Saturday, December 27, 2014

Late Night Musings and what that entails

Late at night.  Almost too tired to sleep after driving 6 hours in the rain, much of it in holiday traffic.  (Why do we do this to ourselves!?).  Know I need to sleep but have stumbled on Pandora, something I didn't even know existed, a place where they play beautiful music or at least music of your choice.  I chose 'yoga music' so have, at the moment, David Evenson and the Soundings Ensemble.  What joy.   And for free! 

Feel like I've stumbled into a like- minded community.  My friends don't live nearby so there is little to no chance for long coffee or wine fueled chats.  And it gets a bit lonely here sometimes.  I am in transition from wife and lover and best friend to carer.  It's not a role I like but it is what it is and as I'm in this marriage for love and for better or worse, I'll take it.  He is my Richard, still my Richard after all.  But, sometimes it's a bit lonely as I am losing my best friend.  So it's a pretty good deal to find Rabelle Society and Yoga by Candace and Pandora.  Everyone needs a support group even if that group is anonymous and no more aware of me than I am of the fly on the stable wall.  Just reading their thoughts, that there are people out there who think like me, that are introverts and are okay with that.  Well, that's just plain marmalade!

In fact, it's all fine.  As I said to someone today at the Great Annual Family Get Together, if I think about the future I get frightened and depressed but right now?  I'm fine.  Richard's fine.  Met a neighbour on the road yesterday.  He asked whether I'd had a good christmas.  I'm upright and ambulatory, I replied,  so I'm good.

Even Peter Greste, writing from an Egyptian prison, managed to find the good in Christmas.  If he can what complaint dare I make? 

None at all.  And for that I am truly grateful.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Three Cliches, New and Improved!

A young woman came to return some horsey items I'd lent her months ago.  Without knowing the details I knew she'd split with her boyfriend of five years.  Worse, they'd split three weeks after their engagement party.  They'd moved away, their house was sold and except hearing through the grapevine she was still in the area I knew nothing more.  So she came and we sat on the deck swishing flies and making small talk.  Finally I asked if she was all right.  Did she want to talk. 

"I'll cry if I talk about it," she said.  But it seemed she wanted to talk for without going into details, she told me.  I didn't need to know the details, the result was sitting in front of me crying, hating herself for what she'd done, grieving and angry and forlorn all at the same time. 

"Come on in away from these damned flies," I said.  I got her a tissue and a glass of water for it was hot and muggy and she needed something to do with her hands.  Got myself one too as well as a washcloth to mop sweat.  Thank you Menopause for the wisdom of years and hot flushes!

Wisdom.  I don't know for sure if I helped her.  She has to decide to be helped but I gave it my best shot.  For there is much to be thankful for in my crone age, as opposed to the maiden and mother ages, which I've left behind long ago.    Experience.  The Long Eye.  The ability to see the Big Picture.  And Gratitude that it is not me enduring what she is enduring now.  It was once.  Oh, the details were different but the Grief and the Drama and the Emotional Rollercoaster were the same.  And from such experience cliches are born.  But as ever, one tries to imbue the old and timeworn truths with newer shiny words in the, perhaps vain, hope that they won't be seen as cliches. 

Cliche #1.  This too shall pass.  She is very young.  Her grief and pain are so great, it seems as though they are all that ever was, all that ever shall be.  But the worst despair is worn thin by constant use.  And finally it fades to a bearable level.  It is never forgotten but eventually it only bruises, not cuts in the remembering.

Cliche #2.  Chalk it up to Experience.  She made a big mistake, a whopper of a mistake.  And she's paying big time.  However, this mistake is an experience, an experiment she'll never have to try again.  She'll make other mistakes, just as I do.  But I usually don't make the same mistakes twice, and if it's a Biggie, never.  Nor shall she.  This one has made such an indelible mark on her soul and her sense of self (shame is a great teacher).  One understands the lesson immediately and never ever forgets it.

Cliche #3.  It isn't the End of the World.  She is consumed with guilt, grief and pain and it amazes her that the world continues to continue.  She has lost her soul mate (although, because they are still in almost daily contact, I suspect, given time, they will find a way to reunite).  Why does the world not implode?  Why does it not turn black and die? Because it is the stage in which we play out our lives.  The stage is our construct, it is the infrastructure about which we play and live and love and lose.  It is all of a piece.  We made it.  We Are It.

Cliche #4.  Forgive and Love Yourself.  Do that first and everything else will follow.  Asked her if she thought he would find her tear swollen, snot slick face attractive.  He'd always been proud of her strength, her beauty, her enthusiasm and 'Can Do' attitude.  Now she was weak and needy.  She thinks she is not worthy of his love and is so ashamed of herself that she cannot love and forgive herself.  We spent a lot of time on that. 

How well I know the insidious logic of self-loathing.  How dare we love ourselves?  It is vainglorious to even like ourselves.  Humility and suffering is the western-christian ethic we absorb by osmosis if not by direct teaching.  Especially if you are a woman.   We define ourselves through the prism of others opinions.   I thought perhaps her generation of women had shattered those particular spectacles but it seems not.  She was worthless because he, his friends and family said she was. 

She hugged me as she left.  Asked if I was superstitious because she'd dreamed that I'd died.  Told her, after swiftly double checking that I wasn't superstitious, was I? that dreams are all about us so that if she dreamed I'd died it was because something in me reminded her of something in her, that the funeral was the death of an aspect of her.  Which makes sense.  I hope. 

I hope too that she heals sooner rather than later.  That she will heal I have no doubt.   We're made of tough stuff.  We have to be to survive the things we put ourselves through.  For in the end, it is our story.  Every single second.  And ain't it grand?

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Still Here

There's a tightening in my core, like I'm pulling in and concentrating my energy.  We're going to get out of here.  Have almost convinced Richard to drastically drop the price on the house, in total taking $76,000 off  so we can sell up and move.  In 7 months we've had exactly one inspection.  One.  Obviously we're not meeting the market.  Dropped it $26,000 and still no joy - but that's by the buy (a typofreudian slip - so want someone to BUY this place). 

Haven't written in ages - computer dramas of dire proportions (lost most everything).  Still not 100%.  Have been far more disciplined after getting sloppy, gluttonous and feeling the effects of less energy, less self esteem.  Only put on a couple of kilos but always felt bloated.  I have the willpower to quit smoking but have trouble controlling portion size.  No problem in eating good, nay excellent food, just eat too much of it.  Or did.  Not too many slips now and the result is little short of amazing.  No, not in suddenly being a size 6 but in how I feel.  Much more energy.  Think when one is bloated it's because food is lounging around in the gut taking energy for digestion that could go into living.  Not advocating anorexia just common sense.  My enthusiasm for everything sometimes goes awry and since I've learned to cook (still can't believe that I love to cook after a lifetime of believing it a most vile activity) I love what I create. And eat it too!

Still.  Some other factors.  Much more consistent with yoga.  More like 7 days a week rather than 5.  Went to Woodford to visit Gabi and attended a couple of yoga classes.  Learned and practiced the 5 Tibetan Rites (http://www.lifeevents.org/5-tibetans-energy-rejuvenation-exercises.htm) at one of the classes and have incorporated them into my practice, more to encourage Richard who is also doing them, then because I need to add on another 10 minutes into a practice that already takes an hour.  There are, however, two of the exercises, No. 2 and 4, which illustrate how weak I am in those areas. 

The other thing is running.  Thanks to yoga my nearly 60 year old joints can cope with the concussion without aching so much they keep me awake at night.  Have attempted to take up running  half a dozen (or more) times in the past 20 years and have always been defeated by the pain.  There is still pain (I'm so unfit!) but it's a good pain which will lessen with time.  Somewhat embarrassing however.  I've got the two whippets, Jamaica and Radar, with me while I *run*.  When I'm *running* up a steep hill, Jamaica keeps trotting but Radar gives a big sigh and walks.  It's a fast walk but even so! 

I ran for years and gave up because of  a) the smoking finally taking its toll and b) the pain in my hips.  So far so good and I'm so chuffed.  I love the way running makes me feel and I want that fitness again.  Now that I don't smoke (will be 3 years in May) I feel that I've earned the right to those running induced endorphins.

More consistent with the meditation attempts.  After how many years? I should be an 'experienced meditator'.  Ha.  Still a flibbertygibbett but had a tiny experience which had me googling scary meditation (nothing really, a flush of energy through my body which was hard to contain).

There's another reason for this get fit regime.  It's Richard.  Things are good health wise.  He's eating well, taking the Parkinson's medication, walking, and as mentioned, doing the Tibetan 5 Rites 4 or 5 times a week.  But his mind isn't as it should be.  Sometimes it's scary.  We had to buy a television as the old one crapped itself.  Took measurements for the cabinet so that the new tv would fit.  He saw that televisions are measured diagonally so that a 32" is a diagonal measurement across the screen.  He panicked, certain that our cabinet measurements, width and height, wouldn't work.  He forgot how to put batteries in the remote, well not forgot but put them in wrong, something he never would have done before.  I had to draw a diagram in the dirt yesterday to show him which yard gates would be open and which closed to let Balthazar out overnight but keep the other two in.  He's been yarding and unyarding the horses for 20 years.  He forgets names and places and it scares him.  He is more loving than ever and although I know he loves me, part of it I think is needing reassurance.  It must be frightening to know that things are not as they were.  I can't save him from it but I can be there for him.  At the same time, sometimes it is a little claustrophobic and the space allowed by yoga and walking is necessary for my peace of mind. 

But it's all good.  We are still blessed.  Healthy and loved and loving, the animals good save for the untimely loss of Tony to an intruding brown tree snake (found the hold, bandicoot made and sealed it).  So can't complain - except that we have no house buyers!