Llanaraymaker’s Weblog

My beautiful game

In my leisure, I go to a twice (sometimes more) weekly, two (sometimes more) hour game of tennis with Daddy and Lou Lou (Lou Lou = Louis, my young, clever, talented, very (very, very) funny friend, playwright, director and partner of Daddy). Our new found obsession started in 100 degree heat as a harebrained idea that manifested around the same time as Wimbledon. We returned from Portugal (and still never understood why no one else was ever on the courts of the National Tennis Academy, and subsequently the Hotel down the road, in the blazing midday sun…we understood, really…we understand fully the stupidity of our behaviour!) and decided that we would continue if only for the entertainment that it provides us. We negated - and continue to do so - the health benefit of the activity by the consumption of copious quantities of beer immediately following our exertion.

So here are the styles: Daddy - the only competent player of the lot, he’s the only one who gets the ball back over the net with any frequency and is exceedingly tolerant of the two utter ‘uselessnesses’ on the other side of the net. He does have a habit of throwing an exasperated look at the racket as soon as he performs a dud shot, as though the inanimate object had suddenly come alive and plotted to show him up by completely ruining what would have been a perfectly splendid volley. He is an expert at a trick we like to refer to as ‘mashing us up’, which usually entails us running about like headless chickens behind shots that we will never really get, as he hits us from forehand to backhand while standing perfectly still on his side of the court. He is our tennis God, perpetually patient…and we usually embarrass him senseless…

Then there is me (you will forgive my ill-mannered naming of myself not last as you read on) - I think I am the lost Williams sister. In my head I am tremendous! I am an undiscovered talent! I could have held that dish aloft had my experiences gone that way. In truth and in shameful fact, I suck in stellar proportions! Though, to be fair, I have gotten better, a fact which I insist we must discuss every single time as soon as we step off the court, along with the admission of how much pain I’m in. I am able to hold a more sustained rally, but only if we are playing our own brand of ‘Crazy Tennis’ which rules stipulate that the ball can bounce any number of times before you hit it and only really needs to land in the approximate area of the court…lines be damned! I play a sort of tennis cum badminton, my shots are launched high above the net…hell..high above the nearby houses and there is time for me to run back to the baseline and anticipate the return, as Daddy awaits said ball’s descent and lines up another perfect ‘mash up’. I will run after anything…and I will frequently miss. But in my mind’s eye, I am graceful, supple, full of strength and speed, powerful and athletic…very much the complete opposite of what I am in real life.

And then there is Lou Lou…ah…dear, dear Lou Lou….Lou Lou will occasionally surprise us with having a very good game, in that he hasn’t hurt anyone or lost all of the balls. He has the most peculiar manner of running, and one I am very jealous of, if only for its individuality and pure Pheobe-esque joie de vivre (refer to some episode of Friends when Rachel doesn’t want to go jogging with Pheobe because she has a very singular run and then Pheobe says blah blah blah, then more inane situational comedy with no real consequence and indeed no real humour ensues and then the final credits roll and you realise that there went half an hour of your life that you will never be able to recapture and you vow to participate more in your life and to fill your time with more worthwhile endeavours until the episode is rerun…repeat ad nauseum…) Lou Lou’s run is a knees up affair, a kind of bunny like skipping. His feet actually feature very heavily in his game, because if he gets a shot back over the net, you just need to look at his feet which indicate the level of his excitement building, there begins a small running on the spot, a tiny land bound paddling, which usually precedes an astronomical shot which sends the ball into another court, out into the bushes never to be retrieved or sometimes as far as Stoke on Trent. (we play in Chiswick!). He has amazing strength, many of his serves have seen me cowering on the other side of the net, or indeed running away from the force and seeming lack of direction or intent. He can only truly play with Daddy, who seems to understand his game through sheer force of love alone. I love Lou Lou too, but have great fear for my life when playing against him. I am just not strong enough.

So there we go. We go to the courts on a day and play in all sorts of weather conditions (we have found this is a good way to get a free court, no one else seems to be clever or dedicated enough to play in a thunderstorm). Sometimes Daddy and I go on our own and we can get quite serious because I am becoming better (didn’t I tell you!) and our extreme tennis rallies are becoming longer and I am actually getting him to move out of his permanent spot by totally illegal attacks (poor love, he’s usually only trying to keep the ball in play, or to save fellow player on adjacent court from being whacked in the head by my efforts, at which point I will then hit the ball miles in the opposite direction, usually out of bounds and with no real skill…after which I get called a few choice names, which make me giggle). But the fun only really starts when Lou Lou gets there. He is our tennis Mr Bean, he squirrels away the balls like a Disney character of the cutest kind…he gets terribly possessive and never seems to want to serve any of the balls he has stashed about his person, even if he has most of them. He makes us laugh and I remember why I travel for about an hour and a half to play this peculiarly novel version of the game. This is our invention, our ‘playing in the round, any rules’ tennis. We have fun and (maybe!) get a bit fitter. We spend time together, with no judgement of abilities. It is the purest form of ‘Being’ (dodgy Heidegger capitalisation, courtesy of my abridged government friend - he will kill me, because he has been reading this blog…and I think I have a ticking off coming because of the number of ways I have tried to describe his vertical orientation…I told him I have to continue a theme!) Most of us were the last to be picked for the team, most of us never had the prowess and so shied away from showing ourselves in any physical light. We pound away on treadmills, headphones firmly lodged in our ears, punishing ourselves while shutting out the voices of those who pointed out our corporeal shortcomings (no I don’t mean you!), actively ignoring the subjective eyes of the physically perfect amongst us….why, that judgement alone is what deters those that need it most from setting foot inside these temples and societies of physical perfection and faultlessness. In this season of medalling and the shattering of records, it is still nice to know that there is a place where the imperfect among us can go, to laugh and sweat and give ourselves maybe one extra second of life.

I make that trip to the tennis courts with joy. I make the trip back in tremendous muscular pain…

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home; ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been yesterday. - ‘The Outsider’ by Albert Camus  (1913 - 1960)

One of the most frustrating men in my life at this moment...apart from my Government friend.

On recommendation by my compact government friend, I have been reading Camus. Though we (he!) called it quits on ‘us’ romantically, we remained ‘friends’, a kind of electronic pen pals, in that we email each other daily. He has become a good literary duelling partner, and we debate constantly, he demeans me on literature, philosophy, government and all things academic, I respond by taking the deceptive self deprecating route and consistently calling him short (in both the vertical and terse sense). I am reading Camus because apparently the fact that I was reading Nietzsche was just abhorrent, as my abbreviated friend pointed out - ‘He is the worst writer of all times, which is a shame, as he has quite interesting things to say.’ The same could not be said for Martin Amis (another of my current selections), who was just described as a ‘pretensious knob’. I deferred that argument to another day, because I had to read Camus, so that I did not go into battle unarmed!

So, frustrated, I popped into Foyles (I love this place!) and bought the shortest edition I could find, ‘The Outsider’, I read it over a couple days (stopping for tennis, champagne, meetings with my new director and the Olympic opening ceremony) and have remained frustrated ever since. So much so, that I have immediately started rereading the volume as soon as I cast my eye over the final period and that arrogant afterword in which Camus politely explains for the unenlightened amongst us that Mersault (the protagonist) ‘represents the only Christ that we deserve’.  He says it is meant paradoxically. I think he is just smug.

Now it must be pointed out here that I know nothing of Philosophy. I will not enter into discussion or dispute about it because I just cannot be bothered sometimes to explain to people what I mean (I suppose in a way that makes me much like Mersault). I like the way Philosophy makes me feel, and I like to turn it over quietly in my mind. When people bombard me with their opinions on one thing or another, I politely concede, but only insomuch as I believe that we are all entitled to our opinions, and to hold them as our absolute truths, and to convince others otherwise is to try to stem the flow of what should be a rushing of ideas in ones own life-stream, which propels our life and experience onward into waves of discovery and learning. I know we should be influenced at times and through that influence we shape and remake our ‘Truths’. I just sometimes want to feel that influence gently and would rather do my influencing more delicately. (None of the preceding is true…those that know me would know that I live in a constant state of strongly felt opinions and firmly held beliefs. I can be forthright and overpowering, and though I hold individuality and freedom of thought and opinion to be the utmost Truth, I will still firmly and unshakably speak my own mind, always with the proviso ‘Now this is what I believe and does not make it absolute Truth but…’ But some days, I cannot be arsed!)

The writing in The Outsider is frustrating. It is a simple story of a man who moves from indifference to desperation when he realises his own ass is on the line because in a moment of apathy (and some unexplained or unexplored effect of the sun) he commits a murder. It is described as a random act of violence (though I think otherwise) and he is prosecuted on the fact that he feels no remorse…he did not even cry at his mother’s funeral (tenuous…yes). Camus describes him as a man ‘with a passion for an absolute and for truth’. His aloof truths certainly change in the second half of the book when he realises fully that his head and his body were to become two completely separate truths…his sentences, short and lacking interest or depth in the first, become longer, more flowery, more insightful, more critical. He certainly feels more, the closer to death he becomes. In that way, he is ordinary to me. An ordinary man, without interest in anything, who lacks that interest because he feels entitled to this life…and at the moment that living is threatened, then he wants to examine his existence…or at least to rage against those who would end it or even to question it. Though Camus disguises the depiction of emotion through purely biological descriptions (the rushing of blood, the hearing of the beating of the heart in the head), they are still, nonetheless, emotions and those emotions only arise when his freedom is confiscated. I am provoked by Mersault and by Camus, in fact I am so angry that I cried at the end of the book. And so I have to read it again…to understand why.

Idleness as a state of Beauty

Camus (this one in particular and I’m not sure my delicate sensibilities (!) could handle another) does give me insight into my miniature friend (but that is another discussion). It gives me a strange insight into myself as well and my love of the dramatic and all things experienced at full throttle and in its largest sense possible. It makes me look at the past 6 weeks or so of my life, since I’ve finished my contract and before I start my new one, and at how (or if) I have filled the time. It brings to mind the way that I undergo each new happening as if it is the most important thing that can ever happen to me (though it may hold no significance to any onlooker, and may in fact be utter banality).

I may come back to this, or I may not. Mersault would be proud…

As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills, killed all my hopes, I looked up at a mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world. And finding it so much like myself, in fact so fraternal, I realised that I’d been happy, and that I was still happy. For the final consummation and for me to feel less lonely, my last wish was that there should be a crowd of spectators at my execution and that they should greet me with cries of hatred.

‘Enough’, I screamed, ‘Enough with the lessons already!!’

I know that our challenges are sent to teach us. I fully understand the (self-created!) concept that our trials and our tribulations are life lessons, to be looked upon as timely reminders of our purpose, our higher being, our reasons for our perfect existence. I subscribe to being watchful, to constantly being on the look out for messages, communications from that Higher Being in which I put my faith. Ah, Faith - a forgotten notion, a relic onto which we cling, unsure that it is enough to just be here on this planet for a finite time, so small, so insignificant in so vast a Universe, without rhyme or reason, a blip in reality, that when we are snuffed out, we remain only in memory and only for so long (unless we are notorious!). We are here and gone, and that is frightening, and so we grasp at Faith.

I suppose Man has always searched for Reason, a raison d’etre, Purpose, a goal (base or higher). Man has always wanted to be more than himself, more than this moment alone. We propagate, we procreate, we proliferate. We earn and spend, build and destroy, acquire and squander, in an effort to make a mark, to show that we are here, were here. To show that we are not just matter but that we matter, that we are not just atoms and cells, organs and water, tidily encapsulated in varying shapes and sizes, but that we exist in mind and heart, in ideas and ideology. We want to subsist like music, which in its very essence cannot be captured, but ‘is’ only in the moment that it is sounded and then is no more, but which ‘is’ nonetheless. We want to show that we are more than electricity firing over space, joining synapses that make us move and blink and breathe unconsciously, but that we are the sum of ideas, those baseless, formless, intangible things, that have no origin, that cannot be held or comprehended, but that make up the whole, make us rise above the ‘lower’ being (this is arguable, is it our incomprehension that makes the beasts and birds lower? One day I will challenge that perception).

‘I am, therefore I think.’… ‘I think, therefore I am’.

So I raised my fists to the Heavens (which is where I have conveniently placed God, and of which those responsible for my Catholic upbringing would not disapprove - all elevated things are placed above…one day I will challenge that idea too!), I screamed and railed, I argued my points. I stated my case…that my entire existence is based solely on the fact that I want people, after having encountered me if for the briefest of moments, to always leave feeling good about themselves. My sole aim in life is to always hold up a mirror to all I meet that says ‘You are perfect, you are wonderful and I am grateful that you have touched my life at this point’. I want people to smile and like themselves if only for the most ephemeral instant, because there is too much in this world that makes us feel badly about ourselves, there is too much judgement (self or external), too much critical examination of our selves and our lives. In my life, I want to create a small moment, free of that consideration…an ease, a moment of relief, of reprieve, where you and I can just enjoy ourselves for a second…. What the heck is wrong with that??!!

Am I to be punished because I am a ‘Humanist’? My poor mother, on the phone with me in the midst of my angry spell, reminds me of the story of Job.

‘He was a right and just man’, she says, ‘and he was cut down and had everything taken away from him.’

‘But why? If he was everything that God wants him to be, why was he so punished?’ I counter, fuming and seething, casting an annoyed look upward.

‘Job asked God that exact question.’ she says, holding onto the end of this story with the suspenseful artistry of a crafty storyteller (she knows I know the end, but mothers can scarce pass up the opportunity for story telling).

‘And??’ I ask wearily, through gritted teeth (though I know the end of this story, a child can scarce pass up the opportunity of being told a story by her mother…I don’t know why…it’s probably in our DNA).

‘And God replied,’ she says majestically, ‘Were you there when I created the firmament? Where were you when I created the beasts of the field and the birds of the air? Who are you to question me?’ (my paraphrasing…or hers…I cannot remember which…go read your Bible if you want the exact quotation!).

‘God is full of shit!’, I reply, which sends Mother into a fit of nervous laughter and, I am sure, the start of a series of silent novenas for the safety and salvation of my soul.

‘But God restored Job!’ she says, with finality and a bit triumphantly, as if that put the full stop on everything, that was the winning argument, that was the be all and end all of it all and it was irrefutable, unassailable. This was the way it was, and I should know that.

My faith is unshaken. Every once in a while I become terribly angry when I receive blow after blow from my life. Sometimes the knocks are tremendous, lifting me off of my feet and landing me flat on my back looking up to the very same Heaven in which I put my trust (I am reminded of the poor lass who was part of the Facebook waterfight that got knocked off her own feet, all because she was having fun….surely she didn’t deserve that either!). Sometimes, they are little taps, small jolts that give a dull pain, that will leave a nasty bruise tomorrow, but will not be life threatening (or changing) in any way and from which I will recover, unscathed, possibly stronger and able to face more. And unwavering Faith remains. For though I will scream every so often (I am, after all, only a puny Human!), I choose to feel loved. I choose to feel special, and that there is an objective to my tiny spark in the whole of Human existence. I choose to feel as if I have a Reason…and so I shake myself off, apologise profusely to the Sky, express my gratitude for the many things that are so right with my life, and live to fight another day.

We, as children, are allowed our occasional rebellions…

Before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange thing or person I heard about, was a book. - Jean Rhys 1890 - 1979

I have always read. I cannot, however, recollect my first tome with the same accuracy as I can recall my first album (it was Donny Osmond’s ‘Puppy Love’ and I’m sure it belonged to my mother, though I remember it as mine, I remember the sense of ownership, I remember the label, I remember dancing to it when I was three or so, and I loved it with all my heart. My first album as a teenager was, I vaguely remember, some drivel by Kylie Minogue). But reading has always been a part of my life. It has been a part of the hum, the background, always present, never fully paid attention to. I have always had a book and if I set my mind to working I am sure I can actually plot my life and all its significant (and insignificant) events by the volumes I was reading at the time.

A bibliophile's treasure

These musings came to me as I am now reading Julie Rugg and Lynda Murphy’s ‘A Book Addict’s Treasury’, a lovely collection of quotations, quips and anecdotes about reading and the love of books. And, of course, how could one have a blog if there wasn’t an entry about reading…it is the mere love of language and story telling that prompts us to set our thoughts here in the first place (though I fear I have no such love of punctuation).

In the best of company.

My history with the written word (unusual when you come from a culture that relies largely on the oral tradition of story telling and song to pass down the political and social history of the land) is rich with colour, touched by the Caribbean breeze as I sat outside and pored over page after page of my Snoopy Encyclopaedias (it is where my love of trivia first was born, I love knowing alot about nothing useful!). There were no mahogany bedecked grand libraries, no glass cases with keys, no imposing leather bound volumes. There were paperbacks with spines missing, covers ripped and pages turned down. There were the delicate brown pages, slightly burnt in the West Indian sun. There was a crispness with each turn, and a furious imagination of the adventures of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and all the folks of Enid Blyton land. Jane Eyre was my friend as were the Little Women. I read what I could, and what I couldn’t I pretended to read.

Sherlock Holmes and his chum, poor Watson, could excite and terrify me and delight me with their discoveries, I loved that mind and imagined what it would be like to be that clever. I remember squirrelling away my sister’s copy of Darwin’s ‘Origin‘, and I made my way through that before I could fully understand the implications of what I was reading and that there might be difficulty in reconciling that with my uber Catholic self  (at that time. Reading actually brought me to the mish mash of spiritual beliefs that now make me happy, make me a constant seeker of a truth that comforts me…but that is another story). I think that book actually sparked in me a love of Biology (though I have no real talent for it) that then set on course a direction of study that has nothing to do with what I do now…I am grateful for having gone that way. I dust off that book (and that knowledge) every now and again and I am still sparked to continue learning by it. Ah, the power!

I went through a period of the macabre…I would devour anything (good or bad) that Stephen King could proffer. In fact, I was influenced to write like that for a portion of my school life, which then prompted a serious investigation into my mental health; they had to delve further into the mind of a fourteen year old girl who could turn an innocuous essay heading such as ‘This weekend my family went to the beach…’ into a gruesome, grisly tale of death and horror, usually involving some disemboweling or beheading or the gouging out of one’s own eyes due to the witnessing of some terrible dreadfulness. It made me laugh, how often do you get to employ such graphic and horrific descriptions to your writings…the chance was too juicy to miss.

I intellectualised at times in my life and read voraciously through Kant, Jung, Nietzsche, Plato and argued Rousseau’s Social Contract. I drowned myself in Walcott and Naipaul, the authors of my land (though Naipaul, knighted in 1990, turned his back on his own Trinidadianness, for reasons much argued and remaining unexplained), who could describe my life as I had not seen it, who could conjure up the people that I knew, with such beauty and grace. Shakespeare (of course, there must be Shakespeare), Byron, Milton, Shelley moved me, Tony Harrison’s ‘Book Ends’ made me cry and Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘The World’s Wife’ made me snort Diet Coke out through my nose. Eggers and Hosseini, Seth and Rushdie all gave me stories that made me sob and smile and made me forget my own crying. Angelou, Morrisson, Walker all made me remember my pride. The Greek and Roman myths and Aesops fables all made me remember my wonder. I would not have survived thus far without this, my imagined family, my largest circle of conjured up friends, my playing field of wonder. Though I actively participate in this world, you will find my truest self between the covers of a book.

Come find me there…or better yet…find yourself.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

While standing on Platform 4 at London Bridge station, I said a prayer, ‘Dear God, please make me perfect.’

Not surprisingly, no miracle happened. There was no puff of smoke, no gathering of storm clouds, no shaft of light from the heavens, no instantaneous change. My abs were no tighter, I was no slimmer, no fitter, no smarter, no wittier, no more beautiful than the moment before I had uttered the words.

(I have found that rejection, no matter how kind, causes you to question your suitability to be a worthwhile member of this human race…it is amazing the unconscious control we exert over each other.)

Perfection as imagined by Leonardo

Instead, I stood and contemplated perfection. I watched how people found perfection in each other. I watched couples, holding hands, stealing (or sometimes less furtively exhibiting) intimate moments, lost in each others’ perfection, regardless of public or friendly opinion. I watched people seeking perfection in the opposite sex, and I tried to do my own poll of the colour of hair, of eyes, the acceptable height, weight and proportions that made a person perfect in others’ eyes. I watched people find perfection where I would not. I watched examples of varying degrees of perfection parade before me…and I prayed…

I have come to this…No…we are not all perfectly fine just the way we are. We can always be thinner, kinder, prettier, more generous, more loving, more knowledgeable, better in every way. But until we get there, we can be a little more forgiving of our imperfections. We can pinch our wobbly bits and run our tongues over our crooked teeth, suck in our gut, talk the good talk, Google everything while we pretend to know more than we do. We can keep trying, trying to like ourselves, trying to improve, to become faster, stronger, more whole. We can look at ourselves in the brightest light and though we may not be perfect, we can recognise ourselves as being well on our way. The interest lies in our imperfection.

Of course we are flawed…it is what makes us perfect.

Watch closely…as you can see, there is nothing up my sleeve…now try not to take your eyes off of what I’m doing here…now we say the magic words…and poof…magically, after a lovely date that lasted over ten hours, tiny civil servant is gone….

It went the way I suppose I suspected it would have gone. We had a lovely lunch, we laughed, we judged the people on other tables, we laughed some more. We walked along the Heath, we discussed ultimate ambitions (this time my question), we discussed learning new languages and retiring to other European destinations. We went to a historic pub, and bought beer and sat outside and laughed some more, and did more people watching, and fashion commentary (he does own a pair of jeans) and then we started to discuss us…. Ah, here was the trick. We came to the conclusion that we liked each other (after a few hours of sleep and distance, I wonder if that was entirely true), but that there would be a problem of compatibility (his word). Actually, he came to the conclusion that our lives just would not fit. I think he came to the conclusion that I just was not good enough for his life, or that he could not see himself in mine and we decided not to waste each other’s time any further. I offered him an out, he took it…I was surprised.

I am disappointed, I suppose. This comes quickly on the heels of other bad news, so there is perspective. And put into context, it was four dates over three weeks, so therefore there was not that much time spent or ‘wasted’ on the matter. I guess I shall miss him for a bit, or maybe I will miss the concept of him, or the concept of a ‘potential other’. Maybe I shall feel a catch in my chest at the lack of something to look forward to. Maybe I will feel slightly irked at having my life so cruelly judged, having been made to feel (I don’t know how much) that it, and I, just weren’t good enough. Or maybe I will be philosophical about it all, I will put the experience in its proper place (as a bad one, that didn’t last very long). I will remember that I’ve left other (longer, more heavily invested) relationships because I was made to feel that way. Maybe it was a test of my new resolve, to find love in my life from someone who completely adores me, someone who appreciates what I know to be true of myself, someone who thinks me more than adequate, who thinks me superb in so many ways. Maybe it is for the best.

I did push the issue towards the end of the night (half heartedly, and in the harsh light of morning I wish I hadn’t). He was (I think) smart enough to refuse (in the harsh light of morning I appreciate that decision). So at least there were no mistakes made. It was neat and tidy, a small slice of life, started and finished. I have written about it, and now I shall think of it no more.

I’m off for more tennis with Daddy and Lou Lou. I think today we shall have duck.

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me - John Borroughs (1837 - 1921)

I spend alot of my life waiting. What I do requires short bursts of energy, a mad rush of learning lyrics and lines, a few minutes of trying to impress an audition panel, showing your worth in one song, one scene, one smile or the raising of an eyebrow. I am required to be performance ready without the benefit of rehearsal, without spending five weeks with the material and director and choreographer and musical director, fleshing out the role, finding the life of the character. I am put there and judged, I put myself to be judged. It is harsh, sometimes unfriendly, a situation over which I have no control. And sometimes it doesn’t work…

So I have received news today that one of the roles that I’ve gone up for did not come my way. The lovely lady who inhabits it has decided to stay on for another year’s contract. I wish her well, and she is fantastic. And it is her job and not anybody else’s to take away. Of course, it raises all the questions about whether they should audition other people for a job that is potentially unavailable…but that is beside the point. And of course I am disappointed, yes I would have liked the opportunity to shake a tail feather or two in that particular musical, to add poignancy to the soul searing song in the second half, to funk and jive in rhyming couplets under the brilliant gaze of the spotlight and the peering eyes of twelve hundred people nightly…but that is not on my journey. I allowed myself a few moments of total self-pitying, and then I shook myself out of it.

Staring into Limbo

not move forward while we await the decisions of others….we’re waiting for a mortgage decision, waiting for the employers to decide if they will give us the job, waiting for a husband to decide if we will go to marriage counselling or not, waiting for a boyfriend to pop the big question, waiting for the gas bill, waiting for the doctor to phone us with those test results, waiting to find out if our friend really did hear us saying that awful gaff that never should have been uttered, waiting to be approved for a loan, waiting for him/ her to call, waiting to find out if we’ve been accepted into that school, waiting to see if we have been found worthy by the standards of others. And what do we do with that waiting? Maybe we exercise patience, that most trying of virtues, the one which sees us outwardly calm, breathing through all our anxieties, quipping those inane phrases such as ‘Whatever will be, will be’, all the while inside we’re a bubbling, churning mess of anxiety and worry, we’re willing away the hours and the minutes, employing our strongest mind power on telephone technology (if we stare at it enough it just might ring), getting down on our knees praying to Jesus/ Buddha/ Zog/ Barack Obama that we will do right by them if only they can manifest this one chance, employing all the secrets of The Secret (or insert other new age-y ‘if you believe, you will receive’ method here), visualising, vision boarding, journalling, keeping fingers crossed, hoping…

And sometimes, we do exhibit real patience and let go of the outcome. And when the outcome manifests itself, in whatever form, we are grateful for the experience, we garner our lessons and we move on, sure of the fact that life will never let up and we will be faced with more excitement, more adventure and we would be foolish not to participate.

I look forward to further surrender…

There is a way of communicating, frequently employed, used in many different ways, on many different occasions, between people of varying degrees of closeness. This is called ‘Banter’. Banter may be used between friends, who express their love for each other by saying terrible things about each other, with the implicit assumptions that none of the things said are true. Banter may be used by opposing rivals, a ‘friendly’ war of words, employed to ‘psyche’ each other out, to put the opponent off balance, causing them to concentrate on the sweetly coated yet harsh words rather than deeds and plans or intended strategy. And banter may be used by people who are newly met, who are getting to know each other, but are shy about putting their heart about, shy about revealing their true selves to a relative stranger, afraid that they may show themselves and be found wanting, wanting to be cool, to be found clever…perhaps wanting to ‘get them before they get me’. Banter (otherwise known as picong where I come from!) is a strange mating dance, a fascinating ‘cock of the walk’ puffing out of chests and displaying of tail feathers. And banter can be tiresome….

(As an aside…it is amazing that if you employ a word enough - by typing or even saying it over and over again, it loses its meaning and you sometimes lose your ability to spell…)

(Second aside….if you love language - as I do (but only in a half-arsed, not well versed, ‘oh isn’t that terribly interesting’ sort of sense) you must read Mark Dunn’s ‘Ella Minnow Pea’. A beautifully written (with a diminishing alphabet!), succinct (short!) tale of obfuscation and political confusion as caused by some small thing…or you could just watch the news!)

Banter throughout the ages

But back to my tale, I found myself on the receiving end of Banter (yes, note the capital) last night, on date number 3 with a very interesting (if short) government official, who makes me laugh and has beautiful eyes and killer wit (and instincts!) and whom I cannot imagine wearing a pair of jeans (I will find out on Saturday, as date number 4 is already planned). Tiny government official was a bit tired, and so his ‘wit’ might have been a bit sharper than intended (or maybe not!), but I found myself shielding blow after blow about my career (I am an actress), my day to day life (I am an out of work actress), my ambitions (I am an out of work actress that is not terribly fussed at the minute that I am out of work and quite like enjoying playing tennis with Daddy - Daddy = my best mate Chris, my partner in crime, my thought doppelganger, my sage, my sounding board and one of the best actors I have ever had the joy to share the stage with - and enjoying free time that I’ve not had for quite a while).

…If you followed the preceeding meandering train of thought, I commend you….

Diminutive civil servant’s waning energy and attention prompted me to send him home early and I caught my train, on which I met friends and was distracted from thinking any further about the evening. Or maybe I saw the opportunity to rest my shield down for the night, and took it, under the guise of being understanding. My constitution is strong, but less than being offended, I found myself becoming slightly uninterested by the interrogation and the sly yet jocund manner in which we discussed my idleness. I became slightly belligerent by having to answer ‘But what do you do all day?? You must do something!’ for the umpteenth time. I stroppily and sloppily answered questions of my ultimate ambition (To be happy. To be completely present in every moment of my life. To live actively and to seek big miracles in small corners. To be satisfied that I have experienced the life of my choosing…I shared none of these answers). My own quick wit abandoned me (or rather I abandoned it) and I found myself parlaying and parrying with shrugs and short husky (incredulous!) barks that, I suppose, could have been mistaken for laughs. In short, last night I just did not want to play….and I guess, neither did he.

I live an unexamined life, insomuch as I’ve always done what I loved, and have been blessed enough to have been given a number of opportunities to do what I love. I am an observer of life, a reporter of our basest instincts. I am a bringer of joy and of song and, sometimes, of tears. I am the portal through which Man escapes, if only for the ‘two hour traffic of our stage’. My politics may be fickle, but I see that as a freedom of thought and expression that we little take advantage of (I will not be attached to manifestoes and parties, I will forever be attached to ideals, ideas and the power of democracy - though that democracy is sometimes shown to be powerless). My foundation, however, is rock solid. I am a student of Humanity, I am a lover of souls, I am a shower of Heart. I am a mirror, without need or judgement. And I will not be judged.

I wonder how date number 4 will go….

The beautiful set of Romeo and Juliet.

Yesterday was another lazy day, about two hours of tennis, then a most wonderful picnic in Regents Park before settling in to see a most beautiful production of Romeo and Juliet in the open air. The set, the costumes, the music (ah! the music!!)…all perfection. Alas, Shakespeare is not actor proof… But less of that, I’ve imported a blog of mine from another place as I’ve found it and found it profound for me, at this moment…

There are so many messages…

This is the year to declutter your life. It’s time to get out of debt. It’s time to reclaim your life. Time to lose weight. This is the beginning of a new you…

What is wrong with the old me?

The old me is responsible for the way I am today. Yes, it is true, the old me made many mistakes, ate too many pies, lied to get out of trouble, didn’t always keep a tidy house. The old me had too many boyfriends, didn’t go home when I said I would, let people treat me like I wasn’t worth much. The old me was growing up and growing out and sometimes going out of my mind.

But the old me taught me much. The old me was brave and fearless. The old me was creative, and unafraid to not know much. The old me cried much and laughed much and made other people laugh too. The old me was pushy and arrogant and assertive and confident. The old me talked too much, but said a few important things. The old me made friends, lost friends, found friends and kept friends.

Tomorrow, today’s me will be the old me. I will be grateful to her, because she is responsible for all that I believe. I will be grateful, thankful and hopeful that the old me will never let me down, and if she does, that I can forgive her and not let her go.

She’s not half bad……

I’ve awoken, far too early for someone who’s meant to be a lady of leisure, I sit here with my over-strong coffee, contemplating the lessons that I’ve gleaned from the numerous cards that I pull that help centre me and focus my life lesson for each day (more of that in another entry). It is a good morning, the sun attacks me on the side of the house in which my office resides, it demands its ‘Good Morning!’. I salute it with my mug, and wish that I could see the computer screen better…there is no-one to blame, the furniture layout is entirely my own idea….

I went to see Daughter last night (Daughter = Lisa, one of my best girlfriends, my sisterkind, a sensitive, caring soul whose faith in humanity - by which I mean Man - is unbounded regardless of the number of those that she encounters who would test that faith). We are both in the throes of dating and decided over a bottle of (not perfect) Pinot, that we would try to dissect and, in doing so, discover the secrets of successfully manouvreing the murky waters of so treacherous an activity…..

So…who makes the first move? If you do, are you seen as assertive or pushy? If you don’t, are you seen as needing to be rescued or might it appear as if you’re uninterested? How long after a date do you wait before you text them? And what is an acceptable response time - one hour, four, two days? Does that mean that he’s busy or is he running scared?  If he arranges to meet on a day but does not give a time or a concrete plan, do you wait for the day to arrive and the plans to unfold magically before you, or do you confirm the day before trying not to seem too keen? If he kisses you and then doesn’t call you, does it mean that he is a cad, or might he have just become nervous? Should dates become more frequent the longer you know each other, and if they don’t, should you take that as a sign of a pushing away by the other party. How long must one wait, five dates, nine, a few months, before you are allowed to say ‘Look, I like you….do you like me?’, or should these sentiments never be explicitly expressed for fear of sounding like a bunny boiler, desperate or needy? What should remain unspoken, what could freely be expressed? What’s the deal?

We came to no sound conclusion, Daughter and I. I’ve recently re-entered this game after being separated from my husband of nine years for nearly a year now (I’ve never dated, so this is quite unexplored territory for me), Daughter has been dating for a while and is yet to find the man that is deserving of the strong, fiery, loving, generous nature that is she. We have no answers for each other, and no doubt will discuss this topic tirelessly as we gather our experiences and hopefully become wiser by them. Maybe we have missed the point…perhaps it is in the unknowing that the joy and adventure of this activity lie….

We shall discuss this further, possibly over a Malbec….