Little did I know, when I wrote that last post, that those sit ups would propel me into an intense bout of flu, possibly, ( I did another set of 500 a few days later... ) just altogether too much stuff was stirred up when blood flowed in places it hadn't flowed for years. Cells that had been shut down for ever, had a rush of action and stimulation... in hindsight a more gradual approach to the whole thing may have been more gentle on my system. A month later I'm back to a mild 30 sit ups a day... and planning to build up the numbers sloowwwly over the next few months. That was just too intense. It's unfortunate that that guy that I really like chose the time when I was in bed, with the flu, hallucinating about dead guinea pigs, at about 5 in the morning, to finally suggest coming around for a "catch up". I'm not so dumb that even in that state I can't work out that "catch up" at 5 in the morning means something more like "I've been drinking all night and I'm feeling horny...." and the truth was that as everything vibrated around me and the whole universe was on fire.... it was a kind of attractive thought. In that feverish state resistance was low, defence's were right down but.... the practical brain hadn't been totally disabled. This guy has the kind of schedule other people can only dream of. His job involves flying around the country entertaining people and somehow I felt that trying to do that... feeling like I was feeling now...wouldn't work. So I sacrificed my need to share that beautiful open space I was feeling... the one where my heart felt wide open but I basically couldn't move from my bed, couldn't eat and was just lying there feeling blissed out and dizzy. And moved our potential relationship backwards by about 6 mths. I hope one day we'll laugh about this...
Just to clear this up, one aspect of the flu was a really almost lovely kind of feverish state, the other side was a chest infection that was not nice at all..
It's a strange thing when you like someone that in some way's you're totally incompatible with. It's almost like the barriers become a challenge to get over...
I wonder how long I'll like this guy? I'm not in a hurry to get together.. I don't want my illusions blown up too dramatically. I like to hold the thought that if we took a long time to get to the point of actually hooking up, that we might over that time come to terms with some of those differences. Might come to a place where they're OK.At the moment I feel better about just bumping into him randomly, rather than actually planning anything. It seems to work better that way.
There are two things that make me different from many other people on this planet. One is that death really doesn't bother me...and the other is that good sex is defined by whether I see the purple lights or not. The first only makes me feel mildly isolated from the rest of the planet. I can go to the public library and find whole sections of books that deal with talking to dead people and life beyond the physical.. so I'm not totally alone there.. But in all the books I've ever read, in all the stand up comedy that talks about the intimate details of every aspect of every possible sexual act... no one ever discusses the part where you see purple lights.
Anyway at least there is a dialog out there about death... there are a range of points of view to choose from... it's just that I was never "taught" not to be concerned about death... I just never felt the separation that other people feel because of it.I came into this world feeling ok about death.... and much later came to find points of view that supported my feelings about it. However even amongst the spiritual community, those who have beliefs about life after death still wail in anguish when they experience a loss. I'm more sad when I feel a separation with someone who's still on the planet.I usually find death resolves that feeling and I can feel more connected after death than before. That's certainly been the case with my parents.
Anyway the world seems to be split into those (the majority) who believe only in the physical tangible touchable see-able hear-able smell-able taste-able aspects of the world. And those whose experience of life includes what is intangible & non physical. People can have all the beliefs they like about what is real and what isn't. They can deny my experience for all kinds of "logical" reasons But they don't see colours when they have sex. They don't sense the presence of someone they knew and loved, (who's not in this world anymore) when they least expected it..I'm pretty sure there ARE other people who see colours when they have sex, and all kinds of other things, but I've never met anyone who does. But... I'm not going to deny my experience because it doesn't fit the norm.
The guy I like, seems to fit in the first category. So on that basis I'm set up for a hard ride if I go in that direction. But what he's making me look for new way's to explain the intangible. Because he's a comedian, I'm starting to study comedy as a method of communicating new or unpalatable ideas. Comedy has always been good at finding ways to talk about things that are sensitive in society. Comedy has often been at the leading edge of discussing controversial topics in new ways. Death... and all the seemingly tragic ways it can happen is probably the most sensitive subject left now that sex is out of the closet. And I want to try to find new ways to talk about it because the old ways.. often leave people feeling like they're floundering in a sea of despair and confusion. It's not going to happen in one post or maybe even one hundred... I've just signed up to go back to school and study English and media studies. Because I want to be a writer. Because I want to find ways to discuss the undiscussable. Because I want to be one small part of bringing society to a place where death doesn't just rip the core out of people that experience it. I want death to be something that can be talked about like you can talk about eating or sleeping because it's just as much a daily part of life. But I want more than anything to find a way where talking about death can be uplifting, energising, invigorating, healing, fun, and any other words that make you feel good instead of bad.
In the meantime I'm happy that whatever connection I have with this guy stimulates me to growth and expansion. I'm grateful he's inspired me to look more deeply at the art and craft of comedy. As long as I'm growing, as long as I'm learning I'm always pretty happy.
This is so not what I planned to write about, going to have to change the title of this post... I was going to write about moving on from my psychopathic but wonderfully gifted ex boyfriend...about my new flat...about signing up to study to be a writer. That's pretty much the story of my life, I wake up in the morning planning my day and head out the door in a totally different direction...
Sunday 16 June 2013
Tuesday 7 May 2013
Sit Up - and Pay Attention!
Found my way to 500 sit ups today. Found myself in bed and it was raining... forgot the code to get into the house, (from my sleepout) walked around in the rain for a while until I realised the digit I'd swapped for another one.. finally found my way to the toilet, and then back to bed. Was feeling a bit cold after that adventure. Fought the desire to go back to sleep. Started doing sit ups to shift to a warmer place. The first hundred, (cause I'd already decided to aim for five) the mind started to complain..mostly about boredom more than anything. A couple of weeks ago I'd never done more than 100 at a time, (and the last time I did that was probably before you were born). But I used to do a hundred most days (when I was 15!) .....So I started with 25, then a few days later had a go at 50. It's not so hard, when you can do 50, to think you could do 100. The jump from 100 to 200 was going into new territory... but it wasn't soo new. It wasn't as hard as tramping for 12 hrs, or running a long distance race - or bringing up a kid. I could still feel the blood flowing in my belly the next morning - that was new, & I still felt warm the next day, which was cool.
But I didn't expect that mind would kick in during the first hundred, with complaints about boredom. Not - boredom I was feeling right then, but potential boredom that I MIGHT feel later on, when I got closer to 300 or 400. It wasn't "I'm not sure if I can do this??" and a slight fear of overheating and those stories about death by internal combustion... It was - "I could be catching a bus in the rain right now and you're making me hang around and do this" ?? NOTHING btw is more boring than catching a bus. Except for waiting for a bus that doesn't come, like I did last night when I tried to catch the last bus home to Waikowhai - with about 15 other people. (I rang the bus company this morning to find out what happened - no one knew - perhaps it was abducted by ALIENS???). Anyway that was the first 100 - a barrage of complaints about ridiculous things, predominately fear of boredom. (obviously my no 1 fear). Strangely the opposite was true. Somehow during the next 100 a flood of creativity was unleashed. I practically wrote a book in my head. I wish it was still there now??? By 200 something unexpected happened. To make it relatively easy for myself, I'd been doing sets of 25 and having rests in between each set. But when I got to 225, (after drifting off a little at 217 into a discourse in my head on - oooh I can nearly remember that one??) I didn't want to have my break, I just wanted to keep going, so I did, then just a 10sec break at 250 instead of 2 mins, then it was the downhill straight.
It was then that I kinda knew I'd get to the end of this, without too much trouble. When you get to 300, you realise just how much you use other muscles to do sit ups, It wasn't my stomach as much as my upper thighs, and even upper arms that were struggling. The rest was just about plodding along until it was finished, while enjoying the rich vein of creativity that was flowing through my head. Of course during the last set of 25, had to have 3 rests... Then - the complaints started again - so next week...we're going to do 1000 - that's going to take a reeaallly long time....
I'm trying to turn my life around, in big and little ways. I've never done 1000 sit ups in one day. But I know I can do it, probably more easily that most people. I'm not saying that to show off, I've just never allowed myself to match my achievements to my potential. I'm going to do it because it's just one way of saying to myself that that's going to change. Sometimes, the top of a mountain can be a lonely place. There aren't a lot of people to share the view with up there. (There are probably a lot more people at the pub in the village down at the bottom). We all have potentials that set us apart from other people. They're not always potentials that can or should be measured in dollars and cents either... we are all unique - and special. I just want to be me. I want to be who I truly am, not someone else's version of who I should be. I've held myself back a lot because I didn't want to stand out. But I don't want to be the spokesperson anymore for holding back ... from the fun that life can be.
But I didn't expect that mind would kick in during the first hundred, with complaints about boredom. Not - boredom I was feeling right then, but potential boredom that I MIGHT feel later on, when I got closer to 300 or 400. It wasn't "I'm not sure if I can do this??" and a slight fear of overheating and those stories about death by internal combustion... It was - "I could be catching a bus in the rain right now and you're making me hang around and do this" ?? NOTHING btw is more boring than catching a bus. Except for waiting for a bus that doesn't come, like I did last night when I tried to catch the last bus home to Waikowhai - with about 15 other people. (I rang the bus company this morning to find out what happened - no one knew - perhaps it was abducted by ALIENS???). Anyway that was the first 100 - a barrage of complaints about ridiculous things, predominately fear of boredom. (obviously my no 1 fear). Strangely the opposite was true. Somehow during the next 100 a flood of creativity was unleashed. I practically wrote a book in my head. I wish it was still there now??? By 200 something unexpected happened. To make it relatively easy for myself, I'd been doing sets of 25 and having rests in between each set. But when I got to 225, (after drifting off a little at 217 into a discourse in my head on - oooh I can nearly remember that one??) I didn't want to have my break, I just wanted to keep going, so I did, then just a 10sec break at 250 instead of 2 mins, then it was the downhill straight.
It was then that I kinda knew I'd get to the end of this, without too much trouble. When you get to 300, you realise just how much you use other muscles to do sit ups, It wasn't my stomach as much as my upper thighs, and even upper arms that were struggling. The rest was just about plodding along until it was finished, while enjoying the rich vein of creativity that was flowing through my head. Of course during the last set of 25, had to have 3 rests... Then - the complaints started again - so next week...we're going to do 1000 - that's going to take a reeaallly long time....
I'm trying to turn my life around, in big and little ways. I've never done 1000 sit ups in one day. But I know I can do it, probably more easily that most people. I'm not saying that to show off, I've just never allowed myself to match my achievements to my potential. I'm going to do it because it's just one way of saying to myself that that's going to change. Sometimes, the top of a mountain can be a lonely place. There aren't a lot of people to share the view with up there. (There are probably a lot more people at the pub in the village down at the bottom). We all have potentials that set us apart from other people. They're not always potentials that can or should be measured in dollars and cents either... we are all unique - and special. I just want to be me. I want to be who I truly am, not someone else's version of who I should be. I've held myself back a lot because I didn't want to stand out. But I don't want to be the spokesperson anymore for holding back ... from the fun that life can be.
Monday 6 May 2013
Releasing the past - allowing wellness...
Ooh I feel a bit sick all of a sudden, queasy and dizzy - whats up?? Stuff is happening that's going to the core of my being....I met someone... I liked him, then he made it clear he liked me and.... I've been totally freaking out ever since. I feel turned inside out and upside down. I feel like running away, but I can't run far enough.... to get up from my confusion and pain. My behaviors become so strange that I think he's changed his mind about me. I've changed my mind about me..Right now I just feel sick. I can't even write....
This is one of those days when I'd be happy to be at home in bed. Anyway a trip to the loo and a big drink of water and I feel - slightly - better. I'm clinging to whatever sanity I can muster and there's not much there to cling too. I remind myself I have friends that like me. Because I'm finding it hard to like myself. I want this soo much, I want this man so much that I'm losing all the qualities that made me attractive in the first place. I have to try to come back to a place where I can like myself before I can imagine anyone else liking me at all. My ex is sending me messages online. We split up last year after he had one of his crazy spells and beat me up. A couple of weeks ago he scared some friends by coming around to their house and demanding my address, ranting and raving in a threatening way, saying that we were meant to be together and that I should never be with anyone else. He's trying to tell me he loves me but I know that he's also trying to get another woman to send him tickets to the gold coast so he can be with her. I'm trying to find my wellness, trying to find my wholeness, but mind keeps spinning round in circles to places it shouldn't go.
I feel a bit better now just because I had a huge glass of clear water... fell some clarity returning. Amazing how the physical can influence my state of mind.. It feels such a tightrope, it feels like I can get this potential beginning so wrong that I just fall off into the moat full of crocodiles and get eaten up by fear?. How can I take myself from the place of wanting, away from the place of fearing and imagining everything that could go wrong, every place in the past where it went wrong, every reason why it should go wrong again...I don't want to identify with the damaged parts of my brain, the faulty parts of my thinking..want to go to the place of growth where I can live new and better ways of being. The place of allowing good to flow in my direction. Drinking water reminded me that - even drinking water can help to shift direction to a better place. Working on my health, adjusting my lifestyle and exercise and diet can put me in the place where healthy thoughts predominate. I have to give myself a chance to be in a healthy place, whatever the past - there are new possibilities.
This is one of those days when I'd be happy to be at home in bed. Anyway a trip to the loo and a big drink of water and I feel - slightly - better. I'm clinging to whatever sanity I can muster and there's not much there to cling too. I remind myself I have friends that like me. Because I'm finding it hard to like myself. I want this soo much, I want this man so much that I'm losing all the qualities that made me attractive in the first place. I have to try to come back to a place where I can like myself before I can imagine anyone else liking me at all. My ex is sending me messages online. We split up last year after he had one of his crazy spells and beat me up. A couple of weeks ago he scared some friends by coming around to their house and demanding my address, ranting and raving in a threatening way, saying that we were meant to be together and that I should never be with anyone else. He's trying to tell me he loves me but I know that he's also trying to get another woman to send him tickets to the gold coast so he can be with her. I'm trying to find my wellness, trying to find my wholeness, but mind keeps spinning round in circles to places it shouldn't go.
I feel a bit better now just because I had a huge glass of clear water... fell some clarity returning. Amazing how the physical can influence my state of mind.. It feels such a tightrope, it feels like I can get this potential beginning so wrong that I just fall off into the moat full of crocodiles and get eaten up by fear?. How can I take myself from the place of wanting, away from the place of fearing and imagining everything that could go wrong, every place in the past where it went wrong, every reason why it should go wrong again...I don't want to identify with the damaged parts of my brain, the faulty parts of my thinking..want to go to the place of growth where I can live new and better ways of being. The place of allowing good to flow in my direction. Drinking water reminded me that - even drinking water can help to shift direction to a better place. Working on my health, adjusting my lifestyle and exercise and diet can put me in the place where healthy thoughts predominate. I have to give myself a chance to be in a healthy place, whatever the past - there are new possibilities.
Wednesday 1 May 2013
When you live with a genius - good doesn't seem that great.
When you grow up with a genius.... and my dad was a creative mathematical genius, just getting good marks at school seems like nothing. He wasn't one of those calculating genius's who can flash answers to complex questions in split seconds, he was a slow deep original thinker about maths and physics. My dad grew up on a farm in Morrinsville. A beer drinking, V8 driving town. His parents owned a dairy farm. He went to a school that offered very little encouragement, and a lot of resistance to thinking deeply about anything at all. He often ended up sitting on a chair in a corner of the classroom wearing a hat with the words "dunce" written on it - because, as the teacher liked to say to the headmaster, when he dropped by "Wxxxx;s been asking stupid questions again" . My dad didn't usually answer questions straight away. By the time he'd turned the question over thoroughly in his mind, and was pondering a suitable reply, whoever had asked the question had often decided that he was stupid, or possibly even a bit retarded. His speech was slow and deliberate, his words carefully and cautiously chosen. He wasn't in a hurry to let go of an idea once he caught hold of it. In fact he could pursue an idea for decades, savouring every possibilty that idea might present. He once wrote that it took him twenty years to gain a true understanding of gravity, and that physics students should be patient, not expecting to immediately master concepts of mathematics and physics that had taken decades to develop.
So - for me - looking at the astounding array of squiggles that is my fathers life work, anything I do, know or think about pales in comparison. Everything I've ever done, ever will do doesn't even come close to the level of ability that seemed to came so effortlessly to him. He spoke a secret language I couldn't understand, worked with cryptic codes that only a select few can unlock. I can't even open the door to the world that he lived in, that contained the codebreakers for the laws of the universe itself, represented by the symbolic language that is Mathematics.
Seeing first hand the devastating effects of war on his own father, may have had something to do with his decision to specialise in pure abstract physics. The maths or war was very fashionable at the time he began his career, and he quickly moved as far away from the kinds of practical applied maths that was useful in the design of missiles and bombs. Although initially he was interested in nuclear physics, he chose to pursue a more artistic side to mathematics, in love with the pure beauty of numbers for their own sake, he left the practical application of his work more and more to other more industrially minded people, and branched out into solving problems for his own personal pleasure and satisfaction.
I can't even come close to penetrating the surface, let alone the depths of his world. I felt closer to him hanging out together in the vege garden. Or watching a Polish cartoon. Then he was just the simple farm boy from a small rural town.
So - for me - looking at the astounding array of squiggles that is my fathers life work, anything I do, know or think about pales in comparison. Everything I've ever done, ever will do doesn't even come close to the level of ability that seemed to came so effortlessly to him. He spoke a secret language I couldn't understand, worked with cryptic codes that only a select few can unlock. I can't even open the door to the world that he lived in, that contained the codebreakers for the laws of the universe itself, represented by the symbolic language that is Mathematics.
Seeing first hand the devastating effects of war on his own father, may have had something to do with his decision to specialise in pure abstract physics. The maths or war was very fashionable at the time he began his career, and he quickly moved as far away from the kinds of practical applied maths that was useful in the design of missiles and bombs. Although initially he was interested in nuclear physics, he chose to pursue a more artistic side to mathematics, in love with the pure beauty of numbers for their own sake, he left the practical application of his work more and more to other more industrially minded people, and branched out into solving problems for his own personal pleasure and satisfaction.
I can't even come close to penetrating the surface, let alone the depths of his world. I felt closer to him hanging out together in the vege garden. Or watching a Polish cartoon. Then he was just the simple farm boy from a small rural town.
Rambling about Gymnastics
Too tired to even think, not allowing myself to sleep, silly girl!! and I need to sleep - all day!! Everything is driving me crazy right now. I had an awesome day - because - and maybe no one else will get this but me??, but... I started the day doing 100 sit ups. yesterday I did 50, up from 30 the day before...and when I got to 50 today - all of a sudden I knew I could do 100 quite easily...and I did. Then I did 100 of a couple of other abdominal exercises. And I went to the beach and did 3 sets of each of my scales on my violin...and I did a really good set of salutes to the sun - and I hardly did ANY busking - even though I need the money...and I felt GREAT...because - I've wanted to re-own for so long the passion for being physical that I used to have...that amazing feeling of vitality, of sheer joy in being alive. Not because I want to show off about doing x amount of anything, but because for ages I've known that my potential has been so much more than I've been allowing it to be...Because once, before anything else, before music, before art - gymnastics was my biggest passion and joy in life...and stuff happened that really screwed that up for me, associations were made with that, that tainted that part of my life for a long long time....
I was never a great gymnast - I didn't discover it till quite late, and having a fear of heights didn't help either..but I LOVED the feeling of freedom, of backbends and back flips, of using every muscle...of flight, of stretching - (then later I found it again with yoga - the absolute feeling of bliss, peace and relaxation...) having a body can feel amazing. But going back even further than that, my best memories of childhood are of going swimming with my dad at Waikuku beach - no matter what the weather - even if it was raining, even in the middle of winter in the south Island - he took us swimming, (when it was really cold the water was always warmer than the air outside) and the indescribable feeling of the oneness with the water and the waves...losing all sense of time, staying out there till we were blue with cold and not caring...coming home to hot cocoa...and a warm fire.
When I was fifteen they did a fitness test over the whole of the highschool. I remember when I first started doing gym at school a few years before...struggling to do one sit up. I remember my stomach muscles still hurting the next day after I tried to do more. And my legs being so stiff... I could barely bring my hands below my knees when I tried to touch my toes. But when I was fifteen they did that fitness test & I was the fittest person in the whole school. Fitter than all the boys that played rugby, and the girls that played hockey or did athletics. Just because I loved gymnastics so much. Every night before I went to bed, I'd do hundreds of exercise, sit ups, press ups, v - sits, leg exercises... stretches. And all lunch time at school I'd be on the bars, going round and round and round, and then flying off into the air... Shit - one time at intermediate I landed on my arm. It really hurt, my teacher said I looked white..I never told anyone what happened, it hurt for weeks, I don't know why I didn't tell them? It was weird because I was sick so few times as a child, that usually the fuss and attention was great, and a visit to the doctor was so rare that it was kind of exciting. But I just kept it to myself and eventually it just got better. (later I broke it at gym class- and did the whole hospital thing, which WAS kind of exciting - and painful.) strange. I remember feeling so sick that day at school, but I didn't feel like telling anyone - so I kept it to myself. My mum was usually pretty angry about one thing or another - and injuries were one of the few ways to get her rare, nicer side for a few days - makes no sense, but I never told her. I never told her about dropping her scrambled eggs on the way up the stairs to her room, and putting it back on her plate either, or melting half of her plastic plates and cups in the dishwasher by putting it on the wrong setting. I didn't tell her about getting my friend to get my report card out of our mailbox so she wouldn't get it...but that was understandable if you knew my mum.
I won a few races at school, the cross country and the fifteen hundred metres... like most things I did well at, I just thought it was a fluke. Like when I came second in a science test in standard 3, that was a combined test with standard four, (and because I started school at age 4 instead of 5, I was a year younger than the rest of the standard 3's) - and the only one who beat me was the science nerd in standard four who went around giving everyone electric shocks - and no one else came anywhere close to the two of us - fluke. I mean I never thought I was any good at science, just felt kind of briefly lucky. I didn't know that no one else in my class was reading great expectations by Charles Dickens when I was seven, either. I just thought it was a good story. I just remember telling my teacher to "shut up!" when he read that really dumb poem I wrote - ( - and didn't read the other one that I poured my heart and soul into) and that's not the thing to do in a christian school. And I remember him punishing me for reading David Copperfield in class and not paying attention to whatever was going on???. That was school. Just a mystery that sometimes I surprised myself by doing well at.
School... was just this weird place that seemed so exciting I couldn't wait to go - at four, and it was downhill from the first day on..
I tried to ask a few questions now and then - and got soundly put in my place. Worked out it was better to just keep quiet after that. You don't ask,when you're told, (at seven- at a Christian school), that you should always do what your parents tell you...."What if your parents are bad?? What if they want you to steal or something"? Parents are never bad apparently, if they go to church) . It was the same school that the minister who was done for molesting all those kids went to.... that his creepy father taught at.
My twin sister had an electric chair in her class. Fun! Spell a word wrong- zapp! Annoy the class leader - zapp! No reason at all - Zapp!
So in contrast to the mystery that was school ...gymnastics made perfect sense because it was just - fun! It felt good, it was hard. Nothing at school was hard at primary school - so it was boring - (except for maths because I'd decided at about 5 that girls weren't meant to be good at maths - it was a boy thing, so I tried hard to fail at maths). Everything about gymnastics was hard. I'm not supple, so becoming flexible was hard work. I'm scared of heights, so the beam and the bars were even harder. And I loved it! At school it was all about reports. The usual - could have tried harder (B's) or A's. A+'s A-'s. if my report was better than my twin sister's (who had glue ear until her adenoids were removed) then I got the praise and she didn't - and it should've felt good, but when you're a twin it doesn't. It didn't feel good to be compared like that.Nothing that made her feel bad - (especially when she tried so much harder and it came so easily to me) - made me feel good - ever.
When we were learning to talk, I was ahead of her. I walked way before her. She'd say "lellow potty" & I'd be correcting her (trying to help but it only made her mad) . When she said "I aren't" I'd say "I'm not" and she'd get mad at me. When I could walk, and she couldn't, I'd take her toys and walk away with them - but - it never felt good if her report wasn't as good as mine. My mum was a teacher, my dad was a professor (but he was pretty cruisy). Mum's dad was a headmaster, and to her reports were everything. You didn't want to make mum angry - but it was pretty much impossible not to make her angry. That was mum, she was mostly always angry about something. But mum - had no opinion about gymnastics. She couldn't care less about how I was going at gymnastics. And that - was great. Ok so she did have an opinion - it wasn't worthy of her attention - but that - was still great. Anything worthy of her attention was a nightmare - playing the violin - was a nightmare, (but not at night - only first thing in the morning while she was making breakfast).
Playing the violin mostly meant getting clipped around the ear a lot first thing in the morning. But gymnastics was totally my domain. By 12 I'd managed to get kicked out by my violin teacher, and I didn't touch it again for ten years. By 13 I'd decided to let my sister get all the good reports and stopped doing any work at all at school. (except for about a month before end of year exams). I doodled & day dreamed my way through all my classes, stole some swat books from whitcoulls and studied and passed all my exams, then went back to sleep until the end of the next year. Sometime during 3rd form we went to live in England for a year. My sister and I studied music theory together. I watched the squirrels out the window -running around in the trees. She must have been listening because she got an A and I got an E. And I didn't care.
Gymnastics in England was the best. I got as far as back flips (flic flacs) and aerial walkovers but never quite made it to somersaults. (except on the trampoline), and to back walkovers & splits on the beam. Mum bought Imogen 500 pounds worth of medieval musical instruments & I got nothing, because I'd given up the violin and the piano, (and gymnastics didn't count). But I loved gymnastics anyway so it didn't matter.. Even school was cool, those quirky English teachers were full of life. The ones that weren't good got crucified but most of them were really good. I even started working again, on physics and maths. Plus mum was studying in London and disappeared on the train every morning and came home late at night, so home was finally a relaxed place to be.
It didn't last long - back in New Zealand a year later school was worse than ever. I started hanging out with the naughty girls...there were only about two of them. Hilary used to steal chocolate from the supervalue. She'd fill her schoolbag with king sized blocks of chocolate. She got soo fat! (She confided to me one day that aliens had taken over her body - but... I didn't find it as easy to believe as her best friend Leigh did). Leigh was totally into boys. . I was too scared of my mum to bring any boys home, but the 3 of us got up to a fair bit of mischief together the few times I was allowed out with them. At 15 we all went our separate ways, and all changed schools at the same time but the influence was still there - until I got caught stealing a perky nana bar at Woolworths during school time and was taken to the police station, and my dad was called in to pick me up. Mum hardly said a word when we got home. She was brilliant at making a huge fuss over something like putting the spoons the wrong way around in the dishwasher, but when big things happened like my being caught shoplifting, or my brother burning down the macrocarpa tree and the fire department having to drain the school swimming pool next door to put it out, she went all quiet.
It's 6am and I've been up all night cause I didn't feel like walking home in the rain...so this long rambling story that was meant to go somewhere - has to stop. It doesn't really explain much - it isn't what I was planning at all, but I'm too tired to write anything other than what came out ...I haven't talked about what made gymnastics go wrong, and I'm not going to...I really wanted to say something about realising potential - but I can't, the only potential I have right now is the potential to fall asleep.
I was never a great gymnast - I didn't discover it till quite late, and having a fear of heights didn't help either..but I LOVED the feeling of freedom, of backbends and back flips, of using every muscle...of flight, of stretching - (then later I found it again with yoga - the absolute feeling of bliss, peace and relaxation...) having a body can feel amazing. But going back even further than that, my best memories of childhood are of going swimming with my dad at Waikuku beach - no matter what the weather - even if it was raining, even in the middle of winter in the south Island - he took us swimming, (when it was really cold the water was always warmer than the air outside) and the indescribable feeling of the oneness with the water and the waves...losing all sense of time, staying out there till we were blue with cold and not caring...coming home to hot cocoa...and a warm fire.
When I was fifteen they did a fitness test over the whole of the highschool. I remember when I first started doing gym at school a few years before...struggling to do one sit up. I remember my stomach muscles still hurting the next day after I tried to do more. And my legs being so stiff... I could barely bring my hands below my knees when I tried to touch my toes. But when I was fifteen they did that fitness test & I was the fittest person in the whole school. Fitter than all the boys that played rugby, and the girls that played hockey or did athletics. Just because I loved gymnastics so much. Every night before I went to bed, I'd do hundreds of exercise, sit ups, press ups, v - sits, leg exercises... stretches. And all lunch time at school I'd be on the bars, going round and round and round, and then flying off into the air... Shit - one time at intermediate I landed on my arm. It really hurt, my teacher said I looked white..I never told anyone what happened, it hurt for weeks, I don't know why I didn't tell them? It was weird because I was sick so few times as a child, that usually the fuss and attention was great, and a visit to the doctor was so rare that it was kind of exciting. But I just kept it to myself and eventually it just got better. (later I broke it at gym class- and did the whole hospital thing, which WAS kind of exciting - and painful.) strange. I remember feeling so sick that day at school, but I didn't feel like telling anyone - so I kept it to myself. My mum was usually pretty angry about one thing or another - and injuries were one of the few ways to get her rare, nicer side for a few days - makes no sense, but I never told her. I never told her about dropping her scrambled eggs on the way up the stairs to her room, and putting it back on her plate either, or melting half of her plastic plates and cups in the dishwasher by putting it on the wrong setting. I didn't tell her about getting my friend to get my report card out of our mailbox so she wouldn't get it...but that was understandable if you knew my mum.
I won a few races at school, the cross country and the fifteen hundred metres... like most things I did well at, I just thought it was a fluke. Like when I came second in a science test in standard 3, that was a combined test with standard four, (and because I started school at age 4 instead of 5, I was a year younger than the rest of the standard 3's) - and the only one who beat me was the science nerd in standard four who went around giving everyone electric shocks - and no one else came anywhere close to the two of us - fluke. I mean I never thought I was any good at science, just felt kind of briefly lucky. I didn't know that no one else in my class was reading great expectations by Charles Dickens when I was seven, either. I just thought it was a good story. I just remember telling my teacher to "shut up!" when he read that really dumb poem I wrote - ( - and didn't read the other one that I poured my heart and soul into) and that's not the thing to do in a christian school. And I remember him punishing me for reading David Copperfield in class and not paying attention to whatever was going on???. That was school. Just a mystery that sometimes I surprised myself by doing well at.
School... was just this weird place that seemed so exciting I couldn't wait to go - at four, and it was downhill from the first day on..
I tried to ask a few questions now and then - and got soundly put in my place. Worked out it was better to just keep quiet after that. You don't ask,when you're told, (at seven- at a Christian school), that you should always do what your parents tell you...."What if your parents are bad?? What if they want you to steal or something"? Parents are never bad apparently, if they go to church) . It was the same school that the minister who was done for molesting all those kids went to.... that his creepy father taught at.
My twin sister had an electric chair in her class. Fun! Spell a word wrong- zapp! Annoy the class leader - zapp! No reason at all - Zapp!
So in contrast to the mystery that was school ...gymnastics made perfect sense because it was just - fun! It felt good, it was hard. Nothing at school was hard at primary school - so it was boring - (except for maths because I'd decided at about 5 that girls weren't meant to be good at maths - it was a boy thing, so I tried hard to fail at maths). Everything about gymnastics was hard. I'm not supple, so becoming flexible was hard work. I'm scared of heights, so the beam and the bars were even harder. And I loved it! At school it was all about reports. The usual - could have tried harder (B's) or A's. A+'s A-'s. if my report was better than my twin sister's (who had glue ear until her adenoids were removed) then I got the praise and she didn't - and it should've felt good, but when you're a twin it doesn't. It didn't feel good to be compared like that.Nothing that made her feel bad - (especially when she tried so much harder and it came so easily to me) - made me feel good - ever.
When we were learning to talk, I was ahead of her. I walked way before her. She'd say "lellow potty" & I'd be correcting her (trying to help but it only made her mad) . When she said "I aren't" I'd say "I'm not" and she'd get mad at me. When I could walk, and she couldn't, I'd take her toys and walk away with them - but - it never felt good if her report wasn't as good as mine. My mum was a teacher, my dad was a professor (but he was pretty cruisy). Mum's dad was a headmaster, and to her reports were everything. You didn't want to make mum angry - but it was pretty much impossible not to make her angry. That was mum, she was mostly always angry about something. But mum - had no opinion about gymnastics. She couldn't care less about how I was going at gymnastics. And that - was great. Ok so she did have an opinion - it wasn't worthy of her attention - but that - was still great. Anything worthy of her attention was a nightmare - playing the violin - was a nightmare, (but not at night - only first thing in the morning while she was making breakfast).
Playing the violin mostly meant getting clipped around the ear a lot first thing in the morning. But gymnastics was totally my domain. By 12 I'd managed to get kicked out by my violin teacher, and I didn't touch it again for ten years. By 13 I'd decided to let my sister get all the good reports and stopped doing any work at all at school. (except for about a month before end of year exams). I doodled & day dreamed my way through all my classes, stole some swat books from whitcoulls and studied and passed all my exams, then went back to sleep until the end of the next year. Sometime during 3rd form we went to live in England for a year. My sister and I studied music theory together. I watched the squirrels out the window -running around in the trees. She must have been listening because she got an A and I got an E. And I didn't care.
Gymnastics in England was the best. I got as far as back flips (flic flacs) and aerial walkovers but never quite made it to somersaults. (except on the trampoline), and to back walkovers & splits on the beam. Mum bought Imogen 500 pounds worth of medieval musical instruments & I got nothing, because I'd given up the violin and the piano, (and gymnastics didn't count). But I loved gymnastics anyway so it didn't matter.. Even school was cool, those quirky English teachers were full of life. The ones that weren't good got crucified but most of them were really good. I even started working again, on physics and maths. Plus mum was studying in London and disappeared on the train every morning and came home late at night, so home was finally a relaxed place to be.
It didn't last long - back in New Zealand a year later school was worse than ever. I started hanging out with the naughty girls...there were only about two of them. Hilary used to steal chocolate from the supervalue. She'd fill her schoolbag with king sized blocks of chocolate. She got soo fat! (She confided to me one day that aliens had taken over her body - but... I didn't find it as easy to believe as her best friend Leigh did). Leigh was totally into boys. . I was too scared of my mum to bring any boys home, but the 3 of us got up to a fair bit of mischief together the few times I was allowed out with them. At 15 we all went our separate ways, and all changed schools at the same time but the influence was still there - until I got caught stealing a perky nana bar at Woolworths during school time and was taken to the police station, and my dad was called in to pick me up. Mum hardly said a word when we got home. She was brilliant at making a huge fuss over something like putting the spoons the wrong way around in the dishwasher, but when big things happened like my being caught shoplifting, or my brother burning down the macrocarpa tree and the fire department having to drain the school swimming pool next door to put it out, she went all quiet.
It's 6am and I've been up all night cause I didn't feel like walking home in the rain...so this long rambling story that was meant to go somewhere - has to stop. It doesn't really explain much - it isn't what I was planning at all, but I'm too tired to write anything other than what came out ...I haven't talked about what made gymnastics go wrong, and I'm not going to...I really wanted to say something about realising potential - but I can't, the only potential I have right now is the potential to fall asleep.
Sunday 21 April 2013
Too tired to write zzzzzz
Been wanting to write sooo much, so much to write about..and now I finally have time - I'm sooo tired I just feel like going home and going to bed. And maybe, seriously - that's what I should do??
Monday 15 April 2013
Dancing in the rain..,
Now I'm thinking about Filo my (very occasional) mexican "lover" (not his real name). Thinking about how if I'm going to be around him, I want to see only the best in him. Unlike my friend, whose girlfriend is alway imagining the worst, when he's actually quite a straight up loyal guy... Filo gives me plenty to reason to be jealous..but I'm not the jealous kind. My wellbeing, my feeling good is important to me. So I've decided to just be as friendly and nice as possible to him, regardless of how many women he attempts to seduce in front of me in plain view. I want to use him to practice the law of attraction...focusing on his best aspects and ignoring the rest. If I can't control the whole sexual side of things... I'm going to focus on genuine old fashioned unconditional love. On just being a good natured friend. On just being me. On just being true to my nature. I can't make him want me or be attracted to me, or loyal to me...but I can be loyal to myself. I can be good to myself when he's flirting like crazy with whoever...(it's always someone new) I can be warm and friendly & consistent to myself (at least in my head). He wants me to play in his band... so I can't hide or run away... but I can let go about the whole thing... accept that he's not going to be the source of my wellbeing, and be that for myself. I think I'm going to get to the point where I'm going to just feel like laughing or quietly laughing to myself when he does his thing he does with women in front of me... there's not much else he can do that he hasn't already done in front of me. I genuinely don't have sexual jealousy, but I do or did have jealousy of fun and friendliness...if it looked like I was the only one missing out on that...but - I'm now officially allowing myself to have fun!!! Not necessarily from him if he's not there for that with me.. there are plenty of other people to have fun with. So I don't need to be jealous. I'm open to having fun of my own!!!.
Anyway it's raining...all the other buskers are hiding and it's time for me to play. Filo is the rain in my emotional life... but when the cloud come out - I like nothing better than being outside in stormy weather. Feeling the wind on my face makes me feel alive. Winters my time to get outside, go for brisk walks, run up hills... be free of the fears and conditioning of other people... and play!
Sunday 14 April 2013
No words for where music takes me....
The words were flowing brilliantly as I walked home last night....far away from any possibility of capturing any of them....no here I am in front of the computer....and it's raining outside but the flood of words has become a trickle from an empty hose. I had a great jam last night, a collaboration with one of the most creative musicians I know. The music changed direction again & again & again... the ideas flowed across musical genres, through eras, & around the world, & I felt - free - unbound, at one with my instrument and the other musicians. All those scales...that foundation work I've been doing finally paying off??? It was effortless & inspiring. I felt echos of Pink Floyd & Hendrix... then found myself travelling through India and Spain.. I felt grateful just for that moment in time. That free flow of energy...that now. Now gone.....
lack of sleep, too tired.......just memories left to flicker through hardly awakened brain cells...
lack of sleep, too tired.......just memories left to flicker through hardly awakened brain cells...
Monday 8 April 2013
Being attractive - has been scary for me - but now....it's time for that to change
The waves of energy and attention from men that come when you're an average and not even exceptionally stunning blonde.... have been at different times of my life, something I've found to be really threatening and overwhelming rather than welcome or even just amusing. Attraction hasn't been something I've felt comfortable with....so I've found various ways to shut it down or shut it out of my experience. But... can I help being hot??? Do I have to switch it off for the rest of my life just so that I can feel safe in a bubble of aloneness?
I'm challenging EVERYTHING at the moment. Every belief lurking in my brain is being pulled out and examined for a stint of serious emotional housecleaning. Being "hot" means coping with JEALOUSY, from both men and women. And beneath all my fears - the fear of jealousy - is at the bottom. Not even just jealousy in any way., but the feeling that me being who I really was could make someone else feel bad. I used to be compared to my twin sister "you're the pretty one" they'd say. Thinking it would make me feel good, but inside I felt hurt that she wasn't receiving that kind of attention too, that no one was saying how great she was too. She's odd they'd say - weird. I'd try to look less pretty around her husband when he looked at me with that strange look in his eyes. Finally - at 47 she's worked out that she's gay...and she's really happily receiving attention from women who look nothing like the stereotypical blonde...and finally she's getting the feedback that she's gorgeous too - and the "oddness" fits perfectly in their world too, she's not odd there, she's HOT. and so finally - I can go back to milking being blonde and hot in my own way....without feeling bad at all that she won't get that feedback from my world but that she's really happy in hers. She has a "gorgeous" girlfriend who looks like she came right off the farm , from driving the tractor, who can fix all kind of things... So back to me - I held myself back for no reason - to protect my sister from finding out that she didn't belong in my straight world.
Then there was my mum - whoa! Her jealousy was intense - and violent! she didn't quite beat me up but the daily clips around the ear to get me to "know my place" ...The seeming encouragement of my musical talents, then the daily pre breakfast practises where she ripped into my attempts to learn the violin (that she'd given up despite being very talented at it) & broke my violin once when I instinctively used it as a defensive sheild as she went to slap me for whatever mistake I'd just made...then made me pay for it....But behind a lot of her anger - was jealousy that she'd missed the opportunites in her life that she was trying to give me, that she wasn't young and pretty with life full of potential anymore. (Still I'm proud of the fact that in her mid forties she when back to school to get a masters degree, and when she was in her fifties and split up with my dad, she didn't let her age stop her from attracting men and love into her life, in that way she's always been an inspiration to me).
I don't like making people feel bad, I don't want anyone to feel bad on my account ... but sometimes not achieving, or not excelling, or not being hot, so someone else can feel better about themselves....just doesn't work for anyone. sometimes they have to feel the pain of a place that doesn't feel good, so they can work out what they need to do to feel better about where they are and where they're going...
I don't want me feeling good to make anyone feel bad...but I've slowly worked out that me feeling bad - usually makes other people feel even worse than when I feel good.
So when I'm not coping with the numerous men that hit on me when I'm out and about, when I stop shining my light... and back into a corner, or hide in a cupboard to keep it all away....I'm not helping anyone especially myself. So first I have to accept that I AM HOT lol and it's OK. (and so are you...and so is my sister...).
As far as being unsafe being attractive, and feeling unsafe around jealousy...two incidents stand out, my brothers very inappropriate and un welcome attention when I was a teenager that I wrote about in a previous post... and much more recently when my samoan (ex) boyfriend beat me up after seeing me dancing with friends ....
But I woke up this morning...knowing that I was already letting go of all that. Since I believe that everything out there in the world starts within... by shifting my focus of attention within I can influence the responses I get from the world. Jealousy doesn't have to be a controlling influence in my life anymore and I can feel safe in situations where it may come up. (and mixing in latin circles...there are plenty of opportunities to work on this!!). My fear of jealousy and the potential consequences of it - has I believe intensified the problems that can occur... feeling calmer and more at ease... defuses situations. I'm basically a teenager in an adult body. I'm learning about life, about sexuality, about emotions in new ways. I'm exploring territories that I didn't get to explore when I WAS a teenager, when my controlling mother didn't let me go out pretty much at all. That was her way of dealing with my developing sexuality and relationships with men.
So now.... I'm single, but kinda seeing someone, who doesn't mind making it obvious that I'm not the only one he's seeing. And in the circles we mix in there are other men I find attractive too.. It's about time I allowed myself to experience more of the playing with and allowing the attractions that can happen on this side of the fence that actually having sex is on the other side of. Which is what the salsa class I'm going to this week is about. Salsa is kind of "try before you buy". Allowing a bit of heat to develop, without having to go all the way... So it's my safe way of being a teenager...going some of the way without obligation to complete the deal. I want to explore and allow more of the closeness and sensuality that's on this side of the fence... I want to feel more control... to know that I can be safe...that sometimes sexual energy can be there without it leading to the full on experience, and sometimes it can be there and it does... lead to that, but that I feel safe and comfortable with those subtle and sometimes not so subtle boundaries along the way to that place..
Having an involvement with a hot young latin lover, is one of the most challenging things I've done... but I like it because of that challenge. The challenge is not to get his love..but to keep loving myself no matter what and to use the experience to dig out the places where old hurts lie buried. He continually forces me to grow beyond the limiting concepts of who I've been. For that I'm grateful. He's made me aware of all kinds of buried stuff that's been holding me back...and I just can't live with those limitations anymore.It may seem like...because of all these words...that I'm a thinker...but when I'm playing music, I'm not thinking , when I'm dancing I'm not thinking. I like to think and write...then put it away.. and just be.
So now - writings over, back to being... in love - with life.
I'm challenging EVERYTHING at the moment. Every belief lurking in my brain is being pulled out and examined for a stint of serious emotional housecleaning. Being "hot" means coping with JEALOUSY, from both men and women. And beneath all my fears - the fear of jealousy - is at the bottom. Not even just jealousy in any way., but the feeling that me being who I really was could make someone else feel bad. I used to be compared to my twin sister "you're the pretty one" they'd say. Thinking it would make me feel good, but inside I felt hurt that she wasn't receiving that kind of attention too, that no one was saying how great she was too. She's odd they'd say - weird. I'd try to look less pretty around her husband when he looked at me with that strange look in his eyes. Finally - at 47 she's worked out that she's gay...and she's really happily receiving attention from women who look nothing like the stereotypical blonde...and finally she's getting the feedback that she's gorgeous too - and the "oddness" fits perfectly in their world too, she's not odd there, she's HOT. and so finally - I can go back to milking being blonde and hot in my own way....without feeling bad at all that she won't get that feedback from my world but that she's really happy in hers. She has a "gorgeous" girlfriend who looks like she came right off the farm , from driving the tractor, who can fix all kind of things... So back to me - I held myself back for no reason - to protect my sister from finding out that she didn't belong in my straight world.
Then there was my mum - whoa! Her jealousy was intense - and violent! she didn't quite beat me up but the daily clips around the ear to get me to "know my place" ...The seeming encouragement of my musical talents, then the daily pre breakfast practises where she ripped into my attempts to learn the violin (that she'd given up despite being very talented at it) & broke my violin once when I instinctively used it as a defensive sheild as she went to slap me for whatever mistake I'd just made...then made me pay for it....But behind a lot of her anger - was jealousy that she'd missed the opportunites in her life that she was trying to give me, that she wasn't young and pretty with life full of potential anymore. (Still I'm proud of the fact that in her mid forties she when back to school to get a masters degree, and when she was in her fifties and split up with my dad, she didn't let her age stop her from attracting men and love into her life, in that way she's always been an inspiration to me).
I don't like making people feel bad, I don't want anyone to feel bad on my account ... but sometimes not achieving, or not excelling, or not being hot, so someone else can feel better about themselves....just doesn't work for anyone. sometimes they have to feel the pain of a place that doesn't feel good, so they can work out what they need to do to feel better about where they are and where they're going...
I don't want me feeling good to make anyone feel bad...but I've slowly worked out that me feeling bad - usually makes other people feel even worse than when I feel good.
So when I'm not coping with the numerous men that hit on me when I'm out and about, when I stop shining my light... and back into a corner, or hide in a cupboard to keep it all away....I'm not helping anyone especially myself. So first I have to accept that I AM HOT lol and it's OK. (and so are you...and so is my sister...).
As far as being unsafe being attractive, and feeling unsafe around jealousy...two incidents stand out, my brothers very inappropriate and un welcome attention when I was a teenager that I wrote about in a previous post... and much more recently when my samoan (ex) boyfriend beat me up after seeing me dancing with friends ....
But I woke up this morning...knowing that I was already letting go of all that. Since I believe that everything out there in the world starts within... by shifting my focus of attention within I can influence the responses I get from the world. Jealousy doesn't have to be a controlling influence in my life anymore and I can feel safe in situations where it may come up. (and mixing in latin circles...there are plenty of opportunities to work on this!!). My fear of jealousy and the potential consequences of it - has I believe intensified the problems that can occur... feeling calmer and more at ease... defuses situations. I'm basically a teenager in an adult body. I'm learning about life, about sexuality, about emotions in new ways. I'm exploring territories that I didn't get to explore when I WAS a teenager, when my controlling mother didn't let me go out pretty much at all. That was her way of dealing with my developing sexuality and relationships with men.
So now.... I'm single, but kinda seeing someone, who doesn't mind making it obvious that I'm not the only one he's seeing. And in the circles we mix in there are other men I find attractive too.. It's about time I allowed myself to experience more of the playing with and allowing the attractions that can happen on this side of the fence that actually having sex is on the other side of. Which is what the salsa class I'm going to this week is about. Salsa is kind of "try before you buy". Allowing a bit of heat to develop, without having to go all the way... So it's my safe way of being a teenager...going some of the way without obligation to complete the deal. I want to explore and allow more of the closeness and sensuality that's on this side of the fence... I want to feel more control... to know that I can be safe...that sometimes sexual energy can be there without it leading to the full on experience, and sometimes it can be there and it does... lead to that, but that I feel safe and comfortable with those subtle and sometimes not so subtle boundaries along the way to that place..
Having an involvement with a hot young latin lover, is one of the most challenging things I've done... but I like it because of that challenge. The challenge is not to get his love..but to keep loving myself no matter what and to use the experience to dig out the places where old hurts lie buried. He continually forces me to grow beyond the limiting concepts of who I've been. For that I'm grateful. He's made me aware of all kinds of buried stuff that's been holding me back...and I just can't live with those limitations anymore.It may seem like...because of all these words...that I'm a thinker...but when I'm playing music, I'm not thinking , when I'm dancing I'm not thinking. I like to think and write...then put it away.. and just be.
So now - writings over, back to being... in love - with life.
Sunday 7 April 2013
Collisions in my brain...
Thoughts colliding in my brain, sometimes connecting like marbles ...sometimes like grenades, detonating walls from the past.. the last few days have been intense, as the consciousness of who I am expands, the walls that contain the past are crumbling.I say they're crumbling, I want them to go, but I'm scared of whats on the other side? The key events in my life that made me who I am...on the other side is freedom ... so why the fear? I'm listening to Cuban music as I write this. Sometimes oppressed people understand freedom better than anyone....
When every choice is controlled by someone else, dance & music become the medium of freedom of expression.
I'm analyzing the oppressive regime in my head...the key experiences that influenced my brain to make choices that don't serve me now. Sometimes the things I think, the choices I've made because of different experiences are SO DUMB!! How could I let the argument I had with my mother when she wouldnt let me listen to any other station but the classical one, make me tense for the REST OF MY LIFE when I listen to recorded music. My brains been taken hostage ....It's time for a revolution!!
I'm a musician who doesn't, usually listen to music....unless it's live. I've just started playing in a latin band, despite just about never listening to latin music. (I've already turned off the Cuban music, it was hurting my brain even though I like Cuban music). I listen to recorded music accidently, but hardly ever on purpose. I don't listen to recorded music, - but I do listen to the versions of reality that I've recorded in my head, replaying them over and over.....and I replay the worst moments when I made some very bad choices about reality. I made things important and formative when they shouldn't have been. I made some bad tapes from certain experiences, and I listen to them TOO MUCH. right now I feel like running away...problem is I want to run away from myself - and that's not possible. So instead... I have to come back to myself.
I tried to tell my friend about what happened last night, how I flashed back to Andy beating me up. How I skipped out of the reality of the present reality and into feelings and emotions from the past. I was talking to a woman I'd just met about learning salsa. She suggested giving it a go now, there were only a few people around and I could try it out with George, a lovely Chilean guy that I kinda fancied who was there. Only problem was that my very occasional Mexican lover who had pretty much been ignoring me all night (apart from the part where we played wonderful music together with the band) was there too...and all of a sudden I felt intense fear.The thoughts crossed my head that Filo may be jealous if he saw me dancing & also the thought that I was attracted to George caus he's just a really nice guy. But mostly I felt intense fear...and a feeling like walls were caving in - I felt claustrophobic and had to get out of there.
When I was walking down the street I realised the situation had triggered a fear from association with Andy beating me up after he saw me dancing with some male friends. We weren't touching, we were just having fun,enjoying the music. Andy had disappeared for three months without a word. I went through intense grief and then had thrown myself into music and dancing. John had become my dancing buddy. An happily married older man, who just loved dancing and encouraging others to share that passion (only on the dance floor though, he was always respectful & a total gentleman off the dance floor, & even there we only danced next to each other..). John is a lovely safe male friend who I have no physical attraction to at all. But when Andy came back, I'd become used to the freedom I enjoyed dancing and going out with John and other new friends. When Andy saw us dancing, and enjoying each others company in the music...his intense jealously was triggered. On the way home we went through a park and he exploded with anger. He tripped me up, and then made me lie on the ground while he attacked me.
But now that I understand where that fear was coming from... I simply have to let it go. And all the other fears that rattle around in my brain..all the associations with dance, with sex, with being physical that are painful, I can let go of them all.
I've seen in the last few days just how many loops I've had in my brain taking me to a bad place about being a physical person, being passionate, being sexual.
From being a baby in an incubator and desperately needing touch. From my father pushing me away when I wanted cuddles, trying to get him to hold me hand tighter because it felt good - when I was three and him making me feel like I'd asked something really bad... discovering gymnastics at twelve and absolutely passionately falling in love with the freedom & pleasure I found in my body - in being able to throw myself into the air or go round and round on the bars at school. In doing the splits, and backbends.... & then my brother getting turned on, the disgust I felt when I saw him masturbating behind a glass door. The hurt in his betrayal as the friend that I adored...the pain of the loss of his friendship when I finally confronted him. After his voyeurism continued for sometime. All associated with my greatest passion. The eating disorder I developed as I tried to fight with my body and fight the emotions and feelings I had. The isolation and loneliness I felt as I struggled with my feelings by myself. I only told my 47yr old twin sister about it a couple of weeks ago.
As well as this - My mother not allowing me to go to a gymnastics competition I worked towards for months after an argument. My mother always using gymnastics to punish me when I misbehaved because she knew I loved it so much, but never going to see me perform in competitions or go to classes with me. For some reason I feel I have to collect every single memory that's sifting around inside me...get them out and then light a big fire and burn them. I'm really aware most of all right now of the baby inside me that desperately wants cuddles and doesn't know how to get them. Wants to be held close....
I feel the key to undoing all those painful associations is within reach...that just seeing it all for what it is releasing the power they hold over me... I want to feel good about my body, not for how it compares to all those images out there, but for how good it feels to have a body, how good it feels to move, how good it feels to touch and be touched...That every part of my body is good and beautiful and natural as God intended it to be. And I want to start using my body again, to walk and climb and run and bend, and dance...I want to enjoy the immense pleasure that's possible as part being a physical being in a body. Not just the sexual parts, not excluding that either but enjoying having legs, and arms and hands and eyes... When I finish writing I'm going to walk up Mt Eden, and enjoy the earth and the trees and the view, and stop at my favorite tree... where I often shed a few tears as I pray and meditate. And I'm going to give thanks for every part of this body that God created exactly as it is. And I'm going to give myself permission to ENJOY being physical again. And I'm going to LOVE every particle of this body I've been gifted. That's all.
When every choice is controlled by someone else, dance & music become the medium of freedom of expression.
I'm analyzing the oppressive regime in my head...the key experiences that influenced my brain to make choices that don't serve me now. Sometimes the things I think, the choices I've made because of different experiences are SO DUMB!! How could I let the argument I had with my mother when she wouldnt let me listen to any other station but the classical one, make me tense for the REST OF MY LIFE when I listen to recorded music. My brains been taken hostage ....It's time for a revolution!!
I'm a musician who doesn't, usually listen to music....unless it's live. I've just started playing in a latin band, despite just about never listening to latin music. (I've already turned off the Cuban music, it was hurting my brain even though I like Cuban music). I listen to recorded music accidently, but hardly ever on purpose. I don't listen to recorded music, - but I do listen to the versions of reality that I've recorded in my head, replaying them over and over.....and I replay the worst moments when I made some very bad choices about reality. I made things important and formative when they shouldn't have been. I made some bad tapes from certain experiences, and I listen to them TOO MUCH. right now I feel like running away...problem is I want to run away from myself - and that's not possible. So instead... I have to come back to myself.
I tried to tell my friend about what happened last night, how I flashed back to Andy beating me up. How I skipped out of the reality of the present reality and into feelings and emotions from the past. I was talking to a woman I'd just met about learning salsa. She suggested giving it a go now, there were only a few people around and I could try it out with George, a lovely Chilean guy that I kinda fancied who was there. Only problem was that my very occasional Mexican lover who had pretty much been ignoring me all night (apart from the part where we played wonderful music together with the band) was there too...and all of a sudden I felt intense fear.The thoughts crossed my head that Filo may be jealous if he saw me dancing & also the thought that I was attracted to George caus he's just a really nice guy. But mostly I felt intense fear...and a feeling like walls were caving in - I felt claustrophobic and had to get out of there.
When I was walking down the street I realised the situation had triggered a fear from association with Andy beating me up after he saw me dancing with some male friends. We weren't touching, we were just having fun,enjoying the music. Andy had disappeared for three months without a word. I went through intense grief and then had thrown myself into music and dancing. John had become my dancing buddy. An happily married older man, who just loved dancing and encouraging others to share that passion (only on the dance floor though, he was always respectful & a total gentleman off the dance floor, & even there we only danced next to each other..). John is a lovely safe male friend who I have no physical attraction to at all. But when Andy came back, I'd become used to the freedom I enjoyed dancing and going out with John and other new friends. When Andy saw us dancing, and enjoying each others company in the music...his intense jealously was triggered. On the way home we went through a park and he exploded with anger. He tripped me up, and then made me lie on the ground while he attacked me.
But now that I understand where that fear was coming from... I simply have to let it go. And all the other fears that rattle around in my brain..all the associations with dance, with sex, with being physical that are painful, I can let go of them all.
I've seen in the last few days just how many loops I've had in my brain taking me to a bad place about being a physical person, being passionate, being sexual.
From being a baby in an incubator and desperately needing touch. From my father pushing me away when I wanted cuddles, trying to get him to hold me hand tighter because it felt good - when I was three and him making me feel like I'd asked something really bad... discovering gymnastics at twelve and absolutely passionately falling in love with the freedom & pleasure I found in my body - in being able to throw myself into the air or go round and round on the bars at school. In doing the splits, and backbends.... & then my brother getting turned on, the disgust I felt when I saw him masturbating behind a glass door. The hurt in his betrayal as the friend that I adored...the pain of the loss of his friendship when I finally confronted him. After his voyeurism continued for sometime. All associated with my greatest passion. The eating disorder I developed as I tried to fight with my body and fight the emotions and feelings I had. The isolation and loneliness I felt as I struggled with my feelings by myself. I only told my 47yr old twin sister about it a couple of weeks ago.
As well as this - My mother not allowing me to go to a gymnastics competition I worked towards for months after an argument. My mother always using gymnastics to punish me when I misbehaved because she knew I loved it so much, but never going to see me perform in competitions or go to classes with me. For some reason I feel I have to collect every single memory that's sifting around inside me...get them out and then light a big fire and burn them. I'm really aware most of all right now of the baby inside me that desperately wants cuddles and doesn't know how to get them. Wants to be held close....
I feel the key to undoing all those painful associations is within reach...that just seeing it all for what it is releasing the power they hold over me... I want to feel good about my body, not for how it compares to all those images out there, but for how good it feels to have a body, how good it feels to move, how good it feels to touch and be touched...That every part of my body is good and beautiful and natural as God intended it to be. And I want to start using my body again, to walk and climb and run and bend, and dance...I want to enjoy the immense pleasure that's possible as part being a physical being in a body. Not just the sexual parts, not excluding that either but enjoying having legs, and arms and hands and eyes... When I finish writing I'm going to walk up Mt Eden, and enjoy the earth and the trees and the view, and stop at my favorite tree... where I often shed a few tears as I pray and meditate. And I'm going to give thanks for every part of this body that God created exactly as it is. And I'm going to give myself permission to ENJOY being physical again. And I'm going to LOVE every particle of this body I've been gifted. That's all.
Thursday 28 March 2013
A Profusion of Confusion
I haven't written anything for ages...Life has taken over, but finally - there's time and space in my life, and money...to take a break from what seems more important - but isn't.
The past is going through my mind like a fire in my brain. The embers are still burning from old hurts, seeping into the present and setting alight hopes and dreams of the future. I can't write well today...I just have to write, rough and raw and unpolished..
When I really want something good, but the voices and doubts from within threaten to recreate the unwanted former experiences..it's time for acute therapy. A past relationship trauma is colouring my perceptions of what is happening now. I have to gently respectfully close the door to the past and allow myself to know what I want...and focus on that rather than the unwanted stuff that is smouldering... Sometimes having what you want is as simple as focusing on what IS wanted...getting as clear as possible about - knowing that how I felt in the past didn't feel good - how do I WANT to feel now? When the confusion and pain rules, life reflects that. I want - integration... friendship... acceptance. doors to open rather than close. Trust, new beginnings...today writing is just about my own clarity, which means that it may not make much sense to anyone else :( but I feel clearer and better when I search for clarity., even if that clarity doesn't quite reach the page, there's an upliftment that goes with reaching for it.
Anyway...details....I was never searching for a younger lover. I just wanted freedom and release from something painful and it came in the form of a young man. I don't identify with being a cougar, in fact there should be a word for young men that prowl for sex with older women, because I've found it's much more that way around. In my innocence - I only saw innocence in men in their 20's. But the way they look at me I've found is not innocent at all. They want to touch me, want to kiss me, want me to take my clothes off and get naked and... I was about to put my body into retirement, stamp it with middle age, and put it in a box in a cupboard and keep it there. only exposing occassionally myself to the eyes of other past their use by date folk. But young men kept seeing something beautiful when I couldn't see it myself. And when I finally started to see myself through their relatively innocent eyes, I began to see it too. It's not just about physical form, kindness has a light of it's own. Heart and soul shine in a different way to the perfection of young flesh. Strangely though through their attention I've come to look more physically beautiful too. Excess weight has dropped off, the desire for exercise has increased, hair, clothes all reflecting the deeper sense of wellbeing that I'm feeling. People are starting to comment in the glow and vitality I'm emanating..
(When I say "their", I don't mean many, and just one in particular is on my mind now.) I couldn't receive love and attention from him at first, I cringed at my lack of perfection in contrast to his youth and beauty. I wanted to hide, to run away and I guess I did just that. I couldn't allow myself to want more than a very simple kind of pleasure. And I could hardly even allow myself that.. but now I find myself wanting more. Wanting to be a bigger part of his life..going through the hiccups of the insecurities that that brings on both sides. I see him wanting more and me pulling away, myself wanting more and again pulling away, see him pulling away and coming closer at the same time, it's a strange dance. It's scary...because everythings so fragile at this point. At first his confidence led the way, but I see that for the next venture into new territory, my confidence has to take over. I have to have the confidence to form the vision of how to move into something deeper.
Last night I went out. I'd applied a lightening mousse to my hair, just enough that people would notice a difference, without really twigging as to why I looked different. I bought a nice top from a recycle store. Again it was subtly sexy rather than overtly. The mousse's magic meant that everyone noticed I looked good. One well meaning male friend spent quite some time telling me just how sexy and attractive I was looking. but more than that, when I looked in the mirror there was a glow in my eyes that I hadn't seen for some time. If ever?? I felt radiant & I was basking in the positive feedback I was receiving.I didn't know that the one person I really wanted to shine for, would turn up. But he did, with his latin band, just as I was leaving with friends to go to another bar where a friend was waiting for me.I'm still not quite confident seeing him in public. I gave him a quick hug and took off, telling him where I was going and not expecting to see him again that night.
At the bar down the road, some old friends were playing celtic music. I asked if I could play a few tunes with them on my friends violin, as I often do when I see them. Just as I was preparing to play, my young Mexican lover turned up. The timing was perfect, I was at my best, the music flowed like water, the crowd was hyped and loving it, but the one person I really cared about being there, was looking screwed up & miserable...one of his band members jumped up and played percussion... which amped everything up...the performance couldn't have gone more perfectly, but he took off almost as soon as it was over. The words that came out of my mouth didn't help, we exchanged a few disjointed sentances and then he was gone.
And I was left thinking - what's the point of looking my best, being my best, if ??? Anyway it's time for maturity to kick in where insecurity wants to take over. Maybe it was all the young men in the audience enjoying the music, maybe it was the easy comfortable relationship I have with the older band members that I've known for years, maybe it was that I said I was getting a ride home with Gerry??? (he lives out my way - with his wife and kids...). But anyway I'm going to go home, and focus on where I want to be with him... if I want more then I'm going to focus mostly on how I want to FEEL with him. The hard part for me is acknowledging and allowing myself to want anything from anyone... but especially from him. I want an intimacy that he hasn't shown much sign of wanting to give...So I'll be focusing on two senarios..how I want to feel if I go deeper with him, and how I want to feel if I have to let go of him. Mostly the feeling I want is trust. I want to be in a more trusting easy place....either way....and I want to allow myself to want everything I want with him...even if I don't get it from him. I want cuddles, I want him to stay over. I want to be allowed to want more...I want to be allowed to want what I want.... (a whole new level of pyschotherapy latent behind that one).
I want to be allowed to want unconditionally, and for it to be ok to want cuddles (my dad - made me feel there was something wrong with me for wanting him to cuddle me - the teacher at school said we weren't allowed to pray for a bicycle...).
I want to practicing the "art of allowing" on every level of my being so that it never feels creepy to want anything from anyone, anywhere, anyhow.
I haven't written anything for ages...Life has taken over, but finally - there's time and space in my life, and money...to take a break from what seems more important - but isn't.
The past is going through my mind like a fire in my brain. The embers are still burning from old hurts, seeping into the present and setting alight hopes and dreams of the future. I can't write well today...I just have to write, rough and raw and unpolished..
When I really want something good, but the voices and doubts from within threaten to recreate the unwanted former experiences..it's time for acute therapy. A past relationship trauma is colouring my perceptions of what is happening now. I have to gently respectfully close the door to the past and allow myself to know what I want...and focus on that rather than the unwanted stuff that is smouldering... Sometimes having what you want is as simple as focusing on what IS wanted...getting as clear as possible about - knowing that how I felt in the past didn't feel good - how do I WANT to feel now? When the confusion and pain rules, life reflects that. I want - integration... friendship... acceptance. doors to open rather than close. Trust, new beginnings...today writing is just about my own clarity, which means that it may not make much sense to anyone else :( but I feel clearer and better when I search for clarity., even if that clarity doesn't quite reach the page, there's an upliftment that goes with reaching for it.
Anyway...details....I was never searching for a younger lover. I just wanted freedom and release from something painful and it came in the form of a young man. I don't identify with being a cougar, in fact there should be a word for young men that prowl for sex with older women, because I've found it's much more that way around. In my innocence - I only saw innocence in men in their 20's. But the way they look at me I've found is not innocent at all. They want to touch me, want to kiss me, want me to take my clothes off and get naked and... I was about to put my body into retirement, stamp it with middle age, and put it in a box in a cupboard and keep it there. only exposing occassionally myself to the eyes of other past their use by date folk. But young men kept seeing something beautiful when I couldn't see it myself. And when I finally started to see myself through their relatively innocent eyes, I began to see it too. It's not just about physical form, kindness has a light of it's own. Heart and soul shine in a different way to the perfection of young flesh. Strangely though through their attention I've come to look more physically beautiful too. Excess weight has dropped off, the desire for exercise has increased, hair, clothes all reflecting the deeper sense of wellbeing that I'm feeling. People are starting to comment in the glow and vitality I'm emanating..
(When I say "their", I don't mean many, and just one in particular is on my mind now.) I couldn't receive love and attention from him at first, I cringed at my lack of perfection in contrast to his youth and beauty. I wanted to hide, to run away and I guess I did just that. I couldn't allow myself to want more than a very simple kind of pleasure. And I could hardly even allow myself that.. but now I find myself wanting more. Wanting to be a bigger part of his life..going through the hiccups of the insecurities that that brings on both sides. I see him wanting more and me pulling away, myself wanting more and again pulling away, see him pulling away and coming closer at the same time, it's a strange dance. It's scary...because everythings so fragile at this point. At first his confidence led the way, but I see that for the next venture into new territory, my confidence has to take over. I have to have the confidence to form the vision of how to move into something deeper.
Last night I went out. I'd applied a lightening mousse to my hair, just enough that people would notice a difference, without really twigging as to why I looked different. I bought a nice top from a recycle store. Again it was subtly sexy rather than overtly. The mousse's magic meant that everyone noticed I looked good. One well meaning male friend spent quite some time telling me just how sexy and attractive I was looking. but more than that, when I looked in the mirror there was a glow in my eyes that I hadn't seen for some time. If ever?? I felt radiant & I was basking in the positive feedback I was receiving.I didn't know that the one person I really wanted to shine for, would turn up. But he did, with his latin band, just as I was leaving with friends to go to another bar where a friend was waiting for me.I'm still not quite confident seeing him in public. I gave him a quick hug and took off, telling him where I was going and not expecting to see him again that night.
At the bar down the road, some old friends were playing celtic music. I asked if I could play a few tunes with them on my friends violin, as I often do when I see them. Just as I was preparing to play, my young Mexican lover turned up. The timing was perfect, I was at my best, the music flowed like water, the crowd was hyped and loving it, but the one person I really cared about being there, was looking screwed up & miserable...one of his band members jumped up and played percussion... which amped everything up...the performance couldn't have gone more perfectly, but he took off almost as soon as it was over. The words that came out of my mouth didn't help, we exchanged a few disjointed sentances and then he was gone.
And I was left thinking - what's the point of looking my best, being my best, if ??? Anyway it's time for maturity to kick in where insecurity wants to take over. Maybe it was all the young men in the audience enjoying the music, maybe it was the easy comfortable relationship I have with the older band members that I've known for years, maybe it was that I said I was getting a ride home with Gerry??? (he lives out my way - with his wife and kids...). But anyway I'm going to go home, and focus on where I want to be with him... if I want more then I'm going to focus mostly on how I want to FEEL with him. The hard part for me is acknowledging and allowing myself to want anything from anyone... but especially from him. I want an intimacy that he hasn't shown much sign of wanting to give...So I'll be focusing on two senarios..how I want to feel if I go deeper with him, and how I want to feel if I have to let go of him. Mostly the feeling I want is trust. I want to be in a more trusting easy place....either way....and I want to allow myself to want everything I want with him...even if I don't get it from him. I want cuddles, I want him to stay over. I want to be allowed to want more...I want to be allowed to want what I want.... (a whole new level of pyschotherapy latent behind that one).
I want to be allowed to want unconditionally, and for it to be ok to want cuddles (my dad - made me feel there was something wrong with me for wanting him to cuddle me - the teacher at school said we weren't allowed to pray for a bicycle...).
I want to practicing the "art of allowing" on every level of my being so that it never feels creepy to want anything from anyone, anywhere, anyhow.
Monday 28 January 2013
I should be in bed ... and the law of attraction.
No wait - I am in bed , should be asleep. The middle of the night's my favorite time - favorite time to be up "righting" . That's the kind of writing I do to get right with myself again. To slip back into soulfulness and alignment. But sometimes, I know it's going to kill me the next day, I hate - having to get up in the morning, or any particular time - if I could have no boundaries ever - at least those that are defined by clocks... aaah my world would be a perfect place.
Abraham says - all I ever have to do is get into the vortex... been trying not to write about Abraham Hicks, and the law of attraction... but it's that randomly late time of night when the censors gone to sleep in my brain, but I'm still up.
And all I have to do to be in the vortex is feel good. Answer to everything. Period. I love that. I love it so much I want it to be true. All I have to do is feel good. So I don't have to - solve a single other problem. It's so radical...it's sooo radical that most people, myself included will reject it. In the too good to be true basket... thing is when I practice it - it feels great!! It's the only philosophy I've come up against that consistently feels good. It set's me free from everything. I don't have to get enough sleep YAY. I don't have to do the right thing. YAY. I don't have to be miss perfect model of the perfect response.. I just have to find a way to feel good. Or feel a little better. That's alignment.
It's so simple, so easy, and everyday I find a million ways of forgetting it. I blame, I worry , I put myself down... then I remember, all I have to do is feel good. I feel the anxiety creeping back, the problems looming larger...then I remember - just feel good. anxiety, fear.. then feel good. (Or just a little better if you can't get all the way to good). What feels good right now? What feels loving to self??? Beating myself about about past mistakes? - No - worrying about the future? - No - trying to work out stuff that is overwhelming me - NO - but letting go of all that feels great. This philosophy goes against everything I've been taught. (WORRY!! ACT!! FRET!! REGRET!!) But now - just - let...go!. Just love self unconditionally.
All I have to do right now is feel good. I don't have to work out how to deal with Niks other women if I go further in his direction, or how i'm going to pay the rent for the house I haven't even moved into yet.... Oh no - all I have to do is feel good lol. I don't have to solve anything right now except how to feel good - now. On that note - Good Night. I can't even apologise for how many people won't like this post, cause it feels good to ME, and right now that's all that counts. :-)
Abraham says - all I ever have to do is get into the vortex... been trying not to write about Abraham Hicks, and the law of attraction... but it's that randomly late time of night when the censors gone to sleep in my brain, but I'm still up.
And all I have to do to be in the vortex is feel good. Answer to everything. Period. I love that. I love it so much I want it to be true. All I have to do is feel good. So I don't have to - solve a single other problem. It's so radical...it's sooo radical that most people, myself included will reject it. In the too good to be true basket... thing is when I practice it - it feels great!! It's the only philosophy I've come up against that consistently feels good. It set's me free from everything. I don't have to get enough sleep YAY. I don't have to do the right thing. YAY. I don't have to be miss perfect model of the perfect response.. I just have to find a way to feel good. Or feel a little better. That's alignment.
It's so simple, so easy, and everyday I find a million ways of forgetting it. I blame, I worry , I put myself down... then I remember, all I have to do is feel good. I feel the anxiety creeping back, the problems looming larger...then I remember - just feel good. anxiety, fear.. then feel good. (Or just a little better if you can't get all the way to good). What feels good right now? What feels loving to self??? Beating myself about about past mistakes? - No - worrying about the future? - No - trying to work out stuff that is overwhelming me - NO - but letting go of all that feels great. This philosophy goes against everything I've been taught. (WORRY!! ACT!! FRET!! REGRET!!) But now - just - let...go!. Just love self unconditionally.
All I have to do right now is feel good. I don't have to work out how to deal with Niks other women if I go further in his direction, or how i'm going to pay the rent for the house I haven't even moved into yet.... Oh no - all I have to do is feel good lol. I don't have to solve anything right now except how to feel good - now. On that note - Good Night. I can't even apologise for how many people won't like this post, cause it feels good to ME, and right now that's all that counts. :-)
Sunday 27 January 2013
Nik
The sun's shining, it's a beautiful day...and I'd feel great about it if I hadn't got to bed at 4am, and been up again at 8. So am going back to bed as soon as I've finished collecting a few thoughts together and writing them down. It's kinda exciting catching random thoughts. I like to be surprised by what's there lurking around in the waters of unconsciousness... "Stream" of consciousness writing allows pretty much anything to surface. Sounds more and more like fishin, and it IS a lot like like fishing. I'm tired now, not in the best place to catch that Marlin of thought that will wrestle with me to the core of my being for hours in a single minded, focused passionate way. Today is more like a day for piddling around at the duck pond, catching little random thoughts, and most of them will be too small to keep and end up getting thrown back
I'm thinking about Nik, but not really wanting to. Nik is the person I want to think about only as someone else's challenge, but I didn't want him to be mine! Nik loves women.. if not all women, he's certainly capable of loving a huge variety of women, and he DOES. He has five or more women on the go at any one time. Damn it, I kinda enjoyed talking with him. No - I really enjoyed our explorations of thought...and that's rare these days for me. I woke up feeling a bit aroused and I'd done really well at staying out of that place with him. I really don't want to be part of his entourage though, & I can feel the pull.
I went to the large crumbling villa that he shares with a random & ever changing flow of people. My beautiful African friend who I'll call Z , has just arrived there and is staying in the bicycle room. I want to get to know him better, & that was my intention when I went round there last night. I wasn't expecting, planning or even thinking of sharing a massage and then a cuddle , and some real converstaion, with Nik. I didn't stay the night, so we didn't sleep together in any sense of the word. But Nik opened a few doors and windows to my soul a little, and it was good. I was, and still am a bit surprised by that. So I'm going to sleep on it now. When I woke earlier, I could feel his spirit flowing around me, and the arousal that went with it.. his spirit was seeking me out, and it found me in that half awakened dream space .... which is where I want to be now, not half awake, but fully immersed in sleep.
I'm thinking about Nik, but not really wanting to. Nik is the person I want to think about only as someone else's challenge, but I didn't want him to be mine! Nik loves women.. if not all women, he's certainly capable of loving a huge variety of women, and he DOES. He has five or more women on the go at any one time. Damn it, I kinda enjoyed talking with him. No - I really enjoyed our explorations of thought...and that's rare these days for me. I woke up feeling a bit aroused and I'd done really well at staying out of that place with him. I really don't want to be part of his entourage though, & I can feel the pull.
I went to the large crumbling villa that he shares with a random & ever changing flow of people. My beautiful African friend who I'll call Z , has just arrived there and is staying in the bicycle room. I want to get to know him better, & that was my intention when I went round there last night. I wasn't expecting, planning or even thinking of sharing a massage and then a cuddle , and some real converstaion, with Nik. I didn't stay the night, so we didn't sleep together in any sense of the word. But Nik opened a few doors and windows to my soul a little, and it was good. I was, and still am a bit surprised by that. So I'm going to sleep on it now. When I woke earlier, I could feel his spirit flowing around me, and the arousal that went with it.. his spirit was seeking me out, and it found me in that half awakened dream space .... which is where I want to be now, not half awake, but fully immersed in sleep.
Friday 25 January 2013
A Day Gone West
Spent the whole day waiting for stuff to happen... which didn't happen. My son slept on the couch all day while I filled in time doing other stuff... while I waited for other people to finish doing their stuff... so we could do stuff together. I waited to give a violin lesson to the 10yr old over the road, at 3:30, then 4:30, then 6pm, then not at all. I thought to myself it would be nice to get paid anyway for all that waiting, and not long after that thought I received a text, "I'll put the money in the letter box for you, we wasted your whole day. They didnt waste my whole day. It took Kris to finish it off..
I just texted him. He'd invited me to the beach with a group of friends for an evening picnic.
"thanks for inviting me to the beach today. If I hadn't walked to the fruit shop to get stuff to make fruit salad, I wouldn't have found the violin for sale at the 2nd hand shop on the way. It has a good bow and a great old case (2 things I really wanted, the bow I use now is stuck together with sellotape). All 4 way cheap $65. Plus I feel great after eating a huge bowl of fruit salad. I guess you don't like fruit salad, maybe if I'd made nachos you may have picked me up like you said you were going to?? Anyway is nice at home, soo quiet & peaceful".
It's actually just my way of saying "you're a dick" without actually saying it at all.
I imagine him feeling really screwed up after that text lol. Which is probably just deluded of me but it feels good when someones expecting to be attacked for being a dick, to just confuse them a little bit.
Kris watched his mum die of a heroin overdose when he was 10 years old. Partly because of that I cut him a little slack. I skirt around calling him a dick...I really did want to go to the beach. I can feel the warm balmy breeze, the cool water, I can see the twisted trunks of the pohutukawa trees, hear the waves lapping gently on the shore...
My son woke up awhile ago, did the "you're the reason my life is a mess conversation" . Somehow pulled him into a better place (mostly by feeding him fruit salad and steak).
And - it really is - nice just chilling at home, on my own, can't remember when I last did this? the first time this year.
And - the clothesline is full of clean clothes blowing in the wind to remind me that something happened today - a lot of washing got done...
I just texted him. He'd invited me to the beach with a group of friends for an evening picnic.
"thanks for inviting me to the beach today. If I hadn't walked to the fruit shop to get stuff to make fruit salad, I wouldn't have found the violin for sale at the 2nd hand shop on the way. It has a good bow and a great old case (2 things I really wanted, the bow I use now is stuck together with sellotape). All 4 way cheap $65. Plus I feel great after eating a huge bowl of fruit salad. I guess you don't like fruit salad, maybe if I'd made nachos you may have picked me up like you said you were going to?? Anyway is nice at home, soo quiet & peaceful".
It's actually just my way of saying "you're a dick" without actually saying it at all.
I imagine him feeling really screwed up after that text lol. Which is probably just deluded of me but it feels good when someones expecting to be attacked for being a dick, to just confuse them a little bit.
Kris watched his mum die of a heroin overdose when he was 10 years old. Partly because of that I cut him a little slack. I skirt around calling him a dick...I really did want to go to the beach. I can feel the warm balmy breeze, the cool water, I can see the twisted trunks of the pohutukawa trees, hear the waves lapping gently on the shore...
My son woke up awhile ago, did the "you're the reason my life is a mess conversation" . Somehow pulled him into a better place (mostly by feeding him fruit salad and steak).
And - it really is - nice just chilling at home, on my own, can't remember when I last did this? the first time this year.
And - the clothesline is full of clean clothes blowing in the wind to remind me that something happened today - a lot of washing got done...
Saturday 19 January 2013
Sadness revisited...
I still, miss everything about you. Nothing can replace you, nothing can fill the space you left....My life will never be the same without you. It's not that I wont experience love or joy again, but I won't experience the love and joy WE shared together. I won't touch you again. I won't ..... For a moment I go deep into the sadness, I feel like I'm breaking in two - then it passes, gone as quickly as it came. I know it will come again. The only way I can heal the loss, is to feel the loss. I never know when it's coming, that intense heartbreaking pain...Do you ache like I do??
It's times like these that I desperately, achingly, need art. This place, this "reality" I find myself in is so cold and sterile, I need to soften the edges. Maybe lose this world altogether for a while. Sometimes when there's a sickness of the heart, art is the only cure. I know that if...if I share my life with a man again, I have to be able to speak "art" with him... art and heart are so close together for me. I have to be able to speak magic and poetry and all those things that don't make sense. I have to be able to lose "this" world.... Just shake it loose for a while, or forever....
This world is painful for me, this world of straight edges, sharp lines, parking tickets and politics. I have to have an escape route when the thought police are after me, and that best route to freedom is the creative one. How could I ever have thought the path to freedom was through money??? Through bricks and mortor.... when art was there all the time showing me the way...
I couldn't handle going all the way down to homelessness....to living on the street with my art.... so I gave up my dog. The one that I love more than just about anything, just about any one, but not more than my need to have shelter and security. I could have gone all the way to the street for my love for my dog, but I couldn't go that far. The street means no privacy, no walls. Being exposed to the public everyday. I could have done my art on the street with my dog next to me, but I couldn't go that far.
I went as far as living in my car, with a mattress in the back. For over two years.... We camped by parks, beaches, and reserves. I sat on a rocks at the beach, and under trees, sat by rivers and lakes playing my violin, while you chased seagulls and made friends with other dogs. I had you, and I had shelter, a small world I could control...but slowly my car rusted, and slowly my walls collapsed. I couldn't afford the car repairs, my registration and warrant, became out of date, my car became illegal..I clocked up fines for then, and then finally it died. Outside my friends house, but parked illegally on the street.
In down times I berate myself for being so stupid as to get in this position? How could my love for my son, then a man, and finally a dog, drive me so far from the home I once had? And why?? No one appreciates me for allowing the slow erosion of all that held me together, in their name, at least not the man, and not my son. The only place any of this makes any sense is in the realisation that deep pain, deep loss, deep challenging of all that holds identity into a form, is the birthing place of great art. And the loss of something, 'someone', in this case a dog.. that I love so so deeply and unconditionally, takes me to the place where I can no longer live in this world, without creating, or attempting to create, great love and great beauty.
Someone, perhaps the policeman when I try to justify my unpaid fines, is going to say I'm crazy when I say, I can't make this world make sense anymore. I can understand art, I can understand the heart, that's all..
And I have to say that - I need to be what all this pain and confusion has created. I feel closer to my soul than ever. Aligned to my true self. I feel truer, freer, more real than I have since I was a child. I feel closer to knowing what is real and what is important. I feel less divorced from the truth in this place. And I know that because of this people, may say I'm crazy. Because I can only do art from a place that is coming from deep within my soul. Not for a career path, not for the dollars. I believe the dollars will come. But art has to be for the purpose of evoking joy, or allowing release of pain..for the purpose of transformation, for sharing, for inspiration, for healing... - NOT .... not for money.
Paint what deeply moves you, paint what gives you joy, paint and allow the tears to flow, paint sorrow, paint love.... paint for the joy of colour, to express, to share... or paint simply, paint a feeling, paint a single flower with love...paint like a child, forget all the rules, make up a few of your own. Paint , not for the dollars, (they will come, in their own time if they want to) but to move, first of all yourself to a better place, then maybe someone else will come for the ride.
Paint magic, worship magic(not money)... trust (the money will come, but let it go for now - just paint, or write, or play music...). No one will believe me, but this is only for me, I can't take anyone else on this journey. How can I say to anyone to follow my path, when for me it's taken me all the way to staring homelessness in the face, and sacrificing the one I love the most to avoid that?
I say not for money, but what I mean is - only paint from being aligned with the soul. If you can paint from there, and stay focused on there no matter what, then money or the thought of it and focus on it, cannot interfere, so always paint from there. Remember, you are the judge. Your work may be crap to anyone else, but if it lifts your spirits to a higher place, if it feels good to do it, you're on the right path for YOU. That's what my inner guidance is telling me.
Somehow my path is not to follow anyone elses drumbeats. Right now - I can't , not even if I want to. I've taken myself so far down this path, that no one can join me where I am, and I can't join them either.
Thursday 17 January 2013
Goodbye Sunshine.....
Last night was my last night with my dog Sunny. We went for a walk in the dark, Sunny running ahead as usual, not really walking. Tears were pouring down my face as my heart broke quietly on the inside.I thought about all the good times we'd had together, so many of them. So many sparkling moments that shine in the dimness of most of my life. I remember how I brought you home the first time as a puppy, how you sat on my lap and cried, and I tried to comfort you and drive at the same time. I snuggled you in my bed under the blankets, and you leapt out excited and so full of life first thing in the morning. You knew never grew out of loving to snuggle up, or the sheer excitement of being alive that made you leap into the air...My cat max, the odd one out, the big fluffy black tom cat, loved you straight away, although you weren't sure about him....you both ran after the ball together. But Mr Sox, a slim black and white cat, didn't want you around, he hid behind a curtain and lashed out at you as you bounded by in typical puppy fashion. He aimed for your eyes, and he found one...ever since then you've been my beautiful one eyed dog. It was snowing that day, we had to wait for the weather to clear, to take you to the vet, and you lay on top of my boyfriend all day and cried. Mr Sox took off, but my other cats, Kokomo and Midnight came to love and trust you over time.Years later we would all go on long walks together, with your best friend a mastiff staffy x called extra.. and sometimes with a couple of the neighbours dogs in tow.
I have so many memories, so much love and so much joy... I can't write them all just now. I just know I love you from the bottom of my heart. So for it to come to this, to have to voluntarily give you up, my best friend ever??..you kept coming back to me last night, as I walked and you ran ahead..seeing my anguish, looking at me with puzzled eyes and concern on your face....
When we climbed into bed for the last time, I stroked your body, really feeling it for the last time. And I prayed for you. I dreamt of you running with beautiful, happy dogs of all shapes and sizes. In the morning we got up early and went to the park. You chased the birds on the playing field with the same joy and enthusiasm as ever.....
You were so brave when I took you to the shelter to be rehomed. Your tail was high as the handler slipped a lead over your head, you were eager to find out more about the dogs you could hear and smell just around the corner. You walked away from me for the last time. But you will forever, ever be in my heart. I feel your spirit so strongly, you are part of my medicine. The pain and the love that force my heart to open up. That sends my spirit searching to the heavens for answers to those seemingly unanswerable questions. You are the most love I've ever known.
Saturday 5 January 2013
If you don't like swearing - Don't read this!!
Aaargh!! What the F**K am I doing??!! Why am I doing this?? Why am I throwing my life away in pursuit of something so intangible? why Don't I get a real job?? Today hasn't gone quite how I'd like, today the mouse couldn't find its way off the wheel....and just went round and round all day... I tried to come back to myself by feeding the birds... there's something about watching happy sparrows and pigeons that makes me feel good - But EVEN THE BIRDS DIDN"T TURN UP!! A little sparrow was chirping on a lamp post, but he sure wasn't telling anyone else about the handfuls of rice I'd thrown on the pavement - I'm looking like an idiot now because there isn't a single bird showing any interest in it. Two pigeons wandered by, pecking at miniscule crumbs as they ignored my offering and kept going in search of something better??? Even the seagull circling above the feast I'd laid below flew off in the opposite direction. If I was trying to not feel like a loser, it wasn't working. I gave up and unpacked my violin, started playing without the inspiration of the sweetness of birds to guide me. There was only a wind blowing my skirt and hair to keep me company, and a distant photographer, I guess the wind blowing my skirt and hair appealed to him too. I kept playing longer than I wanted, just because he was there. When I finished he gave me $2, and smiled blankly at my comment - no english..So with the $7 I made in total, I went and bought a drink and wandered off to Queen St.
I wandered straight into that African guy whose name I will never remember, let alone be able to pronounce.. The cute one who wasn't home when I turned up today, cause I saw him again yesterday and he invited me for a jam. The window was open, the back door was wide open... the lounge was full of dirty ashtrays full of cigarette butts, and the general squalor of a genuine bachelor pad. As musicians, when they step out in town, they look fresh and washed and stunning at all times, but home is another story. They say you can tell a musicians home, by the lack of toilet paper and light bulbs.. There's always though, a supply of the essentials - drugs, tobacco and alcohol..
It was lucky I got a ride to his house, since he wasn't home. On an earlier wild goose chase, I was innocently feeling genuinely inspired up on K rd, playing in the wind again, when someone came up to me and told me that my friends band was playing in the domain from 3 - 5, It was 2:54. they weren't playing between 3 & 5, but I didn't know that...so I packed up and headed over grafton bridge towards the domain. I stopped for a while outside the kebab shop near the hospital...weighing up the pro's and cons of a $9.50 kebab on rice over a $2.50 pie. By the time I got to the band rotunda the kebab and rice was cold, partly because I bumped into Mike on the way. My friends Gypsy band had finished playing an hour earlier, someone was rapping instead to some cool acid jazz. Mike noticed me before I noticed him...in fact I wouldn't have noticed him at all if he hadn't leaped out of his flash black car and yelled out my name. I was watching the cricketers on the field down below, I was noticing how many of them looked Indian. Mikes a drummer and a surfer who doesn't drum and doesn't surf. Instead he drives trucks and drinks alone in the domain in his car. He tells me he's always working to pay bills. None of it makes much sense. He works so he can afford drugs. Mike gave me a ride to the African guys house, and when he wasn't there, he dropped me off in town. we sat for a while in his car while he grumbled about the other drivers, and the multitude of people who had ripped him off, freezing his life in an ongoing post traumatic stress disorder, from which it seems he may never recover. But he's been number one worker at his job 2 years in a row. Work is fine, it's just life he can't handle..
Anyway the African guy tells me they may want me to play at Raggamuffin with them. He's got my number, and he'll txt me, but he doesn't have a phone, no sim card or something, so it doesn't sound that hopeful..I've always wanted to play at Raggamuffin, not the first time it's come up, our no.1 reggae festival. will see what the music God's have to say on that one. The music God's give me inspiration, but not quite enough to overcome the lethargy on the street today. They don't give me much money, I guess I can't complain since I landed a $50 note a couple of days ago..
Still as I head towards home I wonder what I'm doing, and why I don't get a real job?? This obsession with music - is ruining my life, but giving me so much joy at the same time. I just can't seem to give it up.
Thursday 3 January 2013
aaargh......squeezing the life out of life...
wanted to feel hot, wanted to feel full of life, instead I feel shot,
and not a lot ... of juice left...
what a challenging, balancing act this is...
a single moment of bliss, from a simple kiss, then this....
the day after low down blues, you choose, I lose
Just confuses me, I blow a fuse and leave
I trust in all that is, even in this
yeah back to this moment of peace
back to just selling each piece
each note is release
each phrase is fierce,
piercing the silence with harmonic sound
the bow is my weapon, on the strings I take aim
and fire with inspired melody - I aim for the heart
Music, it's such a rocky path I tread, stick and stones may not break my bones bones but twigs and tree roots can trip me up..I'm always searching for music, like looking for treasure, I have to dig deep for it. I catch a phrase here and there of someone elses music, and I toss it from hand to hand, between my fingers and my bow, weaving something new from the threads of sound that remain. I choose some of their colours and add some of my own, the colors begin to sing their own tune. I've just got to know this melody...then it flies away, it's no longer mine...as I look up into the sky, watching it disappear into the clouds, I trip over my own expectations...
Landing with a thud in the mud.... I leave the sky behind, want to cry but then, with eyes still dry I find, in
the earth beneath my feet again, another friend. I embrace the bass again, the story ends - for now...
Wednesday 2 January 2013
Magic is why I'm here....
Just be happiness now... I remind myself. The contrast between where I am, and the beauty of my magical inner world, can be great - but it's the contrast that provides the inspiration to create beauty and love where sometimes, it's feels like there isn't any. The world can feel dry and clinical, lacking in imagination...the law can feel oppressive and ...love can feel like it's being squeezed out of existence in the the never ending quest for money in this world. But art is the place where all the pieces of the jigsaw fit back together for me. I wake up in the morning to the confusion of my life...and if you knew my story...you'd know just how confusing it is...but clarity comes back when I connect with the source within that shows me the beauty and magic that was always there, waiting for me to find it... I realise I've got to pay more attention to the magic within, and less to the clamour of a world that demands attention, but gives back only more confusion.. so.. I'm losing the confusion,
and drinking a profusion of my spiritual cup of tea.
I only feel right, when I follow the light..
paint a world that's bright enough to see
....all those people bent out of shape
following the path that leads them out the gate
to an out of shape kind of fate
people bent out of shape,create
people bent out of shape,create
a prison out of freedom
a world of despair
but beauty is always only ever right here
even in the midst of tragedy, is everywhere
Moments of Magic on the street....
Tuesday 1 January 2013
Lost in Inner Space
I
Cut gluten out of my diet a couple of days ago. Living on a budget has meant $2 pies and bread. Today I had that familiar feeling of not being able to move, not being able to talk - for most of the day. I hope it's just the gluten coming out of my brain, and that the also familiar feeling of gluten free clarity will return in a day or two. So much I wanted to write about, all vanishing as my fingers meet the keys. I'm in the $1/hr internet cafe at the top of Queen St. My brain hurts.It's good though to know I've still got one, sometimes I wonder?? I long to escape back into the dream world of my paintings... Become lost permanently in inner space. The guy next to me is looking at photos of girls, another way to get lost, I guess. I like to get lost in color and fantasy. Like a kid, I paint a world that isn't real enough to get confused with this one. But sometimes, to me that world feels more real and more comforting than the "real" places I often find myself. The inner world is where the magic is, where rules and boundaries of the outer world disappear.I can find that world here too, looking at a beautiful tree, or playing with a kitten, or watching the waves wash up on a remote shoreline, I need that sense of magic like some people need alchohol. I remind myself to find space for magic every day. It's been too long...
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