loss of the good times and of the feeling that someone loved you and in the end, it is the heartbreaking realisation that from their side, your relationship was apparently built on nothing. Nothing. And once again, you feel like a pariah.

I feel worn out. I am worn out. The last six years have been one trauma after another. I need a healing time in my life and I am selecting my next job based on whether I feel it will be stressful or whether I will be able to heal.

I know it was an extravagence I probably should not have taken at this point, but I am close to a job offer. So, I took a trip to Berlin last week. I needed to revive myself and there was somewhere I really wanted to go - the Kaiser Wilhelm church. It is both an old and a new church. On the site of the bombed out ruins of a church, a new church has been installed. The old church is a reminder of the traumas of war while the new church is a beacon of healing and reconcilliation. I needed to go there and be in the healing power of that 360 degree blue light.

It was 37 degrees and I felt I might pass out. But I sat in the blueness of the room for as long as I could. I noticed on the side, a man who appeared to be sleeping. Churches often attract the homeless. They are certainly the refuge of the unfortunate. I looked at him awhile. His top teeth were missing and he looked 90 years old; drawn and gaunt. But the more I gazed upon him the more I realised he was no older than me. I realised he was a young man. I realised this man either had cancer or AIDS and was close to death. He hadn't been sleeping but had put his head back and closed his eyes and was listening, in rapture, to the sound of the pipe organ.

I felt very strongly that God was with this man that day. You may not believe, and that is fine. But, I do believe that God is with everyone who is experiencing misfortune, because they are all pariahs. Jesus loved the outcasts. And for that, I am grateful - for my friend who lost her house, for me, and for him. We know that suffering deepens the soul and the release of suffering is the route to transcendence.

But please, spare us a lecture telling us how lucky we are for it.

Achtun Liebe!

2010-06-29T00:24:00.005+01:00

I've spent the day doing research on a possible work opportunity and have to admit that wikipedia and industry glossary lists have had to become my best friend.

I know that not everything in wikipedia is factually correct, but I'd like to think that this one is:

Bars in the Veltins-Arena, a major football ground in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are interconnected by a 5 km long beer pipeline. It is the favorite method for distributing beer in such large stadiums, because the bars have to overcome big differences between demands during various stages of a match; this allows them to be supplied by a central tank.

Now, if you have to cheer for Germany (and I do, cuz they gave England a spanking yesterday and sent them home crying), then where better to watch football?

Oh..well, and there are other blessings in Germany.....

Achtun Liebe!!

OKAY OKAY!!! Before you call the spca to put down this cougar, I will, in my own defence state that this baby goal keeper (Manuel Neuer) is the complete doppelganger of my long ago boyfriend in University. Oliver was the guy I would have married. And, I was 24 back then too, ya know! I'd have been divorced in ten years, but oh well....

On a slightly serious note, folks, Ollie has been on my mind a lot in the last week or so...He's married with kids now so we are not in touch. But, when someone comes to mind so much, I wonder why. I hope he is well and all is fine. I'm sending thoughts out to him now and if you feel like sending him some good vibes too...please do.

sweet dreams my lovelies

A timed writing

2010-06-08T15:42:00.008+01:00

a la Natalie Goldberg - I'm supposed to write for ten minutes starting with "I remember" or "I don't remember" - give it a go if you want...here goes...

------------

I don't remember the sound of my mother's voice. I had a recording of her voice on my answering machine wishing me a happy birthday 1 month before she died. After she died, I played that recording over and over and over again. A real ghost in the machine. Her voice was muffled like she was living under water, and I suppose she was. She was so drugged up that she was drowning. I remember that she had called me by my sister's name the last time I called her from work, when I was living in Toronto. Was that the last time I spoke to her? I got angry with her for mistaking me for my sister and not recognising it was the only daughter who called her every couple of days to check in on her. I was too young and too self absorbed to understand that her failing mind was the last beacon of a failing body and that she would be gone soon. I remember that on my graduation night, just weeks before her death, I told a friend that I was afraid she was going to die. If only I had known that the doctor had given her only a few months to live (which turned out to be weeks) I might have moved from fear to grief and prepared for goodbye. I remember that she could not attend my graduation. I ordered a video and it arrived just days before her death, but she never got to see it. She was either too weak or too technically illiterate to work the video player. I don't remember which. She never got to see me graduate from University. But, that is just the first in a long list of things she never got to see me do.

I don't remember what my last words were to my mother. I hope it was "I love you" but I fear it was not. I know we both know that we loved each other, but final words are important. I was on a plane when she died. I was trying to get home in time to see her, but I didn't make it. I remember waking up suddenly and the words "I love you" came to me. I remember I checked my watch and later I found that it was the time she died. I think it was me saying I love you to my mother, but maybe she was also saying it to me. I'd like to think so.

------

a couple of images from Poland

2010-05-22T09:35:00.005+01:00

I've returned from Poland. People really thought I had a bad attitude about the foul weather...until it hit the BBC news today about the flooding throughout the country brought on by last weeks torrential rains. Well, despite the rain, I managed to get my camera out a couple of times for a few sneaky shots.

Sadly, I've had my last photography class :(

There are two more to come but I won't be able to participate on those days -- double :(

I think I need to enroll in another class soon - I loved it and its been the highlight of my week in this stressful time :)

Thankfully my camera allows me to express the feelings I'm not at liberty to express but which burden my heart with the stresses of my life these past few years.

I told a friend on facebook that I've left my job and she wrote back and asked if I was pursuing photography full time now as a profession :-O

I have no idea whats next but photography, like drawing, is for me, a meditative practice and thats not a bad thing at this point in my life.

It makes me happy when I can create something beautiful.

So here are a few more images from Poland. On the return from Auschwitz, I had the ironic fortune to come across the 3rd gay pride march in Poland. There were a lot of neo-nazis there protesting and because there have been violent riots in the main square in the past, you'll note that there are 4 police for every marcher.

I cheered on the parade and got harassed by neo nazis for it.

I was shaking - I couldn't believe I was in the EU. So many people have already forgotten recent history - Stonewall and Proposition 6 but it is amazing to me that this kind of intolerance could still exist in a country where the monument to rememberance (Auschwitz) that exterminated gays along with jews attracts millions of visitors a year.

I think we are in danger when we consider the hatred that led to the crimes of Auschwitz to be a thing of the past. That is when I decided to play photojournalist and got right into the middle of the parade.

I was playing with aperture, shutter speed, iso and white balance. I am saddened to find that I do better on automatic but I guess it will take time to figure out how to achieve the results I want with the manual settings :)

hope you like them...still nothing 'pink' for bone man...but lots of pink triangles..

From my Nikon with various settings:

From my Canon pocket camera, using cloudy white balance, vibrant colour saturation, ISO 400.

Pinkotography

2010-05-06T22:10:00.006+01:00

Those of you who were here at the right time got to see the post about what is going on with me. I decided to take it down. Enough said. I'll keep you posted on how I'm feeling but for now...I'm going to put up some photos.

So the girl with all the lovely shots...has finally taken her first photography class! I learned the basics of ISO and shutter speed and now I know that YES! I can shoot indoors without a fill flash!

I had my first assignment...my neighbourhood....well...I'm a fan of the extreme close up as per usual but here are a few shots I took for class. My first venture off of automatic and into shutter priority.

THESE ARE ALL UNEDITED JPEGS with mistakes and all!

Sunflowers at the flower stall in the shade - ISO 800, 1/60 shutter speed, if I remember correctly....

and a shot of my favourite subject...inside a dimly lit room. ISO 1600, 1/60 shutter speed. I like the way it almost appears rimmed with light

And finally...the most difficult thing for me - photographing from inside through a window from the office (no, I do not have this view!) Weird pink blotchy stuff might be because (doh!) I have a circular polariser on the lens (any other ideas what causes that?)

So...whatcha think?

What now?

2009-04-19T14:23:00.007+01:00

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....

2009-03-29T23:23:00.009+01:00

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

2009-03-29T00:21:00.010Z

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

World Water Day

2009-03-22T10:43:00.000Z

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.

Relax and stop trying to hold on...

2009-03-05T00:55:00.003Z

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)

2009-03-01T16:15:00.008Z

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...

Some peaceful thoughts...

2009-01-17T00:53:00.003Z

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

2009-01-12T08:49:00.000Z

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?

Longing is not Love

2008-12-31T15:34:00.000Z

I was out for dinner tonight. An enchanting place - Ruby Blue...jazz musician on the grand piano...chic menu, and beautiful people. It was a lovely evening.

Then as we were leaving...the piano man played Paul Weller's 'You Do Something to Me.' That was Robbie's (the man who said he loved me) and my song.

There's a lot I could say. I know you don't want to hear this, but I still think about him. A lot. I see a man with his nose, a man wearing a shirt like the ones he liked to wear, a father with a son about the age of Robbie's boy, a dark haired, middle aged man with deep crystal blue eyes and...yes...I think of him.

There is a longing in me...not for all the crap that went along with the situation...not for the troubled place I was personally in...nor for the trouble and confusion he brought into my life...but for the easy humour, the fun, the passion, the 'I've known you all my lifetimes' feeling.

That doesn't come along very often - once, maybe twice in a lifetime if you are lucky. Yes, there have been men since him, but when nothing compares with what I felt for Robbie. And now I'm left with longing.

I can confuse longing for love. I don't know if I still love him. I don't know if I[ve ever stopped loving him. I think I loved him when we were together and thats all I can say. But even when we were together, we weren't really together. He wasn't grounded enough to really 'be' in a relationship with me. There was just a load of 'issues' that kept him unavailable. And every time I spent time with him, I felt a longing inside of me.

Men who are drug addicts, sex addicts, workaholics or survivors of abuse (without a lot of self work in therapy), married, separated, recently divorced, gay or unmarried but-with-non-adult children-by-another-woman, are simply not available. Robbie was not available.

And when a man is not available, all you can do, if you love him, is long for him while you are with him and after he's gone. But longing is not love. I hope, and I believe, that it is possible to love and be happy where there is no longing.

Longing for anyone while he is right there with you is a sure sign of unavailability. Unavailability is a sure sign of impending heartbreak and an even longer period of longing when he's gone. From now on...longing will be a red flag.

Sleep tight my angels while Pink waxes philosophical.

The world keeps turning.

Photo by Pink in Kensington Gardens, May, 2007

Auld Lange Syne

2008-12-27T14:22:00.002Z

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

Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

2008-12-14T21:30:00.003Z

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.

2008-12-13T09:32:00.017Z

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

2008-12-04T06:06:00.014Z

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"

2008-12-03T19:38:00.004Z

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

2008-10-07T00:51:00.002+01:00

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

How informed are we, really?

2008-08-10T10:23:00.003+01:00

I woke up yesterday morning and had a peek at the news on my computer, as I do every morning. I was surprised to find a story about Georgia and Russia on the brink of war. This morning I wake up to find Russia has taken control of South Ossetia. Overnight!

WTF?

Ok I admit that since I left LSE I haven't been keeping up on geopolitics but I traced the story back through BBC archives and its been going on for some time - Russia issuing South Ossetians with Russian passports so they can use military force to 'protect Russian citizens' and Georgia being accused of ethnic cleansing in the villages...and all the while, Georgia on the brink of NATO membership. Oh and by the way...one of those bombs just happened to fall near the pipeline. yes. oil of course.

I read the news and I can't help smelling the stink of media spin. Each party has its spin doctors. Whose allegations are true? Who is right and who is wrong? Well, probably everyone involved. But I realise that I will never ever know.

And I wonder - there must be Britons, Americans, Canadians who have been to this province in the last few years and seen for themselves whatever is going on. There were people in Burma, people in the Dominican Republic in the late 1970s. How come their voices aren't heard anymore? I knew more about the DR in the 1970s as a member of a Catholic youth group than I know, as a concerned and educated person on international development about South and Central Asia.

Information is coloured. And in the modern day of media enterprise, truth is an antiquated notion.

I knew about the DR because of a social movement - 'Young Life.' Yes, social movements have their own bias but international social movements are important in a world of big business media and the enterprise of government.

At this moment, there are deep discussions about regulation of the internet. The internet has been and could continue to be a vehicle for truly democratic dissemination of information and the engine of social movements.

Americans, when you vote...Britons, Canadians, Belgians, Japanese...make sure you consider whether you want governments to continue their encroachment on this last 'semi' free speech arena.

And, I'd like to know whats really going on in South Ossetia and what has REALLY happened to those busloads of children reportedly being sent out of the region. These are the things that really matter. Where are those kids now? Are they alive and well? Who is taking care of them? And for what purpose?

How informed are we, really?

I'm like a bird

2008-02-04T14:03:00.000Z

I DO want to fly!!!

I was telling /t that I have this little collection of Story People by an American Artist, Bill Andreas. One of them is called Flying Woman. The old link didn't work but you can look it up if you're interested under 'prints' at: www.storypeople.com

I see this is true in my life. I have 3 stories. Two I identified with and one was aspirational.

I think its time for a new story.

Ironically, my leave to remain in England expired Friday. Yes, I did consider letting it expire and returning to Canada, but I have things I need to see through here. Now, I am without a passport while my permit is being extended. A foreigner on foreign soil. I'm trapped!!!

I'm not a person who adapts easily to having her freedom curtailed.

I couldn't get this song out of my head yesterday. Oh, Ruela and I will probably argue over whether Nelly Furtato is Canadian or Portuguese. And actually, as an immigrant to Canada, she is both. The beautiful woman is clearly Portuguese, the beautiful landscape is clearly Canadian. And as an emigrant from Canada on two continents now, I understand the phrase: "I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my home is."

When I first heard her sing, I felt Nelly described me perfectly. I'd just returned from India...was living in New York and trying to decide whether to move to India, Vancouver or maybe London. Funny really...I ended up in India sort of by accident on a yoga teaching stint and ended up starting a small charity that partnered with an orphanage, when really, my intention was to go work with Aids orphans in Africa.

I moved around alot when I was a kid and I'd seen most of North America by the time I was 16. Being rootless can be disorienting....or liberating....and so every time I have had a life decision to make, one of the factors about which I have the least fear is 'where.'

For the moment and for the next little while, geography is settled...but I'm on a life mission with this next step, and where is becoming more important. One thing I know is that London is not where my soul is...London is not my home. And what seems a long time can pass quickly...so soon again...I'll find my wings...