Friday, December 30, 2011

Considering Homesickness

It is three years since I’ve been to South West Rocks. In the summer, that is, as a leader of a beach mission team. I did go in the winter of 2010, just for the afternoon, so I could show the place to Matthew. I took him because it is a place that has come to feel like home to me, though I have never lived there, except for ten days at a time, in a tent, around this Christmas New Year holiday time. Despite that, the moment I turn off the highway and start driving out to the coast I am flooded with the feeling that I have arrived back where I belong, back where I am safe, perhaps even where I am special. And I wanted him to know, see and smell that place. There are two other places that come to mind which also create this sense of home, and which when I am not there I miss and long for, if only in some quiet and unfocused way. The more obvious of the two is the Sydney Opera House; the more peculiar is Baker Street tube station. I’ve become vividly aware of this in recent months as I have just moved to West London and come into work at Soho via the Hammersmith & City and Bakerloo lines, and often I’m struck by how happy I am simply to be back passing through Baker St, if only to change trains, as it was my nearest tube when I first lived in London in 2009. Changing trains there I feel suddenly like I’m balanced again, even though I hadn’t previously been aware of any unbalance. But there it is, in something so common place as walking up the stairs from platform three and crossing over the concourse to platform six, that feeling as though I have come home.

Throughout 2010, when I was back in Sydney, in my real home – either in The Party House, the apartment I had rented since late 2006 or in my parents’ home, which we had moved to in 1986 – I missed London, my 8th floor bedroom/cupboard on Marylebone Road, The Volunteer on Baker Streets and the friends who had hung out with me there. In London I miss the Opera House and the fact that most people in that building knew me, and particularly around this time of year I miss South West Rocks. When life takes me away from these places I am homesick for them.

While this is a homesickness for certain locations, it is obvious to me that is much more a homesickness for the memories, emotions and people associated with the places. A longing for an emotional home, rather than a physical one. For the comfort of particular people, situations and significances rather than the comfort of familiar homely surroundings. It is at this point that I think perhaps homesickness and conversely a sense of home coming, have a lot to do not only with longing and security but also with nostalgia, and a hanging on to the past.

The places that create in me a sense of homecoming whenever I am there are locations attached to formative experiences. They are places of learning which have come to signify a development in my sense of self, my ability to organise and lead others, to think intelligently and creatively. They are places of sometimes intense emotions, of flirting and falling in love and consequently the occasional heart battering. It is in these places that I have found enthusiasm and passion I didn’t realise I possessed. For education, music, literature. For talking about the God of the bible, and how my belief in him has shaped me.

When I pass through Baker St, if I take the time to stop and take note of the specific memories which flood me, I remember the liberating excitement of being in London, mixed with the comfort and contentment that came with realising I was still essentially the same me, just on the other side of world. The simple joy that I was actually on the London Underground (I still wonder, how it is, that this city has made even its transport system iconic) and of course Met Line adventures with Mel, Matthew, Kate, Chris and Hollie coming home from Midsummer rehearsals, discussing everything from feminism and Shakespeare to killer possums and giving lessons on how to speak like a character on Kath and Kim, and like a school girl, contriving as often as possible to sit next to Matthew for those precious eighteen minutes from Northwick Park to Baker St. It is a memory of having fun; of feeling like the things you thought, no matter how trivial, were interesting, important, somehow life changing; a sensation of aliveness which seemed different to anything I’ve known before. That’s where nostalgia comes into it, because I don’t want to let go of that. Because since then I’ve left the bubbles of safety and optimism I cultivated at university, in which one could dream of revolution - personal and political, and that other more common bubble of perfection and bliss: the first six weeks of brand new relationship.

When I miss the Opera House, its not just work or the work place or tickets to the opera, but the people and the fact that I know I have changed how I conduct relationships due to experiences connected with that building. Because I told myself it was significant, I can recall the surge of happiness and almost illicit pleasure of running down the ugly concrete stairs late one night in a candy pink formal dress to meet someone I naively thought I was in love with. A memory of self importance, of stepping outside of time and viewing my life as though it were a fictive invention and knowing that that moment would be one of the highlights, even though, with the retrospective knowledge, it was a moment that would never amount to anything and shouldn’t therefore retain any importance, except that it does because I told myself to treasure it.

But the place I feel I should treasure even more than I do is South West Rocks. I think of it now, from the other side of the world as I sit on the ferry approaching Dublin, and remember how when I first went there in 1999 I couldn’t imagine ever going back. Beach Mission was hard work. I hated camping. I had to sleep in a tent and walk a ten minute round trip just to go to the toilet. I was covered in mosquito and sand fly bites. I wouldn’t be going back. But I was wrong. A year later, when asked if I wanted to go to a training day I agreed, with an air of nonchalance. At some point I made a commitment to be on my beach mission team for ten years. And I was. But it was a long time before I realised I loved the place, in an enduring kind of way. Maybe its because there weren’t any candy pink formal dress moments. I never said to myself ‘Remember this moment. Hold it dear for all time’. Maybe that’s because once I got over my initial conviction that I would never go back to South West Rocks, I replaced it with the assumption I would never not go back. It became habit. Its what I did. I couldn’t imagine the weeks that preceded Christmas being filled with stresses that had to do with presents and cooking, they were about buying craft materials and finishing (or occasionally starting) to write a talk, or plan an activity or return trips to Officeworx to do photocopying and bind booklets.

But its not because of the work that went into preparing beach mission that made it feel like home, I’m not even sure if its primarily missing the people or relationships which makes me long for South West Rocks around New Year, but the fact that for ten years beach mission clearly focused my attention on God and shaped my time, my year and my life. Sure, like the Opera House, like Baker St, South West Rocks signals many, many happy memories. Moments of light hearted joy and serious insights into how the world operates. Mars bar milkshakes, singing along to Vegietales while washing up, watching Chris commando role his way to the shower block, hearing about the time Sally got herself stuck in a coat hanger, being told off by a team leader in my second year for staying up talking several hours past a sensible time for someone who had to get up early in the morning to run a full day of activities. These sorts of things I miss. Churning over all those big questions you usually don’t have time for: sanctification, forgiveness, elective salvation, mothering, divorce, eating disorders, death. But it is more than any of these moments. It is one of the few projects I have committed to for several years, and it is one of the few that gave me a reason to go and speak to strangers about why I believe in God. Being on a beach mission team taught me practical things about being a team leader, writing talks and bible studies, and making tricky decisions – like whether or not to cancel the hire of jumping castle due to imminent bad weather, I cried while making this decision I was that torn and afraid of getting it wrong, and in the end I’m not sure which decision I made, but I don’t remember any negative repercussions. Yes, part of feeling at home is one of belonging and feeling needed, important. And when I miss South West Rocks and going on beach mission, there is perhaps a selfish or needy part of me, that misses feeling like I was important, that people knew me, relied on me, looked up to me. But I also miss knowing that I was part of a team that were serving others. That we weren’t just providing some holiday fun, though there is nothing wrong with that, but that we were giving people a chance to think through some of life’s big questions.

Maybe I miss that too. A space in which to think through questions. To meet up with people who at times think like me, but who also know things and think things that I don’t. Right now, I feel like someone who has come to the end of a set word count and is desperately trying to tie things up, make one last final point, but without much luck. I wanted to write about missing beach mission, because its happening right now, on the other side of the world, and I’m not there, which still feels a bit strange. But then I wrote about homesickness, and longing for the past, and wondered if, in my case at least, these two feelings are intertwined, and I guess I have to say they are. I feel homesick not for places that have been my physical home, but for places with emotional significance. Places I have felt needed, loved, valued. Where I have contributed, where I have learned new things. And maybe its fitting to think about these things as the close of the year approaches, and people make resolutions, and to resolve that these things that I miss need not be a thing of the past, but must be made a part of the future, so that I can build my emotional home, a safe place, of love, value, significance and learning wherever I go.

Monday, December 26, 2011

thirty things: Number 22 - Bake Gluten Free Panettone

24th of December 2011. I did it. I worked with yeast. I got my gluten free bread/cake to rise ... though that was about the most successful part of my baking adventure. It didn’t start off too well. I read my recipe quickly and chucked a tablespoon of sugar in with my buttermilk and yeast instead of teaspoon. So I threw it out and started again. I wanted to do this right. I left it for ten minutes while I creamed butter and sugar and eggs. The Buttermilk/yeast/sugar was meant to be going frothy. Nothing was happening. I left it for another 10 minutes and shook it about. I chucked it in with the butter, sugar, eggs. Of my own accord I chucked in an extra egg because in the past I’ve noticed this helps gluten free things stick together. I even separated two of the eggs so that I could whip up the egg whites all nice and fluffy like to add a bit of excitement. Later I read that yeast works better with sugar to feed it. Maybe I should have kept the first lot.


Adding an extra egg of course adds liquid. Oh well. No matter. I added the flour. A mix of cornflour and gluten free plain flour. It was all looking very runny. There was no way I could turn this mixture out to knead it. I added a bit more flour, but in the end I took the advice of an unknown gluten free baker who keeps a blog and accepted that in my mixing bowl my raw cake would look more like batter than dough. I left the bread/cake batter/dough in a warm place and, when I came back to it some time later, I was absolutely over the moon to see the batter/dough had doubled in size.



I put it in a tin (the wrong shaped tin, mind you. I wasn't about to buy a new cake tin for one GF baking experiment). I put it in the oven, baked for ten minutes, turned down the temperature, baked for another half an hour. I left it to cool.




I sliced it, I ate a bit. All I can say it’s a good thing that on my list of things to do I didn’t include any qualifiers. All I said was bake gluten free panettone. And I did that. I worked with yeast and gluten free flour and I got my bread/cake to rise. I didn’t say it had to be good, or tasty or soft. My panettone smelt right, and tasted ok, but it was super crumbly and quite dry. I did enjoy it, but I don’t think I would have served it to anyone, especially not a gluten eating person. Still, I ate it for breakfast on Christmas day, and that made me quite happy, and got me prepared for a full day ahead of festive eating.


I’ve now frozen the majority of it and will at some point use it in trifle or tiramisu or some such thing. I think surrounded by cream and other nice things it will work a treat.

Friday, December 23, 2011

On Metafiction

or realising I was a nerd or a text or some such thing. Because that’s how it is. Especially if it is late at night. Which it is.

I did this really nerdy thing on the tube last night. I sent a text to my boyfriend to tell him the book I was reading was very 1960s, and a little metafictive. I flipped to the front of the book to check the publishing date (1969), and inwardly I did a little dance of joy. And then I realised not only am I a total nerd but, also like all those high school things I couldn’t remember last week, I don’t actually remember how to define metafiction. In terms of style. What made me think oh yes, here we have a piece of 1960s style, with just a dash of metafiction. I know that broadly it’s a piece of writing which is aware of its fictive status, but how to describe the style, how to explain it, gone. All I could think of was that short story I read that was about Ambrose at a playhouse. That was 1960s, post modern metafictive stuff. So come on brain, I know this blog is called reflections and fragments, but please, please, do some solid remembering.

*

The remembering probably wasn’t going to happen of its own accord. I say wasn’t, rather than isn’t because I wrote that first paragraph this afternoon and I’m writing this one now. And its now 23:32, which as it happens is a pretty awesome time. But back to the remembering, which wasn’t happening, I did a second nerdy thing. I opened up a file on my computer containing my notes from ENGL three-oh-whatever. To read my notes on metafiction and Ambrose, who as it turns out, was at a funhouse, not a playhouse. There on the screen was a list of facts about metafiction, which I knew. Metafiction pre-empts criticism, breaks the illusion that art is reality, highlights the writing process, makes direct intertexual references, directly addresses the reader, parodies established modes, acknowledges that all stories have already been told, and so on and on and on. Oh yes, I knew all these things too. And it still makes sense. Which is a relief.

I don’t even know what I’m writing about anymore. Or why I’m writing about it. I think tiredness is slowly seeping into my brain…

…I think I am a metafictive text. That would certainly confuse the illusion that art is reality. That is what I have learnt today. Because I pre-empt criticism, can be self-deprecating, enjoy parody, address the reader (Hiya, you right? – see that, I even went for local vernacular like a real Londoner), I acknowledge the writing procedure, and that everything has been said before, as all stories have already been told, and so on and on and on. Except I am not a fiction, because I actually exist, well, unless of course this is merely the voice of an implied narrator who actually doesn’t exist, because I actually did write this as myself. I am so confused right now.

So as you read this, if it makes any sense, or even if it doesn't please feel free to drop me a line. I'd appreciate it. We could enter into a dialogue. We could write a new text, and blur our roles of writer and reader, sender and receiver, art and reality. We could have a conversation about metafiction. We could be metafictive. Except that we are real. The conversation, however, would be both real and virtual because this is a blog not an actual verbal exchange taking place in actual time and space.

I'm confused again.

I should not write when I am tired. I do not know if I am writing a thought about metafiction, or about being a nerd, or if I am a text waiting to be read.

*

For example:

“… People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

I’ve finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun.

This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this:

Listen:

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

It ends like this:

Poo-tee-weet? ...”

Vonnegut, K. (1969). Slaughterhouse 5, London: Vintage

Friday, December 16, 2011

I Used to Know Things...

I have a favourite study technique. I refer to it as Learning via Osmosis. LVO usually involves placing a text book under my head while I close my eyes and lie in the sunshine. It was a technique I discovered in high school and have refined over the years. And now I find that years of referring to osmosis as a technique for study, I no longer quite remember what osmosis really is, except of course that what I’m doing has nothing to do with osmosis because osmosis requires water and a semi-permeable membrane, whatever that is. Also, it isn’t about the transfer of information.

Back in the day, when I was at school in my kilt, lying in the grass, beside the school pool (the water that made Learning via Osmosis possible), with one book under my head and another balanced over my face, I knew what was osmosis actually was. I also knew how it differed from that other thing, that thing that I don’t recall, but was perhaps called diffusion. I have, just now, lowered myself to the level of someone who checks Wikipedia in order to rediscover the general knowledge they already knew, and can confirm that yes, diffusion was the word I was looking for. I used to know things. All sorts of things. About the working out of the hypotenuse of a triangle. I knew that. And working out the sizes of angles in various geometric shapes. I could do that. I knew about how cells divided, about mitosis and meiosis and which was which, and if I looked at pictures of these processes taking place I could tell you which was which, but I certainly couldn’t now.

I feel that more than anything I need to ask, where did the knowledge go? Has it left me, or is it just buried? If I started reading something about gametes and cell reproduction, would that part of my brain kick back in to gear? Or did that information leave me and become replaced with Peep Bo’s line of So Please You Sir We much Regret, a harmony I found tricksy at the time and went over so many times that when I came to learning Pitti Sing’s part ten years later, although I’d not looked at the music once in all those years, I found it was Peep Bo’s harmony and hers alone that my brain wanted my mouth to sing. Why had I retained a piece of music I hadn’t needed to sing for ten years? Why is it that the only French phrases I know (aside from the one in Lady Marmalade) are about chocolate, Je voudrais un chocolat chaud,(well, I would) le chocolat me regarde! (seriously it is, and it wants me to eat it!), yet I couldn’t ask for directions nor can I remember how to ask for train tickets. Like wise my patchy German allows me to ask someone the ever important question, bist du eine orange, but not much else.

If this is the outcome of thirteen years of school education, its tempting to ask what the point was. Why did I need to learn that stuff about osmosis and gametes and geometric proofs? Obviously, that knowledge has not been at the front of my brain for some time, and I am, for the most part a well balanced, happy and capable adult, so did it ever need to be at the front of my brain. Did I need to spend all those hours learning those things, only to forget them? But such a sentiment goes against my inherent love for learning and life long education. I place huge value on education and firmly believe that all people should have access to a wide and varied education as it helps us grow and develop and opens possibilities. I’m not for a minute suggesting that isn’t the case, I just wonder why I can’t retain endless bits of information. I worked hard at learning things, and they made sense to me, and now that knowledge is gone. I find it disturbing that once I understood something of valencies, plant and animal biology, French grammar, but that over time I let those abilities go.

While I may have had to let go of the information I wasn’t using in order to reduce clutter and make brain space available for more relevant skills, memories and theories, it just doesn’t seem fair, or even right, for knowledge to be transitory.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Forgiveness

A short argument between Psalm 13, Matthew 18:21-35 and Me

Matthew, Eighteen. How often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Matthew, Twenty. Sinned against me. And I, I forgive him? Forgive.

Forgive, forgive, forgive, I forgive.

But, how long Oh Lord will there be bitterness with in me?

How long Oh Lord, will you forget me forever?

How Long must I daily come before you and ask for the strength to be forgiving? Seven Times? Seventy times seven times? No, no please, before that. Release me from my unforgivingness. My bitterness. I’m not strong enough. I can’t wait that long, can’t cry that long, can’t be confused that long.

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long, how long, how long? How long before I actually feel your peace, before my unhappiness is healed? How long shall I be angry, and unable to maintain my resolve to be loving?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Why can’t I forgive from my heart? Why does the hurt of the past consume me? The past, yes. Over a year ago. She called him to say she was pregnant. Why tell you? I don’t know. But you did know. She knew that you would care. Even if the baby wasn’t yours. But he is yours. And look, look at his eyes, that are beautiful and clear and sparkling, just like yours. And filled with joy, like yours can be too. And on his face is joy. So why must I give way to anger.

Consider and answer me Oh Lord My God; lift up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed”.

Lest I forget you and let myself be broken from the inside out.

Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

I am. Shaken. My hand. Wouldn’t stop shaking. In the café. I put the cup to my lips but it just trembled in my fingers, against my teeth. Didn’t want to drink it. And you sat there with your head hung low and you wouldn’t look at me, and I was confused. Angry, but at me, because I made a resolve, to forgive.

To forgive, forgive, forgive. Seventy times seven times. All day. Every day. Lest I be delivered to the jailors. Lest there be torment in my soul. But I have forgiven. And I have trusted. I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Friday, December 2, 2011

One Grey Night It Happened...

Thoughts on Playing

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giants' rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar

L Lipton & P Yarrow

With clarity I can recall the moment I realised I had forgotten how to play. The date and my exact age I don’t know, that wasn’t important. The important thing was a moment of awareness in which I knew my approach to life had changed and there was no going back. I was eleven or twelve, towards the end of primary school, possibly even in high school already, so

I assume my ability to play in the way a child plays had been fading slowly for the last few years, just so slowly I hadn’t really noticed. Perhaps it was in an effort to hold on to it that Laura and I sat down on my bedroom floor and set out in front of us our combined collection of 14 Pollypockets[1]. With ritualistic solemnity we laid out our miniature world that stretched from a farm in the west, through to a city shopping strip, a Chinese style garden, and finally to the beach in the east (I realise now that there, on my bedroom floor and encased in candy pink and purple plastic, we had created a replica NSW). With directorial precision we placed our characters into the scene, carefully reminding ourselves of where each of those little plastic figurines were at in their own life story, sitting them at tables with their parents or perhaps in the school room, or driving a tractor through the farm. I’m fairly certain it took over an hour. And then we sat there and looked at the little world before us. Then we looked at each other. Then one of us suggested we pack it all away again, because we no longer knew what to do with them. And that’s when I knew that a phase of my life was gone.

I had been a girl who had the ability to name herself Jo Katar and write a ridiculous story called Heigh Ho I like the Sea, to hang out with a pair of invisible lasses named Fordy and Tsinka, to invent a back story for every single doll she owned, to be known as Betty or Sarah dependant on what shoes she wore. Suddenly those skills became redundant, shameful even.

The thing that I find curious now is that I see great value in being able to play the way children do and sometimes I want it back. In assigning a type of play to a phase of life, have I limited my ability to have fun now? Matthew and a group of his friends play dungeon and dragons, and as much as I realise I should probably be horrified by such a nerdy activity, I find myself insanely jealous because I can not even begin to imagine how, as an adult, I would go about playing an imagination game. Sure, I can play scrabble, and at a push I might play chess or monopoly, or possibly even Carcassonne, but I feel these games are different. There are rules, and a playing board and a set goal like desperately not letting Rachelle beat me by over 400 points. Sorry, um, a set goal like gaining points through cleverly placing words on a board. And, with perhaps the exception if Carcassonne they don’t really require my imagination, my working of a character, my involvement in a story.

Now, as someone who works in theatre, has performed in community theatre and graduated from a degree with a creative writing major, I obviously don’t, or at least shouldn’t, have a problem with using my imagination, developing a character or becoming involved in a story. I don’t even have a problem with these things being fun, or a type of playing. I realise that for some people, say professional performers, play and work are very similar things. Maybe I’ve relegated creative and imaginative play to certain arenas, in places where it is also work and is therefore an acceptable thing. For play to lead to an obvious end result which is somehow useful, if only as entertainment for others then that is fine. To play simply to play, to have fun seems strange and is something I think I turned away from.

Its ok, for me, as an adult person to engage in activities reminiscent of childhood play, as long as it is for the grown up purpose of productivity rather than the childhood purpose of having fun. I can be creative and imaginative as long as I’m also working and seeing a production move from rehearsal to performance or a story move from notes on a page to a re-worked draft, as long as I’m expanding my mind by reading Jane Austen or George Eliot or watching a play or listening to Mozart. But sitting down and playing, for the sake of playing, for the sake of having fun seems foreign to me, and that makes me a bit sad. I worry that in my haste to be a grown up, did I throw out my ability to have fun as well as my ability to play? Is this why I find it so hard to have a night off and do nothing and actually enjoy it? Is this why the concept of going on a holiday reduces me to a state of panic, stress and tears? How can I enjoy a week gone by where I am not somehow contributed, been productive, made money, but had fun and been imaginative and creative for no reason other than it is enjoyable.

Why was I in such a rush to distance myself from childhood activities? I think I assumed that if I set aside my dolls and got on with this growing up business I would become a real person. A valid person. I think of Jackie Paper and his childhood companion Puff, The Magic Dragon. When Jackie Paper grows up it is Puff who feels the sadness. It is Puff who hangs his head, and slinks into his cave, with his green scales falling like rain. Yet, in my case it is me who is now mourning the loss of my ability to play, to invent and imagine. I had always assumed that we should believe Jackie went off and had a great time. But perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he missed his adventures on the high seas just as much as Puff did.

I wonder how many sullen, sleepy dragons all us adults have hidden in the caves of our minds and hearts that could do with a good waking up. I wonder how many I have, and who they all are, and if I found them and woke them, would I actually unleash a whole stack of creative potential, energy and joy. Its possibly I may even relearn how to play and embrace opportunities to have fun.


[1]Laura, I’m still really sorry that I broke your Pollypocket clock tower. I recognise that I should not have run down the hall with it in my outstretched hands, giving it the opportunity to test out the wings it didn’t have.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Dreaming Happy

Saturday. I’m on the Met Line. Somewhere between Finchley Road and Northwick Park. The book I’m reading makes me cry. Like, proper cry. Like all those clichés about waterworks, about torrents, cascades and ceaseless flows of tears. There is an absolute excess of saltwater escaping from my eyes. And for just a minute I actually can’t see the words on the page anymore. They’re blurred. Its like I’m looking at the book through a swimming pool.

Those people across from me must think I’m a lunatic. Especially if they could see what I was reading. Because it isn’t Uncle Tom’s Cabin (one of the few works of fiction to produce significant tears), it isn’t about death or illness or injustice. It’s a - I’m shamed to admit it, but in my defence, its research – self help book, a life coaching book. A book on happiness.

Happiness. And there I am crying like a big fat thing that cries a lot.

Were it not for a writing project I’ve taken on, I would not be reading this book. I don’t think its really my thing, and besides, I don’t think I’m the target demographic. I presumed it may have something useful to say to me, but why was What Happy Working Mothers Know[i] making me cry?

Sure I’m childless and I haven’t worked a full time regular hours type job in four years. But I still have various commitments in my life that all require my time, I have friends and family who deserve a decent relationship with me. Surely, even if this book wasn’t immediately relevant I could still glean some insight from these happy mothers. I’m willing to be inspired as to how best balance work and relationship pressures, how to lead a happy and fulfilling life, how to follow my dreams, and achieve them. Oh wait, right. There it is. Achieve. My angst. My lack of achievement.

I recall being in yr 6 and asked in some stupid subject to identify my goals and finding this a vaguely off putting concept. Yes, there might be things that I wanted. But I wasn’t a goal setter. In much the same way my concept of what a feminist is skewed by some horror of my own inability to be a successful person (it would follow that if I became that I’d also be a successful woman, but dealings with my angst over the F word are for another day), I had a distain for being a “goal-setter”. A goal setter was a competitive, selfish, ambitious thing, who probably played a lot of sport and nothing in common with me, so in my 12 yr old wisdom I developed an aversion to goal setting. Again, when I was at TAFE we had to identify two short term and long term goals, and man, did I struggle. I don’t remember what I wrote. Perhaps something like finishing my apprenticeship. I know that one of my long term goals was to build meaningful relationships with the people I had met leading beach mission at South West Rocks and to see people in that area come to know Christ. Ambitious? In one sense, yes, very, though probably not at all what a career advisor would be looking for.

So somehow I just never really thought about what I wanted. When I was five I wanted to be a children’s book illustrator and writer (I called myself Jo Katar. Katar was an imminent writer of junior fiction. My mother has all the first editions). When I was a teenager I wanted to be a model and I sang into my hairbrush just like so many other girls, because I would join the spice girls now that Geri had quit. But the one small dream I had, to be recognised, to sing, was a dream and a dream alone and I left it locked in, drifting around my purple adolescent bedroom, because as far as I was concerned no one ever became a singer. I never voiced this. Never wrote it down. Never really realised it was what I wanted. It was just this thing that was. That floated about through my teenage and adult existence. What is the point I told myself in chasing a dream. Better off actually doing something, learning something, being useful, making money. I didn’t really see myself as settling for less, but of being grounded and realistic. I have a big fear of one day waking up and being sixty and thinking gosh, I spent my life chasing something that wasn’t mine to have. I had to insure against this. In so doing, was I not being sensible. Was, I not perhaps even being moral, because I was working and earning money and buying a car and paying off the loan and paying my rent. I was leading a youth group and a bible study and a beach mission. And that was me, and my identity and my happiness.

But page 24, said “Ask yourself the following questions; listen to your inner coach, be positive with yourself; and help yourself see how you can achieve the dream”. And I fell apart, then and there, on the Met Line, because I felt so powerless to do any of the things this happiness book suggested. I found myself wondering if I actually knew anything about anything.



[i] Greenberg, C & Avigdor, B (2009). What Happy Working Mothers Know, John Wiley and Sons, New Jersey

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Thirty Things

So I've put together this list of thirty things to do over the next year, before my thirtieth birthday. As I say, its not really an age thing, just an effort to pin down some of things I'd like to see and do, and to have them on a list so I can tick them off and assure myself I've done something.

Thirty Things to do between 10th November 2011 and 9th November 2012

VISIT – places and people

  1. visit Salisbury and Stonehenge, Angel Corner Tea Room
  2. go back to the Mucha Museum in Prague
  3. climb a mountain in Wales. Tryfan, with Laura
  4. Visit Rachelle in Israel
  5. visit the Lake District and the Beatrix Potter House
  6. Go to Lyme
  7. Go to Edinburgh
  8. get the eurostar to France or Belgium
  9. visit the Cadbury Chocolate Factory
  10. go to Dover
  11. Visit Jeordis and Tineke
  12. Ride a bike on the towpath in Newry (because I never learnt to ride a bike)


WATCH, LISTEN, DO – cultural type things

  1. Watch an Opera at the ROH
  2. Listen to a Symphony Orchestra
  3. Go to Lates at The Science Museum
  4. watch November 5 fireworks
  5. Watch Les Miserables (from the front!)
  6. hear some proper folk music crouch end
  7. read Daniel Deronda, George Eliot
  8. read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft


CREATE, write, sing, bake etc

  1. have at least 10 singing lessons (before I throw out my voice once and for all)
  2. bake (gluten free) panettone
  3. write 10 000 words of the 'novel' I started last year
  4. write a complete first draft of Krista's story by June
  5. Go to rock and roll dance classes.
  6. make fudge. (I’ve been saying I’ll do this for months now)
  7. be drawn as a 1940s Hollywood pin-up. (oh yes!)

EAT

  1. eat a at a Michelin starred restaurant or some such thing. (you can see my fanciness absolutely shining through!)

VOLUNTEER, serve

  1. for a charity
  2. become involved in a ministry at my new church

Friday, November 18, 2011

He gave me a heart and he gave me a smile...

Matthew asked me if I would ever post something on my blog that I didn't label as a rant. If the genre markers of a rant are angst and the phrases "can I just say..." and "at the end of the day..." and "I'm not racist, but, then this is not a rant. If a rant is a declaration based on the individual's life experience, then maybe it is. At any rate I have tried to branch out and today I am mixing up my genres a bit and colouring my post/rant with some positivity and a sprinkling of a bible study...

I stumbled across Isaiah 54 the other day. The opening verses were well known to me. The call to :
1 “Sing, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
you who were never in labor ,
has always both comforted and terrified me. Comforting because God has love for those the world forgets, because he has other plans and other blessings. Terrifies me because I think what if I'm too secure, to fortunate to really rely on God and experience the joy of his love. What if I have to be broken and desolate, rejected and remain childless before I truly value my salvation. Because a significant part of me, perhaps all of me, doesn't want an uncomfortable life. I wonder which of my securities I could survive without. Which of my possessions are actually luxuries and if I would ever be willing to let them go, should I be required to. But a willingness to submit to personal hardship, to make a sacrifice, great or small is not my thought for the day.

My thought for the day is am I in love with God. Don't get me wrong, I love him very much, and I am very thankful and I plan to ever be developing my understanding of him, through his word. But am I in love with him? In my academic, intellectually leaning Sydney Anglican heart/soul/mind, is there any room for emotionalism, for passion and excitement. Because this week I as I stumbled actross Isaiah 54 on Monday night, attended my pastorate at HTB on Tuesday, and a lecture on William Tyndale and the English Bible on Wednesday night at Christ Church Kensington, I've become (re)aware of the fact that both these things, a biblically informed understanding and a healthy dose of emotions need to be apparent.

Leaning too much in either way isn't really going to be helpful. In the same way that marrying someone and saying "well I'm in love with this person and our marriage is going to be grand because we're in love and will be for the next 50 years" is probably a bit naive, or that it would be a little cold hearted and odd to say "well, marrying this person is mutually convenient, because its much easier to shop and cook for two and have this person around to share the housework with and having someone to help me fill out my tax return would be a bonus, and of course we'll hang out occasionally because its good to have someone to chat to", it would be naive and weird to treat God and my relationship with him like that.

Sometimes I know I've been scared of too much emotionalism, too much of things that seem like superstition. Sure, God gave me a brain and I didn't sign over my rational capabilities in return for salvation, but he also gave me heart (and he gave me a smile, he gave me Jesus and he made me his child etc). So I hope as I indulge the part of my brain that likes to learn and know, that I will, as a result, keep falling in love with the God of the bible.



4 “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.
5 For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
6 The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected,” says your God.
7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
8 In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,”
says the LORD your Redeemer.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Birthdays & Achievement

Its got nothing to do with age. The fact that I don’t like birthdays. I don’t have a problem with getting older in itself. I have a huge problem with possibility of wasting time, of not doing anything, of realising that time has gone by and I’ve not used it to do something. That I’ve not achieved, not created, not made, not done anything that has significantly altered my life or the small percentage of the world I’m in contact with. And birthdays you see, serve as a reminder of the passing of time and a lack of significant achievement. Every birthday, because its celebrated, is remembered. I can remember where I was on the 9th of November a year ago, two, five or ten years ago, what I was doing, what I had hoped for then, and I see how I’ve changed and how I haven’t, and mostly I see another year gone by in which I’ve still not done anything.

There are a few ideas then at the heart of my birthday angst. Firstly this angst could stem from the fact that I undervalue the things I have done, because the truth is, I haven’t been sitting entirely idle for 29 years. Secondly it could be because I want other people to recognise what I have done. Thirdly it could be that I have a misplaced or warped perception of the importance of achievement and recognition. Chances are its all of those things.

Let’s look at the first aspect. Have I actually done things that could count as an achievement, and do I therefore undervalue who and what I am, the result of which being that every birthday I’m convinced another year as gone by and been wasted. So, Miss Rosie Clare, CV, education, summary: HSC with UAI over 90 (just). Diploma of Make-up Artistry. Cert III hairdressing, Bachelor of Creative Arts. (Question I’d love to have answered: do you actually write the ‘of’, or is it invisible like the ‘of’ in 9th November). Counteract by stating, I achieved my results in highschool with very little effort – in fact when it was my turn to have morning tea with the principal I proudly told him of how I’d done the least work in my school career in Yrs 11 & 12 – and therefore my marks were nothing to write home about as by rights I should have done a lot better, if only I’d actually pushed myself and done some work. The Make-up diploma? Well, most things about how I do make-up now are the result of hanging out in the wig room at the Opera House, not the year I spent going to college. Hairdressing? I did win an award at the end of this course. For coming first in the subject known as physiology, in which we looked at some very basic biology and chemistry to do with skin and hair. It was on a par with things I’d learnt at age 15. To be fair a lot of the girls in the course were only a bit older than that. But I turned my private school girl nose up at the prize thinking, and all though I would have been mortified had I not won it, I handed the tacky trophy straight to my dad, and smiling, I told him it should go straight to the pool room. And then finally I did get tertiary educated, and I got my BCA and with surprisingly little effort maintained a distinction average, but seriously big deal. I wrote essays on whether or not Madonna had been a blessing or a curse to feminism (I fence sat), and on Little Red Riding Hood, and then at graduation they made us accept our bits of paper on the same day as people who had completed post-graduate degrees in Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, and if that doesn’t make you feel like your Bachelor (of) Writing Short Stories and Making Hypothetical Grant Applications to the Australia Council is less than meaningful, then, well, I envy your self assurance.

CV, summary, work experience: Seven and half years of wigs and make-up at Opera Australia, Wardrobe Maintenance at Belvoir St (My first job after leaving a wig making trainee-ship, where I did four loads of washing per shift and was paid about $21/hr to do so, and consequently earned my previous weekly wage in half the amount of hours. It was grand), an awful lot of wig making for various people both in Sydney and London, some events promotion, an admin internship, some casual work as an untrained childcare worker when I was 19, voluntarily leading youth groups and camps. Its just what I do. And I do it competently, cheerfully and diligently. Reliably, consistently, independently but also in a team, respecting the work of others, taking responsibility for my actions and following the direction of my supervisors. Don’t we all.

So, these are the things I’ve done. Which perhaps I don’t see enough value in, while simultaneously, and maybe paradoxically, wish other people saw more value in, or something. But just two days ago, I heard my own voice saying, I think its important to remember that praise from people is nice, but not necessary. And really, I ought to listen to myself. Because I’m not existing for the sake of hearing other people saying ‘well done’. I began my first un-finished novel when I was about 16. And in it, I have one of the characters, a girl who is very much me, but of course we don’t admit that because fiction is not autobiographical and to read the author into an invented character is bad analysis, is having an existential crisis in the way only 17yr olds can. She is sitting at her desk, her head down, thinking things over, churning over the dictionary definition of life - Capacity for growth, functional activity and continual change until death - and getting lost in the questions for which she has no answers. And then she pauses. And looks up, and:

Stuck on my wall, on faded pink paper, and written in purple, are the words: “here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”[1] And then I knew. I knew that all I had ever been taught to believe was true. I knew what to write…

I need a bit more of her clarity. Because deep down I know my issue with achievement or the lack of it is also a tension between a desperate need I have to feel noticed, and a belief I hold that the worth of my life is not found in what I have achieved or not achieved, or in who has praised me or thanked me or given any type of affirmation for any small thing I’ve contributed, but that my worth is found only and always in my relationship with the God who has saved me. The God who has seen every deed, all I have done and not done, both the things I’m proud of and ashamed of, whether they’ve been public or hidden, good or evil, and who considers me worthwhile not because I have a particular UAI or degree or a growing number of half written novels, but because I am his. I know this. I believe this. But I forget this. And I start to feel that praise and recognition from people is necessary, that when I do something worthwhile then I’ll be significant, then I’ll be happy. And when I get published, or famous, or noteworthy, then I’ll have achieved something. When I’m influential on a scale bigger than I can now imagine, then I’ll be important. But should any of those things happen, they won’t make me anymore special to God than I already am. And they probably wouldn’t make me any more content with my achievements, because I know I’ll always be left thinking I could have worked harder, could have achieved more.

This is why my angst over achievement and birthdays is hard to explain and hard for me to move on from. Its just such a wide angst. An angst that is personal, and about self image and self worth, but one that is also about theology. And probably I need to change the way I view the things I have done, but also I need to change my need for significance based on achievement. And remember that praise from people is nice, but not necessary.

But back to my initial complaint, my dislike of birthdays and the fear of wasted time. In order to counteract my feelings of not doing anything and my fear of wasted time, I’m taking a light hearted approach, and doing that stereotypical thing of creating a list of things to do before the next birthday. My list[2] – entitled thirty things, because I’ll be thirty this time next year – is not about career advancement or getting married or going skydiving, but just a list of things I’d like to do, places to visit, cultural activities to take part in and a couple of creative things, like actually finishing one of those novels, things that I can take responsibility of and do so that next year when I’m swamped with feeling like I’ve not done anything I can look at the things crossed off the list and think, well at least I’ve done those things, and what fun it was.



[1] Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

[2] The list is still being composed. When I have thirty things on it I will publish it on this blog and I shall make it my project throughout the year to document and review my progress through the list.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Can I just admit failure now?

Its 12:14 am Friday morning London time so whatever I post now is not technically going to be a Thursday thought. So, given that I'm tired I think I might just go to bed.

It is a shame, especially as I started thinking about today's thought on tuesday, and earlier today I wrote 718 words on Hope, how I'd lost it, but was working to regain it. But the irony or whatever it is continues, and I know I'm too tired to polish up those words and post them at a standard that Miss Mediocrity will be happy with.

So yes. I'm done. I may or may not be back next week.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

This is not a poem

I’m trying to write something.

I wrote a paragraph. Actually I wrote one and half paragraphs.

But they were less than perfect so I am abandoning them.


I tried to set myself a project.

A reason to regularly return to my blog.

I thought I’d write a thought for Thursday.

Every Thursday from now until the end of the year.

But then I didn’t have any thoughts.


Because I am a vacuous silly woman refusing to use a comma between those descriptive words those adjectives.


But actually I had lots of thoughts.

And I just couldn’t settle on one that seemed worthwhile.

Because I so desperately want to be worthwhile myself and I don’t always believe that I am.


Number one thought was mediocre.

Well, the thought itself was old news.

Its my biggest fear. That I will never be anything more than mediocre.


Thought number two was

Write about Fomo. The Fear of Missing Out.

I couldn’t decide which thought was better. Or were they maybe the same thought.


If they were two thoughts

Then I would have to decide which

I would write about, which was better and I couldn’t.


What if I made the wrong choice

And the thought that I wrote about was the wrong one.

What if the other one would have been better, would have been inspiring

And all I’d done was ramble on in some less than perfect way,

In some less than perfect paragraph

Or paragraph and a half

About my fear of

Mediocrity.


This is not a half baked poem.

It is a prose piece

Which is desperately trying to be something else.



Thursday, October 20, 2011

Could it Be?

Could it be time to come back to my blog? And if so why? Why now and not tomorrow? or not next week or last week? Or last month or even 5 months ago. Alas, I do not know.

I had these grand plans of writing a London update once a week - things I'd seen, done or eaten. Maybe things I'd learnt. Yet, I've never been very good at following through with my grand plans, even one as, um, not-that-grand of writing a blog regularly.

There was a day, back in August, when I thought, yes, today is the day to write on that blog of yours. I think I even logged in. But I had recently found out that a friend of a friend had been found dead, and though I didn't know him, I felt that all the energy, the vivacity, the self-importance and arrogance of writing a blog as though I had something useful to say was pushed out of me, like the life that so sadly and prematurely was taken from one with youth, beauty, intelligence, friends - all those things we think make a life enviable, and yet in this case they weren't enough.

So I don't know why today, a day when people all over the world must be asking could it be? Is Gadafi really dead?, I do not know why its the right afternoon to return to my blog.

But I have returned to it, and I've rambled away, because I don't have a plan for what to say or what my next project will be that will keep me, and hopefully you, returning.

Its odd, because sometimes I do love a plan. I love to plan a holiday months in advance. I plan where I'll eat, I'll book train and plane tickets, I think about what clothing to pack (I have, for instance already planned in my head a complete list of what clothing to take when I go to Ireland and then Copenhagen over Christmas/New Year which is about 10 weeks away). I do this, and then I often don't want to do what I planned, or I don't want to go on holiday at all, or I get outrageously upset that somehow the 10.20 bus to Newcastle from Newry just didn't seem to appear meaning my plan is thrown by 2 hours because for some reason the bus comes at 20 past every hour except for 11, and there is no bus scheduled between 10:20 and 12.20. Truly, I'm over it now.

Sometimes I think about my inability to calmly wait two hours for a bus (I mean, it wasn't that bad, we walked home had a cup of tea and went back to the bus stop later), my inability to always see a plan through, my inability to not be annoyed when the washing machine my landlord installed yesterday hasn't been connected properly meaning I have to wait a few more days for a functional washing machine, and I realise I'm not as patient as I like to think I am. I realise I'm not as in control as I'd like to be. I think about how there are things that I want or thought I needed in life; recognised intelligence, appreciated beauty, fame, a family, spare cash, a functional washing machine, and I realise I don't actually need these things, even though they'd certainly make life easier or perhaps just more colourful.

This afternoon I think about a woman who lived such a long time ago, and who was told of a plan for a family, a home of her own, a good life and who waited and waited. Who sometimes tried to ease the wait by being in control, but invariably made a mess of things, thinking that instead of waiting to be pregnant herself, she'd get her family by telling her husband to sleep with someone else. What was she thinking? And I see that as she got older, and probably got bitter, the plan wasn't forgotten and the one who made the plan, God, the God of her husband, the son she would have and the grandson she couldn't even imagine, came good on the plan. And he gave what he promised. And he did it at the time of his choosing, not hers.

So although I don't know why today seemed like the right day to return to my blog, or why sometimes I make a plan and stick to it, and other times I make a plan and it goes horribly wrong, I'm comforted to know that like Sarah, that woman who lived so long ago, I'm not forgotten by the God of her husband Abraham, their son, Isaac, and their grandson Jacob. And although I do love being in control and trying to make a foolproof plan, I was reminded as I sat and read Genesis 18-19 this morning, and again as I sit writing this now, that I have to patiently, faithfully trust in the timing of the God who is in control and who, because he doesn't need one, has no plan B.




















Sunday, May 8, 2011

Song



Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:22

Poem 21, Song, 14th November 2004

When my mind tempts me to sway
May I turn to you, oh Lord
And try to live your way.

When darkness fights to be let in
Let me look to you again,
And be assured that you will win.

When time flies by leaving me behind,
Let me hear your words a fresh,
And be patient, joyful and kind.

When darkness tries to hide the Son,
I will stand firm, because
I know your Light has won.

When I do what I know is wrong
Teach me to repent, for you
Are my salvation, my strength and song.


... And so for now, I'm done with this little experiment. But who knows, perhaps one day I'll open the vault again...

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Like A Spider

This has always been a personal favourite. And as I try to get my life sorted and packed and ready to get on a plane and, to an extent, start again, I've been hearing the echoes of these thoughts. Sometimes they are just a soft murmur, other times so loud they take over and cloud my ability to think rationally so that everything seems too hard, and I feel that I don't know who I am or what I'm doing, or even what I want to be doing. At times like those I still feel a bit like a spider, drunk and lost in its own web.

Poem 20, Like A Spider, 19th September, 2002
oh the eternal
madness
the war that is
never ending
when will it stop?

Let me go &
loose the grip
I don’t want this
any more.
let me out.
Let me out of
the eternal
madness and
run from the
war never ending.

I never asked for
it to be like this
what a spinning
mess -
like a spider,
drunk and lost
in its own web.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Poem 19

So, I need to pick poem 19. I've already picked my last two, so I've only got one more to pick, and it's proving to be a little difficult. See I'm just not sure what sort of mood I'm in, and although there are few that I quite like, and that show a bit of who I was and who I am, or indeed, reveal too much of me - I think the most honest and probably most fun thing to do would be include this verse that signified so little, it never even got a title.

Poem 19, 19th April 2004, 10:08pm

You’re so close to me
It's two in the morning
But I stare at the ceiling
And I’m so close to yawning.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Disillusion

This morning I did that annoying thing where you cry over nothing. You know, nothing was wrong, objectively anyway. But something must be, because I seemed upset and possibly angry. And all I can think is that I feel like all I've done for the last 3 months is think, worry, plan and stress about moving to London, and even though I leave in five days, I still don't feel very ready. I thought that by now I'd be bursting with happiness and excitement, and while i'm certianly looking forward to being in London, I kind of just want to sit down on some big comfy pillows, curl up and not do anything. Yet I know myself too well, and I know my fear of uselessness, of being idle, of feeling like i've not achieved something with my day. I know my terrible inability to be still.

The cliche fear that runs beneath all this is obvious. Sometimes we're so worried about planning for some elusive life in the future we forget to live the life we have now, and that when you suddenly realise you've forgotten the now, you recieve a great big metaphorical slap in the face.

We hear this fear in the words of Thoreau, the literary motto of the Dead Poets Society, “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived."


We hear it in The Rose, by Amanda McBroom:
It's the heart, afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying
That never learns to live

I hear it in those beautifully broad and nasal tones of Natalie Maines:
...We're afraid to be idle, so we fill up the days, we run on the treadmill, keep slaving away, till there's no time for talking about trouble in mind, and the doors are all closed between your heart and mine...
(More Love, Robinson & Smokey)

and I hear it in my own life, all the time. When I am gripped by my own fear of mediocrity, when I realise I've worked a 60hour week (rare, but it happens), and the thought of staying in on a Friday night eating mashed potato you've made yourself seems like the best thing ever.

I hear the cliche in a slightly different mode when I recall the psalm that speaks loudest to me, psalm 46, 'Be still and know that I am God.' Because sometimes in order to live, and not just to plan, stress and worry, the reality is we need be still.

And so it is that I have chosen for the poem of the day 'Disillusion'. Strangely, I don't quite recall what exactly prompted me to write it, but its probably not such a bad thing to remind myself of the lessons that seemed so obvious to me then.

Poem 18, Disillusion, 11th April 2004 (Easter Sunday)

Stop. Hold still
Please, no more.
For once, I admit.
I am not sure.
I hate my mistakes,
I need to turn round.
The pieces are scattered
All over the ground.
Frustrated, I look
But I can’t find
A way to go back,
I can not rewind.
Its time to assess
Time to sit still
Time to finally, completely
Submit to God’s will.
Let go. Right now.
Push it away.
And just keep walking,
This is the day.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Transient

Poem 17, Transient, 20th March 2004, age 21

My eyes are shut
I slowly weep,
My head is full
I can not sleep.
I wish this feeling
And that my
Lack of healing
Were transient.

My mind spins
It won’t sit still,
I hate my own weakness
I refuse to be ill.
If only my security
And efforts to
Maintain purity
Were not transient.

My heart tries to remember
That my journey is planned,
And that wherever I go
God is holding my hand.
Pain strikes like a knife
But it reminds me
That this life
Is transient.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

You Are Like

failed romance? self indulgent misery?
wallow in it.

Poem 16, You Are Like, 10th August 2002, age 19
You are like the window
I can not see through.
Like the mountain
I can not climb
Like the ocean
that is much too deep.
I’m sinking.

You are like an illness
I can not recover from
Like a bad habit
I can not kick.
Like the storm
That is much too heavy.
I’m soaking.

You are like a memory
I want to forget
Like a shoe
That just won’t fit.
Like the glass
That is never empty.
I’m drowning

You are like ice
That I can not melt
Like shotting tequila
Which I always regret.
Like a pool of unknown water
That is dark and dangerous.
I’m diving.

You are like the prize
That I can’t win
Like the road
I cant find
Like the ocean
That is much too deep

Monday, May 2, 2011

Irony

This morning Patsy told me that before meeting me he'd "never met a woman with such a facility for seeing possible literary ironies in her own life"...

Poem 15, Irony, 20th and 26th October, 2002


[5 Ill timed or perverse arrival of an event or circumstance that is in itself desirable]

Once there was this boy
Who at the time was just fifteen.
I heard he thought I was the best
That (back then) he had ever seen.
But I didn’t know him then
And we went our separate ways,
I tried my luck with someone else
And it lasted thirty days.
Then one year later, in October
I met the first boy, now sixteen.
I doubt he said more than two words
But I thought maybe he was still keen.
One week later I’d completely fallen
I dreamt of what might be,
We sat close watching movies together
I thought that he liked me.
He took my friend to his formal
And I nearly died,
I felt so lost and so left out
I went to bed and cried.
Six months later he asked me out,
But it had taken far too long –
I left him for someone I could never have
And that was completely wrong.
Two years on, I’m at a party
And the wrong boy reappeared.
He held me close two years too late
All attraction had disappeared.
So here I sit, nearly twenty
But I’m feeling sweet sixteen.
And I miss the boy I threw away
When I was seventeen.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Pharisee

...from Luke 5...
27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

so here is my Sunday morning, sabbath day poem.

Poem 14: Pharisee, 3rd June 2003, 4:20pm Darlinghurst Sydney, but begun on the 9:14 between Redfern and Central.

What a fine thought,
What a nice line:
“God have mercy on me, a sinner”
when will I stop
to make this prayer mine
would I be one with whom he shared dinner?

And then I might ask

What is wrong
With all my pride?
That I can not
Accept or decide
The place of the law
Because I am free
Am I a prostitute
Or a Pharisee?

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Joy

Poem 13: Joy, 23rd October 2004
Joy is now
This freedom.
These are the words
My heart sings
At midnight on Saturday.

I am not in your prison
Any longer.

I am tired,
but I will sleep,
And know peace.

And I will wake and
Be glad.