blog: eulogy for Jim

Today I laid a rose on a casket that belonged to the father of a good friend. I hadn’t had much contact with him in quite a while, but he played a significant part during some of the best years of my life.

Jim was the kind of man who kept an open door policy. He didn’t judge people. He was quick to give you his opinion, and you could rely on him to be honest about how much of a dickhead you were being, but he always let people make their own choices. And he was always there to lend a hand whenever it was needed, from offering a place to crash for the night to picking up a ute-load of stuff.

I practically lived at his house the summer of 1999-2000, during a crazy time in my life when I was making the weird and wild choices only the young can make. There were many nights of pizza and gaming, watching movies and shooting the breeze. And after more interesting pursuits like trying to turn an aerosol can into a rocket and hooning around the streets singing “what’s the colour of a 2 cent piece?” at every cop we saw, we always somehow ended up back at Jim’s. I doubt my parents could count the amount of times they heard, “Yeah I’m still at Jim’s… I’ll be home tomorrow – probably.”

Sure, there were times when Jim had had enough. He’d look at me and say, “Haven’t you gone home yet?!” And I knew it was time to disappear back home for a few days. But Jim always welcomed life and people into his house, was always quick to tell a joke and make you laugh, keen to show off the latest game he was playing or berate us on our lack of musical taste. The house where Jim and his sons lived seemed to attract a happy group of strays who just needed a place to be themselves. And as I said, for me the few years I spent hanging out there were some of the best and happiest times in my life.

I know Jim is proud of the legacy he left behind in his kids, and the turnout at the funeral today is a testament to how many other lives he has touched. Rest in peace Jim, and stir up a few angels for me!

blog: serendipity is a scam

Every ‘beginning’ is a re-branded ending. But if that sounds depressing, the counterpart is also true – every ending is a re-branded beginning. The more you realise this, the more you see that there is no finiteness to the universe, everything is fluid. Everything old is new again.

People often think things like, “If I hadn’t spoken to the stranger on the bus that day, this particular chain of events would never have happened, and I wouldn’t be getting married/ getting a promotion/ writing this book right now. It was meant to be!” Or they apply the same worry to the future, that if we’re not in the right place at the right time, we’ll miss an appointment with destiny. But Serendipity is merely a nice idea.

Story time! Over a decade ago I was coming home from cooking class via the train, and I had a bag full of fresh baked apple pies. The train being crowded, I was standing in the foyer with a bunch of other people, and an alternative-looking guy about my age decided to sit down on the floor. Fearing for the safety of my freshly baked goods, I cried, “Don’t sit on my pies!” He apologised, then said, “You’ve got an accent!” and by the time we had arrived at our destination we were firm friends.

If life were a Hollywood movie, I’d be telling you the story of how I met my husband. But that man has been happily married to another woman for six years now and both of them are very dear friends. True, you could say that a chance encounter led to a friendship that has spanned over a decade now, but it could also have been true that it led to the worst heartbreak of my life, or even nowhere at all.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that we make our own fate. I do believe some things are meant to come into our lives in some way, but I don’t believe our destinies are set in stone (unless you’re Ta’veren, but that is a whole other blog). The universe gives us the raw ingredients, if you will, but there are many different combinations we can make from those circumstances and happenings.

The concept of time as linear is false. You cannot stray from the path if there is no path to stray from. When you see this, you’ll either feel lost and frightened by s lack of definitive purpose, or you’ll feel liberated and stop beating yourself up about missed opportunities and failed five year plans.

Seeing life events as devoid of the “meaning” we tend to ascribe to them doesn’t have to be depressing and nihilistic. It can be an exciting blank canvas, an empty stage on which to play and create anything we want.

blog: on the nature of belief

A thing happens.

Or I find myself in circumstances I don’t fully understand.

Or perhaps things are happening in the background, and I don’t even know.

Then suddenly, something happens that would not have happened if those other things had not happened, something Good.

And I say, “I am Blessed!”

But – blessed by Who?

Am I really even Blessed?

These are the questions that form the basis of the God/no God argument. These are the questions I wrestle with in my soul.

You say, “Of course there is a God! How can you not see all the good He has done for you?

Another might say, “There is no God – It is a series of unrelated circumstances to which you are applying a religious bias.”

Still another might say, “There is a God, but he/she does not micromanage. These events were brought about through your own actions and through coincidence.”

And I say, simply, that I do not know.

Countless happenings day in day out go unnoticed, unremarked upon, because they do not connect to any Good Things. So it is possible that things just happen.

And countless things happen which lead to Very Bad Things too, and cause people to wonder if there is a benevolent Someone In Charge, what use could they have for suffering? So it is possible that there is Nobody In Charge, and that things just happen.

But what I do know is that seeing the butterfly effect of a word spoken, a touch granted, a thoughtful gesture made –

Watching all of those puzzle pieces fall into place with perfect hindsight vision to culminate into the occurrence of a Good Thing,

Makes me feel that there is reason and rhyme to the universe, makes me feel calm, connected to life, safe as if I’m not alone in the wind.

It reassures me that though bad things happen, good things will happen too in time. That is the Faith I hold in my heart.

To dedicate my life to wholehearted and unconditional love, to send out good into the universe, and hope to be part of someone else’s Good Thing.

And to accept love’s ebb and flow into my life, to have patience and endure through the Bad Things, knowing unequivocally this truth –

That Good Things will come once more in their own time.

blog: on tangos

When I promise forever, I mean it. when I commit, I commit. And because I am committed, I will address any threat to the health of the relationship as soon as possible. I will try to find solutions to any problems that arise. I am willing to refine, change and adapt myself (within the parameters of my ethics and standards of course) as the situation dictates. And I will maintain an unshakeable faith that things will be ok and that we can do this.

Hopefully there are many, many people who feel the same passion and conviction towards their own relationships. But for a relationship to be workable and stable enough to overcome obstacles thrown at it, it requires the same buy-in, the same level of commitment and faith from the other person in the equation.

And if they choose not to provide that, if they lose faith and walk away, that’s a choice they make hopefully with their best interests in mind. It doesn’t mean that they don’t value you or the relationship and all the history you share; it just means they didn’t value it enough to justify remaining in the relationship. It just means that they have chosen to value other things more highly.

It’s instinct to blame and be angry, or to analyse “what went wrong”, when we go into things with expectation and optimism and come out the other side disappointed and diminished. You feel a loss more keenly when it happens against your will. And all too often we rush to fill the void with something new or different because the gaping hole of the broken relationship reminds us that we have bared and shared our soul only to have been rejected. Or we try to hang on, dragging ourselves and our former partners into a drawn out and tortuous limbo.

Nothing will ever come from trying to breathe life into a corpse. Take a few moments to assess what happened, but don’t obsess. Give yourself honest feedback on what worked and what didn’t (and actually apply that to your future relationships, or you will repeat the same patterns). Take time to reimagine your context and your possibilities. Be kind to yourself, but don’t over-indulge. Acknowledge that it hurts, but assure yourself that the hurt will not last forever. And if anyone tells you there are plenty of fish in the sea, smile and thank them for the environmental report, but re-learn how to “do you” before you go out and cast any nets.

I’m working through this myself right now, and I don’t have any answers. But I do know that it will be ok. :)

blog: going through changes

I’d been meaning to change my phone passcode for a while, and last week finally got around to it. I picked an easy code, but for a whole week I’ve been typing in my old one without thinking and it’s not until my phone buzzes at me that I realise that’s not my code anymore.

And every time I type the wrong passcode it slams home that NOTHING in my life is what it used to be, and will never be that way again. And while there was a lot of stuff in my life that needed to change, I’ve also lost a lot of reasons to wake up in the morning. I’ve lost my hopes and dreams for the future, and now I have to get new ones, but I don’t want to and I don’t know how.

At the moment I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other. I’m not the first person whose marriage failed and I won’t be the last. But it really hurts to breathe right now. I wake up in my new room and wonder why my walls are purple instead of white. I wonder where the cats are and why they aren’t beside me. I feel like if I walk out of the room I’ll see my ex partner sitting on the couch or in the kitchen cooking. I often wake up thinking I should check what he wants to do that day or what he wants for dinner.

It’s like for a second my brain rejects my reality because it doesn’t seem like it should be real. For a second I’m all confused, I don’t understand how I got here, and life without him in it just seems wrong. I’m sure in time I will make this all make sense, but right now the dissonance is killing me.

Epic throwback!

Embarrassing proof that I was in an emo band project once upon a time in a galaxy far far away… We called our project ‘Veritas’, which is the Latin word for ‘truth’.

I was on spoken word and singing duty, Big Noiz (the guy to my right) was the rapper, the girl in the picture was the on bass and the other young guy to my left was lead guitar… we were working on getting a drummer but were pretty happy to wing it! haha.

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Sadly never got past the stage of cutting a demo back around 2005, but it was a fun experience. I highly recommend it at least once in your life!

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blog: reminiscing

I had an amazing birthday last night, best I’ve had in a long time. I got to wear a pretty dress, go out to dinner with some awesome people, and got some lovely gifts and flowers. And my husband really made my birthday special by spoiling me. :)

I asked people to come to my birthday dinner dressed in 1950’s attire, so as I was getting ready, curling my hair in a retro style, and attempting to do period-accurate make up, I was thinking of that time period, and of my family, especially my maternal grandmother who has passed now. I do resemble my father a lot, but I love the photos of my grandmother and see a lot of myself in them.

My mother in NZ has all the family photos, so I don’t have any of the ones from when I was a kid. These were all taken in the 50’s – top photo is Granny and Papa with my mother and her two sisters, bottom left is Granny and Papa, bottom right is Granny and her mother Grandma Lloyd… Hard to imagine that in the top photo my grandmother was 13 years younger than I am now, with a whole family… Whereas I still feel like kid half the time!

Maternal family members, taken in the 1950’s

This is a comparison of myself on my birthday and my grandmother in the mid-1950’s. Still younger than me, dammit! But I’d guess we’re of a more similar age here.

Me on my birthday vs Granny Brown in the 50’s.

I always regretted not contacting her more as I got older. It’s hard when you’re living overseas to remember extended family as much as you should I guess. But I do miss her and all my family in the States and wish I could see them more often. <3

blog: hermitude and judgment day

This year I’ve had one thing happen after another until it finally crushed me. I became exhausted and overwhelmed, jumbled, temperamental, craving solitude and isolation. So when my contract job ended, I decided to take some time off to rest and recover myself in self-imposed hermitude.

So now my phone is on silent, my chat programs turned off, and my email goes largely unanswered. I go shopping on a weekday when the stores are at their emptiest. I try and plan only one social thing a weekend if I can. I wake up, I cook lunch, I pack my husband off to work. Then I clean the house, I work on personal projects. The hubby comes home, I cook dinner, we watch Netflix or play WoW, I read before bed (FYI – I haven’t touched an actual book in years).

And slowly the noise in my head is starting to subside. I find I am so much happier with a slower pace in life, time to think and plan my next move without distraction. No knot in the pit of my stomach as I struggle to remember how smalltalk is supposed to work. No over-extending myself socially then collapsing in a heap when I come home. No need for the vague and often spurious promises of “Let’s catch up soon”.

At first I felt guilty. I’m not connecting with my friends enough, and I know that soon I will drop off many radars, just another somebody you used to know. Out of sight out of mind, time marches on, and all that jazz. I’m hoping that when I start feeling more social, I can reconnect with people again. But I also understand now just how much I need a more genuine way of living, one with less technology and more authentic contact with others.

I am done letting social media be my main form of interaction. I am done with excessive trigger warnings and tumblr, done with discussions about privilege and patriarchy, done with political correctness for its own sake, done with people whose convictions are formed from a cursory glance at mainstream news and infotainment articles, done with frivolous online petitions regarding first world problems.

I don’t want to sound rude. It’s not that I don’t care about my friends; I want to know how you all are, I want to know who got engaged, pregnant, sick, divorced. But I no longer want to find out from Facebook. More and more, I resent the use of social media to keep up with our lives.

What colour is your soul? What animal is your spirit animal? What cartoon house should you live in? This Russian artist just drew something and what happened next will amaze you! This guy made tiny people out of cheese and filmed different scenes with them every day until he had a cheese-people movie! This dude used to be a dude but now he is a woman and we should all care because his daughters are famous!!

Chalk it up to Weltschmerz, but it seems like very little of the noise and chatter in the Social Media Soapbox world actually matters. So here I am like the proverbial old codger, talking about how good things were “back in the day”, when mobile phones were the size of bricks and internet plans were charged by the hour. Back before people posted photos of their food, before people’s pets had their own Instagram accounts. I sit here like an old granny in a rocking chair on the front porch with her shotgun, plotting the destruction of Skynet.

Well… maybe not ALL of Skynet. Because I still need Pinterest for jam recipes and veggie garden tips and homesteading inspiration for when I finally go off-grid. And I guess maybe the cat videos can stay, and the one of the seal riding on the dolphin. But tumblr and 4chan are definitely going down. Make it so.

blog: life has always felt a little shaky

When it comes to medical dramas I was a Chicago Hope fan back in the day. And one character who only appeared on one episode somehow was able to sum up my whole life experience in one sentence; Carole Kane (as Marguerite Birch) says, “Life has always felt a little shaky to me, ya know?” That one line from that one episode has lived rent-free in my head ever since.

I’ve never felt I had a full grasp on life, on reality or sanity. I live in that half-light world between dreams and waking; time is and always has been a very loose concept for me. I’ve always felt broken somehow, like a puzzle whose pieces don’t quite lock into place – even if you complete the picture, it will never look cohesive; it will always look like an ill-fitting mesh of laminated cardboard, instead of a landscape or a building or whatever is depicted on the front of the box. And yet, this dissonance with life and with reality allows me to step outside myself and appreciate things in a way I could not if I were a fully integrated soul.

In my head, I live in a world without absolutes. A world where there is no real truth, where “truth” is just what resonates more succinctly with the feeling of being genuine and authentic; and I understand that what resonates with each individual is different and yet no less valid. A place full of grey areas, a world without the safety net of moral convictions and to quote the great Ozzy Osbourne, “indisputable gods”.

My Jesus is not your Jesus. Your Yahweh is not my God. Our interpretations of scripture, of faith and belief are different; they have to be, because *we* are different. And so I walk the tightrope dividing the chasm of belief vs unbelief, the same mantra on my lips as was breathed by a grieving father centuries ago: “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!”

I am a conflicted soul. I am a skeptic and a romantic all in one. I have rarely known the comfort and security of unconditional love, and yet I believe in its value with all my heart. I have seen magic and wonder with my own eyes and can never be convinced that these do not exist. My world is one of art, of poetry, of chasing after beauty and that elusive nymph called Truth. I will fight with my last breath for love and the right of the individual to be free to follow one’s own path.

This conflicts with the actual world I live in – a world of facts and figures, a world of taxes, paycheques and mortgages. A world of text messages, emails, and appointment books. A world of black & white interpretations of scripture, of proscribed concepts of the Divine and of regimented worship. A world of “shoulds” and “musts”. A world of rat races, KPIs and deadlines. Of social engagement, social politics, social rules, social media. A world of white noise.

Thus my need for solitude and isolation, my need to escape into a reality to which I feel more aligned, a world of infinite beauty and love. Nature is and always has been my church. The swirl of leaves on a blustery autumn day is my cathedral. The sounds lovers and friends make when they see each other after a long absence is my hymnal. The warmth of a robust, frothy cappuccino in a mug is my sacrament. A book of poetry is my holy text. The beauty of the pulse of life when it’s being lived to the fullest… This is my spirituality and my inspiration.

This is why I say, “Blessed be.” This is the peace I wish to everyone. Love and be loved, celebrate life and let life celebrate you. Look at reality from different angles, find joy and inspiration on this gorgeous day.

blog: upset

I’ve heard there are 3 kinds of things that can upset you – an undelivered communication, a thwarted intention, or an unfulfilled expectation. Of the three, I feel like the last one is the worst. You can fix the first two; you can usually find a way to say what you meant to say, clarify something you misunderstood, or do something you meant to do. But the only way to avoid being upset by unmet expectations is to just not expect anything from yourself or anyone else in the first place.

And that’s hard to do, especially when you’re often not even aware you’re expecting something until it fails to eventuate. You could constantly question and analyse your attachments and assumptions, but that’s no way to live. At any rate, as long as your expectations fall into the realm of what can or should reasonably happen within your cultural context, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have them… right?

There are certain ideas: that as long as you’re hardworking, your job is secure and you’ll be promoted. As long as you treat your partner right they will always love you and never cheat on you. As long as you spend quality time with your children and meet their needs, they’ll love and respect you. As long as you are honest with your friends, they’ll never betray you. That as long as you’re a good person, people will like you for you…And yet over and over again, you end up disappointed and feeling like an idiot.

It’s death by a thousand paper cuts. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, not without hardening yourself to the point where nothing and no one can touch you. And once you’ve done that, there’s no joy in life anymore. So unless you want to turn into a grizzled, unfeeling automaton you can’t escape the pain, you can only choose, to some extent, what form your pain comes in.

I try to choose wisely, but I can never decide if life is a little sweeter for the sorrow, or if my naïveté will eventually ruin me. All I know is, I will keep picking myself up and dusting myself off over and over again, as many times as I have to, because that’s the only thing I know how to do; no matter what life and the consequences choices I make have to throw at me, I survive. And maybe… Maybe that’s all that’s needed.

blog: faith of our fathers…

For a bit of context, I was raised in a Baptist tradition, then attended a Pentecostal church and was in ministry there for a while. After falling out with that church I ended up going my own way for a few years, exploring other religions and faith practices. I’ve been a member of a “cafe church” community, and most recently, a member of a Weslyan church community.

Having been exposed to so many denominations and practices, and the teachings of other religions and practices such as Buddhism and Neo-paganism, I have learned three important things:

1) No one person or group holds the monopoly on the whole and complete “truth”,

2) It’s important to take everything in and figure out what you believe for yourself, and

3) “Religion” and “spirituality” are all vastly different things.

That last one is important. Many people claim to be atheists just because they couldn’t agree with or believe in the religion or church they were raised in, when churches and religions are just one form of expressing spiritual beliefs. Just because one didn’t fit, or you were hurt by a man-made religion, doesn’t mean there’s not a God or a spiritual path that’s right for you.

I have always held that ‘religion’ is WHAT you believe and ‘spirituality’ is HOW you express those beliefs. In a lot of ways, I am still trying to work out my dogma. I make mistakes, I’m not perfect and I can’t really lay claim to being any particular denomination at this stage, and may never be able to. However, the Seven Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association seem to fit best:

“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;

7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

I firmly believe that if we all followed those principles, the world would be a better, more peaceful place for all it’s inhabitants.

Blessings to you, Shalom, Namaste, have a beautiful day. :)

blog: new year, new home, new start <3

In our minds, we had plenty of time to pick out the perfect house, plenty of money to buy new furniture, scores of movers to help us – in reality, we applied for almost the first house we saw, had to prioritise our spending because some fool (which would be me) decided the Christmas holidays was the perfect time to move house, and although we had a couple of friends help with our heavy furniture, most of the moving was done by us in our beat-up station wagon.

So it wasn’t exactly the fastest move in the west. Iit’s been exhausting and in future I will definitely hire movers to do the lot in one day… and Jim’s Mowing to do the yards. Doing the yards at the old place was such a chore – although I did get to use a hedge trimmer, and destroy things on purpose. :)

Our new place is on a hill in the very middle of a small cul-de-sac. We’ve met one set of neighbours, nodded a ‘hello’ over the fence to the other side, and spied on the rest through the curtains (spying being something I tend to excel at). The back yard is pretty, and I can’t wait to have parties out there! :)

Our little fur family are settling in well. Our ‘firstborn’, Sherlock, is a 4 yr old medium hair tabby; highly intelligent and independent, and the least affectionate of our brood, but he likes being in the same room as us and gets upset when anything in his environment changes… like getting a new kitten, haha.

Sherlock doing his best ‘reflective gaze’.

Then there’s Benny, a 1.5 yr old short hair tabby with a really sweet nature, who we got as a rescue when he was about 7 months old. He has what RZ and I call an “antenna tail”; he walks around with his tail straight up and when he finds something to investigate, his tail flicks forward quickly like he’s typing out a Morse code message!

George is the latest addition. We rescued him from a shelter last August; he is a short hair white and orange kitty about 4-5 years old, nearly toothless and built short and stocky like a bulldog, and very affectionate (but not very bright!). I do think he thinks he’s a dog, he follows us around and sits down at our feet and even when he goes outside he just sits on the porch watching the street until we let him back in.

Benny and George make a furry Yin Yang

George quickly decided everything was fine as long as his humans were there and he was getting fed twice a day, and he was pretty calm from the beginning. Benny hid under the bed for the first day or two, but like George, quickly decided that as long as he’s getting fed and patted and can still sleep on the bed beside me, life was pretty much the same. He is still a bit skittish, but that’s probably just as much to do with the kitten side of him as it is the unfamiliar landscape.

Sherlock spent longer hiding under the bed than Benny, and slinked around the house with his tail down for a few days, but has started to put his tail up more (which means he’s happier) and sit in the windows looking out. He was the Alpha cat in the old place, since he was there first, but now all three have been moved into the new place at the same time it will be interesting to see who ends up “top dog”. :)

Cadence Poetica

poetic, prophetic, copacetic

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