Scratchy...

I just deleted the original first paragraphs of my writing this morning.  I just listened to a clip of film of Ram Das talking about his meeting with his guru, Mahara-ji.  Ram Das said his guru looked him directly in the eyes and said' 'Love everybody'.  'I can't'  was Ram Das' reply.  'Love everybody and tell the truth', was the reply to Ram Das' doubting response.  Suddenly and I mean in the flash of a moment,  I saw that the anger I felt this morning was simply a response from my ego and not from my loving heart, and the anger actually evaporated.  Just like that.  Remarkable. Now I can begin my day again with a lighter heart.

It's absolutely freezing outside.  I am having a wonderfully entertaining inner argument with myself about what I want to eat and what I should eat.  During these cold winter days I want to bake cakes, make puddings, casseroles, heavy soups and prepare general calorific foods in order to lay down stores of fat in preparation for hibernation.  Well,  I already have department stores of fat laid down and I have no time for hibernation this week.

As human beings we are not designed too well.  Animals have thick winter coats all built in and don't have to pile on layer upon layer of itchy woolens to stay warm.  Animals huddle together rather than going through their days avoiding eye contact on trains and sitting in separate spaces in over-heated or too chilly offices. Animals do not eat salad in the winter!

So today is also rant and rave day. My ego is fully operational and in fine form.  Everything seemed quite personal today.  The tree man from our local Council didn't call back - personal.  The Council denied our appeal for a traffic ticket - personal.  Someone is illegally parked in my space - personal.  In other words, the universe is conspiring to make this a decidedly unsatisfactory day and I am doing my best to cooperate by getting very scratchy.

Righteous indignation is wonderfully energising and I've been a busy little bee today. I  made a reheasal batch of potato latkes so we could practice wolfing down piles of them before tomorrow's first night of Chanukah. So far, the first 16 were good, but there's always room for improvement for the eight days of Chanukah. 

 I've fetched the menorah from the top shelf and polished it in preparation for Chanukah candle lighting tomorrow and once again shed an invisible tear for my absent progeny.  It's not the same when there are just the two of us to light candles.  My kids haven't been kids for many years though I still think of Chanukah as belonging to them.  I've sent the money for them to buy themselves presents and the rest is up to them. 

Before I finish for today I also need to acknowledge how lucky I am to have friends and teachers who whisper positive healing thoughts to me just as I need them.  I just received an e-mail reminding us to be good to ourselves and heal our spirits by remembering to do all those things we already know in order to connect with healthy spirit.  This I will take personally and try to remember.

Define wisdom...

Soon it will be a year since I started writing this blog.  I look back now and I can hardly remember what originally prompted me to begin on this most interesting journey.  I am not and have never been a writer - an artist, sure, but writing, never.  The most I've written in the past forty years are shopping lists. I never try to capture my thoughts on cyber-paper.  And yet, here I am, almost 300 entries later, having written thousands of words.

I think it may be time to look back over the year and see where I am now.  Is it a different place to where I was a year back?  Have I learned anything about myself or my world in the last twelve months?  Have I dispensed any wisdom at all?  I am totally not sure.  I never went into this because I had any particular message to deliver or wisdom to impart. I never thought to set myself apart from others because I have a particular knowledge of the world that needs sharing. I would never presume such arrogance.  I'm not even sure I embarked on this blogging journey to learn anything.  It just seemed a simple place to release some of the emotional madness that tends to overtake me in winter.  Has it helped?

Actually, it has helped, or rather I've helped.  In writing I have found a voice with a different tone.  I am more objective about who I am and what I need.  I have been able to observe the fleeting nature of my emergencies and maybe even felt less subject to melodrama.  I am nothing if not an incredible drama queen.  I can embroider and enlarge a small issue into a world war.  I am able to see the dark side of anything and for me I guess, the bread always lands butter side down. Don't get me wrong, I also love and indulge this side of myself.  It is endlessly entertaining. It keeps me busy for far longer than you can imagine, but it also creates and feeds my inner anxiety. Writing things down helps me to develop some perspective on reality instead of blowing things up into something more than they are.

This time last year I was busy obsessing about the cracks in my walls and the state of my house.  Even earlier this summer I was completely caught up in the recurring subsidence problems.  Now I seem to have relaxed with it.  My house has some cracks.  My house is about 120 years old.  I would crack if I was that old, but I am no longer convinced that the walls are falling down or that every little hairline crack is the portent of something far more ominous. I am quite pleased to say that I seem to have been able to let go of a little bit of that worry. Maybe in future I won't have to go into such a tailspin before I am able to stop and calm down.

In re-reading old blog entries, I am not surprised to notice how much weight I gained last winter.  For weeks all my blog entries were about the various foods I was baking, cooking and eating.  This winter I am moderating the urge to stock up on the stodge and hibernate, though I acknowledge how much I enjoy cooking.

In looking back over the past year I have also tried to look with the eyes of others.  I was told recently that my blog is a version of Schindler's List, or somehow obsessed with Holocaust horrors.  I read through many old entries to see how obsessed I have been and actually, I can see that yes, this is a thread running through some of my entries, but only about 20% of my blog.  About 80% is about other 'mishigas', other forms of madness with which I indulge myself.  It is an inescapable fact that my history is my history.  If I don't look at it, it will not change. It does not disappear.  Looking back over the blog entries I see that rather than being obsessed with the awfulness of my parents' past, I have been able to distill a genuine amount of strength from it.  I am really pleased that I have been able to transform the genetic trauma I inherited into real spirit inside me that has stood me in good stead for many years. We all take our strength from somewhere and my Jewish heritage is one of the places that feeds the positive side of me.

Over the past year I have renewed my old friendships with my friends in Holland.  I have visited the Humaniversity in Egmond three or four times and totally enjoyed working and spending time with friends.  It has become a home from home.  I have visited my dad three times in eleven months and watched him slide into dementia. This has been a source of sadness for me, but touched with such great love. I have met and made some new friends and at my age this is fantastic. My health has been surprisingly good (I can even say this out loud without feeling that the heavens are going to fall in) and my life is going well.

I will continue over the next couple of weeks to look back over the year and reflect on my present.  I am not depressed.  This is a revelation.  It's deepest winter here.  The temperature is way below zero, the days are incredibly short and I'm snuggled up at home with a hot cup of tea. I'm enjoying the sense of safety that I've been able to acknowledge this year.  I'm enjoying the fact that I'm getting older and better.  Life is giving me a lot of gifts right now and at this very moment in time, I'm more ready to accept them.

Climbing Jacob's Ladder...

... or as I should title this 'Making Cholent' in the UK!

This week in the NY Times there was an article about Jewish Ashkenazi foods that gave a recipe for a winter delight called cholent. My cousin in NY rang to tell me about this, my old Yiddish-speaking crew from Facebook posted links to this and my other cousin in NY, who I haven't spoken to in almost a year,  told me that he and his wife had also gone out to buy cholent making ingredients.  In other words, everyone I grew up with on the other side of the Atlantic was suddenly excited by this one pot meal.

I not only got inspired by this Times article, but inspired enough to do a whole evening's research on the internet for the definitive recipe for what is essentially meat, potatoes, beans and barley that cooks for anywhere from 12 to 20 hours in a slow oven. I found thousands of articles giving recipes, re-telling stories from the past, discussing the pros and cons of different methods, ingredients, flavourings and cooking pots. I got involved in reading tales from people's Ashkenazi and Sephardic roots, stories of their mothers and increasingly, fathers, making cholent.  Who knew that the NY Times would be responsible for re-opening this particular kosher can of worms?

The very next morning I went on a hunt for the ingredients for the perfect cholent.  First stop, the butcher.  My mother's cholent, which was spectacular, was heavy on the meat, as are most Ashkenazi recipes.  Us Eastern European Jewish descendants are confirmed carnivores.  So the hunt was on for a cut of meat called 'short ribs'.  I have often bought short ribs in NY to add to soups and for other long slow cooked dishes, but I have never tried to buy them here.  I went to my local North London butcher and asked if he had short ribs.  After a bit of a joke about his ribs having been cured of this problem after he saw his doctor (hahaha), he admitted he had no idea what cut of meat I was after.  He offered me skirt (no) chuck (no) and finally he pointed to a package of something called 'Jacob's Ladder''.  These were a single slab of what looked like very meaty beef spare ribs and voila! this was it.  He sawed and cut and eventually I had my short ribs. All that remained was to beg a few beef marrow bones and I was away.  The rest of the ingredients are readily available so I purchased what I needed and came home.

Today is cholent-making day.  This essentially means piling all the ingredients into my heavy, hernia-causing Le Creuset casserole, putting it in the oven and leaving it.  I am so excited.

I remember the smells that eminated from our little apartment kitchen in the Bronx early in the morning in winter.  We would go to bed on a Friday night, the apartment always a bit too cold since we were all waiting for the 'super' (janitor to the Brits) to send us up heat that came from the furnace in the basement of our building. The cost of heating was included in our rent. There was never enough heat in winter and in order to indicate this we would bang on the iron radiator pipes so the super in the basement would hear us.  Sometimes the cacaphony of banging made it hard to have normal conversations.  This winter chill indoors meant that putting the pot of cholent in a low heat oven all night was a great way of heating the kitchen.  It also meant that on Saturday morning, upon waking, the apartment was filled with the wonderful smell of lunch to come.

My father could never wait until lunchtime and I remember him at breakfast, opening the oven very quietly, pushing aside the lid of the heavy iron casserole and sneaking a spoonful of soft, melting meat and potatoes.  I also remember him inevitably being caught by my mother and severely admonished. I would be content to wait until afternoon when my aunt, uncle and cousins would arrive so we could all share in the cheapest and most delicious of delicacies together.

The decision to make this cholent is not such an easy one.  The insecurity surrounding the making of an inherited memory is fraught.  Will I get it right?  Was there a secret ingredient my mother used to add that I can't possibly know?  Will it taste as I remember?  The answer to will it taste as I remember is a resounding no. Of course not.  My mother is not there to make it and my family is not here to share it.  The memories of this dish are as important an ingredient as the beef.  They add that missing flavour and as much as I try to add that I know it will lack something.  As hard as I try to get the flavouring correct there is no way to bottle the nostalgia and warmth that go with the remembered uncovering of the aromatic mingling of beef, beans and potatoes. I certainly won't be adding the one actual ingredient that I do remember - kishke.

Kishke, or to give it its polite English translation, stuffed derma, is a sausage made from intestinal casing filled with a mixture of flour, onions, paprika and assorted stodge.  There are as many ways to make this as there are old Jewish mamas, but I will not be adding it to my cholent.  Firstly I think my English butcher would not have the requisite cow intestines to sell me and secondly, I cannot face the performance that this involves.  The cleaning, boiling and de-fatting of this particularly unsavoury part of a cow's body is not for me. I am by no means squeamish and I can certainly hoover up a plate of kishke slices in gravy with the best of the world's bar mitzvah attending gluttons, but I will not make it.  It's a memory too far for me and I guess my cholent will have to fore go this added delicacy.

Tomorrow I have friends coming to share this big pot of food with us.  One of my friends is Israeli with Ashkenazi and Sephardic roots.  He asked if I was going to add eggs to my cholent.  Oy, eggs??? Whoever heard of such a thing?  The internet research confirmed to me that Sephardic Jews did indeed add eggs, in their shells, to the cooking pot to hard-boil and absorb the flavours of the slow-cooking cholent.  I also learned that there are as many ways to make cholent as there are Jews.  Every family has there own preferred way of making a 'richtikeh' pot of cholent.  I'm sticking with what I can remember while I still have a memory left.

My anticipation of tomorrow's meal is tempered with a sweet sadness.  I miss my parents, my aunt and my uncle's unadulterated joy in sitting down to this simple pot of food.  I realise that just as I have memories of childhood and innocence attached to this, so did they.  Their memories were all the more poignant because they had so little time to share them with their brothers and sisters and families.  I have been very lucky to have had and to still have family I can share this with.  I am busy cooking today in order to lay down memories for tomorrow.  It may just be a pot of beef and beans, but for me, it's future history.

By the way, for anyone interested, this is the recipe I used (amounts are inexact because they don't matter that much):

• A few beef marrow bones
• 12 oz. dried beans (mixed haricot,lima, kidney, etc) soaked overnight and drained
• 3 sliced onions
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 4 large peeled quartered potatoes
• 2 lbs (or more) of boneless short ribs of beef (if you can't get boneless, it's easy to de-bone     them yourself - don't throw away the bones, they are great in soups)
• 5 oz barley
• 1 TBS paprika
• 1TBS honey
• 1TBS mustard powder
•  (Other seasonings can be added to your taste) Pepper can be added but don't add salt until the beans cook through a bit.
• Eggs (if you must) can be added too, but feh!

Put the ingredients in a large heavy casserole or cast iron pot in the order given.  Add water mixed with seasonings to cover the entire pot of stuff.  Bring to a boil on top of the stove and let simmer covered for about an hour.  Then transfer the covered pot to the oven (top up the water if necessary to cover) and leave in a 275 degree Farenheit oven for overnight or longer.  Check periodically to make sure there is enough liquid so it doesn't boil dry.  Serve with delight to lots of friends and family.

You can, I am told, cook this in something attractively named , a crock pot, but as my mother would never have used such a contraption, neiither do I. 

Cholent is an inexact dish. Memory is an inexact science.  Season both with as much love and nostalgia for days gone by as you can and I'm sure you can't go wrong.

Being thankful...

Well boys and girls, it's Thanksgiving in America today.  As I live in the UK I never have marked this occasion in any way.  As my dad once said, 'You live in England, what have you got to be thankful for?'

I've always laughed at my father's frivolous comment (at least I hope it was) and I've taken for granted so many of the things in my life.  When I lived in the States and we had Thanksgiving dinners with cousins I never remember it being a time to stop and consider what we were blessed with, or how grateful we ought to be feeling for the state of our lives. It was simply turkey time and sweet potatoes covered in gooey marshmallows and the Wizard of Oz on TV.

When I was quite young we used to spend Thanksgiving day with my mum's American cousins, Sophie and Irving, and they always made a wonderfully exotic American dinner.  i see now that it wasn't at all exotic it was plain American home cooking, but to me, being used to heavy Eastern European cooking, it seemed wonderfully different.  When I was a bit older my cousins moved to Staten Island, a train  and ferry journey from our apartment in the Bronx.  This was fantastic - we got to go on a boat.  The ferry ride was only ten minutes or so, but I felt like we had travelled across a continent. That's what I remember of Thanksgiving. Not much more.

When my mother made a rare Thanksgiving dinner at our house it always had a Polish/Jewish twist - potato kugel, not sweet potatoes, apple cake not pumpkin pie and it never felt too ddiferent from any other family dinners we had.  The idea of talking about or even thinking about things we were thankful for never entered my head. Perhaps my parents thought about this, but it was never expressed to us kids.

I always liked the fact that Thanksgiving was the most democratic of American holidays.  Of course the history behind it has been re-written and re-invented to suit US patriotism, but it is still the holiday that everyone celebrates.  It doesn't matter if you're Polish, Mexican, Italian, Chinese or Indian American,  Thanksgiving is for all Americans and is a huge big deal for families.  Most cultures and religions put their own twist on foods served, just as my parents used to do, but still everyone seems to mark the last Thursday in November in this way.

So here I am 3,546 miles from New York sitting in my living room in North London watching bad daytime TV and thinking about giving thanks.  What do I have to be thankful for? So, so much that I think I'll just start by listing a few things that immediately come to mind.

1) My relationships - with Ralph, with my talented, beautiful grown-up children, with my father and the rest of my family, my friends all round the world, my teachers, my work colleagues and with my neighbours.

2) My health - after countless stays in hospital, a major cancer episode,my spinal surgery and so many other 'procedures' I have had, I am remarkably healthy.  I sneeze and splutter and I complain like mad, but basically I feel great.

3) My home - I love my house.  It's warm and cozy and often feels like the safest place I know.  I love welcoming people into it and having a place of such long-lasting security.

4) My work - it keeps me sane in the winter when my moods fluctuate the way they are now.  I love the fact that for over 25 years I have been granted the privilege of working with thousands of people and feeling that I have made a positive difference in the world.

5) My talents and creativity - I am continually inspired and feel thankful that I have so many ways to entertain myself and feel fulfilled. The gifts I have been blessed with are never taken for granted and I am so lucky to have all these abilities.

6) My life experience - I have had so many varied experiences.  I expect that everyone who is over 60 will have lived an interesting life, but I am also thankful for all of it, even the bad bits.  I would not be me without them.  I have been tested a lot and always come out fine.  I am grateful for who I am and what I am capable of.

Enough, I realise I could go on and on and actually get quite maudlin sitting here alone in the fading light of the day. I guess today, on Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the sum total of all the places and experiences over all the  years of all my life, of my inheritance, my genetic history and my capacity to love.  I am and always will be eternally grateful to those who love me. I am even thankful to be living in England.  I am remakably blessed in my life, even without the turkey dinner.

Roller coaster weekends...

Posted on Facebook yesterday was a comment from my husband:
'Saturday blissful, Sunday shit. Life!!!"
This comment has got me thinking about the fairground ride that a relationship is , or in my case, marriage.

Saturday was a delightful day.  I woke up late. Lazed around the house and took my time getting ready to face the day. In the late morning Ralph and I went out for our Saturday morning amble through our neighbourhood.  Stopped, chatted to the man from the local shop, passed the time of day at the pharmacy while picking up necessaries and made our way down to the shops and restaurants via the shoe repairer and the post office.  So far, so good.  Then we went to the local Vietnamese restaurant and enjoyed a delightful lunch while discussing the differences between the UK and the USA in terms of culture and priorities.

The tone of the day changed a bit when we had a small spat in the street over the way I off-handedly spoke to Ralph.  It's true that I am quick to snap and quick to flare up so this temporarily changed the tone of the afternoon. Luckily we both agreed to forget my big mouth moment and carried on with our sweet afternoon outing.

Arriving home we both grabbed the late Saturday afternoon lull to have have a brief afternoon nap.  Ah, the wondrous decadence of such a luxury.  On waking we got dressed and left to go to Trafalgar Square to a Beethoven concert. A quick 20 minute tube journey and there we were in Trafalgar Square.  A moment to notice a giant ship in a glass bottle had been installed on the oft empty plinth in the Square and then to the crypt of the church where the concert was held,  to have a snack before settling in.

The concert was sublime.  The orchestra was small and perfectly formed and the music and ambience and sound quality was wonderful.  Watching Ralph during the concert made me very happy.  Every time I looked over at him he had his eyes half-closed and this big grin.  He looked as if he'd found religion and that religion was making him very, very happy. Lovely moments amidst beautiful music.

After a perfect (almost Saturday), Sunday was an unmitigated disaster. I mentioned in my blog entry yesterday how angry and irrational I was.  I felt enormous pressure building inside me all day and finally popped in the afternoon.  As the day drew to a close I was depleted and tired.  By the time I went to bed last night I was just exhausted and happy to say farewell to the awful day.

How does that happen?  How is it that one day I can be so calm and relaxed and easy and the next I am scratchy and annoyed and annoying? For years I have studied different philosophies and had practice days and group sessions in order to still my mind and bring me to a point of evenness.   Obviously I haven't learned the lessons I need or I wouldn't send myself and those close to me on this rollercoaster ride of madness.  Maybe I just give myself too much permission with those I love.  Would I behave like this at work?  with friends? with distant family?  The answer is simple. NO! I would bite my tongue, hold my temper, curb my madness impulse.  I think it is not a good thing that I let these moods leak all over people.  I need to stop it. Just stop it.  It is an indulgence that does not make me feel better, clearer or relieved in any way.

Sometimes I watch this programme on TV called 'Supernanny'.  This is about an English woman who goes into people's homes and teaches them to cope with their own children.  She is the originator of the idea of putting children on a 'naughty step', the place where they have a time out for misbehaving - one minute time out for each year of their age.  Maybe the anwer for me is to re-train myself when I go into my  indulgent tantrums and put myself on a 'naughty step'.  For me that would mean 61 minutes of sitting in silence with no distractions in order to think about what I've just been through.  This would be quite a meditation for me.

The more I think about it the more I remember something my mum used to say and it was something I never liked.  My mum used to tell me that the reason she could be brutally honest, to the point of offensive, with me was that I was her daughter and it was okay to do this because I wouldn't reject her because of it.  What a load of tosh!  And I see that this is exactly what I do with my family.  I believe I can act out in any unpleasant way because they will love me regardless.  This is absolutley true, they will love me, but maybe they, and importantly, I, won't like me so much.

So this may be me turning over a new leaf , the leaf that involves treating those I love with as much respect as I treat strangers.  Familiarity breeds love too.

No Light today...

I am in the most foul tempered mood at this moment.  I debated as to whether or not to write anything at all for this day and decided that I could not just walk away from this mood without noting it.  I felt it coming, like a horrible dreaded maiden aunt's arrival, I have seen the cloud of doom descending for some days and I kept doing small things that I hoped would ward off the arrival of this evil spirit.  No such luck.

After a terrible night's sleep with dreams of a technological catastrophe at my work tomorrow I woke up, got dressed and walked round the corner to buy the Sunday papers.  It took a moment for me to realise that I had walked out coatless and in my slippers. This is the sort of thing that a crazed friend of my family's used to do when I was a kid and I can remember what we said about her.  Luckily I didn't meet anyone I knew and the man who owns the shop has just had a cataract operation so I doubt he noticed. I made poached eggs for breakfast and then remembered that I don't like soft poached eggs. Doh!  I sat down at my computer and started to work on the handout material for my course tomorrow. It took three times as long as I expected. I finally finished my work and embarked on lunch prep.

I knew that this mood was percolating.  The supposed non-stick grill pan stuck like crazy and my beautiful tuna steak was a mess.  The carrots were overcooked and I just felt my internal mood temperature starting to boil.  I almost threw lunch against the wall, but remembered the subsequent cleaning mess that would enrage me even more.

I am now in full, rolling boil.  I just screamed very loudly at Ralph for something that was only a tiny bit his fault and if I really have to look at it, maybe it wasn't his fault at all, but I am nowhere near ready to admit that. My teeth are gritted so hard they might shatter. I also ate half of a large bar of milk chocolate knowing that my skin reacts really badly to milk chocolate so I have that to look forward to later this evening.

I feel like I have an enormous lump of a two-year old's  tantrum sitting in my chest and waiting to reach exploding point and then...watch out!

Why does this happen?  Why, no matter how I try to distract myself, try to do what I know is good for me, create pockets of harmony and beauty in my life, does this pig of a mood take such an iron grip on me?  I really am not a happy bunny right now.

Do not give me advice to relax, chill, accept this new state. Right now I cannot hear you. In the mood I am in I am liable to commit an act that later I may regret.  I am not able to be compassionate, rational or clear thinking.  I nearly smashed my computer a moment ago when it did not behave in a way that I thought was reasonable.  It's a good thing right now that I don't have a dog.  It probably wouldn't survive the day.

I think I will go to bed and wait for the storm to pass. Thankfully it usually does.

Adopting the Land of Hope and Glory

In July of 1970 I arrived in Great Britain.  I was five months pregnant, had been married for nine months to an Englishman that I had only known for a short time and I once visited the new country I arrived in for a week. For the first month or so I lived as a guest in the house of my new in-laws who were religious and far more observant than I had ever experienced. I felt like I was walking on eggshells for those first weeks and I hardly dared speak in more than a whisper.

What did I expect?  I can't really remember, but I was under the misapprehension that New York and London, two cosmopolitan cities, would be very similar.  Sure the English spoke in a more refined way, but I thought that was where the differences ended.  I was completely wrong.  The country I arrived in could not have been more different than if I had travelled from New York to Timbuktu. Culture shock did not begin to express my feelings at the time.

I arrived here, I see now, with the arrogance of an American on holiday. 'What do you mean there's no central heating?'  'Why can't I have bigger portions?' 'Where are the all-night supermarkets, the discount clothing stores, the Italian/French/Chinese restaurants?'  I had little understanding or patience with any of the differences with which I was confronted.
Being an outsider, I was able to see a lot of differences more clearly than those who lived here, but I had no frame of reference for them.  All I did was compare and find London sadly lacking. For at least two years I was unhappy with my newly adopted land.

The London I had moved to was small and narrow in its thinking.  There was little that was cosmopolitan about London in the 1970's.  Most English people were content to be an island race completely separate from their European neighbours.  The English Channel may have only been 22 miles wide, but it was a universe away from the opposite coast. Politicians were busy trying to convince this insular island race to stay away from their corrupting European cousins and stay out of the Common Market. The Brits seemed much happier relating to their Commonwealth past. Rule Britannia was the order of the day.

I also needed to re-learn some of the history of the Second World War and how much it had affected Britain.  Bombings, rationing, shortages and the wartime mentality were not even twenty years past.  Rationing had not really ended until 1954. I had no awareness of this and thought the scarcity mentality I encountered in 1970 was simply a meanness of spirit, rather than a delayed shock reaction.  The Britain I arrived in was still a country living in a state of fear. Fear of strangers, fear of war, fear of shortages and just a sense that everything they had was terribly fragile and needed doling out in very small portions.

How ignorant I was of the history of other parts of the world.  I never really thought about this until this very moment and now I wish I had been educated and informed before I arrived, but I was young, in love and assumed that this country would be just like home from my first moments here.  Instead I felt awkward, loud and even more of an outsider than ever.  I kept trying to keep the heat on in our tiny flat for the whole day (super expensive) and I kept looking for the supermarkets and shops I was accustomed to (not for years yet).  I wish I had been prepared, but then maybe I would not have come here so willingly. Maybe in my case ignorance was bliss.

Now I can't imagine living anywhere else. After 40 years here I finally feel like I can understand the English sensibility.  I can relax in this strangely uptight society and relax even more in the diversity of London and how much that diversity is celebrated.  There are few segregated neighbourhoods and much economic mixing of classes.  This is still not a land of plenty and no one would fool themselves into thinking that in London the streets are paved with gold, but it's turned out to be a pretty civilised place to live.

Again I come back to the fact that it was meeting people and making friends that created my sense of home.  After my daughter was born, late in 1970, I was even more isolated and relied on Ralph to bring me into his world.  Eventually I met people I could begin to form friendships of my own with, some English, some Australian and even some Americans.  I got to like fish and chips, roast dinners and appreciate Sunday closing of shops and the quietness of the day.  I began to see the benefits of living in a country that was so close to so many fantastic European cities and started to travel across the Channel to many different countries whenever I could.  I started cooking English food and discovered that there is such a thing as English cuisine! In short, I began to assimilate into this new culture.

Of course, I will never be fully assimilated.  I don't really want to be.  My 'Noo Yawk' accent is still almost as strong and I still hunger for the 'heimlich' quality of the city of my birth, but I am home here and I guess I might stay for a while longer. I see now that being an outsider has given me a lot of permission to be different while at the same time I have developed more insight into the English consciousness.  There are fewer differences now than there were 40 years ago, but the whole world is much smaller now that travel is easier.  The English have become a nation of coffee drinkers and I, for one, am delighted. While I wasn't paying attention, I started to think of this chilly, damp, grey country as my home.

You don't have to be Jewish...

As I get older I expect to become wiser.  Occasionally it happens.  I find that I am able to step back, take a long look at myself and see reality instead of an amalgamation of neurotic symptoms.  I also am able to assess more clearly what is of importance, the things that I am willing to put energy into and the things I can let go.

Yesterday I watched one of those programmes where celebrities go back into their family trees and find out about their history.  The focus of yesterday's programme was Jerry Springer.  My expectation was that I would see another tragic Holocaust memory and that genetically his family tree would reach the end of the line at the end of the train line to Auschwitz.  In this I was not surprised.  A large number of his family, his grandparents, aunts, uncles and many distant cousins did indeed meet the end of their lives in those very camps and gas ovens.  There was also a surprise for him at the end of the show.  The researchers had found an entire branch of his family, cousins, alive and living in Israel. Springer was overcome with emotion and so was I.  I found the fact that he suddenly discovered he was not really alone in the world unbearably emotional and even in retelling this to Ralph I found myself tearing up.

I grew up in a world inhabited by only young people.  There was no older generation. They had all gone. I had few cousins and felt pretty alone in the world.  I couldn't talk to my parents about any of this since I didn't want to cause them any extra pain on top of that which they were already dealing with. All my life I felt as it I was searching for somewhere to belong, some family to belong to. I completely empathised with Jerry Springer's final comments about the importance of carrying on, of a sense of continuity, in Yiddish, 'hemshekh'.

As I reach the grand years of my 60's I am aware of the growing importance to me of being Jewish.  Not religiously Jewish, since I do have a small problem with the Judaic concept of God, but Jewish in my bones, in my heart and in my present history as it impacts on me today. It's difficult to explain how very important this is and how much a part of me this legacy is.  It is certainly strengthened by my parents' history, but it is not the totality of what I feel.  I actually feel that my soul is Jewish, my way of approaching the world, all that is good and all that is not so good about me is informed by that fact.

I am overcome with sentimentality when I try to quantify what this Jewishness is.  Is it just my biting humour? No.  Is it my ability to see foreboding doom in most situations? No, not really.  Is it my overwhelming guilt in the face of pleasure?  I hope not, but yet, I cannot say what it is.  I know that it gives me a sense of yearning for something not quite expressed.  A sense of specialness, not in the sense of being a 'chosen people', but in the sense that I believe it gives me a unique way of being in the world that encompasses warmth and family and creating communities around me.  I have a real need to welcome people into my life and into my extended family.  The more, the better.  It means that I am pretty much WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get).  I don't believe I have too much guile or deceit about me and I think this is part of my genetic make-up. Does that make any sense?  Not sure it makes sense to me, but never the less, there it is.

It also means that I feel a bit rootless in the world.  I am not a citizen of anywhere except when I am with those I love, then I fully belong.  I love being Jewish.  It is probably one of the most important things about me.  It does define me in some way. But, and this is a huge but, I am also defined by thousands, if not millions, of  other things.  All the facets of my Jewish personality are also mine.  They are also part of my Cynthia personality.  My talents are wholly mine.  The fact that I am an artist, in the kitchen, on canvas, when I write, knit, sew, paint and in my work is down to me.  Those things I get to own.  I developed them, I created them and yet, and yet, the Jewish me means that I have the strength to create all these different things.  It gives me such a strong sense of identity that even though I grew up in such a small family and small community, I was able to expand and build my world into so much more.

Sometimes I wish I could go down the path of religious observance.  It would be so much easier to relate to a world of North London Jews, eating latkes on Chanukah and lighting candles on Shabbat, but I don't.  I am my own sort of Jew.  This means that in order to open my arms to others, I just have to bring them into my flock - to open my heart to a wider world and take joy from that.

Only one more month...

This morning I was driving down the road listening to Krishna Das chanting his little heart out on my tinny iPod.  I was calm and enjoying a rare bit of November sunshine.  I also remembered to notice the world as I drove through it.  Usually it is too easy for me to whiz through different areas and go on to automatic pilot as I drive.  Today I was able to slow down and watch the world a bit as I drove.

It's the cusp of Autumn and Winter.  Some of the trees still have leaves and some look like they are hanging on to the last few scraps of leaf by a swinging thread. The trees still have their wonderful mixed colours of reds, yellows and greens and grey skies only highlighted the few remaining colours left by the chill winds.

London is a dull city.  Not in entertainment and culture.  In those fields it's fantastic, but in terms of the colours of the fabric of the city and the weather.  I also saw it clearly today in the colours of the clothing.  I went shopping for a new handbag.  I probably only have a dozen or so, but I don't have just the right one to use for every day.  While I was in the department store I stopped to look at jackets and jumpers.  Can never have too many of those.  Except you can have too many of them if they're all in varying shades of grey, black and sludge  Rack after rack of wintry, dark, dismal clothing.  I was looking for a colour, something that would bring a bit of brightness into my SAD winter world. A simple bit of clothing that would make me smile, that would pop a bit. No luck today.

When I was walking in my neighbourhood I looked at what people were wearing and basically it was uniformly drab.  What is it with the Brits?  Don't they understand the concepts of 'you are what you eat' and 'you are also what you wear'.  If we all dress as if we are hiding from overhead spy planes, how can we feel even a bit cheered.  I include myself here.  I have commented before about my monochrome wardrobe so I bought a pale blue jumper and a purple cashmmere cardigan.  I now look like an ad for Lands End.  Not sure if this is an improvement, but it is more cheerful.

I got my SAD light out today. No use pretending that I don't need help in surviving the gloom.  I still feel like I am standing on the edge of an enormous, magnetic abyss.  It is so, so tempting to just allow myself to jump over the edge and give in to the depression and exhaustion.  Bad, bad idea.  I have inhabited this dark country before and it is not pretty.  So, here I am, under my light, chanting a bit, listening to music that uplifts me and absolutely consoling myself with the thought that we have only one month to go before the days start getting longer again.

When I think of it in that way, only one more month and then the days start lengthening, it doesn't seem nearly so bad.  I can survive one more month easily.  Piece of cake! Actually not a piece of cake since I'm still on my diet.  Almost seven kilos lost and still going strong.

Message to self and others: Don't forget to congratulate yourself on all those small accomplishments today.  We need all the positive reinforcement we can get.

If it's so good for you ...

Why don't I do it? 
This morning I was thinking about what will help me lift my spirits during these winter days.  I came up with a list of things I could do.  In no particular order here are some of them:

• Meditation
• Physical Exercise
• Healthy Eating
• De-cluttering
• Socialising
• Walking in nature
• Vitamin supplements
• Mindfulness
• Therapy
• Dancing
• Chanting

I do very little, if any,of any of these things.  The question I have to ask myself and perhaps answer in an honest way is,  why not?  There must be some payoff  to me for not doing these things. So let me endeavour to answer my own question.

Why I don't meditate?  It bores me.  It's not active enough.  It feels like a chore.  I feel silly alone at home sitting quietly and exploring the inner workings of me.  I know the answers to all my eternal doubts and questions are inside, but it's not enough fun for me to go there.  I have a friend who spends most of his time in a state of communion with his inner world. For him this works, for me, not quite.  Maybe at some point in my life I will find the path of meditation that works for me, but I haven't found it in the forms of mediatation I have tried.  The cynic in me is still strong, active and very much alive.

Why I don't exercise or join a gym?  I hate it.  Just like meditation feels a bit passive, exercise feels too active, especially at this time of the year.  I used to belong to a local gym.  I went about four times a week.  I even had a personal trainer who put me through my paces and made sure I didn't slack.  I never loved it, actually I hardly even liked it.  I never experienced that liberating euphoric release of endorphins that are supposed to keep us addicted to exercise.  I hated the sweating, the showers and communal changing rooms.  The whole thing felt wrong.  Why am I showering in this place?  Why are all these woman walking around in various states of undress and especially why am I paying out exorbitant amounts of money to be allowed the privilege of rowing endlessly and going nowhere?   There is another reason I don't exercise.  I am a klutz.  I look ridiculous in the exercise clothing that is designed for skinny people who don't need to exercise. I look like a salami tied in all the wrong places in a leotard and I cannot bear inflicting this on myself or others.  And there are so many full length mirrors in gyms.

Healthy eating is an obvious.  All eating is healthy.  All of it helps keep me alive.  Does it really matter if it's a tub of Haagen Das or a plate of frog-spawn resembling quinoa. I am fed up with living in semi-darkness in English winters and eating salads and vegetables.  What I crave are big portions of stodge and I know in my heart of hearts that this food contributes to my lethargy and yet...

Actually right at this moment I do not want to look at the reasons that I do not treat my mindor body in a holistic, healing manner.  It is 4pm and it's dark outside.  We have hardly had any light today.  The dreary weather is beginning to get to me.  I am tired of fighting the good fight against self-pity and depression.  Their is a huge part of me that wants to say 'stop being such a good little soldier and just give in to the urge to eat, sleep and do little else', but luckily there is still a corner of my psyche that knows this is bad advice.  This is the advice that drives me into the arms of misery and I can't afford to listen to this too much.

I have done nothing today.  I went out this morning for a coffee fix and a short walk.  Good. I need the daylight, such as it is, but since coming home I have not washed a dish, dusted a shelf or done anything that I judge to be productive.  No wonder my butt is getting bigger.  I spend most of the winter months sitting on it.

Cynthia, give yourself a break.  There is no one pressuring you, but you.

As I am writing I am getting angry with myself.  I know the healthy choices.  I know that there are things I can do to help lift me out of the hole I see opening up in front of me.  I am not quite in that hole yet, but today it sure looks tempting.

Living under a shadow...

Incredibly, after so many years and so much therapy and investigation, I am still so influenced by my parents' history. It really is an inescapable fact that what my parents experienced during the war will shade and colour my life forever.  As much as I try to escape this fact, as much as I make feeble efforts to live in the here and now, my Holocaust history is here to stay.

Even though it may seem odd, on some levels I value this legacy and even value the horror that goes with it.  It has made me a better person than I might have been.  I am very concerned with living in a world where people value each other for who they are and what they bring to the table rather than any diverse arbitrary characteristic like religion, colour, race, etc.  It means  that the work I do has enormous meaning and true importance in helping me to re-create my world as a safe and nurturing place. When I teach acceptance and welcome of difference I feel that I fully understand the cost of not living in that way, of not valuing differences. I have seen some of the result.

In almost every therapy session I've had all my neuroses (and there have been many) have come back to the historical damage that my parents suffered.  All my fears, anxieties and negative thinking can be directly or indirectly traced back to those experiences.  Sometimes I get really angry at this. It feels like I can't even have an original trauma of my own.  The last time I was in therapy, when my therapist said that all my fears could be traced back to the Holocaust effect, I quit therapy.  What was the point?  If it all came down to history and its huge impact, what difference did it make to me that I understood this?

It does make a difference.  I see that I don't have to live at the mercy of history.  It is important that I know it and it is even more important that I acknowledge the negative impact this has had on me, but ultimately I get to choose whether or not I live as the next generation's victim of Nazi persecution. Important point - I get to choose.

I do not choose to live in defeat.  I recognise that my depressions and my enormous Jewish guilt go with the birthright I have inherited, but I have also inherited an incredibly rich heritage.  My parents taught me to speak Yiddish,a language of such wonderful expressiveness that I wish more people spoke it.  They made me understand courage in the face of uncertainty and doing things in spite of being frightened.  I often stop and remember my mother, this little woman, looking scared and unsure, before she got on a plane, walked into a room of strangers or had to complain to the bank.  She would feel all those fears and you could see it in her eyes and she always pulled herself up and did what was needed.  My dad never even acknowledged his fear.  If I were to ask him he would certainly deny feeling any fear and yet, sometimes when his guard was down, I could see the vulnerasbility in him.  I found and still find this remarkably touching.

It is almost impossible to express the way I feel about my parents.  I feel enormous sadness for their loss of family.  I feel enormous grief for how much pain they went through and I also feel real pride for who they became.  They overcame all the madness they experienced.  They picked themselves up and carried on with their lives in a way that I'm not sure, if tested, I could do.

Actually, I am sure that I could do the same.  They taught me well.  That survivor reflex is in-built and works just fine.  I can and do live in a way that is courageous.  I have overcome some pretty rotten times and survived, not just intact, but better than ever.  I feel enormous gratitude to these two little Jews who took on the world post-1945 and succeeded in winning.  They taught me this and for some reason, today, I feel very sentimental and very close to both my parents.

Allowing my mind to wander...

On this cold Monday morning I decided that rather than decide what to write about, I would simply let me my mind wander wherever my thoughts and feelings take me. This may be quite dangerous in that I expect that , as is it's want, my mind will take me to a negative space even though there is nothing particularly wrong today and the sun is even shining.

I woke up feeling an overwhelming sense of 'leave me alone'.  This doesn't mean what it sounds like and that's often confusing for me and very confusing for Ralph.  My 'leave me alone' is an automatic response to not wanting to face the day.  I feel like I have a long list of things to do and no, absolutely no, motivation to do anything.  When I say anything, I mean absolutely anything, even showering seems like too much effort.  I push myself into the shower, get made-up and get dressed.  Now what? My house needs cleaning.  No way today! I need to write up work notes for next week, but that's next week and is not calling to me with enough desperation today.  Ironing is piling up, but a little more on the pile won't make that much difference.  The only thing I can do, if you can call it doing, is to watch really bad daytime TV.  To me this is the equivalent of being buried alive.

I have come to see over the past year that as the days get shorter I don't necessarily get depressed.  I think I have that more under control than I used to, but I do get completely lethargic.  It's good that I have to go out of the house to work.  It makes me participate in the world more than I am inclined to do in winter.  It's good that I socialise with friends since actually I am tempted to pull up the drawbridge and see no one until March or April.

I also realise that I am ashamed of this part of me.  It feels like a deep secret that I am such a sloth.  Maybe it isn't so hidden.  Anyone who really knows me will have seen the signs of this, but I still try and hide this from others.  Ralph and I guess my kids are the only people who are really allowed to see the less acceptable parts of me.  To so many others I probably seem in control and together.

I am also in contol and together.  My friend Veeresh wrote a poem many years ago called 'Also'. This described the concept of accepting the 'also' part of ourselves.  I messed up, also, I am a good person, also, I can't do this, also.  It is not the only side, the only part and yet it is so easy to get caught up in the darker part of myself.  As the days get shorter and the winter begins to bite I see that I forget the'also' and get caught up in 'only'. 

I am not only a slothful slob.  I am not only a de-motivated mess.  I am not only unable to keep my house clean.  I am also beautiful and talented and I am also a good friend, a good wife, a good mother and I am also allowed to waver from those things without punishing myself with feelings of guilt and worthlessness. sometimes, just sometimes, I am also allowed to do absolutely nothing and feel free and easy whilst doing it.

Allergic to Saturdays...

Yesterday was gone in a blur - antihistamines and sleep.  Once again I spent another Saturday flat out with an allergy attack.  This is becoming tedious.  Sneezing, coughing, wheezing, runny nose and itchy, scratchy throat and mood.  What am I doing wrong?

I once again slept for 19 or so hours and awoke this morning feeling like I've got a hangover. I started moving about and now, just about when I feel like I might be ready to take on the day, it's dark and gray outside.  This is not the way I want my weekend to look. I want to spend my weekend at art galleries, museums, chi-chi restaurants, shopping for wonderful vintage clothes, actually anything but blowing my nose and recovering.

I am practicing acceptance.  This is the way it is.  There is no point arguing. Live in the here and now.  Don't push the river. Watch the grass grow by itself. Wonderful concepts but I am not too good at living on a conceptual level.  I cannot separate myself easily from events around me.  This may also explain why this morning I am spittingly mad about the political situation in the country I have adopted as my own.

I just met my local council member who volunteers at weekends in my local secondhand charity shop.  We often stop and chat and today he approached me and we discussed the Remembrance Day parade blocking all the traffic in the area, the impending cuts in government services and the general unease and dissatisfaction that the populace has with government at the moment.  Even though I know deep in my heart that my opinion, angst, and pissed off state don't make a smidget of difference, I am still experiencing those feelings.  ...all that is needed is for good people to do nothing, etc.etc.

So my Sunday goes on.  I am fed up today with diets, darkness, never ending rain, wet leaves everywhere and just the general state of the world.  I have little to add to mankind and the planet this miserable gray Sunday so I have decided to use my writing today to complain. Maybe I'll take a bit of a writing break now since I can see that this is going nowhere and I am banging the keys of the computer so hard I think I might break it... till later.

Two hours later... and that's better. I took all my day's frustrations and picked apples (many), made vegetable soup, also baked bread and marinated the beef for tonight's Chinese style stir fry.  Amazing how for some people it's music that soothes the irritated spirit, but for me it's food.

Once again I've watched my mood change and instead of feeling annoyed with the weather that I can't change, the early darkness that won't shift no matter how impatient I am, I have decided to enjoy the enveloping autumnal afternoon.  TV on, house is warm and I'm knitting.  How easily my mood  changed and how much I am suddenly enjoying this afternoon.  Sometimes my mercurial moods make me crazy.  I pity those around me.

World Kindness Day

Listening to the radio this morning it was announced that today, 13  November, is World Kindness Day.  So for today, please remember to be kind to yourself and everyone touched by you.  For this morning's blog I am taking the unusual step of re-publishing the text of the World Kindness Day web site since I think it is really worth reading.  If you are not sure how to start with your personal act of kindness, try hugging someone.  It always works.

"The purpose of World Kindness Day is to look beyond ourselves, beyond the boundaries of our country, beyond our culture, our race, our religion; and realise we are citizens of the world. As world citizens we have a commonality, and must realise that if progress is to be made in human relations and endeavours, if we are to achieve the goal of peaceful coexistence, we must focus on what we have in common. When we find likenesses we begin to experience empathy, and in such a state we can fully relate to that person or those people.

While we may think of people from other cultures as being ‘different’ when we compare them with our own customs and beliefs, it doesn’t mean that we are any better than they are. When we become friends with someone from a different culture we discover that despite some obvious differences, there are many similarities. 

Sometimes knowledge is passed on to us about different races, different cultures, that has become distorted, and we build up a false, negative impression of these people. It is only when we get to know such people that we realise it is a lie.

Another form of separation is in those people who fail to let go of transgressions that have occurred in the past. This also applies to some groups, where bitterness from many hundreds of years ago has been passed down though generations, and hatred becomes a normal reaction to thoughts of, or association with, the other group of people. The recent genocide in Europe is a tragic example of this. There is a need to let go of past transgressions if we are to live in peace. While we cannot change the past, we can ensure such things never happen again.

If we were to ask ourselves on a regular basis, "Is what I am involved in at this moment promoting joining or separation?", it would remind us of our commitment to kindness. All it requires is remembering. If our memory is not the best, small signs can be created and posted about the home and work environment. Simple solutions are workable solutions. Simple solutions to promote joining, working away at our goal for world peace with little acts of kindness, helping to break down the walls that separate races, religions, cultures. Helping our global brothers and sisters. 

During the Great War (1914-18), when the dead were piled high in ‘no man’s land,’ a truce would be declared so the dead could be gathered by the respective sides. When this was completed, the battle would resume as if nothing had happened. One moment joining together in a common cause, the next, mortal enemies again. Do you associate this with day to day living? We have our moments of joining in a common cause – when we pause to be of service, or when we observe Kindness Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas Day, Armistice Day, Thanksgiving Day, and so on. But then we go back to the way we were before the truce was declared – we go back to being at war! Not physically at war, but psychologically. At war with the traffic, our boss or a co-worker, the neighbour’s howling dog, rising prices, rude people, the noisy garbage truck, the promotion we didn’t get, unruly children, the computer crash, the noisy party, falling share prices, an argument with our partner, the washing machine breaking down, the late train or bus, the long queue, the parking ticket, the recording that says, "Your call is important to us," the person who didn’t ‘understand.’ It seems as if the whole of humanity is going through some mid-life crisis. All of these stressful incidents in our engagement with the world is creating separation. How can we hope to have a peaceful world when we are incapable of creating peace in our own lives? 

We give energy to whatever we put our attention on, and how sad that our energy is generally focussed on the negative things (creating stress and hostility), and on the things we don’t have (creating feelings of lack and dissatisfaction). What would it take to focus on the good things about our life, and be thankful for what we have, instead of being resentful or irritated about what we don’t have? 

We can be co-creators of a better world, and we can have a positive effect on world peace, when we bring order into our lives. Be what you want the world to be. Is that difficult? Only if you think it is! When we accept the reality that we can create positive change, we move beyond ourselves, our limitations, our doubts, and realise our infinite power. Anthropologist Margaret Mead said, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. 

As mentioned before, as individuals we seem to have a habit of labelling some things as ‘too hard,’ without giving more than a moments consideration as to whether we might be able to achieve such a thing. To achieve something, all that is usually required is the application of a little persistence (for example, when we were learning to walk). Persistence is a magical thing. Calvin Coolidge had the following to say about persistence. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. We make an agreement with ourselves to keep working away at whatever it is we wish to achieve, little by little. By chipping away, like a sculptor at their block of marble, it is only a matter of time before we have given form to our thought. Such results are within the grasp of everyone – young and old, rich and needy, educated and uneducated, employed and unemployed or retired. People like you and me, carrying out small acts of kindness, making the world a better place.

Joseph Campbell tells us, "People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." The ‘rapture of being alive’ is truly a wonderful expression, don’t you think? Such raptures give real purpose to our lives. When we carry out an act of kindness it creates a good feeling within us, which surely could be termed as one of the raptures of being alive.

We may be proud of our country, but if we think of ourselves as citizens of a country, it can become easy to distance ourselves from the misery taking place in other parts of the world. The basic principle of kindness is in joining, in acknowledging that we have a connection with every living thing on this wonderful planet of ours. As our kind acts and deeds bring greater kindness to the world, the barriers of separation will begin to crumble, bringing a rainbow of understanding and happiness to the people of the world. 

As the name implies, World Kindness Day is about being kind to the world. The ‘Lonely Planet’ not only refers to a travel guide, it is descriptive of the Earth – the only planet in our solar system known to be teeming with life. It’s all we have, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to make it the nicest place to live, because it’s the only place we have to live. Yet all we’ve done since the dawn of civilisation is to destroy anything that stands in our way. And what price do we place on the homeless, the brutalised, the addicted, the downtrodden, the impoverished, and the ever widening gap between the wealthy and the needy? Isn’t it time everyone began thinking more about others and less about themselves? There is an obsession in society for a number of things, one of them is the accumulation of material wealth, far beyond that required to live a comfortable life. The power that wealth brings seems to be irresistible to some. But it can have a down side, and we hear from time to time about the principles of such people becoming a casualty.

World Kindness Day is the beginning of a global reaction to the exploitation of our human and natural resources. It could be said that the slogan for World Kindness Day might well be "Healing the World!" – and in doing so, there is the possibility of creating something so intrinsically good and wholesome, that the beneficial effects could be virtually endless."

I wish I had written this.  It is put so well and echoes so much of my thinking.  Again apologies for borrowing the thoughts of others, but it says so clearly what is in my heart.

Living life accidentally...

When I was a child I never had a vision of what my life would look like when I was older.  I don't remember any images or fantasies of being an adult.  I never imagined myself as an artist, a doctor, a teacher, an air stewardess or anything else.  I didn't see myself as a mother or wife.  I just cannot recall any of those future thoughts and yet I must have had thoughts of being an adult. All kids have some level of seeing themselves as grown up.  How is it that I didn't?  Or at least how is it that I don't remember any of this?

Looking back over my life I seem to have lived it all accidentally. I was like a ship being thrown about by strong waves. I went wherever the wind blew. As I've noticed already things came fairly easy to me and I know that even when I was small I gravitated to what came effortlessly.  I was a talented artist as a child and it seemed that the only thing I can remember doing is drawing, painting and making things, but I never imagined that I would be an artist.

My parents had no more dreams for us except to be happy.  After what they had experienced I don't think they dared to think about future.  How difficult it must have been for them.  They didn't have much trust in anything in the future and they dared not dwell on the horrors of their past.  They were in no way enlightened enough to live fully in the here and now so I can't really imagine how it must have been for them. Most of their time was taken up with the struggle to pay the rent and create a 'normal' life.  They seemed to want nothing more for my brother and myself except to do well and keep smiling.

Today I read an article that said that following a fairly large study from Harvard University it was found that people are happiest when they are fully present in the moment, especially during sex! I'm not sure if I could manage to create enough moments in my day that would encompass that, but I 'm sure I could try.  The study also found that human beings' minds wander and daydream and this creates unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

So the trick for me is to live in the moment and here I thought I should spend time planning my old age.  I have suddenly come face to face with the actual possibility of getting old. In the UK I am referred to as an old age pensioner. Yesterday I was even offered a seat on the train on the way home from work. I know that my body is more saggy and that my hair, under the brown dye,must be more gray, but so far I have managed to avoid living in that future.  I was just considering doing some forward planning, but now I'm not sure.  Certainly I am from a generation that lived more fully in whatever timer we were in.  I never saw myself as old.  I never imagined I would be like my parents, sighing and panting as they climbed stairs and talking about the possibility of living in an old age home.

So here I am.  I am almost shocked to find myself in my 60's.  Unplanned, not enough pension arrangements, though I am still working.  According to the experts I am now shrinking, my vision is deteriorating, my lung capacity is less, my sex drive is waning, my skin has lost its elasticity, my cholesterol is rising, my hormones are depleted and my mental capacities are dimming.  Isn't it a good job I never developed the habit ofliving in the future?  Right now, in this moment, today, I feel pretty good.

In the words of the immortal Doris Day "Que sera,sera".

Tired ramblings of an unfocussed mind...

Just keep on going, even when you are exhausted.  I am getting too old to work at this  pace and yet I know no other pace at which I can do my job.

Training is an interesting thing to have chosen to do for someone who suffers from an inability to take negative criticism.  Trainers are judged to be only as good as the last course they've run.  I hate this constant evaluation process and I am even more upset by the fact that after 25 years of doing this type of work, I am still badly influenced by the occasional bit of negative feedback.  In reality I never get negative feedback, but only slightly less than excellent in the 'ratings'.

Why does one go into this field?  Frustration at not being an actor could be one motivation though for me it's because I still get quite a buzz from working with people.  Almost 40 years ago I started working with people in a more therapeutic setting and I found the reward of seeing people shift in their patterns and feelings so wonderfully alive and rewarding that I carried on doing this.  No longer in a therapy milieu,but now in the corporate world. That, plus the fact that I'm very good at it!

I am now very, very tired.  My 12 hour days are taking a toll.  It's tough to come home and feel that I don't want to talk to anyone, especially when Ralph would like to have even a tiny amount of conversation.  I find I become protective of my quiet space (though the TV and be on) and get increasingly irritated when called upon to engage.

The tiredness makes my mind turn to mush so I feel I am rambling.  The end for now.

Acknowledging a new relationship...

Without any planning I have begun to develop a relationship with writing.  It is something I have to do now. Each day I feel there is something that will emerge from the page to teach me more about myself, my world and how I relate.  it has sort of taken me by surprise.  What began as an exercise in therapeutic release has become a budding love affair.  I am very happy to have the chance to write down who I am.

I have never been one to sit in Enlightenment Intensives - days and days of sitting on my backside and answering the eternally endless question of 'tell me who you are' is not my delight. It never has been and I don't expect it ever will be.  Just like I will never be a marathon runner, I will never be someone who can do anything but fall asleep whilst contemplating this answerless answer.  This format of self-discovery bores me.

When I write I am aware of two energies surrounding me.  There is the one that quickly types, does not censor and just flows.  Then there is the editor - the energy that sits on my shoulder watching my fingers fly across the keyboard while saying, 'hey, you can't make that a sentence, the grammar is wrong, that's not the right punctuation'.  I am learning to resist that editorial energy and just let the writing develop in  its own way.  Each time I am able to do that I discover more of myself.  Each time I am able to let go of the awareness and self-consciousness of an audience I drop into a deeper level of exploration of my self.

It is important that I keep up this practice regularly.  I try and give myself time and space to do this.  It has become a labour of love.  I never, ever imagined that this would happen.  As a fully-grown, fully-matured adult I never expected this relationship to my inner mind to blossom like this.  it has been like finding a new friend.  At this point in my life I am most concerned with nurturing the friendships I already have and rarely meet new possible friends.  It does happen and recently I met a couple of new people with whom there is a kernel of possibility of friendship, but I am surprised by my friendship with writing.

I am not a 'writer'.  I am someone who writes.  I am trying to do this in a mindful way and I sometimes struggle.  Sometimes I express  myself clearly and feel pleased that I have put my point across to myself in a way that makes sense and sometimes I bore myself with my written down trivia, but it doesn't matter.  It has become an important part of my life. This has been a revelation.

It also feels like a kind of meditation.  I see that I define meditation in a very narrow way - sit quietly, close eyes, straight back, watch your breathing and (more difficult this) clear the mind or maybe dance, jump, scream, babble until you can get to a point where there are a few precious moments when the self disappears into a greater whole.  Sitting at my computer, dropping into a creative, feeling self and just letting the words emerge is also another way to reach a holistic space in myself, a calm space of greater clarity. 

I am so happy to find this.  I feel right now like a little kid who has suddenly discovered they can play the piano or sing opera beautifully.  My writing is a new toy that gives me so much pleasure.  Kind of like a vibrator for the mind and heart, if that makes any sense.  A great, limitless source of endless pleasure and there's so much more...

Awareness + Inactivity

Awareness on its own is simply awareness
Awareness plus understanding is a stepin the right direction
Awareness plus action leads to change....

This is something I pass on in my work and I have known this for many years. It's often difficult to explain to people that raising their awareness (of almost anything) will not lead to much in isolation.  Unless you add some form of action to your awareness then you remain stagnant.

I am aware that I am now entering my winter period of inactivity.  I feel large,clumsy and ursine. I am drawn to bed at almost every moment of the ever-shrinking day and I am fighting this urge. I read back through a week or two's worth of blog entries and can suddenly identify a common thread.  That thread reflects my winter mood change. Just like we moved the clocks in the UK, I moved my moods from lightness to impending darkness.  Maybe awareness can have an impact this year. Heaven knows that little else has had an effect in previous years.

Last year I managed to find my SAD light and plug it in and even sometimes sit near it.  In other years I have stored the light away in March and managed to lose it till well into winter. This year I know where I stored the light, but I'm really not sure it will help.  Maybe the answer is to sleep whenever possible and to build in fun times to keep my spirits up.

I am fighting the desire to become even more self-critical, a desire that disappears in the Spring.  I am having internal arguments with my self about how little I want to do.  Right now I feel an overwhelming need for awareness + inactivity.  I know the answer is to add more activity, but it ain't going to happen today.

Formula 1

Last week I wrote about how I might be a much better 'me' if I applied myself.  One of the comments I received was that I need to stop doing this since I am already extraordinary. My response to this actually interested me and made me stop and think about the way I see myself.

I know I am self-critical and there is no one else in the world who can find my cracks, crevices, lumps, bumps and wrinkles the way that I do.  I also know that very deep down, underneath all those wrinkles, there is a spectacularly wonderful woman.  This does not mean that even deeper down, underneath the spectacular woman I readily acknowledge and love, there is not an explosion of female energy that I am unready or maybe unwilling to release. It is there.

It is this energy I was referring to last week.  I coast through life.  I don't market my work, blow my own trumpet or in any other way advertise my greatness.  Things come to me, or at least enough things to make me feel that the extra effort is not worth the small pay-off.  Since I don't make that extra effort, I am not even sure that the pay off is that small.  It might well be, as I suspect, enormous. I just haven't risked finding out. It is this risk-averse behaviour that is so frustrating.

I feel like a Formula 1 Ferrari that is driving along on a single lane highway reaching speeds of about 60 mph.  People still admire me, what a fabulous body, what design, what clean lines, what a wonderful thing that Ferrari is, but only I really know the power underneath the bonnet.  Only I know that if I left this single track road and put my foot down to the floor on a multi-lane highway I would take off.  One of the problems is that at a sedate 60 mph I still get to my destination, I albeit a bit slower. I get to keep the image intact, not a hair out of place.  I never blow a tyre or swerve dangerously.  Reliable, still beautiful, but not very thrilling.

I know I am an amazing person.  I feel the power I have inside me and I also am very clear that there is more.  It's lovely to hear feedback that says I am extraordinary - we all are, but maybe extraordinary is not enough.

I am reminded of the conversation I had with Vladimir, a Russian man I met when we were both visiting the Osho Resort in India.  He was in awe of the fact that I had actually met Osho and had a darshan with him.  He had only ever read Osho's work.

"What was he like?" he asked.
"Extraordinary!"  I replied.
He looked a bit disappointed.  "Only extraordinary", he said. "When I am drunk I am extraordinary!!"

I guess he was hoping for something more.  So am I.

Back in the laptop of luxury...

I'm back from the land of the zombies.  I spent yesterday recovering from a major allergy episode.  Something I ate?  Probably, but the problem is trying to identify what triggered this latest, very unpleasant attack.  On Friday evening I noticed my skin was irritated and my eyes were watering, by Saturday morning there were all sorts of too awful to mention gastric complications combined with throat burning, eyes watering and generally feeling bad.  There was only one thing to do - dose up with antihistamines and go back to bed.  This what I did and amazingly I slept for almost the entire day and straight through the night till 8 am today.  Saturday disappeared into a haze of sleep and pills.  Sounds almost celebrity-like - disappearing into a haze of sleep and pills, but mine were antihistamines and the day was accompanied by stomach pains and itching skin.  Not at all glamorous.

Sleep is a remarkable thing.  The restorative qualities of a few hours, or in my case 24 hours of sleep, is far beyond what it actually is.  When I stop and think about what a marvelous art sleeping is, I realise that it is something I take completely for granted and assume that I will be able to do whenever I need to.  How magical that my body knows when to sleep and how easily it happens for me.  Close your eyes and just allow that wonderful drifting sensation and ... I'm gone.

Where does my mind go when I sleep?  This is one of the questions that I imagine my kids must have asked or if they didn't, they should have. I don't have any definitive answer for this.  I guess if I had to answer it I would venture that my mind travels to that place called 'Dreamland' where it spends my sleeping hours wide awake and sorting through all my unresolved issues one by one, rather like going through my unfinished 'to do' list.  Unfortunately this 'Dreamland' is not accessible to my awake conscious mind so I usually have to redo all the 'to do' list items when I awaken.

My father has a form of Alzheimers called Lewy Bodies Dementia.  This means that when he sleeps and goes into the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) deep sleep state instead of his motor functions being paralysed, his are not. He would be fast asleep and dreaming that someone was after him and he would spring from his bed screaming and terrified.  When trying to calm him we could see that there was no way to reach him since he was in a total dream state.  In order to stop this ability to be awake whilst still sleep he has to be medicated each night.  I found this both distressing to witness but actually fascinating objectively to observe.

After my marathon sleep I am a bit less sharp this morning and feel myself to be a bit shell-shocked, as if coming back to myself is a bit more difficult than usual.  It is as if my body is made of eggshells and my actions need to be careful not to crack anything.  But at least the sneezing has stopped and the allergy attack is over.  It's left me a bit afraid to eat much since I still don't know what caused this.  That won't last long.  Also I am curious as to whether or not I'll need to sleep much tonight.  Can we store up sleep?  If I slept for 20 hours in the past 24 will I need to sleep again for two or three days? Wouldn't it be nice if we could bank sleep hours and withdraw them when needed?

I'm also happy to be back sitting on the couch and using my laptop again.  The new internet connection is up and running, faster and better.  The wireless network is back and I'm delighted that for a change, the technology hasn't let me down. Fingers crossed.

Life is full of surprises.