reflection

poem: i am

– Written as an exercise during a writing workshop on self and metaphor

I am a deluge –
Erupting suddenly from within
Floods that bypass my parched throat.
I cover everything and pull it under,
Drowning everything in grief tears.
I am over-saturated, spilling
Untidily into other peoples’ lives.
I am a deluge.

,,,

I am a bellyful of hope –
My waters ebb and flow.
I host abundant life in my womb;
I hold secrets only dreamers know.
I have colours you’ve never seen,
I glisten and glean in the sun.
I am a bellyful of hope.

poem: tangled

sometimes, when you’re angry, 
what you really are is hurt…
and disappointed,
and sad,
and confused. 
but it’s easier to claim the anger;
because the other stuff 
is a tangled ball of yarn, 
and it’s tidier
to shut it away 
In an old shoebox 
and promise yourself 
you’ll find the end of it 
and untangle it
one day… 
when you have more time,
and patience, 
and distance 
between you and the person 
who broke your heart. 
but you know it’s a lie –
the truth is, 
that day never comes, 
and all of our closets burst
with shoebox coffins
for string so knotted and frayed
that it will never again 
be useful 
to anyone.

blog: the last

There’s always a last time for everything we do. The last time you ate at that restaurant, the last time you took part in a hobby, the last time you spoke to so-and-so.

Sometimes we know our “lasts”.  Our last day at work. The last day of a holiday. The last time we will see a dying relative this side of the veil. 

But often it’s only much later when you’re reflecting that you realize you never did go back to that Greek restaurant before it closed, or see that friend before they moved away.  You stopped going to a particular club because you wanted a change of scene, then the scene changed while you weren’t looking and you got lost along the way. 

Of course we can’t live our moments as if they are our last. We can’t force ourselves to live at a manic FOMO pace. But sometimes I argue with someone special and I think, “What if those are my last words to them?” Or I share an intimate night with someone and wonder if that will be the last time we would be so close. 

Some regrets are for the things we do. Others are for the things we didn’t.  Nothing seems to sting more than the regret of a squandered opportunity.  There’s no ‘undo’ button for life. There’s no way to save and re-load an earlier checkpoint.

Trying to recreate a past happiness never works, even if you come close, it will still be its own thing. So the only solution is to come to terms with loss and learn to deal with endings that don’t come with closure.

There is a way to move forward though. Learn to live in the moment, be mindful and appreciative of what you have. Live with gratitude as a constant companion. Take nothing for granted. And say ‘I love you’ as often as you can.

blog: dazed but not confused

I am Gen X, and while I’m sure many things could and have been written about my generation, this is my story.

My generation was one of “damn the man”; of being angry at our baby boomer parents for screwing up the world with their wars, their capitalism and their environmental rape. We took up the hippie mantle and turned it into grunge activism, we bought t-shirts from The Body Shop to raise funds for tigers, we banned CFCs because they put holes in our ozone. We protested our disenfranchisement by embracing alternative lifestyles, alternative music, leftist politics and fringe religion (anyone remember The Craft?).

We were also a generation who experienced huge feelings of ethical powerlessness, it felt like we were the only ones with our eyes open, seeing changes that needed to be be made and not having a loud enough voice to convince those in power to do something about it (except for the Berlin Wall… that shit fell down on our watch, proud to say) Which led to another Gen X phenomenon – burnout turning into apathy, leading to our generational motto – “Life’s short and then you die, f#@k the world, let’s go get high.”

We embraced technology, but were distrustful of moving too fast, seeing it as an extension of the previous generation’s obsession with “bigger better faster more.” (Personally, I’m still keeping an eye out for the birth of Skynet.)

The world now belongs to the Gen Y / millennials and even the Gen Z. In a few short years, the work force will burgeon with kids who weren’t even born yet while I partied with a bottle of Baileys and my tits out on New Years 1999 (I never claimed to be a saint!).

These are people who were birthed into a world of apps and gadgets; the tech my generation developed and used is now either obsolete (RIP DOS) or running in the background, being taken for granted. My friends’ toddlers either own an ipad or at least know how to use one, and I can’t even figure out how Snapchat works.

The passing of time is a funny thing. Most of the musical influences of my formative years have long since disbanded, their cds placed in bargain bins. Kids listen to the music I listened to back in the day and call it “vintage” or “classic”. Movies that defined and impacted me haven’t seen air time in years. Tom Hanks looks really old.

Whenever I realise events that I think happened only yesterday actually happened 15 years ago, I stop to wonder if the things I do today are going to stick with me 15 years from now. When I struggle to accept new technology, or embrace things that are uncomfortable for me but have become the norm for my society, I feel old and out of touch. And I wonder if that’s the same way my mother felt when I protested the Bobby socks rock’n’roll she played on the radio for being “lame”. Did she see me roll my eyes at her old movies, or was she reliving the time she saw it in the cinema as if it were only yesterday?

I feel isolated and marginalised more and more. Most of my Gen X friends have moved on to other stages of their lives; spouses, kids, mortgages, careers. They’re not living with their heads in the past and wishing for the good old days. Meanwhile, I’m over here mourning the loss of my youth. And this nostalgia suits my melancholic nature, but it also holds me back and makes me sad and ineffective in so many ways. I’m tired of trying to play catch up. I’m tired of trying to recreate my best experiences. It’s both emotionally exhausting and unattainable.

I need to learn to let go of what was and what could have been, and focus on what the present has to offer. I want to engage in life more, and stay open to growth and new experiences. Time moves on, and that’s not always a bad thing. Some things stay the same, but a lot of stuff changes. We just have to try to pass our experiences and our knowledge on as best we can, and not be too quick to close off any chapters in our own story.

Write a sequel! The universe is always expanding to include new and shiny things!

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blog: cognitive dissonance – closing the distance

‘Cognitive Dissonance’ – something the Universe gave me to ponder this week. It’s what happens when your statements and beliefs about yourself – who you want to be, what you want to do, and who you expect others to be – don’t match reality.

Like, I want to spend more time on my commute to and from work doing meaningful stuff instead of just sleeping – researching things online, or posting here, or reading news articles, shopping for things, doing a crossword puzzle, etc. I want to go out more, I want to follow my friends on facebook more closely, and text them more regularly. I want to set and maintain a budget. I want to get back on track with my diet, and start making progress on my ‘to-do’ list. But honestly, my life is a mess right now, and I don’t get around to achieving a lot of my goals.

When what we want vs. what actually happens = two very different things, that’s cognitive dissonance. And we feel guilty, hurt, or upset because there’s this massive gap in what we wanted life to be like and what life actually is. The theory is that humans strive for internal consistency, and work to reduce any dissonance or gap between fantasy and reality. We adjust our thinking, try to justify things, make excuses, or flat out ignoring that it’s happening. We create mental stress, because of our belief that things have to be consistent.

So what then… do I just accept that my life is chaos? That I’m never going to get even a 10th of my bucket list crossed off? That I’m always going to be rushing from one thing to the next and missing bits along the way? Or do I bolt everything down and live a life of routine and rigid rules for interaction with others, and try and control my environment as much as I can?

I don’t want my life to be summed up as a bundle of cognitive dissonance. I used to think that if you want to do something, you don’t make excuses, you just make it happen – but the implication  – that if I didn’t make it happen, I didn’t want it bad enough – weighs too heavy on the soul.

I want consistency,  but is consistency really this great prize to reach for if it comes at the risk of mental health and wellbeing?

I guess it’s about finding balance – making adjustments in habit, challenging some of my thinking on what I think “has to be”. And then re-examining my priorities, determining what the “small stuff” is in this big picture, letting go of that concept of “should have” and “must” and living life in a more fluid way.

I think that’s the lesson the Universe is trying to teach me today!

Alan Watts – Acceptance of Death and Meaning of Life

Alan Watts was a British-born American theological philosopher and I encourage you to look into his other lectures as well if you have the time!

This one is a little heavy, but so beautiful. I very much resonate with the view Alan presents here, of understanding life through the lens of death, as a contrast or counterpart, and in that way we stop fighting death and embrace it as part of the natural process. It is actually such a peaceful way of looking at both life and death together in tandem.

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.

poem: an ocean in my back yard

Today there is an ocean in my back yard.
I sit on the wooden dock of my back porch
And listen to the sound of the waves crashing through the leaves with a deafening whisper.
George the cat sits calmly at my side,
Ear flicked back whenever
A stray leaf escapes and swirls kamikaze towards us on its suicide run towards entropy.
The wind whips my hair around my face
But stirs not a ginger hair on George’s furry back.
If I close my eyes I can almost feel the sand crunchy between my toes,
Instead of these stray weeds growing up wild through the gaps in my steps.
Even the birds caw plaintively over their ruffled feathers,
mimicking their sea-sworn cousins.
The only thing gratefully missing is the salt air stinging my face.
If you hold a conch shell to your ear you will hear the same sounds;
The sound of Mother nature on a journey,
The sound of unbound joy.

blog: got any goblin jumper cables?

I told myself I would update this blog in earnest, and it’s been sitting here untouched almost a month. I’ve been in a bit of a funk, letting too many non-essential activities (*cough* world of warcraft *cough*) fill my time so that my personal goals were being neglected, it’s a self-perpetrated cycle of apathy really!

Apart from running my avatars through the wilds of Azeroth, I have started pulling stuff together for Stump, of course. Also I am thinking about trying to get a series of seminars and workshops happening. Apart from that and going to work and various domestic and financial duties (yay, tax time – at least I managed to put mine in early this year!!) I have been doing a lot of soul-searching.

I’ve always believed that ultimately – Divine Will aside – we are masters of our own Destiny, that it is up to each of us to work out what we want out of life and to work towards achieving these goals, so that we can look back on our lives and be satisfied with what we accomplished and who we were as people.

I used to think I would be able to do that – there was a lot of stuff in my life that I didn’t like, dark and troubled stuff, mistakes and regrets. But I have accomplished some pretty cool stuff as well, I’ve made some great friends and loved some awesome people. But in the last few years I’ve really lost that momentum. I look at the life I have now and it’s not the life that I want. I am not the person that I wanted to be.

So I need to make the conscious choice to change things, to bring myself back to the point where I can be proud of who I am and what I can accomplish. It’s going to take baby steps, it’s going to take focus and it’s going to take some sacrifice on my part – but with a clear idea of the direction I want to go in, I know I can do it.

On a random note, I was given a crock-pot a few weeks ago!  We had an “international lunch day” at work; I made an attempt on american-style pork & beans and there were lots of other cuisines represented. One woman brought in a crock-pot for reheating food, and I commented that I’d always intended to get one. Since she didn’t really use hers, the next thing I know I’m the proud owner of a crock-pot!! The only stipulation is I have to get an “action shot” for her blog on sustainability and recycling, so must break out the camera and a slow-cooker recipe book this week. :)