Thanking Mavis

 

Today I wondering what to write about. I've made an agreement with myself to write something every day. I have no idea why I'm doing this. I only know that it feels right and it is a discipline I need right now. As I've said before, I often start things with the best of intentions and then my effort and intention fizzles out.

I thought I would explore the day to day work that I do. I title myself a Management and Training Consultant and have been self-employed for many years. The largest area of my work is designing and delivering training in the area of Equalities, Inclusion and Valuing Diversity. This means that I work with groups/teams/management boards/managers on how to create an environment in the workplace where everyone feels welcomed, accepted and free to be themselves.  The end result of working in this way is that the staff members feel more motivated, respected, valued and can achieve more.  Win-Win for everyone.

It sounds simple and in some ways it is, but I have had to go through a long and sometimes painful journey to come to the point where I believe I can do this work in a positive way. It wasn't always the case and in the early days of my training I burnt out regularly and I believe it's because I thought there was only one right way and it was mine.

When I arrived in the UK in 1970 I was recently married, had a baby on the way and had no support network or friends. I knew my husband and was beginning to know my in-laws.  I also had no qualifications - a university background in history of art and fine arts was not exactly in huge demand.  I had also left my on-going therapy group when I left New York;  a group I had relied on to keep me in balance for the previous three years.  I was adrift in a sea of Shakespeare and Marmite.

When my daughter was in nursery I decided that I had no choice but to learn to type.  I'd vowed never to do this since young women all over the world were being pushed into admin or secretarial jobs, but needs must and I went to secretarial school.  I learned shorthand, typing, office skills (huh?) and audio-typing.  Sounds prehistoric now, but it got me a job.  I worked as a part-time admin assistant in the University of Westminster for a few years.

At the same time as this I was participating in and training in running encounter/therapy groups.  This meant that at least one evening a week and most weekends I was away doing groups. This was what I loved doing and where my heart was - working directly with people.

I hardly remember what order things happened in, but after my son was born I went to work in a local city housing department, again doing part-time admin work, mind-numbing, boring work, but the hours and the money kept me there. At some point I decided to go back to university and I did a two-year part-time post-graduate degree in human resources. I focused on training and development and bang! found a way to combine working with peoples' emotions and relationships with the world of business.

At that time a remarkable thing happened. I participated in a group on anti-racist practice in the workplace run by a woman named Mavis Clarke.  I was absolutely rocked to my roots by the exploration of racism, attitude and behaviour in this group and was viscerally affected by this.  At the end of the workshop Mavis put a piece of paper in my hand and left.  It said  'call me, you need to work with me' and her phone number.

I called Mavis, she started to train me as her assistant in anti-racism work and eventually I developed my own work and also graduated from my degree course and set up an independent consultancy.  I cannot believe how wonderful it was to have someone literally discover me in a course, see my potential and offer to nurture me and help me to develop.

The work I now do has helped make me feel more comfortable in the world. It makes the world feel smaller and differences between people seem so matter-of-fact and normal that I am grateful for what my work continues to give me.

I meet all sorts of people in many different organisations. I am less dogmatic than I was and I give my course participants more space to be themselves. I continue to love what I do, even though I'm pretty tired at the end of a day.  I am still grateful for what Mavis gave me. I haven't seen her for over 25 years and can't trace her.  I'd love to find her and thank her again.

The art of fighting fair...

According to all, and I mean all, the web links and books out there in the universe on maintaining healthy relationships, there are clear and correct ways to deal with conflict between couples.  I have read many of these books, indeed, I have worked with couples on how to 'fight fair' in relationships. Sometimes I am guilty of forgetting my own advice.  let me take you through the past 24 hours:

Yesterday I bought a dress. No big deal, you might be thinking, but this was a dress I thought I might wear to my nephew's wedding in May.  So this was a dress that was much more than just a dress.  This was a public statement about who I am, how I present myself, how I am judged, how fat/thin/in-between I am at the moment, how successful I am, how much I have or haven't aged and generally how I arrive down the red-carpet anxiety of family occasions.  So you can see that the purchase of this dress was loaded.

When I saw the dress in the shop I thought that it wasn't the usual sort of thing I wear (it's a dress!) but maybe it would suit me. I tried it on and actually thought it looked okay, but it was a shaky ok. It was black fairly simple and eminently suitable. I came home and in the evening I tried the dress on so Ralph could see it.

Well, he didn't like it. It was black which he doesn't much like on me. It was a style he wasn't crazy about.  He didn't think it looked that good. And then I asked the fatal question, the question every woman should know not to ask and the question that every man should never, ever answer. I said, "Does it make me look very fat?"  and yes, boys and girls, he answered, and better yet, truthfully.  "Not very" he said.

To say I was upset is to understate the ensuing situation. I was beyond upset. I cried. I shouted. I insulted him. I reacted much like a woman whose husband had told her she was fat. I went to bed, turned my back and fell alseep, still upset. How dare he say I was fat. I woke in the middle of the night and in the way of overweight women everywhere I drowned my sorrows in a cup of hot chocolate and two slices of toast at 3 am. 

This morning I was still upset. We ate a largely silent breakfast together. I was reminded of the scene in Citizen Kane where Orson Welles was sitting opposite his wife at the breakfast table, each of them behind their individual newspapers. I fumed inwardly. I carried this all day and then at some point early this evening I was able to say why I was hurt and what might have been a better way to approach the delicate flower that I inwardly am. We both apologised, me for telling him he looked like a little Jewish cab driver in his flat cap, and him for not being a bit more sensitive. He really didn't think the dress was right for me. Was he right? Was I right? Did it matter?

The whole area of fighting fair in relationships looks so simple on paper, but in reality there are only a few simple rules: women NEVER look fat or old to those who love them and it is more important to be loving and compassionate than to be right!

Tell me who you are...

In 1978 when I went to the Rajneesh Ashram in India it was suggested to me by my guru that it would be good for me to participate in an Enlightenment Intensive group. This is a structured group in which pairs of participants take it in turns to answer questions such as 'Who am I'.  I found this one of the most difficult things I had ever experienced.  I realise now that I went into a state of 'spiritual emergency' - a state where the body/mind/spirit cannot encompass the many things being processed at the same time.  To this day it is one of the only groups I have ever left before the end. I am not usually a quitter, but I was not ready to confront myself in this most direct format at that time.

Now I believe I have reached a different time and point in my life. I not so frightened of either finding out that I am not who I think I am, or finding out that I am exactly who I think I am.  I guess I've reached some sort of equilibrium, a state of balance, or maybe it's an age thing. I am sure of one thing - it doesn't actually make much difference if I accept or reject who I am, where I am and what my life is.  It is the way it is anyway.

So, after so many years of living in my skin, who am I?

A few weekends ago, in the William Bloom weekend on spirituality we had to list all the different aspects of who we are. My list had 48+ different identities I travel through the world wearing. Some of them I list here:
The wife
The mother
The woman
The cook
The housewife
The training consultant
The manager
The artist
The capable
The talented
The anxious
The hysteric
The expert
The sarcastic
The pessimist
The depressed
The fun-lover
The clown
The friend
The confidante
The lover
The beautiful
The party planner
The seamstress
The Jew
The Yiddish speaker
The frightened
The gossip
The communicator
The survivor
The softie...

And so on and so on.... There are so many aspects of me and each one of them knows everything and nothing about who I really am.

When I was younger I used to know so much. I knew who should be in power. I knew what was right and what needed fixing. I knew how my parents should treat me and of course, I knew what was wrong with them. I knew how my teachers should act. I knew how my friends could make their lives better. I think at some point when I was a teenager I knew it ALL.

As I get older I know less and less. I have no idea how to end world hunger or make peace in the world or who to vote for.  I hope that as the years go by I continue to be sure of fewer and fewer things. I would be pleased to approach the last years of my life knowing only that who am I can be defined by love.  What an attractive prospect.

Twenty-seven years ago today...

Today would have been my son Ben's 27th birthday. Ben died in 1984 at 16 months old and this is the first time in years I remembered the exact date of his birthday. Many years ago I stopped marking these sad anniversaries and vowed to remember the happier times instead. For some reason, and I think writing this blog is one of them, I have been very aware of this birthday all day today.

I remember Ben in a sort of haze. He was a tiny newborn, a month premature with a kitten-like mewing cry at first.  Of course as he grew his lungs developed and he howled like every other baby, but I do remember how very small he was.  Ben was a welcome expected child and he came after I had three miscarriages.

Prior to the arrival of this new little boy into our lives we were a pretty complete family. Our little girl was growing into a lovely young woman and life was settled and good. When Ben was born I really felt like a first time mum again and had to relearn all the parenting skills I had managed to forget over 12 years. It felt new and natural for the three of us to have a baby around.

His death was sudden and heartbreaking.  I don't really feel to write about the drama around that time. I am aware that over 25 years have passed since his death and it is not as painful as it was, but it is still so sad for all of us.  Ben's being here for such a short time let me see one huge, important thing. I was actually a pretty good mum and I wasn't at all finished with mothering a baby.  I felt like I had just begun that when it was torn away.

Our other son was born 13 months after Ben died. Whoosh - it felt so fast and so soon. We were still hurting so much and this new baby felt so fragile and so precious. He had three vigilant attentive 'parents' from the first moments of his life. My daughter became a great big sister/little mother to this new hearty little boy. It was as if, from the very beginning, he knew that he had to be fat and happy and strong, in order to help us heal all our sadness. He didn't heal the sadness, we did, but he has brought so much delight and sunshine into our lives.

I believe that we because we are on the earth for such a short time we have to make  the time we have mean something. Ben's brief time here with us brought us such a lot of love and brought me  such a wonderful opening of my heart that I was able to trust enough to go on to have another precious child.

It's always strange to me when people ask me how many children I have. I know I've had three and I am grateful for the existence of all of them.

So love really is the answer...

"That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look.  Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way  – an honorable way  – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...."

These are the words of Viktor Frankl from his book 'Man's Search for Meaning'.  This is the book he wrote following his liberation from a concentration camp.I believe, and I am not alone in this, it is one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Now read that passage again - does it resonate with you? Can you relate to the idea of love being the ultimate meaning for your life?  I don't necessarily mean the love for one person, for a spouse or child, or even a pet, but the sense and the depth of feeling of warmth, care and compassion for others that drives us to create masterpieces, build cities and rescue strangers trapped in rubble or run back into burning buildings to save a small creature or even to survive the nightmare of a concentration camp.  The love that encompasses genuine compassion and forgiveness is something so precious and so necessary to us human beings that it is like water or air - part of the fabric of life.

Without love and human touch we are like unwatered sun-deprived flowers. We wither and die. During the Second World War it was noticed that there were infants in hospitals that were given adequate medical care, food and shelter and yet, they failed to thrive and some even died.  On investigation what was discovered was that the placement of baby cribs made a difference to survival.  The babies in the cribs near ward doorways were touched and held by passing nurses more often than those at the far end of the ward and those touched were the infants who survived. The children who died were suffering from 'marasmus' - a failure to thrive,  and what became clear was that human touch made the difference between life and death.

One of my greatest friends and teachers runs an institute in Holland where people can explore their human development and growth of their psyche and spirit in a nurturing environment. This sounds a bit hokey, but it is really a community devoted to teaching that 'love is the answer'.  Veeresh, the man who at the top of the organisation called The Humaniversity, has always had this as his vision. Whatever else goes on in this community, the bottom line is the vital connection and love amongst all its residents, training participants and staff members. This love is a healing medicine.

When I think back on my life, it is the loving connections that mean something. The friendships I have made and the family I am close to are what has pulled me through tough times. What a safe place the world feels when you know that there are many people who will pull you out of a tight spot and will be there with help and love and hugs and chicken soup.
It's not a matter of luck that I feel loved and love so much. It is a sense of responsibility and choice.  I am a citizen of the world and therefore have to develop and grow my ability to respond.  When I feel totally desolate I still have choices. I can move towards the part of me that is so wonderful and so strong and knows, really deeply knows, that love is the answer and that nothing else feels so alive and full of hope.

I try to present this together image of myself to the world. I would love to be seen as a together, dynmaic career woman - someone independent and capable and completely in control. Ha! Really I am also a giant soft marshmallow, living in a world of clouds and unicorns and rays of sunshine and sentimentality.  Love is the answer and as Viktor Frankl points out,  our salvation is through love and in love. Only this can bring us to a true place of forgiveness and acceptance.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.  Please hug someone.

Old photographs/hidden treasures/memories

One  of the little surprises that emerged from our loft was a box of old photographs and postcards.  Some of them were from my wedding, some when my daughter was small and some were of Ralph and me in NY before we moved to London.  We both spent an hour or two reminiscing and reliving a bit of our own history.  In this long-hidden box were also Ralph's trinkets, diaries and other memorabilia from his chioldhood.

Going back into our own past is so very satisfying. Every photo tells a story and every story brings emotional moments back to life. The evocative quality of these photos is remarkable.  I was talking to my cousin yesterday and we were discussing how different communication is now that we are all computer-reliant.  In forty or fifty years will we look back at computer generated images with the same nostalgia?  Will e-mails be as poignant a form of communication between parted couples as letters have been?

Ralph and I have been married for over forty years. We met in a tiny guest house/student hostel in Amsterdam in mid August 1968. We spent two days together before each of us went back to our own countries.  What followed was a year of writing letters back and forth across the Atlantic. We were both artists and our letters were illustrated and hand-written.  We wrote to each other almost every day.

A year's worth of romance and a social commentary of our time. We were university students, politically aware and the world was in turmoil in 1968.  All of this was recorded in our letters.  At the end of that year Ralph came to NY and two months later we were married.  Would it have been the same with e-mail?  Surely I would have deleted some of the less-important notes to free up more disk space.

Ralph kept all the letters I wrote to him and I kept his.  There were two ratty old shoe boxes full of letters in our cupboard for years. When we were approaching our 25th wedding anniversary I joined the two sets of letters in chronological order and had them beautifully bound into two large volumes as my gift to Ralph.  It feels like something we can give to our kids, like an old family bible, something with meaning and history attached.The handwritten qualities of the letters make them very special and a unique part of past that would never have existed if we had computers to communicate through. I have never seen a volume of Facebook postings.


The photographs I had really forgotten about that caused the most laughter were a series of three photos of my dad waking Ralph on our wedding day. He slept at our neighbours' house in keeping with the age-old tradition of the bride and groom being separate on the night before the wedding and nobody had remembered to wake him.  He was almost late for the wedding - surely a portent of things to come.

I am so pleased we have these photos. They are a lovely reason to stop for a moment and smile and remember. Try doing that with a computer!

Procrastination

I was about to start today's entry and I suddenly thought of something else I want to do, so I'll just put this off till later.

Procrastination  - I love this word. In the UK often people don't know what it means. I seemed to grow up with it as a banner headline over my life. I even put off the things I want to do in order to not do the things I have to do. I really think I should be awarded a PhD in Procrastination. On Wikipedia it states that in order for something to be classed as procrastination it must be counter-productive, needless and delaying. Whoops - either I procrastinate non-stop or everything I do is fine.  Most of the activities that I undertake to avoid those that I don't want to do will be in some way needed, productive and immediate.

Take today as an example - I fully intended to complete my on-line income tax return. it's due on 31 January and I still have a few days left so I felt virtuous and determined as I began today. First, though, I had to go and get some blood tests done. By the time they took eight test tubes of blood I was really ready for my morning coffee and breakfast, so I went to Starbucks and read the paper and had my coffee. Now I was already at the local shops so I bought the ingredients for dinner. Tonight is Burns Night in Scotland and all over the UK. This is a celebration of the Scottish poet,  Robert Burns. Traditionally you eat haggis and drink whiskey. I thought that it would make a nice theme for dinner. This meant going to three different shops till I found a haggis. Then I thought it would be nice to make a rich meaty scotch broth (a lamb-based barley soup with lots of veg) so I had to go to the butcher for the lamb.  By this time it was almost noon.  When I came home I had to eat breakfast/lunch. Then I remembered that I needed to upload some photos on to my computer. After that I made the scotch broth and put the rest of the shopping away.  Then I checked my mail and did other assorted computer tasks.  I remembered that I had to do some laundry so I put the washing machine on. Last night I promised Ralph that if I had time I would iron a few shirts, so of course I did that.  Well, now it's 4.45 pm and the day is pretty much gone and I can't really do the maths and thinking involved in preparing tax forms in the afternoon. That's my tired point of the day, so I guess it'll have to wait till tomorrow.  Whoops, I'm running a training course tomorrow and I'm not home tiill 6 pm, so I suppose Wednesday morning will be my next opportunity to complete my tax return.

Everything I did today was productive, useful and needed doing.  What procrastination?

I find it interesting that regardless of what else I put off, the one thing I've stuck to for over seven weeks is writing this blog.  It is one agreement I have kept with myself. I'm not quite sure why. I still feel a bit hesitant about exploring my life, my neuroses and my history in this semi-public fashion, but it's also a bit like a confessional box - I get to express myself and I don't have to see the reactions. To be honest with myself, I love writing. I never knew that I would and it's like discovering a new continent in myself with so much to explore. And anyway, confession is always good for the soul.

Well, the shirts are ironed, the scotch broth is done, the photos uploaded...nothing left but to do my taxes, but first a short nap.
 

Trash in the Attic

The BBC airs a programme every weekday morning called 'Cash in the Attic'. The premise of the show is that you can make real cash by auctioning off the things that you have hidden in corners or in your attic/loft.  It's a very popular show in the same vein as 'Antiques Roadshow" since everyone secretly believes that their great-aunt Yetta's hideous fruit bowl is actually valuable and therefore shouldn't be thrown away.

Well, this morning in our house we have been playing a version of 'Trash in the Attic' as Ralph has gone up into the loft and unearthed boxes of junk and old suitcases.The suitcases, upon opening, turned out to be filled with more old suitcases and mouldy overnight bags from the days when we could take as much luggage as we wanted on airplanes and the hand luggage could be as large as a case. Over the past 40 years of flying across the Atlantic we have accumulated lots of suitcases. Unfortunately the boxes seemed to contain more boxes. Why???

There were few pleasant surprises. I expected that we would find all those tiny objects I have been searching for for years. I know that in the far corners of the loft there are boxes we never unpacked when we moved into this house. We've lived here for over twenty years so those boxes qualify for the de-clutterer's maxim that if you haven't used something for a year it should go. I believe the total opposite - if I haven't seen or missed something for twenty years, finding it again is like finding buried treasure - a complete and unexpected surprise.

There was one interesting suitcase that contained some of my clothes from the 1970's - a full length corduroy cape from Laura Ashley, a midi-length orange suede coat, sheepskin lined with fur all round the bottom, the sleeves and the collar - quite the boho stylish item.  Both these things belong to my daughter now so could not be jettisoned. Lots of old cases, tents and curtains went to the local charity shops. There were extra kettles, food processors, bowls, glasses, lamps, blinds and a full set of dining room chairs. I think that there may be a doppelganger family living in our loft!

Why do we hoard these things? Certainly I cannot attribute this to either of my parents.  My mother was an inveterate thrower-outer. She threw things away when your back was turned for only a moment.  The one thing that still rankles that she threw away were my bronzed baby shoes.  Apparently in the 1950's this was all the rage. Take your baby's first shoes and have them made into a desk ornament or bookends by having them bronze or copper dipped. I loved my baby shoes and always assumed that at some point they would be mine.  Well, my mum threw my baby shoes away when they moved house.  Just like that!  Gone!  I was heartbroken. How could any mother throw away the baby shoes of her firstborn? Without asking me!

Last year, when visiting my brother I went to a flea market in Manchester, Connecticut and lo and behold, they had a pair of bronze baby shoes. Not mine (that would have been too freaky) but just like mine.  I was tempted to buy them but in the end they weren't mine. The name on the plaque says Matthew and I had a momentary fantasy of poor unloved Matthew furious with his mum for throwing out his shoes.  I felt it was a step in the right de-cluttering direction when I was content to simply photograph the shoes rather than buy them. 

One of the boxes in the loft, actually two of the boxes,contain our collection of cruet sets.  About 40 years ago we visited Washington D.C. and I bought a set of salt and pepper shakers in the shape of the Washington Monument and the Capital building. This was the first set - we now have a collection of about 150 sets.  Some are silly and cheap plastic, some are wonderful art deco examples of the time and valuable and some, like the ones in the photo, are the King and Queen of Nepal.  We used to have them on display, but they haven't seen the light of day for over 20 years. Maybe those boxes should come downstairs, but think of all the dusting. Maybe next year.

We are hoarders or collectors. It's a fact. Our house if full of objects. Some worth something and others are there because we like them or they make us smile.  I have a fantasy of having a minimalist Zen home.  All white and pristine with a few well-chosen beautiful things to break up the space. The reality is that I love all the little tchatchkes all around me.

Many years back I bought a painting for Ralph. It cost £1.00 and is not worth one single cent more, but it has given us so many laughs and so much ridicule time. It's a painting that the 'artist' and I use the term very loosely called 'Pregnant Pause'. It was in the window of a local junk shop and Ralph just found it so funny - a real example of someone who believed in their artistic ability against all odds. I decided to surprise him and buy it. The shopkeeper wanted £5.00 because it was in an ornate frame. Since I was only interested in the painting he reduced the price to £1.00 - not even much of a bargain!  "Pregnant Pause' hangs on different walls in our house and each time I see it I laugh. One of these days we're going to enter it into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition or maybe Antiques Roadshow.

Today has been interesting. Throwing things away is good for the soul. it does make things feel cleaner and clearer, but one man's junk is someone else's treasure.  I'm sure that later this week one of us will find some little thing in a junk shop and think, 'yes, I must have that,' but maybe I'll just learn to carry my camera around and photograph things instead. It's a lot easier to store and doesn't need dusting.

Fears of creativity

I finally sent off for some of the materials that I need to begin an art project that I have had floating around my brain for about ten years.  This is a first step and feels a little daunting.

For the past ten years I have been planning to make a silk prayer shawl that depicts a history of my family,  using drawing, photos, collage, embroidery and painting.  I have a very clear idea in my mind as to how this will look when it's finished.  I am not sure that I will be able to do this and this uncertainty (there's that word again) is what has stopped my for many years. What if I can't do this? What if it comes out badly?  What if I don't like it or worse, what if it's just mediocre, rather than beautiful, the way it is in my mind?  All of these doubts are running around in my head and for years have stopped me taking risks with my work.

Instead, I do the things I know I'll do well - bake cakes, cook,  knit things, sew stuff, string beads and make bowls. Just craft stuff as opposed to real 'Art".  I have been scared of real 'Art' for years and years. Even making this distinction is a way of stopping myself. It is this fear that prevented me from becoming an artist and it is this same fear that keeps me in my comfort zone in many other areas of my life.

What is this fear about?  Last weekend in the meditation group I attended I had a chat with a woman of about my age and we talked about how each of us does new things, starts new self-help initiatives and stops at some point. It is always the same stopping place. The point of enough.  Let me explain:  Oh, this technique is working, I'll carry on and then I stop when I feel ok, pretty good, when some voice in my head says, that's enough. Don't push for more. Accept this place, Enough is fine. Don't be greedy and ask for more. Things could go wrong. So far, so good. let's stop here. You've lost some weight, that's enough. Your back feels better, ok, that's enough. Don't push it.

We both laughed and recognised a Jewish pattern. Don't ask for too much. It might all disappear. Don't draw too much attention to yourself. Others might be envious and then you'll be in danger. Stop now, that's enough. It'll do for now.

When I was in university studying fine arts I found that one of the hardest things for me  was having to display my work for it to be critiqued by others. It was as if I was turning myself inside out and all raw and exposed. This is also connected to the fear I feel about genuinely putting myself out into the world.  Is it also a female thing?  As a woman have I been conditioned to not grab the limelight, to only go so far and be content with less?

All these feelings are in operation at the moment. I am determined to start my project.  It has been so real in my mind for so long that I need to finally let it go and see how high I can fly with it. In my deepest heart I feel it's going to be spectacular. As I see it in my mind's eye it is beautiful and that makes me feel very happy and excited.

I've used this quote from Marianne  Williamson before, but it is so apt, I will quote it here again, since every time I hear it, it speaks to me louder and louder:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The Great British Workman and Marmalade

Rarely do I concern myself with the economy or the state of the British market, but today, I am furious about the lack of service and customer care in this country. As I write this I can hear my husband's voice protesting that customer service is no better in the States. I think he may be right, but it doesn't change the fact that here, in London, it stinks.

This morning I was waiting in for a delivery from a building materials company of loft insulation.  At 10.20am this big flatbed truck pulls up and on it is 17 (!!!) huge rolls of insulation material. I had already been warned by Ralph that the insulation would fill a room but I don't think the reality sunk in until I saw the stuff.  The delivery driver said he could only drop the stuff in my tiny front garden or in the street outside my house. When I pointed out that it was raining and that the insulation would get wet he said, "not my problem". I asked him if he could please bring it into the house into the front room that was cleared so he could just drop it there.  "no" he said, "not insured to take it over the front doorstep".  I challenged that and then asked him if a few pounds extra tip money would change that and he said "yes, I suppose it might".

At that point I had to leave for my doctor appointment so we could work out why my hair is falling out. I left the delivery in the hands of my painter, who is wonderful and a real mensch.
He dealt with the driver and put plastic sheeting on my floor and stacked up the rolls of insulation so it was all neat and tidy when I came home.  Four rolls were soaking wet and filthy. This meant I had to call the shop and complain. They said they knew their driver was unpleasant! They will deliver more tomorrow. Yippee!!

No wonder my hair is falling out!

It is also marmalade making day in this house.  This means clear the counters, jars to sterilize, huge preserving pan bubbling on the stove and sticky sugary droplets of marmalade everywhere. I mentioned earlier that I do this every year and have done for so long I can't remember when I started. I do remember one year Ralph and I hand made the labels and I'm tempted to do the same this year.  The kitchen is now sticky, the sink is full of sticky spoons, pots, dishes, but the marmalade is made. This year I made 20 lbs of the stuff, more than usual,  since last year Ralph ran out about eight weeks ago. I never eat it but Ralph sure loves it. I guess it makes me feel good to see all those jars lined up and to know that I made them. What an unreconstructed housewife I am at heart.

Anyway, I am just delaying the inevitable - the cleaning of the sugar sticky kitchen. Tomorrow is supposed to be insulate the loft day. I think I am going to go out shopping since I have no desire to be the builder's mate in the loft insulation job.  Somehow I thought when we reached this time of our lives we would no longer do these things. I guess we are younger, fitter and maybe stupider than our parents were at this age.

Oh and by the way, while the marmalade was bubbling away,  I made some great chicken liver pate. Now that I will eat!

Messages from Women Friends

I am lucky enough to have some wonderful women friends. As I have mentioned before, some I see regularly and some of them are scattered to the four corners of the planet and I only see them electronically, if at all.  I am this morning struck by two very different messages I have had from two very different women.  One message urges me to drop struggle and accept and realise my true inner beauty.  The second message acknowledges that as women we are often in a struggle and we are not alone as the struggle is an astral one and will soon change.

Let me, in this morning reflective space, say something about each message.

Yes, I am a light in the world, a flickering candle of incandescent beauty.  I know this very deeply. I have experienced times when I have lived in that light and still do.  One of the reasons I am that woman is that I do continue to search and question the purpose and quality of my life. I know that the external world my body moves through is a temporary environment and that maybe there is another plane, an afterlife, another dimension my spirit will inhabit after embodied life is over.  But, hell, I figure it this way, this is the life I have, the only one I can live with any certainty and I've written before about how difficult I find living with uncertainty.

The quality of my being is right now rooted in this world and this world is not always an easy place.  I know that I cannot 'fix' the world and would never set myself up to fail in that way, but I also know that to sit and polish my inner mirror till it is shiny and sparkling so I can bask in my own reflection is not enough for me.  I am a human being who does in order to be more fully.  All the new age crap about being a human 'being' not a human 'doing' does not resonate with me. It's too trite and feels to me like just another instruction of how I should live.

I believe in my inner beauty.  It's just that there are times when that beauty needs to spill over into the world around me, not by living in my reflected light, but by picking up a shovel and clearing the street outside my house so we can all walk an easier path.

As for the second message about planetary struggle creating struggle now for us, well, again, it's too easy. These messages are useful. Sometimes I do feel justified in running around like an electrocuted banshee and screaming the house down because the planets have aligned themselves in such a way that it really isn't my fault. Hooray! 

What is missing for me is that  there is no sense of real responsibility.  One of the things I took away from the workshop I did with William Bloom last weekend was the concept of responsibility.  This was new for me to think of responsibility with regard to spirituality and connection. It is always my responsibility even though it may not be my fault, whatever 'it' is.  It may not be my fault that I carry the genetic legacy of my ancestors, but my responsibility is clear as to how I choose to live with that genetic inheritance.  It is not my fault that the electric company has seen fit to cut the power to our area three times in the past days, but it is my responsibility to light candles. 

All of us carry the emotional scars of past hurts - the emotional and physical after effects of once-lived trauma and those scars and after effects can bubble up and reappear even when we believe we have  healed every tiny aspect of them. At this time of the year (there I go again, blaming the planetary movements!) I have more time to spend with my thoughts and I think about my son, Ben, who died in 1984.  I don't need to go into the pain that losing a child leaves.  Suffice it to say, it was considerable.  In the many years since Ben's death I have worked through that pain, cried a million tears and faced the sadness and the gap his death left in my heart.  I even convince myself that all the memories of painful times are long over  and what is left is the sweetness of my son's short life. And then, a tiny thing, a tiny pinprick of memory emerges and a wave of sadness will be with me.  It may only last a moment, but it is enough for me to know that there is always the memory of a scar. Our bodies and hearts always carry the hint of the presumed healed past. Maybe as women this is more poignant and more present. Maybe we are still courageous enough to rake over the coals to see if there is still a spark that needs dousing.

There is a difference though, as I get older I do get wiser. I am able to see things in their true proportion.  Those tiny lapping waves of memory that provoke sadness come and go very quickly. I don't get caught up in the 'woe is me' that I once might have. I am much more able to be with all these feelings and not get too identified with them.  I don't have the strong need for the story  or drama I would attach to things. I have so many more choices and I also now choose to use them. In the past I might have seen all these choices, but I would choose the self-destructive ones. I don't really need to do that anymore. What a relief that is.

So both of my friends are right. As women, we reflect something very beautiful and we don't have to push ourselves to have an effect on others. It is also true that our female intuitive natures mean that we empathically involve ourselves with the world and the energy of the planet and that sometimes our tectonic plates shift with the earth and we get shaken.

What all the women I know and cherish have learned to see and more importantly, accept, is that everything changes. Nothing stays the same and even the rough times pass. We can take and give strength to each other simply by our friendships.

Now that I have my snazzy varifocal glasses, it is even fun to be able to sit back and watch.
Everything changes.

Remembering my mother

 

In the UK we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day next week and I have been giving a lot of thought as to why? The date is not arbitrary - 27 January 1945 was the date that Auschwitz was liberated but remembering this most horrific of places and what occurred there has not prevented us from going to war again. Remembering has not prevented genocides in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in Darfur, in Bosnia and so so and so on. Remembering on its own is sometimes a comfortable way for people to fool themselves into believing that they are actually doing something.

There is no doing involved in memory.
Memory plus action changes things.
Memory plus action honours those who died with the possibility that they will not have died in vain.  Maybe, just maybe,  we can use the spirits of the past to effect the spirit of the present and the future.

I  have been thinking a lot about my mother over the last few days. My mum died in July of 1998 when she was 75 years old. She lived most of her life as a fearful woman. Looking back at how she dealt with the world it was through a filter of anxiety. Everything she did and everywhere she went, the question she seemed to need answered was 'is this safe'? Is there danger here? Could this hurt me? my kids? my family?

In 1940 my mother was 18 years old. She, her brother and sister and I think, both parents were re-located to the Lodz Ghetto. Everything they had was taken from them and they existed in cramped impoverished conditions. Soon after this my mother's father was taken away never to return and at some point my mother's sister died. The remaining family lived in the ghetto with decreasing amounts of food, people dying around them and ever-worsening conditions till 1944 when they were deported to Auschwitz.  On arrival at Auschwitz my mother was separated from her mother and her older brother. She never saw her mother again. In January 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated my mother was 23 years old and completely alone. She had suffered from TB, typhus and near-starvation. She used to tell me she was one of the lucky ones since she was in Auschwitz for a bit less than a year.

At some point, after trying to find her way back to Lodz to see if any of her family had survived, she was sent to the Displaced Persons Camp in Feldafing, near Munich in Germany. This was run by the Americans and other allied countries and was the refuge for thousands of stateless, traumatised Jews.  My mother told me this story:

Feldafing was big, it was like a town. There were streets and housing and schools. Things were basic, but safe.  There were even postal deliveries.  One day a postman stopped her and asked if she could read the scribbled name on one of the letters. She looked at it and said "that's my brother's name. I will go with you".

And that was how my mother found her brother again.

My mother's brother, my Uncle Willie,  was the only one of her immediate family to have survived. My mother attended her brother's wedding in Feldafing and during that time met my father. My mum, her brother and his wife came to America by ship from Bremen in late 1946. My father arrived some months later and they were married. My mother and her brother were virtually inseparable for the rest of their lives and as I was growing up my aunt, uncle and my two cousins were a constant in my life.

My mother was not brave. she was not heroic. She did not do anything of any real note, but she was a good mother. Sure, I railed and screamed at her during my teenage years, but there was always great food on the table and a spotlessly clean home and actually, a lot of love. She cared deeply about my brother and me and made us feel like a family. I don't remember feeling deprived of much and yet we had very little. She made the best chicken soup ever and baked a super apple cake. Her gefilte fish was legendary and she took enormous pleasure from our enjoyment. She and her brother could talk about food all day and this came directly from their memories of having had so little.

The lasting effects of her Holocaust experiences were always there. She was a fearful, timid woman who seemed happiest in her own home. She had a dreadful time letting go of me when I moved to the UK and letting go of my brother. She suffered throughout her life with migraines, ulcers and lots of small nervous conditions and yet, she carried on. She never collapsed for long and was always there for us kids. I remember with sadness how little it took to make her happy. She had survived so much, simply being alive seemed more than enough.

And so, I remember her story. I remember my father's story and my uncle's story and my aunt's story and the stories of the parents of my friends - all of them survived and all of them raised beautiful, talented children, and all of us believed we would make the world better, that we would never, ever stand by and allow anyone, from any nation to go through anything like what our parents went through. And yet, and yet...it goes on again and again.


What can I do? Next week is Holocaust Memorial Day - what should I do? Through my work I try and make some difference. I try and honour again and again the memory of my relatives and ancestral community by treating people with compassion and respect. I try and bring kindness to my world and hope that it ripples outward to others.

There is a quote from a Rabbi that I particularly like:
"It is not for me to complete the work,
but neither am I free to desist from it."

As Holocaust Memorial Day approaches I honour and remember my mother with so much love. May her memory be a blessing. May kindness prevail in the world and bring peace to all of us.


The photo at the top of the page is of my mother's mother and aunt. It is the only surviving photo I have of any grandparent.

Hair today...gone tomorrow

Today I had to admit to myself that I am actually aging. My hair is getting thinner - shock, horror, distress. I have always been proud of my dark, thick head of hair. Last month I noticed that my hair felt different.  The texture had changed. It was straighter than usual. Then I went to my hairdresser and he commented about the change and the fact that it seemed different.  A few days later I realised that I was losing more hair than usual when I washed it. This seems to have carried on and I have to finally say, my hair is much thinner.

Yesterday I read in the Times that the second most popular thing to google on the internet is the topic of health. I can see that since the first most popular thing is pornography and I have never looked that up, but I have spoent many a happy hour pandering to my 'health anxiety' (the new politically correct name for hypochondria). So, I looked up hair loss and found out that yes, it can be caused by anxiety, but for a woman of my age and at my time of life it is more likely to be the change in hormones.  Oh my god!

I thought of a good friend of mine who has decided not to dye her hair anymore since that may have an effect on the hair loss. I also almost immediately decided that I am not ready to be grey yet. Thin hair - yes, thin grey hair - no.  So the answer - just live with this. I will look at diet and stuff and see what I can do, but watch this space. If my photos and Ralph's suddenly look similar it will be because I am bald and he has shaved off his beard. I know that dogs and their owners begin to look the same, but husbands and wives??

Other signs of aging - not too many. Ralph asked me if I could squat down as easily now. I remember not being able to squat happily in 1978 in India when squat toilets were the only thing available, so no change there. My skin is still ok - teenage acne occasionally surfacing!
I now wear multi-focal glasses but I'm really happy with them since I can see and this is a decided advantage to me. Carrying more weight round the midriff, sure, but I eat more and like it.  Slightly forgetful, of course, but no different to last month, last year or any other year.

All in all I feel OK - aging, yes, but wearing it pretty well. I like getting older. I'm not sure about friends phoning me at 9 pm and asking me if they woke me, or getting to the top of the stairs and wondering why I went up the stairs to begin with but all in all, it's a welcome time.  I had breast cancer in 1992 and every year since I've been happy that I'm still here. As my mother used to say "Just think of the alternative".

The Worst Day of the Year?

A few years ago,  Chris Arnall, one of the many PR boffins that passes as an expert in something, decided to quantify what day of the year was the worst for people. He based his findings on weather, amount of debt, time since Christmas, broken resolutions, and low salary and came up with the third Monday in January - today!  Officially, boys and girls,Today, 18 January, is the worst day of the year! Therefore, if you feel crap, if you just feel sluggish and de-motivated, it is not your fault and you are not alone. There is a formula and a number of newspaper articles to back you up and give you another story to tell yourself and incorporate into your winter blues. As a matter of fact, today is known in media circles as Blue Monday.

So, what did I do on Blue Monday?  To begin with, I didn't know it was the worst day of the year until I heard it on the radio.  I wondered if I should adjust my mood accordingly.  Perhaps I should not cheerily say hello to my neighbour or have a little chat with the girl behind the counter in Starbucks?  Maybe I should not let that driver out at the turning and hold up traffic for a while, thus ensuring that I spread the suffering a bit? Should I stop singing in the car?

Instead I laughed at the stupidity of naming a day as the worst.  Just as ridiculous as naming a day as the best day of your life. I like to think that we can always aim higher (or lower).  Last year I remember hearing this bit of arbitrary information on the BBC news and thinking, 'yes, they're right, I am miserable, this may well be the worst day of the year".  Right now the whole idea seems like an early April Fools joke, a form of cognitive behavioural stupidity.

I chatted to the girl in Starbucks who coaxed me away from the cake display since she knows I am on the neverending struggle with those extra few pounds. Thank you. The greengrocer and I discussed how I will make 25 lbs of dark seville orange marmalade in the next days even though I can't stand the stuff. I thought with delight about how many years I have been making marmalade for Ralph and how much he enjoys it every morning on toast (with the bread that I bake). I remembered the gigantic saucepan that comes out once a year to make this and the same wooden spoon with the measurement markings on it that has stirred the marmalade for so many years and I love this.

In a moment of confidence I ordered a new swimsuit on line, even though I haven't been swimming in years and the idea of so much cellulite-covered flesh on display is almost frightening. I am going to spend a couple of days in Florida next month with my cousin and I am really happy about this too today.

I got a funny e-mail from her about growing old and I sat down with a cup of tea and thought about how much I love about getting older and not caring about other people's judgments. Funnily enough, as I drop my concern about the judgments of others, I become less judgmental too.

So, on this worst day of the year I feel pretty good. I am more in control of my moods, I can call the shots and map out the future. Physically, not so great. The winter virus that I had before doesn't really want to give up and now I'm coughing and coughing, but so what. It'll pass.  Everything always does, even the worst day of the year.

Just Do It!

My day started at 6.45 am. I was looking forward to a lovely hot shower, a cup of coffee and my porridge. First, though, I was happily sitting on the loo, reading the newspaper when all the lights went out. Power cut! Damn, there goes the hot shower, the hairdryer, the coffee maker, the heating, the lights, the WiFi, the clock radio and lots of other things.  So I lit some candles and Ralph phoned the power company to log the cut. They informed us that about 1000 homes were in darkness.  I put my make-up on by candlelight in semi-darkness (cue for joke about how it usually looks like that!) and then the sun rose and daylight arrived. At 9 am the power came on and all was back to normal.

Funny how without all the electric appliances not working my day began  much gentler and slower than usual.  In my car on the way to the second day of the spiritual psychology workshop I chanted along to the words and music of Krishna Das and Deva Premal.  Suddenly I felt really overwhelmed with a sort of sadness and suffused with such an enormous warmth and feeling of love that I actually pulled the car over for a moment to let the feeling settle.  I have felt this way before and it’s a feeling that comes from a good space inside me but it also puzzles and disconcerts me.  It feels like such a huge void and it also feels very full and overflowing.  It is a connect-ness to past, present and who knows what else.  I only know that I learned today that I shouldn’t ignore these times.

In William Bloom’s workshop today he spoke about the times when we feel alive and energetically connected to the flow of everything. He referred to these as ‘wake-up calls’ and said that sometimes we choose to ignore these calls.  He pointed out that perhaps the call wasn’t strong enough for us but that we should pay attention to these times and wake-up and begin to develop our spiritual practice. I know that I have resisted the pull to expand this part of me and this is possibly fear of that uncertainty I talked about yesterday. The specific practice we each can develop hardly matters. Whether that is silent meditation, being in nature, breath-work, or any other route to the spirit – the message for me is clearly just to do it. This has been pretty important for me since I thought I went to this workshop to be instructed as to what to ‘do’ to be more spiritual.  I am beginning to get it. Being not doing. No one is going to give me the answer, but perhaps I can be supported and directed towards the way.

A big learning for me is that the enjoyment and contentment I have in my life is directly in proportion to the amount of uncertainty I am able to live with.

I would like to write more tonight, but, guess what - the power went off again. I’m writing this by candlelight and so far it’s been two hours in the dark.  The house is beginning to get chilly. The candles are burning low and I think I may soon have little choice but to go to bed. It feels positively Dickensian.  I can accept this kind of electricity failure in India, but it seems ridiculous that in 2010, in London, we can’t get the power back on.

And to think, I’m busy with spirituality while the material world can’t even keep the lights on. Sleep peacefully and dream beautifully. I’m off for an early night.

The Only Certainty is Now

I just finished the first day of a  two day workshop about spiritual practice and psychology with a delightfully down-to-earth teacher and guide, William Bloom. So far I am enjoying the focus of the workshop and I am learning a lot about myself and my patterning.

I came away from today struck by the difficulty I have, and most other human beings have, of living with uncertainty.  It is really clear that we all want a happy ending, but I see that if I can't have a happy ending to all the narratives in my life, then an unhappy ending is better than an unknown outcome.  The unknown causes the limbic brain to go into panic mode and do whatever is needed to calm the brain and ensure survival. This creates so much anxiety in me that I just want to pull blankets over my head and hide at times. It would seem this is not an easy pattern to unravel, but if it has been set, it can be unset.  I just have to work at creating a new pattern, at cutting a new neural groove of behaviour.  Easy...hah!

A few years ago, during the dimly lit winter months, I went to my GP because I was extremely depressed. I was exhausted and sleeping about 14+ hours a day.  I had no motivation at all, was weepy and very anxious.  Not a great state to be in day after day.  I could see no end to this, thus the doctor visit.  My GP suggested Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a way of changing or re-framing the way I interpret events. The National Health Service inthe UK was now offering a set of CBT sessions to chronically depressed patients. I jumped at the chance of a series of free therapy sessions as an alternative to various anti-depressant meds I have tried and that have failed in previous years.

After about five or six sessions my doctor asked if I thought the therapy was helping me to be less anxious and live with more uncertainty?  "No" was the simple answer. The therapy sessions helped identify lots of sticking points and intellectual ways of re-framing thoughts, but it did not engage me in such a way that I took action to change those thoughts.  I don't blame the doctor or myself.  I wasn't really ready to let go of the depression at that point.

Since then I have discovered that there are ways I can use to influence my limbic brain and the emotions stored there. I love singing and chanting. There is a quality in chanting (or Bhakti Yoga) that bypasses my thinking, judging mind and connects me directly to the purity of my heart and the greater and higher consciousness that is always whole and healthy. 

In writing these daily blog entries I have sometimes been able to stand back and see me. It's meant that I am more able to view myself and my flaws with much greater compassion.  It's clear from what I experienced and heard today that I am much more loving, compassionate and forgiving of things in other people that I cannot or will not accept in myself.

Healing myself, healing others always needs a compassionate heart and maybe I am at the start of that road and maybe I can bring some wisdom to myself. Life is uncertain, it is not easy to be with that state and in this, I am not alone.

Workshop Day 2 is tomorrow...

Who's in the Driving Seat?

Today I thought I'd give myself a day of shopping.  I drove Ralph to work as his car had been clamped (illegally) and he couldn't get the clampers to come till this morning. This meant I was out and on the road at around 9 am.  I went to a nearby shopping mall and spent a very, very long time shopping, though I actually bought very little. It was a delightful day. and I really enjoyed having the whole day in front of me and no obligations to fulfill.

I watched people shopping. I gave a stranger advice on the jacket he was trying on - it looked  dreadful and I advised him never to buy anything at a sale price that he wouldn't have bought at full price if he could afford it.  Many is the time I've bought something that wasn't quite right because the price was so good.  Unfortunately, the price may have been right, but the thing I'd bought wasn't and it's an expensive way to fill a closet with discounted clothing that never gets worn. 

I carried on my 'shpatziring" (Yiddish for strolling about), had some yummy frozen yogurt, and generally used up five or six hours not buying things. I am struck by the fact that it takes me longer to do nothing than it does to do something. Once I have a task or project or some work I become efficient and rushed.  This feeling of being rushed or being in a hurry is one with which I am well-acquainted. I often experience a sense of extreme urgency that is not at all comfortable. This urgency looked like this today.

I came home, dropped my bits of shopping (Ok I lied, I did buy a few things,  a t-shirt, some hair dye, a pair of shoes, a few things for Ralph, a great second-hand jacket and a big bag of groceries) and immediately started preparing dinner, chopping onions, dry frying the curry spices, chopping vegetables, cooking rice pudding and while stirring the pudding,  I emptied the dishwasher.  I checked my mail and quickly phoned a client and arranged some meeting and work dates. I phoned a travel site that hadn't confirmed some travel plans and meanwhile put the shopping away and started the curry cooking.  During this entire time I felt this rising panic.  Why had I spent so long out? The day is over and I've done so little.  The little voice in my head is telling me I'd better hurry or I won't get all the things done this evening that I need to do. I have to shorten some trousers, do laundry.  I'm participating in a workshop for the next two days and won't be home so I won't have much time.  Panic...PANIC!

STOP

In Transactional Analysis, Eric Berne identified 5 behavioural drivers that have both positive and negative aspects. The tbehaviours that drive us become problematic when they are stress driven and then we can lose control of ourselves and our actions.

The drivers are:

1. Be perfect
2. Please others
3. Try harder
4. Be strong
5. Hurry up

For me,  the two behaviours  I can really see I am driven by are Be Strong and Hurry Up.  Most of the time I am in the driver's seat and can appreciate the benefits I gain from these drivers.  I am strong and can deal with crises and emotions pretty well.  I am good at taking on projects, getting things done on time and meeting deadlines, even if it is by the skin of my teeth.  Sometimes though, like today, the Hurry Up driver takes over and I feel very out of control.  The rushed feeling that I can never catch up with myself creates anxiety and that creates panic.  It's good for me to be able to stop and re-assess.

What would be the worst thing that could happen if I didn't feel that sense of rushing and hurrying?  What if dinner was an hour later or the dishwasher didn't get emptied? I have never missed a plane, a meeting, a train, a social engagement or even a doctor appointment.  Any deadline I have missed has not been fatal and has always been re-arranged.  Dinner always gets made and eaten. 

I guess it's good for me to identify the times the drivers take over and I'm just bumping along for the ride and generally ending up somewhere I didn't choose to be.  The workshop I am doing this weekend is about developing a spiritual/meditative practice.  I am looking forward to two days of not driving at all.

BTW - the curry is really good and the rice pudding is out of this world delicious! And, of course, they were both ready just in time...

Afternoon Napping

How many people take naps in the afternoon? 

I've been doing a bit of research and realise that there are entire nations who sleep in the afternoons, only they call it a siesta.  The habit of siesta may have evolved from the needs of people living in hot climates to avoid the midday hot sun, but it has had some unexpected benefits.

Men who nap for at thirty minutes every afternoon show a marked decrease in heart attacks and heart disease.  There are no similar collected statistics for women.  Why?  I think it's because women feel a much greater need to keep going and not give in to the natural lull in our body rhythms in the afternoons. After all, in those hot equatorial and mediterranean climates it's always been the family mama that prepares the midday meal and cleans up while the men of the house repair to the couch/bed for a peaceful nap.

In my research I also found a group of scientists calling themselves the International Hibernation Society and read some of the long discussions about human hibernation.  If a short nap is good for you, what would 18 hours a day of sleep do?

Even though my mood swings are much improved this winter, I am increasingly sleepy in the afternoons. This is partly because I am home where it's warm and very comfortable, but I certainly have to fight the nodding off post-lunch while I am working.

I love the idea of gathering supplies, books, magazines,my knitting, the phone, computer, ipod, pens, paper, food, snacks, warm drinks and the TV listings to my bedroom and only emerge to further hunt and gather.

I am so tempted by this idea that I am on my way now. Pleasant dreams...

Searching for tastes of the past

I am so happy that I found a site called 'The Museum of Burnt Food: Celebrating the Art of Culinary Disasters'. 

I have started burning foods with great regularity. Today it was a wonderful yummy pot of rice pudding. I have made this a dozen times and each time it's been a resounding success. The rice pudding is creamy and rich and just the right texture.  Today I burnt the entire pot. Very unpleasant, but at least I am not alone in doing this.

I am a pretty good cook. I love cooking and yet, there are foods that I consistently burn. I've burned carrots almost since the day I was married. I cannot count the number of times I have had a saucepan soaking to get the burned carrot residue off.  I've learned to love the caramelised taste of burned food, but the rest of family is not convinced.  I have burned leeks, brussels sprouts, potatoes (yesterday) and many other things. 

A few years ago I completely lost my sense of smell.  I think this is called anosmia.  This condition lasted for over a year and in that time I burned everything - soups, stews, cakes, breads, roasts.  I also over-salted and over-spiced things since the sense of smell and taste is linked. It was not fun at all.  Now I don't have that as an excuse. It just seems that I sit down and get involved in other things and completely forget about anything cooking and needing attention.  I am so grateful that I don't have young babies to forget about. They wouldn't stand a chance!

Message to self - Pay attention and stop pretending to multi-task!

These cold winter days demand unburned hot soups, warm casseroles, home-baked goodies and since I have a bit of time on my hands, I have devoted myself to adding weight to my hips through cooking.

When I arrived in London it was a food ground zero. It was difficult to get a decent sandwich and a good salad was impossible.  Food in restaurants was over-priced and often very bad.  Ralph and I still remember with great laughter now, but gasps of horror then, a particularly bad meal we had in about 1970 at a restaurant called The Green Parrot.  I can hardly recall the actual food, but I do remember some frozen peas with a blue tinge that were like little rock hard bullets. Food was fuel, not really pleasure and meals out were rare.

London has really changed since those early days when I had to travel cross town to get a green pepper or an avocado and anything more than 'flat meat and two veg' was considered exotic. We actually now have some of the best restaurants in the world. Unfortunately, the thing that hasn't changed is the absolute dearth of good Eastern European-type New York style Jewish food.  Where is the Carnegie Deli tower of a pastrami sandwich on rye with half-sour dill pickles and cole slaw?  The unctuous rich cheesecake? The potato knishes and hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut?  The real bagels (not the heavy doughy things we now get everywhere) and the bialys and pletzels?

Sometimes my craving for these foods (and Tootsie Roll Pops) gets the better of me and I try to replicate some things in my own kitchen.  I can say that I am a dab hand at New York cheesecake. I bake challahs and have even made a halway decent job of baking bagels.  My raisin pumpernickel bread is best left a distant memory and I keep meaning to have a stab at my Uncle Willy's fabulous homemade half-sour pickle recipes.

Today was the turn of bialys and pletzels, or onion boards.  As the days get colder and snowier I want more and more of those old familiar carb treats so I decided to bake bialys.  I consulted about 15 different recipes. Bialys are sort of a cross between pizza bread dough, foccacia, and naan.  They have some minced onion and poppy seeds in an indent in the middle and the are just yummy. Pletzels or onion boards are larger and flatter with more minced onion and poppy seeds.  We love these so much that they are one of the things we bring back from the Lower East Side in New York. My mother used to say that the unique flavour could only be found in a bialy bakery in the Bronx where you could watch the baker in action, complete with big fat cigar in his mouth, some of the ashes of which would usually drop into the minced onion garnish, and that this was the special secret ingredient!

I baked bialys today and though they don't taste as good as the genuine NY ones, they are pretty good and this is only the first go.I even photographed them! I am determined to improve the look and the taste.  I may have to take up cigar smoking to add authenticity.

Meanwhile, we can slather them with butter and enjoy.