"Mazel"

What is 'mazel'?  Is it just luck or is it something more?

The word "mazel" is derived from the Hebrew verb "nozel" which means to flow. Mazel is the energy which flows to us and we often wish each other "mazel tov," which really means, "may you have a flow of positive energy."

Why is that some people seem to attract all good things to themselves and others are as if made of teflon with regard to mazel - it just rolls off and away from them?

Sometimes I feel very blessed and overflowing with mazel in my life.  I am healthy, I feel fine, I have work, my relationship is good, my home is watertight, my kids are great - what more could I ask? At other times I feel like the person who wrote a letter to an on-line rabbi asking why nothing seems to go right in their life, even though on the surface everything is fine.  I liked the answer given to this poor self-pitying guy.  The rabbinic answer was that we all have have areas of our lives in which we have mazel and other areas that don't go so well.  There is no such thing as a life of unrelenting positivity.  Actually I am almost horrified at the tedium of a life without variety in that way.

The reason this came up today is that I have been checking the long range weather forecasts for the two places I will be visiting for the next week.  One is Florida - as we all know, orange groves, beaches and winter sunshine and the other place is NY/Connecticut.  NY I expect to be cold, but somehow in March I don't expect freezing temperatures and possible snow. In Florida at the moment it is reasonably temperate, but not even beach weather.  My flight to Florida may well not get out of NY tomorrow because of expected snow storms - see what I mean, no mazel! 

I'm sure it will all be fine. At the worst I will be jet-lagged, exhausted and trapped in JFK for hours.  At best, I will be in balmy Florida tomorrow evening.  Whatever... I cannot control this.

I will try and carry on writing over the next days. Computer access may be limited so I might give myself a few days break.  I'll see.  I want to carry on writing since I promised myself I would do this daily.  That might mean that I write every day and post things in chunks. 

Till next time...

Pre-travel jitters

Did you ever wish you could fly?  That you had a magic carpet that could mysteriously move you across oceans on a wave of pure joy? I have often wished that I could be magically moved from place to place in the blink of an eye, completely painlessly and exactly when and where I wanted it to happen.

On Friday I fly to America (again) and I can feel the pre-travel anxiety starting to build in me. Until this morning I was able to tell myself that the packing was a breeze, the on-line check-in, the collecting of documents, the accumulation of plugs, wires, adaptors, chargers and assorted technology was easy. Then I came totally and completely unglued.

I needed to find the unlocked mobile phone that works in the US.  Then I needed to find the American pre-paid phone card to put into the phone.  So far, so good.  And then the gods of travel panic struck with a vengeance.  Where was the phone charger?  Well, where? Good question, I thought. I searched in one bedroom, in another bedroom, on bookshelves, in kitchen drawers, in old travel bags, under beds, in the living room, under furniture, in the bathroom..I found six different phone chargers, the shaver charger, the camera charger, the computer charger, the red sock I lost about a year ago and the slipper I haven't been able to find for ages, but no phone charger and then, I just crumbled.  I burst into tears.

"I can't do this. I am totally disorganised.  I have to work tomorrow.  I have to leave the house at 5.30 in the morning on Friday to catch my plane.  I'm not packed.  I don't even have an idea of what to take".  When I looked at my clothes I realised they are all black.  Not exactly perfect for Florida. Maybe I can be the only elderly overweight goth in West Palm Beach?  I can't show up to  visit my dad in his nursing home in all black, they'll think I'm with the local undertakers.

The phone rang.  It was Ralph.  He caught me mid-sob and all I could do was cry and say "come  home, please".  And then I sat down and gave up.  That's it. The gods of travel panic win.  I surrender.  I wave the white flag, or more likely black, unironed flag.  And then I turned around, looked in a small carrier bag and just like that, there was the phone charger.

And just like that, my mood changed. I calmed down, felt really quite embarrassed and started to breathe again. I poured myself a huge glass of diet coke (my drug of choice) and started to think more clearly.  I realised that whatever clothes I take will be fine and I have all the things I need ready to throw into a suitcase.  Ralph will drop me at the station on Friday morning and I can relax and let the process take me with it. 

I not only wish I had a magic carpet.  I also wish I has a gang of little elves to run around and do all the last minute things for me.  Someday I will travel in complete calm.  I will sail through all preparation and feel relaxed, happy and centred. Someday I may also become enlightened.  If I was a betting person, I'd put my money on enlightenment.  Travel is much harder.

Lovely day.

 

What a delightful time I'm having just being in the world.  Today was a work day. I get up at 5.30 am, shower, spend a bit of time repairing the sleep damage to my face (I love putting my make-up on - it's almost as if I'm painting someone else's face and I so enjoy the intricacy of the process, even if the result is sometimes wanting), check e-mail, down a quick coffee and I'm off.  I drive to the nearby underground station, buy my Times, get on the train and usually get a seat (it's not quite 7 am) and read the paper for the 40 minutes of so it takes me to get to where I work.  I then drop my things, make sure the training room is set up right and go to the staff restaurant and have my breakfast.  After 30 minutes of reading the rest of the newspapers  I go back to my room and then begin to run my training day.  I enjoy the diversity courses I run and have finally, after 25 years of doing this,  found a way to be completely at ease, relaxed and totally myself.  At the same time I impart the information to the course participants with humour and a lightness that we all enjoy.  I leave by 4.45 pm and am home by about 5.45 pm.  Altogether, a nice day.

The train journey home is always so interesting.  Londoners are a strange lot.  Not the most attractive nation of people and totally disparate.  Very few cool Londoners smile and even fewer meet your eyes in any way. I usually stand part of the way home and take that as some sort of compliment since maybe it means I don't yet look old enough to be offered a seat. There are often one or two couples sitting draped over each other staring into each other's lovesick eyes oblivious to the rest of us.  There is sometimes a too well-dressed gentleman who looks like he got lost on his way to his tailors. He will be wearing well-worn, good quality brogue shoes, a pin-stripe suit and a cashmere-blend overcoat. He carries an old, but fine-quality leather case and I often fantasize about what might be in the case - lunch, a legal brief, photos of his mistress? Occasionally I see a woman dressed head-to-toe in one colour, sometimes purple, sometimes red and less often, all green.  The bag, the shoes, the coat, the gloves all matching.  So strangely entertaining.

When I come into my house, I throw down my things, take off my shoes and flop, literally,  for a while.  I need in-between time before I feel ready to approach the idea of cooking dinner. It's nice if I've made dinner the day before and don't have to throw something quick together.  Usually after a day's work I want to go on the 'Eat Fat, Get Fat' diet. This is never mentioned in any of the thousands of diet books, but trust me, it's really satisfying.  Basically it means eating exactly what you want, when you want it.  Revolutionary, and when it's done free of guilt, it's wonderful.

As I begin to relax I check my mail and think about what to write in my daily blog.  This has  become a wonderful outlet for my creativity and for my ranting.  I love doing this and don't much mind what I write about.  Every day is different.  Some days I feel really sentimental and write about my family, childhood and precious memories.  Other days I need to express frustrations, anger and generally vent my feelings. 

And then there are days like today; days when I feel so good to just be in the world that I find it hard to express in words.  It's an expansive feeling, a contentment that seems to stretch out and cover my whole universe. The feeling and sense that I carry within me now is an undefinable goodness.  Not at all sure why, don't know what brings it on, don't know how long it will last, but knowing that it's there right now is great!

As my guru used to say, "Enough for today".

Conversations

I found this quote from Alexander Lowen,

"As one grows older, the sense of separateness is slowly reduced.  Old people do not live on an ego level.  Their concerns are not about their individuality but about the river of life, the family, the community, the nation, people, animals, nature, life. They can die easily if they are assured that life will continue positively, for they feel part of the river again, and soon they will be part of the ocean.  When they are very old, they no longer belong to our time and space, but to all time and space."

Sitting in Starbucks and eavesdropping on the conversation of a group of young women, I found myself quietly laughing.  The women were pretty, sounded reasonably intelligent and were well-dressed.  They were probably about 17-19 years old.  What amused me so much was the number of times in a short conversation they used the word 'like'.

"I think we could start like a blog and we could like call it film guru.  We'd like go to see a bunch of movies and like each write what we thought of them.  It would be like good if we didn't like see the others' opinions cause like we don't want to be like influenced by each other."

Is it a sign of age that I  found this conversation so funny?  I think it is.  I remember using the word like in exactly the same way at the same age.  I guess it was a way of punctuating sentences, of giving us time to think, used in a similar way to um, ah... I grew out of using like and I expect that these young women will do too.

After this I was on the train today going to pick up my snazzy new glasses and I was sitting behind two white-haired ladies, obviously from out of town, discussing their trip to the big city.  "The toilet at Victoria cost 50 pence! 50 pence! In Devon you can use the toilet for free.  It's not the same country it once was.  I hardly recognise it anymore."

 

Sometimes I overhear these little conversations and realise how little silence there is in the world.  We chatter and chatter all the time as if we are desperate to fill the spaces between words.  It's as if in those spaces we might get a little glimpse of our true selves and most people run from that possibility.  Living in London there is little opportunity for genuine silence. Maybe this is one of the reasons I choose to live in the city. 

Yesterday I saw a flyer for a silent retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, a wonderful Buddhist teacher. For the first time ever, I am tempted to spend the best part of six days in silence and mindful meditation.  Just like I've grown out of the need to add like to every sentence I speak, I think I've also begun to outgrow my need for noise. 

In silence I can begin to meet myself.  I've said this before and see that it's true, that I am no longer so frightened of the self I'll meet in the silence and I don't have so many fears about what I'll find in the spaces of silence. I have to spend a few days thinking about this. it's a new idea.  I think I'll let it grow for awhile.

1. As an 'um' or 'er' word. For example, 'It was, like, really cool', or 'How can I fail English? I'm, like, fluent'.
2. To express a thought or feeling while relating a situation to others. This is expressed in either the present or past tense, even though the event has already occurred. For example, 'And I was like: "Get away from me you freak!"'.
3. To express something said while relating a situation to others. See note above for tense information. For example, 'And I was like: "Get away from me you freak!"' (Yes, it's the same quote as above.)
4. To express something which the speaker feels that the listener ought to know telepathically. This is often, but not always, used in conjunction with the either the question 'you know?', or the question 'y'know?'. For example, 'It was, like, y'know?'.
5. To partially confer the qualities of a, possibly strong, adjective onto the subject. In this usage it mirrors one of the actual dictionary uses, but is very easily confused with its usage in definition one. For example, 'He was, like, insane.
6. To express anything else.

Too much time at airports..

                                              A rainy Heathrow Airport this morning.

I sat down today and worked out that I have been to airports in London, New York, Newark, Florida, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Capetown, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Baltimore, Connecticut, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Rome, Verona, Pisa, Israel, Athens, Jordan, Aruba, Curacao, Paris, Barcelona, Dallas and possibly more. 

In each of these airports I have spent a number of hours.  I have visited many of the airports multiple times.  I cannot begin to calculate how many hours, days or weeks of my life have been spent arriving, departing, waiting, delivering people, meeting people, hugging and crying.

I really dislike airports.  They all seem designed to engender a bland form of anxiety in everyone.  Whenever I go to the airport, as I did today, I feel anxious and unnerved by the lighting, the design, the ambient temperature, the multiple announcements and signage.  All of it irritates me.  This may be because I associate airports more with goodbyes than anything else. Today my daughter went back to California.  I'll see her and my son for two nights in early June in Cincinnatti for a family wedding, then we'll head for another airport, hug, kiss, shed a surreptitious tear and off we fly again.  It seems to have always been this way.

My first flight was in 1968.  I went travelling alone through Europe and Israel.  I was 19 years old.  My entire family , whole carloads, came to what was then Idlewild Airport to say goodbye.  I felt like Ingrid Bergman in 'Casablanca' - as if I was flying off somewhere never to return.  I had two enormous suitcases and this was pre-wheeled cases!  The drama surrounding my departure was heightened by my parents fears about my heading for Europe, the place of all their terror and sadness.  They really did make me feel as if I was saying goodbye forever, instead of for eight weeks.

I flew first to Israel, then Athens, then Rome.  I was flying back to New York from Amsterdam and by then I had met Ralph, fallen madly in love and was saying goodbye to him at Schipol Airport.  it really was a Romeo and Juliet love scene.  Tears, kisses, hugs, looking back over shoulders, more embraces and finally goodbye.  We didn't see each other for four months.

Four months later I was again at an airport in New York on a charter flight to London.  I was flying from a distant terminal reserved for cattle class passengers on Saturn Airways (?) on Christmas eve.  We were delayed for an impossible number of hours. The airport staff were drunk, rowdy and busy partying - not a lot of customer service.

In those early charter flight days the delays were hours and hours and I can remember sleeping on airport floors and frantically looking for places to sit. When my daughter was tiny we would fly to New York on the cheapest tickets possible and there was no such thing as compensation for delays.  I remember well discovering the Chapel at Gatwick Airport in London.  All heavy curtains, blue carpeting and padded pews.  Many was the comfortable hour we spent sleeping on those pews waiting for a delayed take-off.  At least the delays have changed, though the multi-faith rooms set aside for prayer now seem to be bare rooms with little comfort and no nice cosy pews for stretching out on.

In those days I always seemed to be saying goodbye and heading away from family and friends.  Airports became second-nature when I was flying back to New York every six weeks or so when my mum was ill.  There was no excitement around these trips, no sense of visiting great places and enjoying new tourist sites. At least the many trips during that sad time helped me get over any flying anxiety I might have had.  Now it seems mundane and boring.

I hate saying goodbye to friends, to family, to people and places I love.  My mum used to say she loved it when I arrived, but it made it harder to say goodbye all over again.  Just when she had become accustomed to my being away I would arrive and then have go allover again.  I don't feel quite like that.  I am always delighted to see my children and to see friends.  I just hate the goodbyes.

So, all these flights, all this time at airports.  Maybe it's time I start to enjoy them.  I thought today that I could begin to bring some mindfulness to my airport visits.  Instead of getting caught up in the fluorescent misery I could focus on the people, their stories, their emotions, the incredible wonder of the ability to fly off to exotic places so easily, the great donut shops, the miracle of variations on fast food in each country and the pleasure of seeing my loved ones.  It would certainly make a change from the irritable old sourpuss I become when I am in the vicinity of an airport.  Since I am flying out on Friday I might try a different approach.  I will endeavour to look forward to the airport experience.  Who knows, I might even enjoy it.

Rules to live by..

After being alive for this considerable period of time and having witnessed so many changes in our world, I have distilled some life lessons into rules to live by.  There are many more, but these are some that come to mind today:

1. Never wear horizontal stripes if you are older than 12 or weigh more than 100 lbs.
2. Do not even attempt to wear all white unless you are a member of a strange cult, a hippy-dippy flower child, or are deeply tanned and relaxing on a Greek island.  It gets covered in finger-prints, food stains and acts as a dirt-magnet, as well as looking stupidly pretentious.
3. Talk to strangers.  Contrary to popular belief that you should not talk to strangers, this is an admirable past time and often ensures that you have nice, quiet train, plane journeys since you come across looking like a nutter.
4. Always wear black to design exhibitions, art galleries, or Samuel Beckett plays.  That way you can blend right in.  A pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses completes the look nicely.  if you must have colour go for a super-expensive long silk scarf hanging loosely draped (never tied) around the neck.  Black on these occasions can be livened up by touches of gray.
5. Never wear black to funerals - much too somber, reserve the black for rule 4.
6. In restaurants try to make sure you don't order exactly what is offered on the menu.   If you want everyone to know what a special person and discerning diner you are, make sure you alter the set items.  No butter on that please.  Can you make that plainly grilled, not sauteed with mushrooms, wine and cream?  Can I have the dressing on the side and can you make sure the feta cheese and onion salad is served with no feta (allergic, you know) and no onions?  This always ingratiates you with the chef and the waiters and lets others know that you really are special.
7. One can never have too many shoes.  We were born with two feet, this means that we can have at least twice as many pairs of shoes as we have hats, jackets, dresses, etc. It is a good idea to dispose of one pair of shoes when you buy a new pair, but this is not a rule, just a fantasy.  Boots don't count as shoes, so you can also load up on those too.
8. Always bring a newspaper or something to read on a long journey. In case you meet someone who follows rule 3 you want to have some means to ignore them. This also means you can happily ignore any more unfortunate passengers who might be angling for a seat.
9. Never try to haggle in a charity shop.  You always look like a cheap, uncaring human being. Second-hand clothes sold at a pittance to support underdeveloped countries or cancer research is not a means for you to cheat the system.  There are more honourable ways to do that. See rules about paying taxes.
10. When planning for a dinner party that includes vegetarians, try not to make them feel  like the local pariahs.  It is not good enough to cook a large roast lamb and offer the vegetarians the roast potatoes and carrots.  Even though it is their own fault that they have chosen this path of fussy eating,  they are still people and as such we need to be kind to them.  Make at least some boiled eggs to go with the veg.  If they are vegan, meet for tea.
11. Never ask your partner to tell you the truth about a new outfit.  Brief them first about how much 'truth' you can handle. Better yet, don't ask.
12. When inviting people to parties/dinner/social events only invite those you truly want. To invite someone you're not keen on with the knowledge that they can't attend so you can look generous is not right. This strategy has also been known to backfire and leave you with a strange mix of party guests.
13. If you haven't worn something or used something for a year the received wisdom is that you don't actually need the item.  Before throwing things away, think, perhaps something's gone unused because you couldn't find it. Now that you've found it, you have another year in which to decide. Then perhaps get rid of it.  All strange hats and wigs must be tried on and shown to your friends and family before they hit the dustbin.
14. Watch cooking vegetables carefully.  While busy multi-tasking they do have a nasty tendency to burn. Soaking saucepans is always a pain.
15. There is never a need to justify enjoying watching television.
16. Losing weight is a never-ending hobby. Just when you think you've reached that goal, a bar of chocolate, a slice of cheesecake or a bacon sandwich sabotages all that effort. Set much more realistic goals and start to enjoy the paintings of Titian and Rubens.
17. Tell the people you love that you love them.  What are you waiting for?
18. No one needs more than half a dozen pairs of black trousers.  Finding the right ones (the ones that actually fit, are ironed, are long enough, short enough) on a dark winter morning is virtually impossible. Turning on all the lights, swearing loudly and throwing things out of your wardrobe in a panic, are not things that a sleeping partner appreciates. Sort clothes out the night before.
19. Short socks under long boots don't work. I've heard of things riding up, but this is a recipe for riding down - damned nuisance.  Short socks under trousers are a no-no as well.  Any sign of bare leg/ankle under trousers when legs are crossed is gross.
20. Life is a minefield.  Remember that getting older means that we no longer have to care  what others think.  We've been there, done that and come out laughing. Do what makes you happy!

Letter to myself

Dear Cynthia,
I guess writing to to you is a bit strange, but I think that from a small distance I can see some of things that you could do that would make your life a little easier.  I can see that you often struggle and I can also see that most of the time it's not needed at all.

You are a 60 year old successful, attractive woman and still you insist on carrying around the insecure little girl and hesitant teenager you once thought you were, with you.  No wonder your weight is always such an issue for you.  You walk around with all these people inside you when really you only need be the present one.  She's turned out pretty well and the remaining piece of that puzzle for you is to let yourself truly believe it.

Stop spending your time acting as if you are getting away with something, that at any moment the Imposter Police will burst in and bust you.  You have achieved so much and overcome so many obstacles and you did that, no one else.  You had the strength and the love to build this life.

When you were a teenager I know you were very unhappy and felt unloved and uncared for.  This really wasn't true.  You were loved, you just didn't know how to let it touch you.  When you met Ralph you very quickly told him all the crazy, bad things about yourself.  Your reasoning was that if he was going to walk away it was better for it to happen early on rather than when you allowed yourself to care.  Lucky for you he found all your madness so exotic and interesting. Actually, he was right.

Moving to London with Ralph when you were just 21 and soon to have a baby was incredibly brave and it was tough. Moving to a new country, having no support network and living in a tiny cold flat was hard.  It took you a little time to sort out your new English life, but you made friends and found a whole new community of people.  Those people became your close friends and it says a lot about you that 40 years later they are still your friends.  You always had a way of bringing people together and creating big families and it's a wonderful that you still do that.

When Ben died you didn't fall apart. You certainly could have and no one would have been at all surprised and no one would have blamed you for being knocked sideways.  You froze for a long while, but you also took steps to de-freeze yourself, your feelings and the rest of the family and when Sam was born you were a great mum to this little boy, even though you were so frightened.  It took courage to get through that time and move on in the positive way you did.

You have certainly had your share of ill health and when you had cancer you faced it in the most direct way.  You didn't look for blame, you didn't put a positive spin on it.  You just got on with what needed to be done and again, you moved on.  Your attitude with your back surgery was the same. You were so frightened and went through so much pain but came through that so well.  It was  important to you that you had so much love and support from your friends and family and though it was hard for you to be dependent on others for such a long time, it again helped you to believe how much love and care there was for you.

You built a career by going back to graduate school when Sam was tiny and working all at the same time.  You are so hard on yourself about your work and the insecurity you carry about being an independent consultant. You worry so much about not having enough work, is it good enough, what does the future hold?  Yet, you have always managed to find work and you need to believe that your work makes a difference.  There are people and teams all over the country that work better and value each other more because of what you taught them.

I could go on and on describing how you've come through tough times and triumphed, but that's not the point of outlining all these events. You need to finally see that it doesn't matter what you do. You are loved, you are beautiful and you are worthwhile.   Your creativity seems boundless and your friendships are heart-breakingly wonderful.

It is a privilege to be you.  Believe that, please.  Life is not a struggle.  It is a joy and filled with love. Short of shaking you until you rattle, I can't think of what more to say to convince you.

Remember, I will always love you.
xxx

Creativity in the Big City

 

In a previous posting I talked about how much I love living in London.  Today was one of the days that makes me remember how much I enjoy being here and also how easy it is to do fun things in this city.

The day started by travelling into town with Ralph and Sonia.  They were on their way to the Dieter Rams exhibition at the Design Museum and I was leaving them to head for the dentist.  I had an hour to spare so I walked through a number of department stores and caught the tail end of the sales.  It is still a disappointment to me that I don't need anything so spending money is not needed.  I still love the poodling around and window shopping and a little make-up purchase satisfied the shopping gods.

After the dentist I stopped at a little cafe and had some lunch while people-watching and then made my way to the Barbican Centre.  Tonight was the opening night of an exhibition of the work of designer/architect, Ron Arad.  Before going to the exhibition we went to a lecture with Arad,  Christopher Jenks, Bernard Schumi and Peter Cook (Archigram) discussing the 1970's and architecture, design and creativity in London.  It was a real buzz to see these old guys (some even older than me) that I had learned about in the early 1970's through Ralph and his architecture studies, right there a few feet away from us, discussing the zeitgeist of my early years in London.

The 1970's in London were really exciting years.  They were the years in which I really discovered the 'growth movement' and the influence of the California centre, Esalen, on group therapy and communication.  They were the years in which I discovered my guru and met an entire new circle of people.  London was strange and a bit Dickensian in 1970 when I arrived.  There were no supermarkets, just these funny little corner shops and they opened weird hours and closed on Thursday afternoons for what was quaintly called 'half-day closing'. The food was absolutely disgusting.  Eating out was out of the question and I think that because the English had no real cuisine, unlike the French and the Italians, the ground was fertile for new chefs and restaurants to begin to flourish.  Fashion was either wonderful with great shops like Biba and places like Carnaby Street, or nylon and crimplene old lady type clothes.  There seemed little middle ground. It was a city of extremes.

During the early 1970's we had a miners' strike and power cuts that led to three day weeks and power cuts on a rotating basis for all of the UK.  I remember going to buy groceries in a shop lit by candles.  We had no central heating in our little house and would sit round a paraffin heater probably poisoning ourselves with paraffin fumes. What was worse was our tiny terraced house had no indoor plumbing.  We had an outside toilet only and no bathroom or bathtub. This wasn't that uncommon in 1970's London.  We used to go to dinner at friends' houses and arrive with shampoo, soap and towels and shower before dinner.

It strikes me that now we have heating and indoor plumbing and 24 hour supermarkets and we are not much happier.  Being young helped.  I'm sure it's easier to put up with physical inconvenience when you're younger, but also the 1970's were a time of genuine possibility.  London was so ripe for change that anything and everything seemed possible and we felt we could do anything we wanted and to some extent, we did.

There was real  creativity in the air.  Architecture and design were only part of the integration of all these areas of innovation.  We suddenly started questioning how we related to each other, our  environment and our world.  It was the beginning of genuine transatlantic travel.  In those early years in London I would only get back to the States every two years or so and then a man called Freddie Laker came along and practically invented the idea of no frills cheap air travel.  Suddenly the world got smaller and the global village was born.

I was reminded of all of this listening to these old architects tonight.  I laughed at the fact that they all wore black, the uniform for designers world-wide.  Pretty much the whole audience wore black - it looked like a cliche design funeral. After the lecture we went downstairs and wandered around the Ron Arad exhibition.  There was music,  a vodka bar, loads of cool, hip Londoners and us.

What a nice day and what a great city.  I love living here.

If life is a rollercoaster - when can I get off?

The ups and downs of my life are beginning to get me down - that sounds utterly ridiculous and is sadly true.  These days my life is like a travelling carnival - filled with all these different rides that work fine but ultimately don't move.

 

One day I feel like I'm on a merry-go-round, just going round and round in the same way, at the same pace, and not really getting anywhere. The next day and sometimes it's the next moment, I'm on a rollercoaster - going up and down and feeeling like my heart is in my mouth and my stomach is in knots and I just can't wait to get off.  And then there are the times when I'm right in the middle of the dodgem cars, being knocked and hit from all sides and desperately trying to take evasive action to avoid collisions.


Where is the candy floss?  Where are the jelly apples, the little goldfish you win and take home in a plastic bag and the giant teddy bear? All I seem to do is take avoiding action in order to not get bashed from all sides, or bored or dizzy.  These days I am part of this great circus and my life is very strange indeed. Send in the clowns.

One moment I am driving along in my little wreck of a car and singing at the top of my voice while feeling utterly at peace.  There is at the same time an awareness in me of expansion, the rightness of everything and the sense of quietly being content with all of it.  In that moment. It is only momentary.

And then in the next moment, I am miserable and unhappy and just as completely discontent with my life and just want to jump off the merry-go-round/rollercoaster mid-ride, knowing that this is dangerous and definitely ill-advised. Again, please send in those clowns.

Watching me from the outside and I think, Cynthia, go easy on yourself.  Be kinder to yourself and allow yourself to get it wrong without having to pay all the time.  I walk on eggshells and it becomes difficult to take any steps at all on these fragile shells. I am tired a lot. I am ready to walk with a firmer step and to hell with the eggshells.  As my dad might say "Mmeh, what can you do"?

Compassion comes up again and again. As a concept, and as a reality.  Compassion for those around me and for myself.  I believe that my capacity for happiness is directly related to my capacity for compassion and kindness.  When that starts to slip, so do I and so does everything I care about.

Some days are tougher than others. Today is a bit of everything - up, down, middle, sort of my whole life condensed into 24 chaotic hours. I am not sure how to modify things and I also know that these days of discontent also contain within them the possibility of light and joy and laughter and thankfully, love.

Charles Shultz, the creator of the Peanuts cartoons said it in a way that I understand and would hope to emulate:
"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?"

There is always the possibility of doing it right..

Hooray, Today is Pancake Day!

 

How quickly things change if we let them.  Yesterday I was desolate and didn't see any way out of my low feelings.  Today I feel lighter and more equipped to deal with wehatever life throws at me.  How does that happen?  Perhaps the answer is that I'm just insane, but I doubt it. I believe it's more to do with non-attachment.  Doesn't that sound great?  Non-attachment  - very Buddhist and enlightened.

Seriously though, I see how easy it is to get caught up in labelling and categorising our feelings, putting them in nice little boxes and tying them up in curly ribbons, to be cherished and treated as if they are precious. What a load of crap!  Feelings are little more than emotional itches that we can either scratch or ignore.  If we choose to scratch those itches the relief is immediate and pleasurable, but the itching cycle gets worse.  We can also choose to caress the emotional itch, perhaps stroke it gently and let it subside, or we can grit our teeth to the feeling and let it disappear.  Whatever way we decide to deal with our emotions, as  I have said before, they do change.

Today I had an unexpected day of training work.  I was phoned late yesterday and asked if I could cover the day and even though I didn't feel like working, I said yes.  This meant that initially I was very reluctant to wake at 5.30 am and leave the house in biblical style rain, but once I got moving and arrived at work I had decided to approach the training course as if it was part of my holiday.  I was relaxed, informal and friendly.  My work went smoothly and easily and I enjoyed the day.  The feedback from the participants was excellent. 

Now I'm home from work and it's Shrove Tuesday.  This is known in England as Pancake Day. Apparently the origin of this day is related to Lent and the confession and penitence that means you are 'shriven' or absolved of sins.  As I have yet to believe I have sinned in any way and don't celebrate (if that's the right word) Lent I will just partake of the pancakes. The pancakes traditionally eaten in England today are made with flour, sugar and eggs - three things that might be given up for Lent.  I will make stacks of calorific pancakes, in all different ways, cover them with maple syrup, or lemon juice or sugar or even chocolate spread and sin like mad!

I feel really good today - maybe this is bipolar disorder but I doubt it. After my blog yesterday I cleared  up some stuff at home and feel happier and more grounded. Once I eat a pile of pancakes I will definitely be more grounded.  Some of these English traditions are terrific!

It is and isn't all personal.

This morning a good friend of mine realised that the reason he was so shocked and distressed by some unpleasant recent events was because he was taking the event as a personal affront - as if it had happened to him.  When he saw this and was able to change the focus, I think it seemed quite different for him. Events become only what they are rather than what we invest them with when we de-personalise them.

When I started writing this blog about 70 days ago I made an agreement with myself to never use this blog in any way that would expose or embarrass my family or my friends.  This means that I will not use them as sources of gossip, amusing tales or to make my blog more exciting.  This has never been the point of writing daily.  It has always been a way for me to explore my own life and my personal brand of madness.  This has meant that I have had to be much more critical of myself.  It's so much easier to blame others for feelings, thoughts, events and behaviour.

What changes if I take responsibility for all my feelings? It doesn't mean that the actions of others don't affect me. It does mean that I could start to think of my reactions as my choice. If I am angry, it's because I choose to be angry. If I'm upset, it's because I choose to be upset and conversely if I'm excited or happy about something, it's also my choice.

Frankly I'm not too thrilled about this way of approaching my life.  If I stop blaming others for my failings or for things going wrong I may have to take responsibilirty for my part in everything that touches me.  This means that I have to turn the pointing finger back towards me and examine my actions. I never liked doing this.

When I was young and something would go wrong in my house, I remember my mother always asking who's fault it was.  I guess this stuck with me. I look to the other to apportion blame so as not to have to see my own actions. I advise managers and teams all the time on how to communicate effectively while maintaining respect for the other and yet, it doesn't apply to me in the same way. 

I have been a tad difficult to live with lately.  The winter is coming to a close and I feel like up until recently I was doing pretty well, but now I see that it has often been at the expense of those around me.  Instead of taking things on and dealing with them myself, I have blamed others for not fixing everything.  I have been erratic and unpredictable and my moods are mercurial right now. It certainly started with the arrival of the builders in my house and hasn't let up yet.  It seems like I've transferred suicidal thoughts to homicidal thoughts.  Not a great exchange. And my hair continues to fall out.

I don't enjoy holding a mirror up to my actions because the returning reflection is sometimes not attractive.  I know that I am not the only participant in discussions, arguments, disagreements or any other communication, but I am the only one who can decide what I am going to say or do in response to things.  I love my family beyond belief.  The fact that they can still return that to me when I am feeling so closed shows a steadfast love.  Time again to let that love in and begin to return it. Lots of sadness today but I guess that's also my choice.

The randomness of everything

There is a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow called  'Sliding Doors'.  It's about the fact that if just one small thing was different in your life, your entire life might take a different turn.  Last night's bomb in The German Bakery in Pune has caused me to think about this aspect of being alive.

There is a randomness to most of our lives. Most of us don't live our lives on purpose, but rather find ourselves where we are by accident.  How many of us in our younger days, envisioned our lives sitting in an office job we're not committed to or a partner or even family that we're not all that committed to?  I occasionally think of what my life might have been like if I hadn't met and married Ralph. 

Things happen because we are in the right place at a certain time - when I met Ralph I was 19 years old and on the last few days of travelling through Europe on my own.  I was in a youth hostel, pretty broke, and had to stretch my remaining money for three days more. Ralph was a 20 year old British student also on his last two days of travelling through Europe.  We met, we fell in love and we're still here.  What if I had stayed somewhere else, what if I had not turned in his direction and spoken to him?  Would we have met some other way?  Was it fate?  Accident? 

I sometimes think about how my life might have looked if we hadn't met that August night in  Amsterdam? I am fairly certain I would still be living in America.  I would not have had the breadth of experiences I have had - no going to India, having a guru, meeting this whole remarkable eclectic community of friends from all over the world and I don't know that I would be doing the work that I'm so involved with now.  My life would be poorer, not financially, but in terms of heart connections and openness to new experiences. Maybe things would not have been so predictable, but I base my predictions on the lives of the people I grew up with and can see now.  It might well have been fine, but what I have now is infinitely more exciting and interesting.

The people in the German Bakery last night in Pune were probably doing what Ralph and I did last time we were in India - having a coffee, some fruit salad, an omelette and chips.  They may have tried to avoid the woman begging who always seemed to be there when we were there, and just getting on with the business of relaxing in an informal hang out on a Saturday night in Pune.  My heart really goes out to the dead and injured whose lives were interrupted by chance.  It doesn't really matter who did this terrible thing.  What matters is that the world of war and conflict encompasses such things to the extent that it was only mentioned on page 27 of today's Times.  The killing of innocent people is not even a front page headline.  How tragically sad.

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the right place at the right time, is all so arbitrary.  I am so lucky that the planets moved in the direction they did for me when they did and generally the accidental happenings of my life have been positive. I have a super partner, wonderful friends, great kids, a lovely house and a life that I feel fortunate to be living.  I am so very aware of that this evening.

If love is the answer, why do we keep forgetting?

 

On the eve of Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year it would seem to be a fairly straightforward call that this is a weekend for goodwill, celebration and sharing love. It seems that not everyone believes this.

I came home this evening in a pig of a mood.  I went into the centre of London today, chose some snazzy new spectacles, went shopping a bit, ate some good Japanese food and then walked around the West End of London until it started to rain.  At the same time all the shops shut and what felt like a million people poured into the streets.  All of them, including myself and my husband and daughter, were hell-bent on getting on the trains and going home.  I am bad in crowds. I get edgy and irritable and generally want to be air-lifted out of the crowd immediately. A man stomped on my foot. I was heavily bumped into more times than I care to remember and I was not filled with the spirit of Valentine's Day.  Not unless we were about to re-enact the St. Valentine's Day massacre!

I then came home and heard the news about a bomb going off in the German Bakery in Pune.  This is down the road from the Osho Ashram/Resort and is the place everyone has been going to for coffee, chips and good cookies, for years.  So far the reports say that nine people have been killed and 45 people injured.  This feels horrible and much too close to home. My thoughts are with all those people and their families.

I need to move my thoughts and heart away from this.  I need to remember the loving spirit I can bring to my world now.  It is the eve of Valentine's Day and though I know this is a manufactured holiday that artificially asks people to express their love by buying over-priced roses and big gaudy boxes of chocolates, I still like the fact that it forces us to stop and think about the people we love.  Forty years ago Ralph bought me a gift for the first Valentine's Day we shared as a married couple.  he bought me... a red soup ladle!  I cried.  A soup ladle - where's the romance in that?  I was so upset.  He thought it was a really great objet d'art.  I thought it was a soup ladle.  Forty years later, I still have the ladle and we still laugh together over that.  I don't much remember many of the other Valentine's Day gifts, but I do remember the ladle.

I cannot believe after forty years, how much I still love this crazy man I am married to.  Madness! I bicker and argue and disagree with him all the time, but the foundation and core of all of it, is love.  Love that I don't really understand and cannot define or explain that exists despite the madness in the world.

Happy Valentine's Day,  Ralph - here's to the next 40!

When did my baby brother grow up?

Last night I started to think about my family. Mostly I was thinking about my brother.  He's three years younger than me and I've always thought of him as my baby brother. Well, my baby brother is a granddad now and somewhere along the way he's become a full-grown equal to me, no longer the little brother.

My brother is a 'mensch'.  In looking up the meaning of the word 'mensch' on Wikipedia (noch!) it says that a mensch is a good person, a stand-up guy.  For sure that's my brother and also more.  A mensch is a person who makes you feel good in his presence, a person of integrity and goodness.

Funny that I feel this so much now. After my thoughts yesterday about staying alive and the journey our lives take, I realised how important my brother is in my life.  Sure, we judge each other and have different opinions on things. We certainly approach life very differently. I was always the neurotic child and he was the even-tempered one. I was the erratic mishuguna and he was the balanced one, but you know, we always loved each other, even when we couldn't understand what made the other tick.

 

My brother is open and loving and seems to radiant a sense of friendliness that I have seen people respond to almost instantly.  My father has that quality too.  I'm really pleased to see that quality in my brother, especially as we both lose our dad to his dementia.  Even now, he and my dad have this beautiful relationship and my brother can manage to be with my father in a way that I find so hard.  Maybe it's because my father was always the protector for me - the rock for my mishigas - that I find it so hard to see him slowly disappear.  My brother is just easy with him and actually most everyone he meets.

When our mother died I remember her brother (our uncle) saying that with her dying he no longer had anyone to remember his parents with.  My brother and I are lucky enough to have our spouses and children to remember our parents with, but no one else but us can remember the good and bad bits of our childhood.  Our life in the Bronx, growing up with these crazy parents, was a comedy of errors.  The days of bungalow colonies and PTA meetings and visits to the barber and trips to the mountains; no one else but my brother remembers those times.  I am really grateful that he has a great memory too.

It is wonderful that my brother speaks Yiddish. So many of our memories and stories are dependent on that.  He is fluent in Yiddish and I still remember the wonderful speech he gave in Yiddish at his bar mitzvah. My parents were bursting with pride and love and I can so clearly feel that as I remember it.  I also remember the venue for his bar mitzvah celebration going bankrupt two weeks before the big catered party and the ensuing headless chicken panic in my house.  Like I said, a comedy of errors. 

So now my baby brother is a grandpa and is bursting, absolutely bursting with love and naches from the this little adorable bundle of joy.  His son is getting married in the Spring and I am delighted for all of us. His joy is shared throughout our family and is so genuine and generous that we all feel it and share it.  That's also part of being a mensch!

Suicide is painless...

 

Sad tonight to read about the apparent suicide of fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. How heartbreaking to believe that there is no way forward, that there is nothing that will end the pain of life but leaving it.

I can empathise with the despair that must be alive in the suicidal person.  Sometimes the most alive part of life can be despair and it takes a lot of awareness of love to keep going. The idea of an end to endless suffering is an attractive one and the belief in the Western world that we are not going to be reincarnated makes this belief even more attractive. No chance of coming back and re-living all the pain.

I don't believe suicide is a choice.  It might appear so to the person determined to end their life in this way and perhaps if you are elderly or suffering from a terminal illness, it might be, but for a young person I think it is the absence of choice that makes suicide possible. Where else can you go if the pain and suffering is unbearable.  What seems like a release is so heartbreaking because it also means the end of aliveness.  No choice at all.

I recognise that I have at times felt in complete despair and horribly sad, and yet I am still here. I'm pleased that I have enough awareness of my self to know that all things, even the ones that seem impossible to bear, do pass.  Life moves on and I am certain I want it to take me along for the rest of the ride.

I also feel so very sad for the family of those who die this way.  Suicide is ultimately a genuinely selfish act - the disregarding of everything in order to end your life.  I can only think that you can be so blinded by pain that you fail to see those around you. I don't mean this in the candy floss coated way of the James Stewart film 'It's a Wonderful Life'.  Angels rarely show up to show you the impact your life has had, especially at your lowest moment, but those who love you are there and continue to be there after you're not. It is something we can lose sight of when life hurts so much.  So sad.

There are advantages to having spent so many years either in therapy, or involved in the world of therapy.  It makes me very conscious of the effect that suicide has on the people left to live with this ultimate decision. It is devastating and even more so since it can't be reversed.  There is no way to shake the person now dead and say. 'wait, you are loved, you will be missed. There has to be another way.'

I am fortunate in my loving family.  When life becomes overwhelming to me I do know that I am loved.  Even when I really do not love myself it is so special to know that others do love me.  I would be missed by quite a few and as long as I feel I would miss them, I know this is not a road I could travel down.  It is final and one way only.

Sometimes I regret that I no longer have this get-out clause from life, just like I don't have the 'choice' to absolve myself of life's responsibilities by going mad. From the outside it looks like the easy way out. I believe the suffering and pain that makes suicide possible is so huge that it can seem like there is no end to it, but to end it all. 

I started this by mentioning Alexander McQueen, a talented young man with seemingly everything to stay alive for.  How lonely and sad his life must have been.  How wonderful I see that my life is and how spectacular that I feel so alive - warts and all!

Demonic Possessions

 

If all else fails, make latkes.  Well, right now it works for me. Immediately there is a house full of the food of my childhood and I am comforted by memories and flavours from my past. Sometimes I believe I was meant to be one of those old, short, round babushka peasants straight out of Fiddler on the Roof. Ah, but life would have been so simple then - just running away from Kossacks, pogroms and famine.  None of the ills of modern times - dieting, tension, stress disorders over broken down phones and fatigue caused by a journey on the London underground. In the FOTR days, I would have been tired from tilling fields, milking cows and planting crops.  All totally justifiable.
As I said, simple.

How interesting that we (and I use the word to mean me) make life so complex.  The more we have, the more problems we have.  I was talking to a friend today about throwing things away and how difficult I find it to throw away useful things, even if they are not really useful to me anymore. Take bowls, as an example.  I have at least three dozen bowls suitable for cereal, soup and porridge.  I cannot bring myself to give/throw away any of these and actually find myself looking at bowls in shops thinking that this would make the perfect breakfast bowl. Cooking pots are another thing that I seem to accumulate. The big soup pot is great, but the big spaghetti pot is similar and I think I can't do without either.  I buy new frying pans to replace the old, but somehow the old ones are still here.  I used to believe that the problem was lack of storage, but now I know that's not true.  If I had a warehouse of a kitchen, I would fill it up and have to look for more space and don't even get me started on how many pairs of shoes I need to find room for!

I have lived in this house for over twenty years. That's a long time in one place and a long time in which to accumulate things.  As I look around I do see clearly that when I am feeling overwhelmed by life I also feel very overwhelmed by all the things around me and yet, and yet, I find it almost impossible to begin the process of clearing.  This is very different from cleaning. I don't like cleaning and avoid it, but will do it when I need to. Clearing makes me crazy. I either want to throw everything away or throw nothing away.  I have had times when I went into clearing frenzies. I've thrown away cash vouchers, tickets, official forms, all in a whirlwind of "I can't stand this anymore".  I need to find a middle way.

Buddha talked of the Middle Way:
The Middle Way crystallizes the Nirvana-bound path of moderation away from the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification and toward the practice of wisdom, morality and mental cultivation.

I see how much I live my life at the edges. I am rarely in the middle.  Life is up or down, good or bad, high or low, jumping from mood to mood, crisis to crisis.  No wonder I'm tired.  This bouncing around is exhausting. Moderation is so alien to me. What would my life look like with fewer possessions and less crises?  I have never created a picture of my life in that calm space.  I've spent time visualising my thinner self, my richer self, my successful self, but never my calm, unencumbered self.  Wow, I never even considered doing this. It's quite a daunting prospect and I know that I would feel better just by creating myself in this way. it is a bit scary. To live in the space in between is tempting.

We are possessed by the things we possess.
When I like an object, I always give it to someone.
It isn't generosity--it's only because
I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me.
Jean Paul Sartre
 

Outed as a madwoman -

Now that the internet in my house is working again and my phone line has been repaired I have started to calm down.  I hang my head in shame today. I walked around yesterday doing an impression of the Madwoman of Chaillot. I felt (and acted) completely nuts.  Even I didn't like me and I imagine that Ralph wasn't too crazy about me either.  I was totally out of control.

Why do I give myself permission to act out in this self-destructive way?  How can I even begin to entertain any thought that this kind of behaviour serves me in any way at all?  I guess the answer to that is that when I have this kind of brain frying mood, there is no rational Cynthia present. I seem to forget the meditative possibility in me and just give in to the hysteric.  It does remind me of my worst pre-menstrual moods - murderous and enraged and actually scary. 

I feel this passing and I am really pleased.  It is all overwhelming and I can take some solace from the fact that this was the worst mood day of the winter. I have had previous winters where most days were like this. I am getting better in that I can see the changes and acknowledge my positive improvement. Also the moods seem to pass through a lot quicker - like having taken emotional laxatives!

It's time for me to start chanting again. There is an evening kirtan session on Sunday that sounds nice and I think I need to reconnect with the deeper part of me that is healthy and whole and not subject to the waves of emotion that send me so easily off centre.

Today's entry is short. I really need to sleep a lot tonight.  I need to heal all those frazzled nerve endings and be kind to me for a while.

Monday's posting - late!

Not a good day, not at all a good day. Today I feel very much at the mercy of my emotions.  The roller coaster is definitely on a downward journey right now and I’m in the first car not particularly enjoying the ride.

I woke up with a headache and it hasn’t really gone. It’s right there at the back of everything.  I ate a calorific, carbohydrate-laden breakfast which is not a good way for me to start a day when I already feel fat. (Is it strange for me to talk about this stuff – don’t other people wake up like this?  Am I weird? I know I’m self-obsessed but that’s another story.) I figured I would deal with some of the paperwork details that are outstanding so I printed out my tax submission and phoned them to check that I owe nothing more.  Great – all fine there.  Then I phoned my insurance company to make a claim for my scratched glasses – success!

In mid-conversation my phone went dead, my internet connection died and then I had to search my house for a phone book to find out the fault reporting number for the phone company.  Phone books? What phone books – get rid of them we said, we have internet, we said, we’ll never need them.  Hah! Try finding the right people to talk to without the internet.  I phoned a number I found on my bill (on my mobile phone at exorbitant rates) and got through to an automated repair line that kept telling me my home phone line, dead as a dodo, was busy and to call later. Frustration was building by the expensive minute.  Eventually got through to an Indian man in a call centre in Bangalore and after another expensive conversation he finally announced that he knew what my problem was – I needed to report a fault and he would have to transfer me to the correct person. Brilliant! Eventually, I reported the fault to a human being, not an automated line and was told to do the following before they would deal with the fault:

Find the box where the phone line enters my house. Done.

On the box there are two screws – Yes, found these.

Unscrew the two screws and take the cover off the box – HUH? Total panic! Find the screw drivers, crouch down in a dimly lit corner of the room. Try desperately to see the screws and finally, after much painful bending and contorting, the screws are off and the box cover off.

Replug the phone into the secondary connection point and see if it works there.  Nope.

Well then, madam, the fault is in the street and we will text you to let you know when it will be fixed.

This whole episode upset me much more than it merited. This is how I know this has not been a good day. Anxiety, distress and headache all in one afternoon feels pretty bad, plus an appetite that could enter the Olympics and compete against nations, all add up to much self-pity and woe is me.

My phone and internet will not be working for at least the next 36 hours, so I will post this late.  I am going to bed. I am calling a stop to this day. I have had enough. I feel awful. I am not spending anytime today re-framing this and turning it into a positive experience.

“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”

A day of nostalgia

 

Today I woke up with great resolve. "I am going to clean my bedroom", I said to myself.
"Yup, today is the day, no more procrastinating, it is for sure going to happen today".

Well, sort of. I began by reaching into a mysterious corner. You know the one, the one that you have piled things into for months, maybe years and actually have not the vaguest idea of what lives there. What a series of surprises - two gorgeous pairs of sandals I'd forgotten I bought,  discovered just in time for my end of the month visit to Florida,  a wonderful box of old photographs that took me at least one hour or more to go through and lots of little bits of knitting that I must have started in a flash of creative energy, but sadly remained unfinished. This was just the beginning.

The bottom of the pile was held up by an old trunk. The trunk is the one I used every summer when I went to summer camp so it has been with me for about fifty years.  Forty years ago Ralph and I painted the trunk red, white and blue and used it as a coffee table in our first apartment in the Bronx. Then we used the trunk to ship all sorts of things over here from the States when we moved to London and finally, the trunk is the depository of memories.

I am almost afraid to open this old trunk filled with the past. I know it contains clothes that I made for my daughter when she was tiny, little tiny shirts I decorated for Ben, some of which he never got to wear, and also some wonderful little knitted outfits, sweaters, booties and blankets I knitted before Sam was born. Every single piece is infused with feeling and it is not the day for me to open the floodgates to those feelings.  There are also stuffed animals and toys that belonged to my kids.  I don't know what else is in this old friend of a trunk, but I will open it another day and maybe not alone.

Every old photo I found had a story attached to it. I find it remarkable that we embroider so many stories and so many narratives through our lives.  It is as if we're afraid we won't exist without the stories and yet I think that each story keeps me stuck to the past.  Again it comes down to creating a more certain world, a surety of events.  If I can so clearly define my past, then I can easily predict my future, but is this really what I want?

Last night I watched 'as Good As It Gets' with Jack Nicholson.  He plays a miserable man with a life narrowed by OCD. During one of his panic moments, in his psychiatrist's office, he looks at the waiting clients and says, "What if this is as good as it gets?"  Sobering question isn't it? It got me thinking, what if it is as good as it gets, what if this is it?  Am I content with this, is there more? Do I want more?

My answer surprised me.  If this is it, if this as good as it gets, that's fine. After all, it's pretty damned good, but you know what's clear for me - I want more.  Being alive has so much possibility of adventure. There are so many surprises still in store and yes, somuch uncertainty.  I am willing to risk living with uncertainty to get some more.  I'm glad I can see that. It makes it easier for me to ride the mad waves of my life.

Just now, I stopped reminiscing and clearing to space out in front of the TV for a while.  When I switched on the TV a movie that I loved when I was little girl was on. I remember watching Carousel in the cinema and it was one of the first LP records my parents bought.  I knew the words to every song and sat here and cried along with them.  Just when I thought I could stop the nostalgia and memories this damned movie came on.  I cried as I sang just now, not because the story was so sad, but because the sense of nostalgia for my past was so strong.

What a strange day soaked with memories.  I'm worn out!

Grateful for a perfect day.

I just returned from a wonderful London day out with Ralph. First to the National Theatre to see a Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn collaboration called 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour'.  Then a walk across Waterloo Bridge, stopping to take in the dying clear light of a winter afternoon over the Thames and Houses of Parliament. A walk through Covent Garden  shops and seeing lots of buying 'possibles' but nothing that screamed 'must have'. On to Chinatown beautifully decorated with New Year red lanterns and crowded with tourists. Eventually stopping for Chinese food and finally home. Super day and interesting conversation  with Ralph over dinner about the play this afternoon.

What principles do we live by? How rigidly do we hold our principles and actually, what are those principles?  How far would I risk myself for those principles?  These were all questions raised by the play we saw and I really had to stop and think about the principles I live by.  I don't have a great religious belief. It seems to me that it is easier to follow a religion and not have to worry about where to draw your moral line. It's already written down and drawn for you. 

I know that I value and respect human life, though I think I would be prepared to defend my loved ones and myself with violence if necessary.  I have a general respect for honesty and do not, as a rule, steal, though I'm not sure that if the Inland Revenue did not make a mistake in my favour I would rush to tell them.  I certainly don't covet my neighbour's spouse, or anything else of theirs and I generally try to approach life with compassion and love. I certainly am 'early to rise and early to bed', but unfortunately this is an aspect of my innate laziness and not particularly worthy. I try to live an ethical life above all. I want to live a life filled with love and consideration.

All of these questions and no really clear answers over an all you can eat Chinese meal with Ralph.

I also just finished reading 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. I was in turns enthralled and terrified by this book. The writing was beautiful and poetic and the questions it raised were troubling and challenging in the same way as the Tom Stoppard play.  The vision of a post-apocalyptic world in which you are thrown back on yourself and there is nothing, literally nothing else, reduces your life and world to complete basics - good, evil, right, wrong, light and dark.  I guess we create our own morality and life laws whether there are two people in the world or two billion.

Now I am home. It's warm and cozy and there's tea in the pot and bread and butter pudding in the oven. Ralph is home with me.  I am so blessed to have so much. It's good to remember that.

An outing to the Hairdresser

Getting my hair cut has always been one of my favourite things to do. I have had short hair since about 1958. I can hardly remember my long ponytail, but I do have a few photos to remind me.

My hairdresser is in Covent Garden and I just spent a delightful morning in town window shopping, promenading and having my hair cut.

I should add at this point that my hair is still falling out. It's much finer and thinner than it's ever been.  It also hasn't really been growing. Usually I have my hair cut every five weeks.  This time it's been over two months and I could have waited since it's grown so little.  My hairdresser, Mark, has been cutting my hair for well over 17 years and he assured me that the loss is all over and not just at the crown, so it's probably temporary. Great!  All over hair loss is so reassuring!  All my recent blood tests were normal and I breathed a big sigh of relief over that, but it does mean that this unexplained hair loss is probably caused by what Ralph and I refer to as 'Mishigas Disease'. Mishigas Disease is much harder to cure than other diseases and generally involves guilt, stress, anxiety, tension and blame.  I will attempt to buck the trend of thousands of years of the Jewish people and let go of these in the hope that my hair starts to come back.

Meanwhile, as I was walking down a sunny street in Covent Garden watching people sitting outside and having their lunch I remembered the times I would take my 7 year old daughter to posh hairdressers and sometimes hairdressing schools and then go to a chocolate shop and buy lovely chocolates for both of us.  It was always more than just a haircut, it was a chance to have what we used to call 'ladies days' together and the memories are as sweet as the chocolates were.. 

In the 1960's in New York I would go to Vidal Sassoon's and have geometric cuts and then in London I went to trendy salons and had wonderful haircuts.  there were occasional lapses.  Haircuts that time lets us forget - the Elvis style perms, the curly perms, the henna curls and the time I streaked my hair blonde - wow, what a brave mistake.  Mostly my hair is the same each time. Slight variations, a little longer when my face is rounder, a bit shorter when I'm feeling particularly confident, but always short and I really like it.

I love the feeling of being pampered. I get my cup of cappuccino, my lovely head massage and I get to gossip like crazy with my hairdresser.  He probably knows me better than some of the people I call friends.  I see him every six weeks for a very intense hour in which we tear apart celebrities, talk about partners, families and getting older. He is suitably complimentary and always leaves me feeling better and younger looking than when I walked in. 

The hour I spend getting my hair cut is usually followed by a wander through Covent Garden market, a stop for a drink and maybe I even stick my head into one of the better second-hand shops in the same area.  All in all, a great day.

Tomorrow, a matinee at the National Theatre. I really do love living in this city!