Alpine adventures

A funny thing happened to me in the depths (or heights) of the Italian Alps - I found out I wasn't afraid of mountain roads. Not at all, not even a little bit. I have been up and down this circuitous route with 23 hairpin turns, about 10 times and I'm fine, relaxed even. To me this is a miraculous and marvelous change. One year ago I was in therapy to try and resolve this very problem and I was pretty frightened to come here because of it. I thought that all the issues we worked on in those expensive hour sessions never got to the core of my fear of mountain roads, but I am willing to entertain the idea that I was wrong. This is such a great relief and almost overshadows my spectacular surroundings and my even more spectacular hosts.

I feel so blessed to be here and so delighted with everything. I feel like a happy little kid, finding fun in everything.
Oh and did I mention that the food is just great and the ice cream is heavenly. So much for losing weight...

The hills are alive...

Italy - just as I imagined it. Better than I imagined it. Wide open alpine hills, so green I think I am in a verdant Disneyworld and the cares of everyday life have dropped away to a disTant trickle. I love this place.

My friends are treating us like visiting royalty and just as I hoped, the sun is shining. It's 3am and I am looking out my window at a full moon over the huge pine trees and mountains. I have landed in paradise.

It is remarkable that I can sit with my friends and we can so easily share so much past and also move into sharing the present. We have such an easy relationship, accepting of all our quirks and eccentricities while at the same time wanting to check out and make sure that each one of us is doing ok and feeling good. Conversations here move from the trivial, and no I will not be a pioneer settler on Mars, to the deeper sharing of our innermost fears and uncertainties.

I said I might not write for a few days, but what else to do in the silence of night. I have created my life in such a way that it includes these very special people. At this exact moment I am allowing myself to bathe in the moonlight of this gift.

Arrividerci till domani....

Travelling again...

Packing, ironing, sorting, choosing, decisions, weather forecasts... since when did a week;s holiday become such a big thing.  Years ago I used to throw a few things into a backpack or overnight bag, lock my door and just go.  I would worry about hotels when I got to my destination and life was just so much easier and more spontaneous then. 

Wait! That was never me, I must have been thinking of someone else. I never just threw anything into a bag and went. My earliest memories of packing was when I was 11 and going to summer camp for two months.  Imagine the anxiety attached to packing for two months.  This involved long lists of what was needed, labels for all my clothes, including socks and copious amounts of sweets and treats being packed.  I did this every summer for six years and each year the packing nightmare got worse.  Each year I wanted more and more clothing, more shoes and of course, more candy.

When I went to Europe for the first time in 1968 I took two enormous suitcases , no baggage allowance then.  As a matter of fact I took such heavy cases that I had to rely on the kindness of strangers to help me in every city.

Now I pack lighter and don't need help from friends of strangers.  I do like to be somewhat independent. I wish I could relax and let go of my need to check all train timetables, flight delays, bus schedules, possible highway repairs and other assorted possibles.  I wish I could spontaneously pitch up in a new city and find any bed for the night, but I am a creature of comfort and want to know in advance what the reviews say about the place I am intending to stay.  I want to know if the beds have bugs or the neighbourhood has a local crack den.  Call me foolish, but this knowledge helps me relax.

I am off to the Italian Alps tomorrow.  It's exciting and I'm looking forward to spending some days with wonderful friends.  The road to their house is in the mountains and I have been warned that it consists of 23 (!) hairpin turns.  I am not  great with mountain roads and I am mentally preparing myself for this journey.  As long as I don't have to drive I can block out this bit of my holiday.  I am,on the other hand, anticipating great food, warm weather,clean air and lots of good conversation and good grappa.

I debated taking my computer with me so I could continue to write my blog.  The idea of sitting in the Alps with my computer is not one I want to entertain.  Getting away from things may mean getting away from the tyranny of technology too.  I may or may not have regular access to a computer but I am not shlepping mine with me.  So, just as it was last time in Holland, I may give my writing a bit of a break.  I may keep short notes for myself while I'm away and catch up when I'm back.  I'll take lots ofphotos and play tourist for a while.

Right now my packing is done, the ironing is finally over for a while and I'm about to reward myself with a long, hot bath - something I haven't done for years.

Gratitude. Compassion, Forgiveness and other concepts...

The world I inhabit lately seems to be filled with new buzz words.  Whereas in the past we chattered about feelings, emotions, honestly, openness and resolution; we now seem to be very busy with gratitude, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance.

This is a step in the evolutionary change in humanity, or at least the slice of humanity I move amongst. I also believe it is to do with aging.  When I was younger I was fiercely and actively concerned with expressing my feelings, with sorting out my emotions and clearing my resentments.  The catharsis I experienced in doing this was healing, cleansing and very necessary. Now I am much more relaxed about the outward expression of old wounds and see that it is not always about screaming, shouting and letting go in the way I did when I was younger.

This is not to say that I don't still carry my share of anger.  Indeed, I think that we and I include myself, all live in an increasingly short-tempered world.  I for certain, am quicker to shout at the bad driver, to drum my fingers in impatience at the too-long queue at the  Post Office or the idiot on the end of the phone at the call centre.  Everyone is a bit snappier and a bit angrier now.  This is partly because I think life is harder than before and we are not very kind to each other.

I would like to age gracefully and to bring kindness and forgiveness into my life.  I accidentally watched another TV programme today about Nazi Germany. I try to avoid these but living in England it is almost impossible not to come across television programmes about WWII.  We seem to be obsessed with not letting go of any of the hatred and mistrust of present-day Germany by examining and re-examining the past.  Watching today's one hour show brought me back to my feelings of distress and sadness around this.  Not good.  I also learned something that made me think again about how I define the past.

I learned more about the evacuation of the the Danish Jews to Sweden.  I had always known that the Danes would not allow their Jewish population to be marked as Jews and separated from the rest of Denmark, but I also found out that on the night of the largest round-up of Jews,  the Chief Rabbi of Denmark had been warned in advance by German officials to make sure that the Jews were not in their homes.  Through the efforts of many Danish people virtually the entire Jewish population of Denmark was evacuated to Sweden where they lived out the rest of the war.  The involvement of the Gestapo based in Denmark was new information and it's good for me to hear these stories and to again put together a new history.

Bernie Glassman, a Zen Buddhist Roshi in the US, takes groups of  people to Auschwitz, not for a day or an afternoon, but for days.  The multi-national, multi-faith groups stay near the environment of the camp and spend time in retreat, in meditation and in conversation with each other and themselves. Glassman began these 'bearing witness retreats' 15 years ago when he felt strongly that there was such a need for remembering, healing and forgiveness for the millions of souls affected by the darkness of Auschwitz.  I am strongly attracted to this in theory, but am equally afraid of encountering something very dark and deep in myself that does not forgive.

It is this unwillingness to forgive that is a core kernel of unresolved pain in myself.  I know it is there and I know that it leeches its pain and fear into me and yet, I do not let it go. I am working on it and I feel that bit by bit, this knot is untangling, like a very fine chain that you work at and work at until eventually it is whole.

There are still things in my life that I cannot (or will not) forgive god for - assuming that I believed in such a thing.  I cannot yet forgive the death of my son and it saddens me to admit this, I cannot yet forgive the dreadful horrors that my parents went through, and yet, I know, that by not forgiving, by not moving forward and allowing healing, I am still causing myself to hurt.

I am not an enlightened being.  I have not transcended the need to defend my family from harm, or wishing to attack those who attack my loved ones.  I am enlightened enough to bring soothing to these areas.  I am beginning to bring compassion and kindness to myself and I am actively trying to bring a loving heart to those around me.  I am eternally grateful for who I am, where I am and all those who have helped me to get here.

This was not the case when I was younger.  Then I was a firebrand, a hothead and a rabble- rouser.  I was a fiery young woman and I like to think that that young woman is still with me but is wiser and slower to react.  I bring a greater thoughtfulness to my life and I am working on forgiveness.  Because I need to heal I have faith that I will arrive where I need to.

And the walls came tumbling down...

For the past few days I have been considering my relationship to things.  Not people, but things, things like my house, my clothes, my physical body, my car and the mechanics of all of these.

This new area  for examination comes from coming back from Holland and seeing the cracks in the upstairs wall of my house.  I felt physically ill when I saw the cracks.  I mentioned before that it felt like my house cancer had returned.  I thought it was cured, but it was only in remission, waiting to return when my guard was down.  I see that this is an over the top reaction and more importantly,  I may give this power to make me ill if I carry on in this way. I am so identified with my home that I see any attack on it, whether from intruders (like those we had in the middle of the night last year) or from subsidence or even moths, as a personal attack on my safety and security.

I know that a lot of these feelings of fear and lack of safety and security are a genetic ancestral inheritance.  My parents had good reason to worry about their safety and whether where they were was actually safe.  It often wasn't, but I am not them.  My life experiences are not theirs.  I know this, I intellectually accept this, I understand and can analyse this with my rational mind, but when I see the cracks appearing in the walls and the ceiling of my house I feel like Chicken Little, the character in the children's book, yelling 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling...' just because a small acorn fell on his head.  The rational mind takes a vacation sometimes and my completely crazed mind takes over.

It is defintely not a good thing to refer to inanimate objects as if they are part of me.  I am not the cracked house.  I am not suffering from subsidence and though I do sometimes feel I have settled myself on the sofa for the duration, I do not have cracking caused by movement. Most importantly in this, I do not have cancer.  The house does not have cancer.  There is no tumour in any area of my life and to see it this way is not only a bit whacko, it's also dangerous to me.  I need to be careful how I identify with things.  Or I need to change my focus and identify with the 99% of my home that is in great condition and beautiful.

Today my friendly builder arrived to help me sort out my front door.  The door has dropped, or the frame has moved or both,  The door has also swelled in the warm weather and warped - a bit like me.  The result of these tiny movements is that I can no longer open or shut my front door.  This means that in order to get out I have to pull the door with all my might and in order to get back in I have to shove the door with my shoulder or better yet, kick it.  Now, not only are the walls falling down, which is definetely a metaphor for my life falling apart, but I am trapped in this crumbling edifice unable to easily get out or let anyone in.  How apt!

To top it all  off, my tooth fractured and broke today.  An expensively crowned important molar now needs major demolition and then re-construction work - 5 hours of work!  This, I was just told, will cost almost £1500 and I am horrified.  I feel that it is all part of the tenuous nature of my physical world right now.  No wonder I'm finding it hard to lose weight, I need to reinforce my structure in case of another collapse!

It is true that I am a nest builder.  I like my security and I love having an environment that cuddles me and takes care of me.  Just like the people I surround myself with, I see that in order to have a reliable environment to take care of me, I need to devote some time and energy to take care of it.  It's called maintenance and unlike my self-cleaning oven and self-defrosting fridge,  I do need to put energy into my relationships, regardless of whether they are flesh and blood or bricks and mortar.

Just don't get me started on my war against the cashmere/carpet eating moths. They cannot survive.

The Power of my words...

                                                   Quote from Alexander Lowen....


Why do I continue to do this?
I get little or  no feedback from others.
Sometimes I feel I have little or nothing to say.
Is it arrogance to think that my words are worthwhile?
Does this achieve anything?

I would have to say yes to the question about whether or not writing so regularly achieves something.  It does for me.  I have found that my moods travel through faster, like taking verbal laxatives.  It is so much more difficult to hang on to negative emotions when I take a little distance from those emotions and try to define them in words.  Surprisingly, the positive emotions also pass more quickly.  I realise that it is hard to hang on to any emotions since by their nature they are passing things. I feel less attached to the ups and downs.  I even begin to inhabit the middle ground more.

I have written before about feedback and I am not so caught up in what others think of my blog. In fact, I am still a little embarrassed about it.  I do this for myself and the feedback is an instantaneous sort of bio-feedback.  I write, I read and I process, quickly and sometimes quite efficiently.  Of course there are other times when I hang on to my feelings and the feedback I give myself consists of masochistic indulgence.  This is not as much the case as it used to be.  This is growth and at 61, it's about time.

Do I have something to say?  Sometimes, yes.  Those who know me will know that I am never ever lost for words.  If words were money I would be a multi-millionaire.  Words have a power and I'm trying to  use some of them as a power for good and a power for change.  Writing down my words means that I don't forget what I have to say and I experience the impact of the words more directly.  Writing things down has made me much more conscious of gratitude and compassion.  I have been moved by my own words to remember and thank those who helped shape me and I feel much more for everyone who touches my life. 

My words are worthwhile.  It doesn't much matter if they have meaning for anyone else.  They have enormous meaning for me.  Occasionally I read through some of my old entries and I am amazed to read what I have written.  Some of it's good writing, but mostly it's a good window on my self.  it's taken me a very long time to feel able to publicly reveal my anxieties and insecurities.  I still like to project a strong, controlled image to the world, but through writing down things I can also see that this is an also.  I am also strong, I am also powerful and I am also insecure and unsure.  I am learning to embrace the whole of me.  Wow!

Is is arrogant to sing my own praises?  No.  I astound myself with all the things I am able to do.  If only I was as willing as I am able, I would be an empire builder, a tycoon, a royal of some sort.  As it is, I am a very skilled dabbler, flitting from one creative pursuit to another and actually, enjoying them all along the way.

I still have to work on Cynthia, the beautiful woman.  I am still distant from the sensual, gorgeous me.  That still is a big work in progress, but it seems to be next on the list.  I am more ready to allow myself to feel pleasure and enjoy. I struggle with allowing people to get really close and this does cause me difficulty.  The issue of trust is one that I am finally ready to look at.  I deserve this now.

I will carry on writing.  If only I read this, it is enough, though I also like sharing myself with others.  So, if you're out there and reading this, thank you once again, with your help, I can change the world by meeting myself here.

Life in Pyjamas

12 noon - I never want to get dressed again.  Since coming back from Holland I have found it increasingly difficult to get myself moving and dressed.  I have taken two consecutive days off from my usual make-up routine.  Anyone who knows me will know that that's really unusual.  I always put my warpaint on and I actually pity the people on the other side of my eyes at the moment. I am walking around naked-faced.

I am taking a mini-holiday from me.  One of the wonderful things about the Humaniversity is also one of the most tiring for me - the constant self-examination and mirroring of behaviour.  Everyone I meet there in some way helps me to reflect on myself, my good points, my bad points and my perceptions.  I like this, sometimes I even enjoy it, but ultimately, as much as I learn and take away, it is tiring.  Hence the vacation from me.

I spent all this morning in my pyjamas.  I spoke to a good friend and suddenly realised that if I am going to spend my life in pj's they have to be nicer. Shlepping around in an old t-shirt and sweatpants does not make me feel attractive and decadent. This is the look I would like to aim for, rather than homeless hobo. Maybe tomorrow I will have the energy to go out and look for some genuinely attractive 'loungewear'.

8pm - I did get dressed today, albeit at 1pm.  I went out into the world and explored. I felt like a hunter - trawling the local shops, deciding what to catch for dinner, and bringing it home to cook.  Tonight it was lebanese cous cous with prawns - yummy.  Now I can watch other people cook on TV and relax again.

One of the things I've been busy with since coming home is relationship.  I need to talk more, to share myself and what goes on in my head.  I tend to keep things close to me and only talk when I have things completely sorted, or what I think is sorted.  I actually believe that my husband of over 40 years does not know when I'm down or troubled or insecure or anxious - did I also mention that I am often very stupid??? I am a pretty open book.  I wear my emotions on the outside, but I like to think I am deep and complex.  The trouble for me is how heavily I judge myself. I saw it again at the Humaniversity.  I always believe the worst and I feel like I wait for the axe to drop.  This makes me pretty nervous about what's round the corner.  I intend to let go of a lot of that this summer.

Well, the day is coming to an end and it's time for me to get back into my pyjamas.  Until tomorrow.  I think I will jump up first thing in the morning, shower, get dressed and face the day with the renewed energy of a healthy, well-adjusted woman. A change is at least as good as a rest.

Tulips, windmills, beach and therapy...

I'm back in my home.  Hooray! I had a good visit with my friends across the Channel but it's good to be back in the quiet of my own home with Ralph.

When I arrived, The Humaniversity was about to start the one month long group that they've run every summer since 1977.  In those early days the groups were chaotic, spontaneous, unpredictable events.  Now the routine and schedule for each day is more predictable and maybe that leaves space to see the participants clearly.  When I was on the staff of the summer groups we never knew what was coming next.  Now the staff seem almost regimented in their scheduling, but the madness and chaos of the people will always remain.  This year the theme for the group is 'this sacred earth' and the daily meetings and other assorted announcements and  activity will help emphasize the need to take care, not just of ourselves, but of the planet we live on.

I very much enjoyed working in the buzzy environment that a group of 100+ can bring.  The house rocked and the schedule was round the clock.  The web work was nice and the people were as wonderful as always.  I went through some of my own emotions and saw a little of  myself more clearly.  I saw and felt how much I need to keep myself guarded and safe.  I may now believe in myself much more than I used to, but I still have this stubborn kernel of fear in me.  I know that somewhere it comes from holding on to sadness and years and years of holding.  I saw it and felt it more clearly that ever.  Maybe, through tears with friends, I even let go of a little bit of it. As I said to my friend, Veeresh, "I used to believe that I was not worth much and the world was unsafe.  Now I know that I am loveable but I still think the world is not safe." This is progress, but could be better.
 
Coming home to London and walking into my house, Ralph casually mentioned that our upstairs wall, the one we spent ages fixing and painting and the walls that created so much dust and unpleasantness in my home six months ago, has re-cracked.  The dry weather had caused more subsidence. I was so upset I can hardly bear to think about it.  It felt like my home had cancer, it was cured and now it's back.  This is an extreme reaction I know, but I feel sick to my stomach over this.  Last year when were disturbing the fabric of my house I lived with it and my body and psyche went nuts.  I lost my hair, got sick, had allergies and I don't know how I can face this again.  I just want to coat the walls in duct tape and turn my back.

I am trying to concentrate instead on the praise and gifts of recognition and love that I lived with and in for the past few days and also come back towards my beloved husband and bring some of the healthier me home again.  To hell with the cracks.  It's just bricks and mortar.  It can be fixed.  Love counts, walls need to come down sometimes too.

Being here

Holland - tulips, cows, windmills, flat lands, canals and friendships.  it is so nice to be back, if only for a few days.  I love the easy familiarity that coming together with friends is about. No need for explanantions, I just slot into this space as if I'd never left.

I was talking with my friend, Veeresh, tonight, about forgiveness, gratitude and healing - you know, just an ordinary conversation that one has when the television isn't on.  No, seriously, I am delighted to see that my old teacher is teaching again and is in such fine form.

Actually, I am delighted to see all my friends here.  Some of them have just come back from holidays in the sun and look tanned and healthy.  Others have been preparing for the month long group that runs here every summer from mid July to mid August and the place is  palpably buzzing.

I am here to throw my hand in wherever it's needed and do some work.  I love being here and feeling so easily accepted.

I am going to possibly give myself a blog break for the few days that I'm here.  I may not, I may find the time to write, but if I have some spare time I might also use it to walk down to the beach and take advantage of the seaside location I'm in.  Also I need to get my Dutch herrings and patat.  I'll play it be ear and see how things go.

Right now - sleep beckons.

Alive relationships

A few days ago someone referred to me as an expert on long term relationships.  I was a bit surprised since it is not a way I would ever have described myself.  Am I an 'expert' in this minefield?  I don't think so at all.  I acknowledge that I have been in a relationship with the same man for over 40 years, but is it as much by luck as design? 

It is a challenge to live with the same man and still keep love alive for almost half a century.  I can hardly remember a time in my life when Ralph was not there.  Certainly all my growing up and maturing into an adult happened with him.  It has not always been easy, but is has always been worthwhile.

So what is the secret of loving someone for so long and being able to live with him? Is there a secret?  No, there isn't.  It is both simple and  incredibly complicated and you have to start off with an enormous reserve of love for it to carry through the days when lust has turned from a raging flame to a nice slow burn.

My old friend and teacher, Frank Natale wrote a book called 'Mastering Alive Relationships' in which he outlined 20 qualities needed in a genuine alive and healthy relationship.  I believe that amongst these are the foundation stones of relating well.  They are:
Responsibility, the Choice to Think; Service and Acknowledgement; Affinity and Trust; Effective Communication; Self Esteem; Honorable Sexuality; Healing; Forgiveness; Laughter; Humor and Playfulness; Relatedness; and Love.

I am not going to go into every one of these qualities (read the book, still available on Amazon) but I would like to expand on a few.

First, Responsibility - in relating to another person with respect and love it is absolutely necessary for both be responsible.  The ability to respond openly and with integrity is such a fundamental part of any relationship that it almost seems obvious, but it is about seeing your part, your own feelings and your own actions as separate from those of your partner.  Some of the most frustrating arguments we have had has boiled down to an unwillingness to take responsibility for our own feelings.  'Why can't you do it my way?'  How come you don't see things the way I do?'  'What do you mean you feel differently to me?'  Responsibility for me is about reminding myself that I don't own another person and that they are not me and therefore will respond differently to me.

Next, Service and Acknowledgement - contrary to the scorecard mentality so prevalent today, service is not about being someone's servant.  It is about being alongside and with the one you love.  I work on this a lot and sometimes get it right and sometimes I completely miss the mark.  Remembering, after so many years to recognise and acknowledge each other for what we bring is so important and if overlooked, leads to that taken for granted feeling that I'm sure both Ralph and I have experienced.

Healing is another quality of my long relationship that has proved so necessary to its continuing.  We both have hurts in our lives, sometimes ones we have caused the other and sometimes ones that fate has heaped on us.  The willingness to heal, to cry and laugh and hold each other, even when it is raw and painful, has so helped us to carry on.  Instead of painful experiences tearing us apart, because we have both been courageous together, they have brought us closer.  Sometimes it has felt like a close run thing.

Even though the other qualities are important I will end on the ultimate, the one that overarches everything else - Love.  I was blessed to meet a man i instantly fell in love with in a deep and frightening way.  I didn't understand the strength of the feelings at the time and I am thankful that I trusted those feelings without real understanding.  Love has seen us through world wars of emotion.  Love has seem us through catastrophic times.  Love in my relationship is beyond choice.  I am committed to being here.  That commitment has meant that when we are nose to nose screaming at each other, behind it, underneath it and all around us is that love. That has never been in doubt.

Am I an expert in long term relationships.  I would have to say no.  I am simply someone who loves and is loved by a wonderful crazy man and in turn, I return those feelings.  It has not always been easy, but it has always been exciting and a grand adventure.

An anniversary this week...

Forty years ago, in July, I moved from America to the UK.  When I moved I was absolutely certain that it was a temporary move and that I would be back in my beloved city of New York within two years. Clearly the forces that control such things had something completely different in mind for me.

I was lulled into a false sense of security by the use of a common language between the States and the UK.  I thought that it would be fairly easy to assimilate into this new culture.  I hadn't counted on how different they really are and that these differences go very deep. Looking back, I see now how shocked I was by the country I arrived in in July 1970.

When I arrived I was a newly married and recently pregnant young woman from (in my mind) a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city.  I arrived in London and initially assumed that it was a similarly cosmopolitan and sophisticated place.  I was wrong.  The London I landed in was almost like a small town in the services and amenities it offered.  Shops were tiny - no giant supermarkets here and restaurants were, on the whole, pretty awful and trapped in a diet of the the 1950's.  It was also a city on the cusp of internationality that hadn't yet arrived. The largest immigrant group I was aware of were West Indians and the Afro-Caribbean community lived in a non-integrated world where at least the food was more interesting.  The next large immigrant group was Asian (Indian/Pakistani) and the only information I had about this community was what every tourist knew,  that the best food in London was Indian food.  Whether this was actually true or was a reputation built on the poor English food, I'm not sure, but it did mean I got to sample some new foods and eventually learned about new cultures.

I was not suited to the English temprament.  I was loud, outgoing, spoke to strangers and I was very New York in my manner.  I was also Jewish, not religious, but a Yiddish-speaking culturally aware Jew and I was certainly a fish out of water.  I went from the city that never sleeps to a city that was hardly awake and was primarily Christian, at that! In New York there were at least 1.5 million Jews and in London it was about 280,000.  Where were the rest of my people??? Where could I get a good pastrami sandwich??

My in-laws were my introduction to the world of family life in the UK.  They seemed so small in the way they interacted with the world.  They would get in their tiny car and take little rides to somewhere out of London.  They brought a picnic that they ate sitting either in, or right next to, their car.  The picnic consisted of hard-boiled eggs, tea, a bit of limp-leafed salad and some sort of dry cake.  Yuk! This was not my idea of a fun day out.

Somehow, I made my way in London.  I found and cultivated a life.  I was always going to be too brash, too 'in your face' for the Brits, but we have grown used to each other. I can laugh at English humour, understand the Scots, no longer need sub-titles for most regional accents and now, after forty years I sometimes feel alien in America.  When I return to the States I feel like an imposter, like someone who secretly knows that under this heavy New York accent beats the heart of an English woman. 

I find many Americans too loud, obviously never hearing myself, too demanding and often downright impolite, but hey, these are still my people too.  I love having a foot in both camps, in being able to fit into so many environments.  There are moments when I feel like I don't fit into either environment, but they're not too frequent and I can cope with those times.  I have yet to pack hard-boiled eggs, Tupperware salt shakers and a flask of tea for a picnic, but there's always time.  Maybe next year we'll take a holiday in caravan or even Butlins.  Then I will know that I have truly assimilated.  Until then I'll settle for a remarkable forty years in this amazing country.

The richness of an ordinary Sunday

Slowly, today unfolded beautifully. I woke early, after a record 12 hour nap! I then went back to bed to wake Ralph, again slowly got up, had a quiet breakfast and showered.  Slowly, I started tidying the clothing mountain in my room (makes the common market butter mountain or milk surplus look miniscule) and found a pair of trousers that needed shortening and another that needed six buttons moved.  I got my needle and thread and did both jobs.  Then I came downstairs and read a bit, wrapped a present, played solitaire and finally Ralph was ready and we left to see old friends for lunch.

Lunch was lovely.  In their garden, beautiful kittens at our feet, red gingham table cloth, french bread, duck salad and chilled white wine.  Great conversation and small moments of surprising honesty and intimacy.  Absolutely delightful.

After lunch we went on to an afternoon/evening birthday party of one of my oldest and closest friends.  How nice.  Great food and good company.  People came and left, we sat, talked,  I offered some advice (asked for this time) and talked to a newish friend.  Very relaxed and very easy.

Now I am home watching football (!) and sort of rooting for Holland.  Preparing to iron some clothes and relax for the rest of the evening. 

It is days like today that make me happy to live in my skin.  I was so chilled today even though it's still warm and humid.  I just realised after my meditation day yesterday how much of my time is spent being dissatisfied with something.  Sometimes it's just a small thing, but it's enough to make me feel less than happy with my day.  Today I seemed to have dropped that need to mess things up.  I never thought about how much weight I have to lose - I felt and looked good today.  I never thought about what was waiting at home to be done - it would wait.  I just enjoyed a day of seeing friends and valued all that that means. 

I am very lucky in having so many good friends.  When I arrived in England in 1970 (almost exactly 40 years ago this week) I knew only one person and that one person, my husband Ralph, was my whole world of partnership, lover and friend for quite some time.  Now,  I feel very blessed to have Ralph still very much in my life, but also to have made so many solid relationships that have lasted so long.  These friends have become my family and it is such a rich and varied family that every day my life is richer and more enhanced.

As I drink my very English cup of tea, I can reflect on a day well spent. 

Tiptoeing mindfully through my day

The abiding image I take away from today is that of a little mouse, a tiny sweet Disneyesque mouse, scurrying from corner to corner, place to place, frantically searching for the mousehole, the way out.  This was the image that came to mind in my meditation today.

I was trying to stay with what is, the here, the now, and sometimes I succeeded, though more often than not my mind wandered away to some unknown place.  It was hot, hot, hot.  Like meditating in a sauna, but with clothes on, and stuffy, but all the better for trying to stay with what is. It gave us all more material to work with.  What was really new for me was doing all of this with eyes open.  I liked this, it kept me more clearly anchored to the world and at the same time, I saw great value in being in the now with eyes open.  Sitting cross-legged in a cave in the Himalayas and quietly chanting aum is very nice, but doesn't help me when I get into a frantic panic spiral whilst shopping in Oxford Street. I need strategies that work in my world, the world of the rush hour and the crowded city.

The next step will be to see if I can build in a short time for regular practice on a regular basis.  I often do groups, courses, seminars, away days.  I come back from them enthused and keen to start doing all these new meditative practices as soon as possible.  I might even buy books or CDs that will help me on the way. Sometimes I read the books and even unwrap the CDs but my enthusiasm and good intentions usually fizzle out in the face of the relentless pace of everyday life.  It's as if I join the meditation gym, pay for an annual membership and then only go once or twice. 

'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions' - I'm not sure I believe that but it is the result of my actions I expect to be judged and to judge myself by.  This was also one of the lessons of today - not to judge ourselves, but to accept.  Acceptance sounds  so simple and in actually, it is, but the doing of it is more challenging. Krishnamurti said, "The seeing is the doing".  To really see things, without me, my filters, my ideas, in the way of seeing, is an art I wish to cultivate and grow.

But not right now. I am pretty tired.  It's still hot outside and now I am going to collapse in a sweaty heap and not meditate by watching TV. 

Don't you know who I am?

In August we are spending a week with good friends on the coast of France near Bordeaux.  One of these friends is older and some are the same age as I am.  They are outdoor people.  They go horseback riding, play tennis, sail catamarans, windsurf, go camping and cycling.  They do all these things on holiday and said they are looking forward to Ralph and me doing these things with them.  OMG!  Don't they know me by now.  I have known them for over 35 years and in all that time I have never played tennis, gone cycling and, god forbid, sailed a catamaran.  As a matter of fact when I mentioned the thought of me on a catamaran to a friend of mine he said the two images, me and the catamaran, immediately jumped apart.  I agree.

These delightful friends of ours are not Jewish.  I have often said this and jokingly, say it again, I come from a long line of urban people.  My ancestors were city dwellers.  We learned to think on our feet and survive in the rat race of ghettos and city environments.  i get edgy in the country.  I see shadows and menace behind every tree.  Every rustle of branches or breaking of twigs is a harbinger of danger.  I even lie in bed of a summer's morning listening to the sweet birdsong at 4am and want to strangle the birds.  I have never had pets more demanding of physical exercise than fish, and even then, I would forget to feed them.

Many years ago I went up to Scotland to a community called Findhorn.  Findhorn is in the Scottish Highlands and is a beautiful, magical place.  I stayed there for a week and participated in their residential experience week.  As part of the week's activities they take you to the forest on the Findhorn River and you spend an afternoon on your own in the woods.  Oy, I thought I would die of anxiety.   I was so nervous in the dark and damp woods.  Every tree, every dark space held scary unpredictability.  I recognised at some point how ridiculous this was and finally was able to relax and enjoy the both the wildness and the tranquility of nature.  I loved the fast, rushing water of the river and sat there for ages just watching the water crashing over the rocks.

I realised then that I was less frightened in the streets of New York and London than I was that day in the woods.  Muggers, vandals, rogues I could deal with, things that creep around in the undergrowth, now that was something else! How bizarre.

It was clear to me and it's still the same, that something in me goes very quiet and very happy near water.  I'm pleased that I'll be in France right on the Atlantic coast.  I love the ocean and can beachcomb or sit and look at the sea forever.  As for water sports, well the two words don't match for me.  Water you drink, you can watch and you can mix with whisky, but never with sports.

Wish me luck on the bikes.  I'm bringing lots of rescue remedy and plenty of plasters.

The good wife

Throughout the course of  my life I have adopted a number of role models.  A true role model should be someone whose behaviour we admire and whose life path we would wish to emulate.  Sometimes I have been disappointed in my choices and other times I have been delighted with what I have taken away from my chosen models.

I think the process of choosing role models is not a conscious one in our early years.  When I was a kid I unconsciously modelled my behaviour on the women surrounding me.  My mother, my aunt, even my older cousin were influences on my early life.  I guess I learned to be a wife and a mother from my own mother.  She was a traditional almost American wife when I was young.  She stayed at home, cooked great meals, shopped for food and kept our tiny apartment so spotless it was, at times, oppressive. My aunt lived her life in exactly the same way and these two women spent a lot of time together. They were not American but they themselves role modelled their behaviour on the women in  'I Love Lucy' and other TV shows.  My mother and aunt also had their own role models, their older cousin Sophie, who taught them a bit on how to dress like an  American wife and a few cousins who had lived in the US for longer than they had.

When I was still in junior high school, at about age 10,my mother started going to work part-time.  By now she was as American as she could ever hope to be.  We suddenly had TV dinners from the freezer, I was expected to do the laundry and I often was allocated the job of starting cooking dinner.  My aunt also started working the garment district and my cousin and I became little mini housewives.

She taught me to iron, to make wonderful cookies and to take care of those I love.  My mother did this every day of her life. I never heard my mother question her role.  I have no memory of her wanting to do anything other than what she was doing.  She went to business school and learned a skill in order to work in an office as a computer keypunch supervisor.  I find it almost impossible to imagine my little Eastern European mother supervising teams of women in an American office, but by the time she retired she was respected team leader.

These were my female role models and now, looking back, I see that I learned how to be a wife from my mum.  I also have an expectation that I will do the shopping, the cooking, the ironing but I have enormous problems, as previously mentioned, with cleaning.  Sometimes a role model can be too perfect, have unattainable and often, unnecessarily high standards and it can become impossible to meet those standards.  I believe that when I saw the model of house cleaning that my mum adopted, I just said, "not for me, no way, goodbye".

In most other respects I am a lot like my mother.  I make sure we have home-cooked meals and have always done this.  I look after my husband and was, and still am, a pretty okay mother.  I thought about this a lot this morning as I was ironing shirts.  Calmly, I watched the iron glide across the fabric, smelling the steam rising and feeling the heat of the iron.  I suddenly had a strong sense that my mum was right there next to me and I remembered her with great love.

I have had many consciously chosen role models. The women I admire are very diverse and include stay at home mums, career women and activists.  I see that what unites all these women  is a kind of inner strength, a strength of charaacter andpurpose thast is difficult to define, but I always know it when I see it.  Even though I would never characterise my own mum as an activist or career woman she also had that inner strength.

My mother knew that she had a very short time left to live when her cancer was diagnosed. One of the things that she thought was important for her to do was to help teach my father to look after himself after she was gone.  I remember visiting with her and sitting in the kitchen while she issued instructions to my dad and wrote down her trusted recipes for roast chicken and baked salmon. It was left to me to make the mushroom barley soups and apple cake, but in the years after my mother's death my father, a man who had never done more than boil an egg, was able to make a pretty good roast chicken and could bake salmon with the best.

I started out writing today with the idea of writing an entry about how the unconscious influence from my mother meant that I was duty-bound to cook, clean, iron and be a 'good wife'.  For a moment this morning, I felt like an oppressed Stepford Wife and then something changed for me.  My heart just opened and I remembered to be grateful to the women in my early life who taught me to be such a 'good wife'.

I guess my mum was standing by my side as I ironed.

A day off... a day on

I was training yesterday - a full and intense day of working with 15 people and looking at issues of working in a multi-cultural, multi-difference environment.  As I've said before, I love this work and will carry on as long as this body and the economy allows.

At the end of such a day I am pretty tired.  I come home and flop down on the couch and don't stir for at least an hour.  Last night's tiredness turned into a full night's sleep and lo and behold, it's morning and my blog entry for yesterday was not done.  So here goes last night's entry this morning.

As I was delivering my training course yesterday one of the issues that arose was a discussion of age discrimination.  I am almost always the oldest person in the room and am aware that I am often as old as the grandparents of some of the participants.  This doesn't trouble me and is something I feel pretty good about.  I do bring a certain amount of wisdom and experience to my work.  I also bring a blase attitude and recognise that as I get older I am not so caught up in the minutiae of day to day life.  Did I say the wrong thing?  I am able to apologise and put it right.  Did I dribble my lunch?  Who cares.  Is my hair OK?  My make-up?  Who cares.  This is quite liberating and is also quite a powerful position to be in.  If I no longer have to worry about the small stuff I can devote time and energy to things that really matter.

What I picked up yesterday was a widely-held assumption that as people age they lose the ability to learn new things.  Computer technology is always the thing that is mentioned. There is a point in this, but only a small grain of truth in that in order for me to tax my already very busy brain with new instructions and new information I have to be convinced of the befefits, the what's in it for me argument.

When I buy a new mobile phone I am horrified by the number of programmes, buttons, features and apps I am expected to learn.  I usually wind up being able to make and receive calls and send basic texts.  I can even take a photograph, though I have no idea how to transfer said photo to my computer.  This is enough for me.  The phone is now fit for purpose and there is no need in me to learn anything more about this ridiculously over complex piece of equipment. Did I have a different attitude when I was younger? The short answer is no.  I was never gadget-minded or enamoured with technology.

This, I think, is the point.  As we age we don't get stupider, or less able to absorb new information, we are exactly the same as we were when we were younger.  If we weren't curious about the world as young adults, we are unlikely to wake up one morning post-retirement with a new found passion for finding out things.  I can't say this never happens, but I do believe that our natures remain fairly the same. 

There are always going to be stories about the women who take up sky diving and bungee jumping at 85, but this is not the norm.  We generally stay true to ourselves.  This aging business is so strange.  I am still trying to figure out who I am and where I'm going next and while I'm busy doing that I'm getting older and more decrepit.  One of these days I will have worked out what my next incarnation is going to be and maybe it'll be too late. I could hurry up, but I'm also slowing down a bit.

All of this started because I read that Ringo Starr is 70 years old today.  Impossible.

A fairy tale for today

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in New York with her mum, dad and new baby brother. This little girl was very naughty and horribly mischievous and would get into trouble as soon as her parents turned their backs.  She was pretty oblivious to her surroundings, as most little children are, and carried on living the playful life of a child for as long as possible.

When the little girl was fiveand started school she learned to communicate in the language of those around her and came to see her own parents as 'foreign'. Sometimes she was very proud of her mum and dad and other times she was embarrassed by their Eastern European ways.  She heard their stories about life in Poland before the war and heard her father crying out in the night sometimes with bad dreams.  She knew that her parents were different to other American mums and dads. She never ate Chinese food with them on Sundays and they never ever had pizza for dinner.  When they wanted to buy her and her brother new
underwear they had to travel all the way to the Lower East Side and go to some musty basement stores on Orchard Street.  They would stop into see other folks just like them who owned fabric stores and she would wait self-consciously while they chatted in Yiddish.

The little girl always felt a bit odd, a bit outside of the crowd.  Her classmates all went trick or treating on Halloween and had barbecued hamburgers on the 4th of July.  She never seemed to have a starring role in school plays and certainly never joined the Brownies or Scouts.

When the girl was ten she seemed to go off the narrow path she had negotiated for years and started petty thieving.  Her parents found out and told her what a disappointment she was to them.  She felt terrible, but also pleased to have so much attention.  At the same time she started coughing - a hacking, loud, barking cough.  Her mum took her to doctors and she had tests and x-rays and they all said the same thing - nothing wrong. The cough lasted for almost a year.  The girl knew something was wrong but she didn't know what.  She started to walk with a one-sided slant. Again her mother took her to doctors and this time they did find something wrong. They called it scoliosis and said that in order to correct it they would need to put the girl into a brace for at least a year. The girl's mum asked what would happen if they did nothing and the doctors said that it would only affect her cosmetically. This seemed unimportant to the mother.  They never asked the girl how she felt. So they did nothing.

The girl was a talented artist and went to a special school for art.  She travelled a long way on her own each day. She was often frightened of the crowds and rush hour chaos but said  nothing.  She liked school and made friends but they never came to her house. Her parents didn't understand why anyone might want to sleep over at a friend's house when they had perfectly good beds at home.  She was lonely and had lots of headaches. She always did well at school and her parents were pleased when she was accepted to the local university.  They would never let her leave home to go to university.

At university the girl was one of the youngest students and for the first year she worked very hard but was very unhappy.  The second year she derailed.  She made the wrong friends and acted out in all sorts of bad ways.  Her parents never noticed. The girl would come home from college and shut herself into her room.  It wasn't really her room since she had to share it with her brother. She acted out in more bad ways and one day her parents had no choice but to notice.  Again, they were very disappointed.  The girl was pleased that she was getting some attention.

All of this happened to the girl in the first 17 years of her life.  It is not a great story up until that time and even for a few years afterwards the girl, now a woman, did not have an easy time. She had no understanding of the concept of 'easy'.

Now the girl is all grown up and reading her own story still feels sad for the unnoticed little girl in the story who sometimes surfaces and still needs lots of attention. The girl has not yet understood how to make things easy for herself.  Sad.

Yuk, Yuk and more

Opening my cleaning chakra is an ugly affair.  Now it is early evening.  I feel like I have been clearing and cleaning throwing things away and finding right places for ovbjects in wrong places, for at least seven hours.  I HATE THIS!

I cannot express how much I hate doing this.  I cannot stand finding places for fiddly little bits. Single knitting needles, crochet hooks, small amounts of American money, Euros, dollars, receipts, old travel tickets needed for taxes, tubes of mints, packets of sweetener, nail files, scissors, needles, odd earrings (these are sneaky - just  when you throw away one, the other shows up), dental floss, toothbrushes, aspirins, pen, more pens, even more pens, pencils, rubber bands, stamps, business cards, beads, fabric scraps - the list is endless and so is the clearing process. 

I decided that my usual unsystematic way of doing things was not a successful process.  Therefore, today I decided that the only way to go was area by area, clear and clean one tiny corner and then move on to the next area.  This meant that today I did not even touch the mountain of Everest proportions that is made up of my clothes.  I am itchy, sneezing and so totally and completely fed up that I feel like I will explode with distress and upset.  I do not want to be doing this and yet, I am fully aware that all this mess is of my own creation.  100% of it is mine.  I can blame no one and can ask no one else to clean it up.  Who else will know which of the fifty lipsticks I should keep or throw away?  Who else but me will know when to give up the idea that I will actually read all those paperbacks I have been hoarding gathering dust in the corner? 

You would think I would learn from this.  That I would remember this feeling of disgust and not create piles and corners again, but I expect that I will backslide.  The trick here is to not start messing up the clean corner before I get to the other areas of the room.

Many people I know will find it hard to believe that I am such a slob, a secret slob in some cases, but those in the 'in-crowd' have seen this room.  Some have even helped clean it and usually I keep it well hidden from public eyes, but now this it it.  I am coming out of the closet - and so are all my clothes.  How many socks does one woman need?  How many nail files, toothpicks, spools of thread, odd buttons?  I have had enough. 

There is a clear and present danger now.  I am tired, allergic and very pissed off.  The danger is that I begin to throw away perfectly useful things for expediency.  I have done this before so I know to be watchful.  The other danger is that I just get a big bag and chuck all the things that don't really have a logical place into the bag.  The bag would then go into a corner and here we go again.

I need to stop writing because all I want to write is one big complaint.  One huge, unpleasant, self-indulgent complaint.  This cleaning chakra must stay open so I can finish, but it won't be today and it won't be tomorrow.  Little by little this mess will disappear or I will.

I REALLY HATE THIS!

Opening the closed chakras....

Are my chakras open?  Are they underactive, overactive,closed, open accessible to me?  These were questions that I thought about this morning when I decided to look up chakras on Google.  I found a 'chakra test' which I duly filled in and eagerly turned to the page that scored me and graphed my chakra results.

I found out that some of my chakras are open, some not so open and some over-open, whatever that might mean.  I immediately read the meaning of my scores and totally discounted all of it.  I'm sure that if all my chakras had been open and in total alignment I would have been happy to make these instant results mean something, but because the results were not perfect, I decided to throw them away. Actually I decided to do another chakra quiz and guess what?  The results must be rigged in some way because I got a similar score.  Maybe I'll just carry on doing test after test until I find one that satisfies my ego chakra - this is the one that seems to be successfully operating.

The trouble is that after all these years of examining my navel and all this catharsis and then introspective self-work I've been involved with, I'm not sure I even believe all of this stuff.  ~Of course I recognise that there is a mind/body/spirit link but I'm not so sure that we can change things in an easy fix way.  I have been thinking more about the ancestral genetic inheritance we all carry.  Surely this is as much of a component of who we are and how we function as any other belief system.

Recently my daughter had a DNA profile done.  This is interesting to me because it is yet another way to  diagnose the sum total of our lives.  Am I prone to digestive problems?  Will I develop heart disorders?  Do I give a damn?  Will I change my life accordingly?   The short and long answer is probably, no.  No matter how much diagnostic material I have, no matter how much I am given indications that there are areas of my life that are out of balance, I change very little.

Why am I so stubborn?  Or is it that change is difficult?  It certainly is a combination of all of these things.  I was getting dressed tonight to go to a friend's birthday party.  In order to get the sandals I wanted I had to move about a mountain of clothing and three large boxes.  It's not as if I didn't know where to find the shoes, it's just that they were buried under my disorganisation and laziness. By the time I found my shoes I was in a state of over-heated  frenzy, both furious with myself and enraged at the mess I had created.

So tomorrow is Day One of Operation Clear Up.  I am sort of looking forward to this in much the same way as new army recruits finishing basic training look forward to their first real battle with the enemy.  Except that this is an enemy I have created.

Tomorrow I am putting aside my Seven Negative Dwarfs - Push, Lazy, Sloppy, Guilty, Tired, Dusty and Procrastination and getting in touch with my cleaning chakra.  Funny how this is the one chakra that I know is not overactive, so tomorrow we activate it and kick it into action.

As a result of this activity and the warmth of tonight, I am going to prepare for this by getting a good night's sleep.  Wish me luck, I expect I will need it. I expect I will have to talk myself into Operation Clear Up all over again in the morning.

My life with the Seven Dwarfs...

I was given a belated small birthday present yesterday.  I am a regular customer of the four charity shops in my neighbourhood.  As an inveterate buyer of secondhand goods I keep my eye on the constantly shifting stock of these shops awaiting the arrival of the next bit of treasure.  This means that I have also come to know the staff of the shops.  Many of the staff are volunteers with the oldest being a woman of 92 and the youngest is a 16 year old school leaver.  I pop in most days and have a little chat. It was one of the women in these shops who gave me a small gift for my birthday.

I was particularly taken with tiny (3cm) models of the seven dwarfs from the Disney Snow White film.  When I asked the price, because of course, I had to have them, I was given them as a gift. They were sweetly gift-wrapped and handed to me.  I felt only slightly silly since I am rather old for collecting tiny models, but I was nonetheless secretly completely thrilled.

'Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs' was the first film I ever saw in the cinema.  I think I may have been about seven years old when my mum, aunt, two cousins and I went to the cinema to see this film.  We travelled by train to Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.  I remember being awestruck by the size of the place, the grandeur of the Art Deco surroundings and the Rockettes.  The Radio City Music Hall Rockettes were (and apparently still are) a precision female dance troupe who danced in a long line, high kicking and tap dancing on the stage of Radio City before the movie started and sometimes at the interval. As a little girl, with no exposure to anything like this, I was bowled over by the whole  experience, and then the film started.

Wowee!  Fantastic! It was in turn funny, sad, terrifying and marvelous.  I loved Snow White, especially since she had dark hair like me.  It was much more usual for princesses and heroines to have blond hair so this aspect of Snow White's appearance was an added bonus for this little Jewish brunette. Here was a beautiful maiden I could identify with.  Then there was the wicked Queen and her horrid disguise as a witch in order to kill Snow White with her poisoned apple - this terrified me, not just on the day in the cinema, but for months afterwards I would think of this nasty, gnarled witch and be frightened. Talk about archetypes.  Finally, the characters I adored and have loved for over 50 years, the seven wonderful dwarfs.

Let me tell you about my secret affair with these little men. About 10 years ago I bought myself large models of the seven dwarfs at the Disney Store. As a child we never had extra money for such trivialities, but as an adult I could choose what to spend my pennies on.  I had to have them, but I also recognised that these doll-sized models took up an inordinate amount of space and were even a slight embarrassment. After all, I was a grown-up,  wasn't I? I eventually gave the dwarfs away to the little girl next door.  They were far more suitable for a five year old.  Since then I have put the dwarfs firmly out of my mind, until yesterday, and this unexpected gift. As I giggled over these mini-statues this morning  I started thinking about all the aspects of myself that the dwarfs represented and realised once again, why I loved these tiny cartoon creations. 

Jung looked at the Snow White story and all its archetypes and I thought I would do something similar, although lacking the intellect and psychological insight. I'll start with my favourite dwarf, the one that I played in a summer kids production -

Dopey - unfortunately I always identified strongly with poor, pathetic Dopey.  I was always the slightly odd one out when i was a kid.  I certainly wasn't stupid, on the contrary, I was extremely intelligent.  I was just a bit ungainly and felt awkward and clumsy. Dopey always struck me as completely adorable and his silliness made him all the more lovable. In my heart of hearts I wanted to be Snow White, but alas, I was usually Dopey.

Bashful - never really resonated with me though I understood him and even behaved like him.  I was never backwards about coming forward, but I have and still do experience the hesitancy and shyness of Bashful, especially in large groups.  I find that I have to lecture my inner Bashful at times, so that I can network with people and push myself forward.  I think I hide Bashful pretty well, sometimes so well that I could be a dwarf called Pushy!

Sleepy - I love you.  You are a dwarf after my own heart.  Given a choice of things to do, I will channel Sleepy and take a long nap.  Sleepy has the right idea, the languorous love of life that so accurately reflects mine. If in doubt or stress, Sleepy has the answer.





Sneezy - poor old Sneezy. Like me, Sneezy must have hundreds of amorphous allergies and even occasional  sneezing accidents.  I know the tyranny of repeatedly sneezing and sneezing, sometimes without even breathing. It makes one socially unacceptable and clears crowds in times of flu epidemics. Poor Sneezy and his bulbous red nose have my total sympathy.  I know how you feel.  Someone pass that dwarf some antihistamines and tissues.

Grumpy - oy vey!  This dwarf lives in my house and even inhabits my body a lot.  I understand you, Grumpy.  I could be your psychotherapist.  The grouchy, irritable dwarf with the big personality is the one I can't help but admire.  He is always true to himself and luckily all the other dwarfs love him so much that they just sigh and embrace poor Grumpy no matter how scratchy he gets.  It does take a lot of patience to live with Grumpy, but he will always have a place in my heart.

Doc - is the font of all wisdom.  He is the frustrated Herr Doctor Professor that resides in my head.  He is the doyenne of the dwarf internet and his search engine is always reliable and accurate, as is mine.  Doc is the one I would go to for calm,loving wise advice.  He is big and cuddly and his large knowledgeable arms would enfold me and he would have the answers to eternal dilemmas.  I like to think that I have a lot of Doc in me.  I am also willing and ready to dispense wisdom, even if there is a slightly Dopey quality to that wisdom.

And finally, Happy - I wish I loved Happy more. For me, he is the boring dwarf.  The one who always looks for the silver lining and generally finds it.  Happy is the dwarf that I would like to assimilate in my life and the one that I usually forget all about.  Everyone can name six of the seven dwarfs and Happy is the one I forget.  Maybe Happy should be re-named Joyful and then I would feel a little more spirited and enthusiastic about him. Happy is the dwarf I try to convince myself to emulate. It is a work in progress.



So, seven dwarfs and seven different aspects of me - all  of this inspired by a gift of tiny toys.  All the dwarfs make me smile and maybe tomorrow I'll relate them to the seven chakras.  This could be a theme for me for a while.  At  least it gives me new justification for toy collecting.

Life is often like a Lou Reed song...

Often the day starts out by not really starting out.  An antsy, unsettled sort of day where you're not sure what to do, where to go, whether to go there alone or with others and once you're there, does it make any difference at all?  Today is such a day.  Perfect really, like the song says, problems left all alone.  But I wanted to spend it with myself and now I feel that I spent it in a limbo state of semi-paralysis.

That's the trouble with long, hot days.  Want to do nothing, be nowhere, go no place, but when I do I feel as if I haven't actually had a day at all.  Nothing to show for it and no one to  talk to about it.  Wait, not true.  I spoke to one friend on the phone, sent two e-mails to family and went out to the local shops.

I have to remind myself not to take for granted the sheer pleasure of being able to call my own shots and make my own schedules.  I am not a slave to the commuter routine and my work, though not enough, allows me to be my own master.  This is quite a luxury.  I forget this most of the time. I spend too much time bemoaning loneliness or apathy and not enough time rejoicing in the freedom I have. 

Today I also decided that my 'career' is not yet over.  I don't mean my management training work.  That work continues, I enjoy it and I will carry on for as long as I can and the work is there.  I mean that I still have this feeling that there is something more I have to achieve, some unfulfilled promise that I need to realise.  This is a feeling I've had for a long time. it is unsettling and also frustrating.  It's as if I'm hungry and standing at the fridge looking at all the foods on display without choosing any of them. I know I want something, but nothing that I can see is 'it'.  It's the feeling that I'll know it when I see it, but that hasn't worked too well for me in the past.

When I was a kid in primary school every one of my teachers, without exception, wrote on my reports that though I had achieved a lot, I hadn't reached my potential. I remember wondering what my potential was, as if I was supposed to know what it was so I could reach it.  How, when I didn't even know what the word meant.  I only knew that the word was loaded with disappointment for those around me and that disappointment was directed my way.

I no longer feel that judgemental disappointment in myself, but I often feel an unsatisfied gnawing at the inner me.  I could do more, but what?  I thought all of these things today as I re-cut and re-designed a shirt, baked a cake, made some bread and then did some shopping so I could make dinner.  Like Lou Reed said, it was just " a perfect day,  it made me forget myself, I thought I was someone else, someone good".  Great song, Lou.