Throwback Thursday

Tags

Art, creativity, Menstruation, Periods

The crash that follows too much seeking.  I don’t eat Dairy Milk anymore (think of the cows).  And the Farrow and Ball painted room looked horrible.

In Praise of Magnolia and In Praise of PMS  (first published July 2014)

In Praise of Magnolia

When I was in my twenties I painted my bedroom shocking pink.  I spray painted Hey where the fuck were you when my lights went out?* and Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness** below a string of multicoloured fairy lights.

Twenty years later my husband and I have spent hours poring over paint charts trying to choose something pale and neutral.  So what happened, have I become boring?  Driving to work I flicked from a CD to Radio 4 and came across Martin Creed (Turner Prize winner in 2001 for an empty room in which the lights went on and off at 5 second intervals) being interviewed about Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (a square of black oil paint on a white canvas) and whether or not it is art.

I am sure I have been guilty of saying dismissive things about conceptual art and certainly I have often been at a loss as to what to say at friends’ art exhibitions.  But with Martin, I’m going to call him Martin from now on, a light went on (a terrible pun, I know).  He refused to get into making judgements about whether or not things were art; he said it only matters if you like it or not.

He explained that the purpose of things like black squares or white squares or lights that just go on and off is that there’s nothing but your own thoughts and reactions.  In this busy world it’s nice to just sit and stare at a plain canvas and see what comes into your head.

Yes!  That’s it!  In my twenties I needed all my stimulation outside of me.  I repainted my room every year or so.  I wore homemade gold dresses and leopard faux fur hats.  But at forty-four, the inside of my head has a whole lot more stuff in it, and more importantly, I know my way around in there now.  I long for simple clothes, because I am interesting enough.

So rather than thinking that to paint everything magnolia smacks of a lack of imagination, perhaps the opposite is true!

As with most things, there is a middle ground, and in this case the middle ground is called Hay or number 37 by Farrow and Ball. ***

In Praise of PMS

Maintaining my equilibrium was hard this week.**** My emotions skittered all over the place, my confidence wobbled, I felt anxious and panicky.  But is there anything good about PMS?  However challenging I find it, I do think there is something valuable there.  The veil between my emotions and the world is so thin.  It’s so hard to fake my feelings.  And even though I do not enjoy the few days each month of feeling a sudden loss of confidence and capability, I can’t help but wonder, if I were to scratch the surface a bit more would I find that the emotional state it unleashes could actually be useful?  It might need a couple of days off work though, so that instead of normal activities I could explore doing whatever it is that would be best done on those days.

On Wikipedia it gives a biological explanation, saying that the woman at this time finds her man so annoying that she breaks up with him, thereby freeing her to find someone who will get her pregnant.  It also quotes a man in 1873 saying that women should stay at home due to their uncontrollable behaviours when they have PMS.  A different man said that women were at the height of their powers at this time and so should be freed from mundane concerns and distractions.  A woman researcher said that women need time alone when they have PMS but rarely get it.  And it said that some countries give women menstrual leave.  (I always admired a woman at my last job who was so open with her (male) boss about asking for a day off during her period, saying, ‘I could come to work but I’d have to sit on a black plastic bin bag and I think the patients might think it was weird.’  ‘Enough information,’ he said, but gave her the day off).

I think I could take something from all the Wikipedia theories and opinions.  So, PMS shines a light on everything that irritates, from the trivial to the important.  It shows us what is not in harmony with our temperament and needs, what is bad for our soul.  Of course some things will be minor that on reflection we decide to live with.  Sometimes it might show us what we need to change: I suddenly fell out of love with work, suddenly couldn’t stand the late hours and the drive and the lack of support.  I calmly decided to look for another job.  And sometimes, all we need is some time alone, if only to eat a family size bar of Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut and watch romantic comedies, and contemplate how wonderful we are.

*Hole
**Manic Street Preachers
***I know, but I probably won’t do it again for another ten years
****But I still prayed five times every day.  I still felt creative, connected and insightful.  I still got stuff done (my proudest achievement- I took off, washed, dried and put back on, the sofa and sofa cushion covers, a feat akin to climbing Mount Kilimanjaro).

Throwback Thursday

Tags

creativity, Decluttering, religion, spirituality

Decluttering:  I still stand by its therapeutic powers.  Losing my sports massage virginity (therapy without words).  Maybe overdoing the spiritual searching (still have a tendency to do that sometimes). Definitely catastrophising (nothing’s changed there either).

‘I long for the days when everything I owned fitted into the boot of a Fiat Uno’*  (First published in July 2014)

It is no way news that de cluttering is therapeutic.  Last week I did my clothes and shoes, even quite happily throwing away the (too high) gold sandals I got married in only last year.  Today I tackled the really hard stuff: the art and craft stuff under the stairs.  The wire mesh I made handmade paper with fifteen years ago and that I kind of always thought I might do again with my step daughter but haven’t.  The little cardboard pot of sequins I used to make cards with.  Coloured pencils I have had for years, little paintbrushes.

This stuff is hard because on the one hand it seems to reproach me for having abandoned that side of things- I no longer make cards or sew- but it also forces me to realise that I am not the same person I was.  That can be viewed sadly or perhaps it can be viewed happily: Wow, what an amazing creative person I used to be, even when I had no money and a little child and was a single parent and was probably a bit depressed, how cool was I?  I remind myself that that cool young woman helped lay the foundations for me to grow into the calm**, centred, super happy person that I am today.

This week I had an experience that I couldn’t describe in words (a challenge for a writer): a sports massage.  As she twanged the big tendons of my neck my mind skated over how to describe the feeling this induced: it was not at all a sexual feeling but it shook though my body like an orgasm.  It was a feeling like a loss of control and yet not.  The feeling of stress leaving the body, or leaving via the body, was like a spiritual experience (except that it was physical not spiritual).  As she went over and over an area of my back, working out a knot, I experienced it like a rollercoaster, up, up and over and each time me trying to relax and let it wash over me and not fight against it.  The feeling of rebirth afterwards, a mild euphoria, and the next morning, skipping, singing, even my voice sounded better.

In the pool this week there was some kind of gala going on in one half and there was a PA system, plugged into the mains, on a stand inches away from the pool.  I thought of people being electrocuted when their hairdryer falls into the bath.  I wondered if such a big amount of water would dilute it or would we all die.  Would it hurt?  Okay, I thought, everyone’s okay.  There would probably be compensation.  I wrote my book.  And my blog.  I found God.  I was happy.  I wouldn’t have to worry about or deal with old age or illness.  I accepted it.  They unplugged it.  Oh well, not my time.

I read a blog about blogging, in which the advice given was, that you need to do it for a year before you know if it’s worth doing.  That advice could also apply to spiritual practice.  Although I already know it’s worth doing, it’s more about a test of my commitment, much like how healing training takes two years.

After a weekend of complete R&R I realised I wasn’t going mad or embarking on a dangerous course, risking losing connection with my husband; I was just tired that’s all.  A week of staying up too late, working late and getting up early to go to a conference, that was all.  I do like to catastrophise (have I said that before?)  In bed one night, my husband enfolded me into his arms and I felt our breathing merge, felt myself merging into him at each contact point.  This long, no sex cuddle was like being in a cocoon or having steel bands of love wrapped around me, and the next morning I realised, not only can I love God through loving my husband but God can love me through the love my husband gives to me.

*our good friend DW
**on a good day, anyway

Turtles all the way down

Tags

anxiety, John Green, OCD, The Fault in our Stars, Turtles all the way down

After last week’s post being more on the crazy side I had intended to balance that out with a more everyday post this week.  I had planned to write a bit about everyday life here such as our utterly first world problems of how to keep all the restaurants happy (every day we have to walk past loads of restaurants who all want us to come and eat there so we operate a kind of rotation system…)  Or what we talk about over dinner, mainly looking up random stuff on Wikipedia as it comes up and we realise we don’t know much about it: Kashmir, the New Zealand Government, the Indian almond tree, bats and do they ever sleep at night, the life cycle of the malaria parasite (complete with diagrams) and my favourite- the Indian house crow.

But as usual as soon as I decided that, I changed my mind and went with something else and so this week’s post is mainly a book review of Turtles all the way down by John Green.  This is another Young Adult book by the author of The Fault in our Stars which was made into a film.  I took a morning off work once to watch the film at home in my pyjamas accompanied only by a box of tissues.  If you want a good cathartic cry I thoroughly recommend it.  But I read the book first and cried a lot to that as well;
                   

                    I’m a grenade
                   

                    I lit up like a Christmas tree

are the lines that got me the most and which those of you who have sobbed along to the book or film might remember.

Turtles all the way down is about OCD.  Afterwards I looked up John Green and mental health on the internet and found that he has OCD.  After the huge success of The Fault in our Stars he felt the pressure of the follow up.  He started and abandoned several novels (although he did ‘cannibalize some of them for parts,’ which I liked).  Interestingly he said that having written a book doesn’t necessarily help you to write future books; each one is completely different.

During this period of trying to write he thought maybe coming off his meds might help release his creativity.  It didn’t and in 2015 he got the most unwell he’d ever been.  That is a point he makes, that his mental illness does not help his creativity, it hinders it.  At his most unwell, his intrusive thoughts were so bad he couldn’t read a menu in a restaurant or construct a sentence.

So he wrote Turtles… about having really bad OCD and anxiety and also getting stuff done around it.  The protagonist goes to school, does homework, see friends etc except for when she doesn’t.  John Green had times in his life when he was unable to eat or read and just lay on the floor and drank Sprite.  When he has to do press he takes a friend with him who answers the questions if he can’t.  They relate a story of being in Brazil doing an interview when John Green lost consciousness or awareness for a few seconds, came to and said, I’m sorry I’m having a panic attack, and his friend took over for him.

Turtles all the way down spoiler alert

The book doesn’t really have a happy ending as such.  It flashes forward to a future where although the protagonist has grown up, been to college, got a job and had children, she has remained ‘mentally ill’ and has at times been unable to care for her children and been hospitalised, but then come out again.  This could be looked at as sad and as a reflection on the fact that John Green still has OCD and anxiety, it hasn’t ‘been cured’.

The fact that someone can live a successful life and at the same time be living with a mental health problem could be seen as sad (sad that they are still suffering or have times when they are suffering) and at the same time it is also encouraging (that a person can live a successful life despite having a mental health problem).  As the book says, in life there aren’t any happy endings, it just carries on, some things get better and other things get worse.

Spoiler over

My favourite bit in the book (and the bit that encourages me the most because it finds a third way of thinking that isn’t black or white or either or and is more about acceptance than about pushing away) is where they talk about how cities used to always be built around a good strong river for transportation and industry.  But in the book the protagonist’s best friend describes a city that was built around a river that wasn’t good or strong.  But the city became a great city anyway.

‘You’re not the river,’ the friend says, ‘You’re the city.’

Travel update

We both got restless at the same time.  My husband has booked trains (this involves trips to the train station with passports and the filling out of faded tiny print forms) and accommodation for a night away on Monday in a surprise (for me) destination!

Writing update

Having this section on the blog really helps me!  This week I completed a draft of Goa Part Two (Anjuna, Arambol, Panaji) and my husband read it and gave me suggestions over dinner, which I noted down using paper and pen borrowed from the waiter.  I started Kerala!  Which is where we are now so feels ‘near’ and ‘easy,’ even though as we’ve been here since the end of April I have tons of material in notebooks and blogs to go through.  Still, onwards and upwards…

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

 

The rains

Tags

Blogging, India, Travel, writing

‘Even a plant that has died can come back to life during the rains.’ (Umesh, restaurant owner)

What’s on top

The monsoon is imminent.  One evening we actually felt cold and rued abandoning our fleeces, jumpers and warm socks in Delhi.  It has an effect on wildlife.  In the guesthouse we saw a biggish snake about to eat a very big frog, before being chased out.  There was another smaller snake in the guesthouse a couple of days ago, as it was being chased out it ran under another guest’s door and he had to be woken up to alert him.

I got a rickshaw into town one day, we later met the man and found he has a restaurant, a small local place at the other end of our road, near tiny shops and stalls where we bought bananas.  We promised to go and get breakfast there next week.  Exploring, trying out this new area was quite exciting and made us feel strangely enlivened, even though it isn’t at all far away.  My husband said that maybe it’s because we aren’t doing much, that a little bit of change has an effect.  A few days earlier, we had felt restless, and even went to look at some other guesthouses, before realising that where we are is still the best (for now anyway).

We’ve been in Kerala for a month but it was only a couple of days ago that I had a beer, for the first time since Goa and realised that alcohol is restricted in this state.  It is legal in bars and Government liquor stores but not in all restaurants.  My beer was served in a large mug and the can put discreetly under the table because of the police.  Sometimes groups of men come to the guesthouse and rent a room just for the evening to socialise and drink.

Rahul, who works at the guesthouse nine months out of twelve has gone back to his family in Assam, over 3,500 miles and a three day train journey away.  We used to chat to him every day, swapping language tips and photos of home and he and my husband played carrom together.  R, a guest from Switzerland who we had some interesting talks with has also left.  We and a permanent resident who works at the temple are the only guests now.

After two months of eating out for every meal, we’ve been enjoying making porridge in the guesthouse kitchen.  Oats and bananas are easily available with dried fruit and soya milk sold in some places. Cooking, even something so simple as porridge, has been very nice, and the porridge has tasted especially good, maybe because it’s a taste of home.

My favourite food to eat out at the moment is Gobi Manchurian,  cauliflower but not as you know it.  Battered and either ‘dry’ (deep fried with caramelised onions) or ‘with gravy’ (softer in a delicious rich sauce).  I wince at the thought of school dinner cauliflower and what the chefs here would think of that!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of yoga and experiencing little moments of ease and awareness; of being able to be kind to myself and flexible re my routine as well as get things done (something I really struggle with).  Also a sense of arriving in my own body, being happy with what I see and not comparing myself to others (another thing I struggle with).

Rain has meant a lovely Sunday afternoon type feeling, watching a film in the daytime as rain poured down outside.  When the film finished it had stopped raining, it was still light outside and we went out to eat.  As well as the sound of rain there’s the sound of hard green fruits hitting the tin roof at regular intervals and the almost incessant barking and/or howling of dogs.

What I’ve been watching

Partition (film)
Her (film)
Battlestar Galactica
Thirteen reasons why (Season one, I’m a late convert)

What I’ve been reading

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (about Partition)

(So basically Partition and the nature of consciousness, with a bit of High School misery thrown in.)

Writing update

I’ve worked really hard this week and completed a draft of Chapter One (actually more like chapters 1, 2, and 3).  This covers the period of how we got here:  Nothing to lose but our dignity (the idea); No half measures (the decluttering and giving up everything); The Matrix fights back (obstacles and temptations).  There’s still polishing and editing and probably some moving about to be done, but I am leaving it alone for now.

Yesterday I started work on Goa, which is where we went after Delhi.  It was really interesting reading my notes and blogs from that time.  I think I feel a lot stronger and more confident than I did then.

Today I just worked on this blog post.  Last week and this week I have ring fenced Friday only as the blog day and the rest of  the week for the book.  The good thing about this is that it separates the two nicely, especially as at the moment the book work is about previous months not where we are now.

It also ensures the book work gets done; writing the book is hard work and the blog is more fun.  It’s also written in the present tense and so seems more lively than the book.  Plus it allows me to change my opinions week by week.  I intend to complete the book, but I think in an ideal world I’d be a blogger rather than a book writer.  But maybe that’s just what I think this week.

The disadvantage of not starting the blog post until Friday is if like today I get distracted by talking and don’t start the blog until later then it’s a bit more pressure but hey, it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.

Thank you for reading

See you next week

Happy Birthday

Tags

Blogging, creativity, Getting started, India, Travel, writing

Today is my birthday, I am forty-eight years old.  Here is an ‘old person’s selfie;’ no proper attention paid to angle or pose, no filters, no editing, no makeup and no shame (or at least, not enough to stop me).

I like to have some quiet reflective time on my birthday.  This morning I got up early, did some yoga and then went for a long walk on the beach and thought about writing.  Or I thought about life and picked out the bits I wanted to write about.

What’s on top

I went for a long walk on the beach yesterday morning as well, and I have done some yoga every morning for the past few days.  Yesterday (and so far today) I have had no alcohol and no cigarettes.  I had fallen into bad holidaymaker habits this past week, which I cannot do for the whole year.

I knew my last post was exactly a week ago and I had already decided to do one today.  Then I thought that maybe I should do what I have so far resisted, due either to free spiritedness or pig headedness (as with many of my habits and decisions, it could be either), and sign up to the ‘consistency is key’ advice and post on a regular day every week.

I honestly did not know what day of the week it was today, not in the I don’t know what day it is, think for a second, then you do, type of way.  I mean I really didn’t know what day it was.  I had to remember the last time I knew what day it was, what day we left Hampi, what day my step-son arrived here in Arambol, and work it out from there.  I cannot remember the last time I had so completely lost track of what day it was.  It is Friday today so I shall, for the time being at least, post every Friday.  I may work on it earlier in the week and just finish it off on a Friday or I may write the whole thing on the day, depending on travel, time and internet access.

This will help me manage the demands of writing a book and writing a blog.  Having a once a week schedule is manageable and means I don’t have to fret about when was the last one, should I be doing another one, etc etc.  I remember reading somewhere that the more you can turn over to habit, rather than your own fluctuating motivations, interests and energies, the easier it is to get things done.

I feel like the blog will turn into more of an actual blog, rather than having to carry the full weight of any and all writing I do.  This has meant that not everything has been included as blogs are by nature a bit snappier, like short short stories.  Writing the book means that I can write about things that would otherwise be forgotten, and means that the blog can become slightly more chatty and personal.

If ever I think that maybe young people and their selfies are a bit narcissistic, I can just remember that writing about oneself and putting it on the internet potentially puts me in a glass house.  The blog is where I ask myself how I am and check in with myself.

It will also include a travel update and a writing update.  I will put the writing update at the end so it’s easy to skip.  It will be mainly of interest to other writers who are working on something and to people who are cheerleading me through the process of writing the book (thank you very much for your encouragement, it really does help!).

This will help me have a routine; I’d like to exercise in the morning, write in the afternoons and relax in the evening.  I do find no routine, drinking and smoking anytime, sort of fun but it’s easy to cop-out of getting anything done.  And how lucky am I, or rather, what a gift I have given to myself, to have a whole year where I can create a routine like that?  Or, to be on the more negative side, I chucked away my career and my three bedroom house so all that better have been worth it.  (Don’t worry, it totally is!)

Of course, alcohol, smoking, and general lack of confidence and self discipline can follow you almost everywhere.  I have not come here to run away from myself but I am fully aware that whatever it was about me that got in the way of me taking my writing seriously in England, can still get in the way here.

I can just about say this first month with my step-son out with us, is a holiday but not after that.  That said, I am sure there will be phases of falling off the wagon but I prefer to be clean living and with a routine and then fall off bigger occasionally, rather than a little every day.

Travel update:

We have been in Arambol for a week.  Beautiful beach like Agonda but a bit busier, with stalls and shops and alleyways to explore, and much nicer than Anjuna.  Tomorrow we go to Panaji the capital of Goa, for two nights before my step-son flies back to England and we leave Goa to go to Kerala for the monsoon.

Writing update:

It is going well.  I am working on Chapter Two, which is broadly our first month in India.  As usual I get anxious if I don’t write and yet still don’t write for several days at a time sometimes, but yesterday I spent quite a while on it and felt really good.

As long as I don’t get scared or overwhelmed by the length.  I think it’s helped that I have separated it into chapters, in different documents.  Chapter One, how we got here and some background.  My last book, whilst small, was all in one document and became an amorphous mass that would completely overwhelm me.  I remind myself, I wrote a dissertation, I wrote a few small books, I can do this.  Even if I hadn’t, I could just say it’s like lots of blogs strung together.  I have actually put all the India blogs into the chapter and am working around and into them, adding detail, expanding, linking.

A string of blogs is a good starting point but the writing style is different.  I realise that I can slow down, drill down into things, take my time, allow themes to develop.  I have begun by putting all my blogs and notes into chronological order whilst being flexible about some things being ordered by subject instead.  Things link to each other, for example:

Yesterday I thought there should be a food bit, about the different food we ate at different places (hopefully more interesting than it sounds).  Today on my walk I thought, I could do an animal section and then I came to ‘Dog Temple,’ there a sign with a dog’s face in a star, saying, ‘We welcome you,’ (It was an animal shelter).

Things call back to each other.  The people we met in Anjuna told me afterwards that they said to each other, ‘Shall we ask them if they want something to smoke,’ and the other said, ‘No they are too old,’ which made me laugh a lot.  Today, as I walked on the beach, a man stopped me and chatted to me, then at the end of the conversation asked me if I wanted to buy anything to smoke.  I politely declined saying I am being healthy right now but I was quite pleased anyway!  Especially as it was my birthday!

Thank you so much for reading, see you next week!

 

Recognising myself

Tags

Art, creativity, family, India, Travel, writing

Like coming off a motorway and finding yourself suddenly in a 30mph zone, leaving the demands, mental stimulation, pressures and deadlines of my job was bound to be an adjustment.  But it’s also forced me to face up to myself, unshielded from the work role, my thoughts and feelings no longer subsumed beneath the something else that is career.

Also, I like to get things done, or rather, I like things to be done so I write lists and worry about doing things, even if I don’t always get around to getting that much done.  I feel an urge to have things done as soon as possible, even if I don’t usually have the wherewithal or motivation to actually do them.  Plus, in the heat, you are lucky if you get one thing done a day.

So here I am, in paradise, worrying about getting things done.  The most important thing is the writing, so I’ll talk about that.  Obviously I have this blog, and that kind of takes care of itself.  I write when I have something to say, and post when it is finished.  In between I try, and mostly succeed, to not worry about it too much.  On top of that, I am writing a book with my husband about how we got here (decluttering, shedding attachments, mental leaps and matrix obstacles) and about what happens and what we learn about ourselves during our year in South East Asia.  So far so good, right?

We get up early, have a walk on the beach before it gets too hot, then retreat to the veranda/indoors until the evening, with the exception of possibly going out for lunch (which I managed yesterday, my first eaten-in-India masala dosa!) or to get snacks.  So plenty of time for writing, except that the heat slows everything down, plus I have only just got better from being ill.  But the biggest obstacle to it all, as usual, is my own mind.

I’ve been putting myself under pressure, thinking I have to write this book, try and get it published, finish chapter one as soon as I can so we can get onto chapter two about being in India before we’ve been here too long and forgotten things…  Thinking I have to make it a success, to fulfill the destiny of this adventure, to justify it, and to secure us financially.  So no pressure there then.  No wonder writing chapter one began to feel like a chore.  This demonstrates what a brain can do:  cause anxiety about nothing, when one is ensconced in paradise with nothing at all to worry about.

So after a grounding chat with my husband over breakfast this morning, this is where I am at now:  We have a boat to come back to in the UK, overheads are low so we both only need to work maybe three days a week each, I can sign up to agencies and just do whatever, a variety, so as not to get sucked back into the workplace matrix/politics.  That plan is fine.  As for this year, this is budgeted for, so I do not need to earn any money or worry about earning any money this year.  I can just…  wait for it…  relax and enjoy myself.  And write.  Write for fun, write when I want to, write how and what I want.  Write the book, write the blog.  Write without expectation or pressure.  Write nothing at all some days.

But mostly I will write, of course.  As Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love, my long time personal bible) says, having a creative mind is like having a border collie for a pet.  If you don’t give it something to do, it will find itself something, and you may not like what it finds.  (This is probably why I have OCD, anxiety, etc etc etc.  There’s no easy answer though, because even when I do keep my mind occupied with writing, I am still capable of getting anxious about that.)

And of course I am still processing what it all means:  Selling the house, packing in my career, abandoning everything and just going off…  It’s not about going travelling, not really.  Or rather, the travelling is a tool.  It gets me away, breaks me away from my old life, from family, and when I return I will be living in a new area quite far away, far enough that no family will ever come and visit probably.

It’s not as if my family was bad.   It’s not as if my life was bad.  In fact it was good by any standard, and way, way better than I would have envisioned as a suicidal teenager or a freakish, teased child.  But, and here’s the but:  It wasn’t really me, or it wasn’t me any more, and the only way I could be me was to get right away from my family; to do something so big and so different that I would become unrecognisable, to them and even to myself.

 

My husband took two Tuk Tuk rides to find a pharmacy for me, and came back with strong antibiotics, gut flora and my thyroid meds, all over the counter, for around £5 altogether.  I started feeling better from the first tablet.  Antibiotics are good and strong here, I think.  My doctor in the UK could only give me three months’ worth of thyroid medication, so I have to buy it while I am out here.  I have a laminated copy of my prescription to keep with my UK issued meds (which are labelled with my name), to show when entering countries, especially Thailand.  I will keep my UK prescription meds for customs and buy and use local meds when I am inside a country for any length of time.

After drinking ginger, lemon and honey tea, and toast and honey whilst I was ill, now I am better, I am on ginger and hot water, mint tea, normal black tea, no honey or sugar in tea, no honey on toast, back to being a proper vegan and to taking care of my teeth.

My capabilities are returning:  I have gone from unable to even think about moving and the journey to Hampi, to talking about Vietnam, Japan, the whole trip.  I am inconsistent, emotional.  Yesterday evening we went out to dinner at a local, simpler place and had a good talk and reconnected.  Talking about capabilities, fears, managing my boom and bust cycle.

So it’s good, we are staying here until Saturday night, almost another week (so two weeks in Goa altogether- twelve nights in Agonda, eleven at this particular high up hut), so I can fully recuperate, get my strength back, and write chapter one (but in a joyful, no pressure kind of way, obviously!).

What I have been reading:

Only one thing, Kim Gordon’s (from Sonic Youth) autobiography.  My favourite bits, paraphrased:  I wanted to be an artist since I was five.  If you track back/observe you can see what it is you are meant to be doing.  (Visual) artists bemoaning that they can’t produce a piece of art that has the impact of a Kinks song.  A lot of artists wish they could produce work that had as much impact as a good song.  I don’t have the answer to that.

What I have been watching:

Only one thing, “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise” on Netflix

 

Thank you very much for reading

Lots of love

Rachel

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit

 

Agonda beach

Tags

Agonda, Goa, India, Travel

We book one night ahead on booking.com then choose somewhere to move onto in person.  We got a taxi to Agonda from Colva (about an hour), we could have got a bus but I needed the  journey to be as fast and as comfortable as possible.  It was a wonderful journey, through small towns and villages, past tree covered mountains (possibly hills, but coming from super flat Norfolk, England, they look like mountains to me) and lots and lots of cows some with big curly horns (I love cows).  All the windows were down and the car was filled with a lovely breeze.

And then we were in Agonda.  Agonda and Colva are as different as Southwold and Great Yarmouth (for UK readers only sorry).  We arrived too early to check in (we had got up early to travel before it got really hot) so we went and sat in one of the many beach front bar/restaurants and had breakfast (toast and ginger tea).

Whearas in Colva and in Delhi I had been marooned in a hot hotel room during the hottest part of the day (which is most of the day, to be honest), here I realised I could be ‘outside’ (under shade) and with the breeze blowing in off the sea it was entirely bearable.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Earlier that day in the hot hotel room in Colva I had envisioned months of being shut in a room all day.  Good for writing productivity, but there are limits.  I had been very apprehensive of going to India, or anywhere in South East Asia, at this time.  Most people go to India between November and February, when it is not so hot.  But if we’re going to be out for a year, we are going to be in the hottest time at some point.  And we had to go when we could go, i.e. when the house sold, and with all the obstacles that the matrix seemed to put up I wasn’t inclined to wait a moment longer to leave.

Agonda is touristy, but in a palm trees, beautiful sandy beach, luxury holiday look kind of way.  The beach is long and framed at each end by green lush tree covered mountains (?hills).  Our beach hut had a veranda that was shaded and cool enough to sit out on even in the middle of the day.  The owner said, don’t worry that it’s hot inside in the day, at night it will be okay.  And it was.  It was the first time I had slept under a mosquito net.  We would have happily stayed there but it was fully booked, so my husband went off and found us an (even better!) place.  Up high, reached from some steps, more space in the room, and a big cool veranda shaded with palm trees.  And right on the beach.  We are staying here for two weeks.

I was so relieved to unpack (I am such a homebody, but can make myself at home easily too), and do things like cut my nails and wax my face and floss my teeth properly.  (I still haven’t shaved my legs yet though, if I put it off much longer I’ll need a lawnmower.)

The beach huts are amazing.  I had imagined beach huts like we get in English seaside towns, but these are more like wooden chalets, with proper washrooms and everything, and the incredible thing is that they aren’t allowed to stay here permanently so they get dismantled at the end of April.  I wondered how they go about that, do they label all the bits, or do they just know?  I struggle to remember how to put my tent up once a year.

I once wrote an utterly heartfelt review on Amazon for Eat Pray Love, my bible for many years.  I had read that book seven times, written notes in it, folded over almost every page…  I knew I was genuine, so when someone commented, ‘This review is as pretentious as the book itself,’ it only made me laugh rather than hurt my feelings.

The first day here I did a bit of yoga out on the veranda (too hot indoors), using a rug from in the room, and then without even thinking about it just dropped into meditation, sitting half against the door jamb, resting after a set of one of those super strong hip opener poses (sleeping swan, half pigeon?), pulling the ends of the rug so as to buffer my ankle bones from the wooden floor.  I adjusted my position to be straight against the wall, but otherwise I was right there, for quite a while, despite the fact that I haven’t meditated for ages.

This wasn’t meditation aimed at or coming from a religious or spiritual angle, although it would probably be best described by the Buddhist meditation ‘Just sitting’, because I did nothing other than just check in with myself, deep inside.  And what I noticed was fear.  Fearful breathing, anyway, which I took to mean there’s fear there, or that fear is the thing going on for me, deep inside.  I had recently, possibly even only the day before, read a blog post by Alexander Bell about how if you calm your breathing so it isn’t fearful, then you won’t feel fear.  Try as I might though, my breathing remained shallow, tight, almost painful, and seemed to get worse the more I focussed on it.  So I remembered what the post had said about if you have a pounding heartbeat, just observe it, and observing it will naturally calm it.  I didn’t have a pounding heartbeat, but I used this approach for my breathing, and eventually, at last, I broke through to a place where I felt at peace, no fear.  As often used to happen to me in meditation, images came to mind; me opening a door, only to drop down an empty lift shaft and arrive, on a seat, in a room, and then again, somewhere different.

We’ve done a lot of moving about, and I’m a real homebody as I said.  I’ve hardly even been on holiday, and coupled with the pre leaving stress, it’s not surprising there’s fear in me.  And of course I’ve been sick, but then tummies are emotional too aren’t they?

(Just in case I sound pretentious here, writing about doing yoga and meditating on a beach hut veranda in Goa, please know that I did this on the train from Norwich to Nottingham (the meditation) and yoga in any hotel room I’ve been in with work in the UK using a towel or a jumper.)

We’ve had three nights here, and each day I have got up at 6.30 or 7am, had a paddle and a walk on the beach, a walk to the shops before it gets too hot, before retreating to the balcony/indoors for a siesta until the evening.  This is much better than sleeping late as you get to experience more time outside.  Also the beach in the morning is amazing, with incredible (must be teachers) people doing yoga, it is awesome what they can do with their bodies.

For my part, a short walk in the waves and/or a few stretches in the afternoon is all I can manage at present.  Today is day seven of traveller’s diarrhoea and today my husband took a Tuk Tuk to Palolem to go to the chemist and came back with gut flora and strong antibiotics for me.  He has looked after me all the way through and apart from the first night in Delhi when I went out to buy fruit and this morning when I went to the very nearby shops to buy water, juice and crisps (rehydration, sugars and salts) and fresh local bananas (potassium), I haven’t done anything on my own.  I also haven’t always been that nice, and I am realising how much I hurt my husband’s feelings when I get annoyed about stuff he has or hasn’t said or done, when all he is doing is looking after me.  But I don’t often know until later what it is I am unhappy about, and then I struggle to express it.  I tend to come across as annoyed when in fact I am feeling overwhelmed or vulnerable, I just don’t like to admit it.

A couple of times recently, if I’d stopped and thought about it, I could have said, that’s a great idea but I can’t manage that just yet.  Or, actually, can you come with me, I’d rather not be on my own.  In that way I am literally like a chicken, they are prey animals, therefore they don’t show their vulnerabilities.  I don’t like to feel, let alone admit to, feelings of pressure/ inability to deliver, shame, or fear of abandonment.  In other ways I am like a child, if I get sad my tummy hurts more, and I’ll seek comfort and attention by describing my physical ailments.   We are both much worse and much better than we realise, is a Buddhist quote I read about becoming more aware of ourselves.  India has a lot to teach me, which is good, because I have a lot to learn.

My husband has just started doing a vlog, if you want to check it out here is the link.

Thank you very much for reading!

Lots of love

Rachel xxxx

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit

 

 

‘A change of feeling is a change of destiny’

Tags

Cloth sanitary pads, India, Menstruation, Moon cup, Mooncup, Periods, The law of attraction, Yoga

This afternoon I did some yoga in the hallway of our room.  It was only a few stretches on a rug rather than a proper mat, but it felt good.  It felt good to stretch after the tension of travelling.  And of course I couldn’t help thinking whilst I was doing it, I’m doing yoga.  In India.  Even writing that makes me well up a little.

We slept in late and then headed to the same place we ate dinner last night to get breakfast.  We were surprised to see that almost everything was closed, the shops, the people selling from little stalls outside the shops, nowhere seemed open.  Happily our restaurant although  apparently closed was really open, and we had to duck under the almost closed shutters to get in.  Apparently there was a strike (just for the morning) over new government regulations about the distance the stalls need to be from the shops.

During the hottest part of the day we are lucky enough to be able to take siesta time (Vamkukshi in Sanskrit).  With the drapes drawn, the windows closed and the fan on, we can keep it cool enough.  If we got too hot, we could always take a shower; the water is tepid rather than ice cold, but I was almost chilly after my shower this morning.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, due I suppose to excitement, the emotion of the day and travelling across  timezones.  I dimmed my tablet and laid in bed reading One Black Tree’s latest post.    This was so well written as always and illustrated beautifully and perfectly with artwork that is just right.  I also want to say perfectly researched but that is not quite the word as it implies a scientific paper, but OBT has read, reflected, put into practice so many ideas and then explained them just right.  Her posts are always wonderful, but this particular post for me last night was so perfect.

I was too tired to absorb it all; I think it warrants a second and third reading anyway, but late last night as I turned over in my mind the enormity of what I have done and wondering am I capable of seeing it through (after my mini meltdown on arrival) reading this was the cure I needed.  I couldn’t summarise it and do it justice, but this last quote saw me into a peaceful state, good sleep, and then waking to something amazing:  A change of feeling is a change of destiny.

I was woken this morning by my husband saying, We got an email, we got an email, we got an email from The Daventry Express saying they want to do a story on us.  This is our local- to the boat- newspaper.  In the last days of being in the UK I sent a few emails out just in case people might find our story interesting, and today we got one back!  Is this because I changed my feeling?  It certainly felt like that this morning.

Oh, and I got my period, and not for the first time thought, Well, that explains a lot.  I didn’t actually bring any tampons and pads in the end (I had to be ruthless with space), just a few panty liners, so I need to get with the programme I have set myself for India of cloth sanitary pads, of which I bought a really nice pack complete with handy storage bag before I left, straight away.  And a mooncup, although I have been less successful with this when I tried it in the UK.  If anyone successfully uses one and wouldn’t mind advising me please do use the contact page to get in touch.

Thank you for reading

Lots of love

Rachel xxx

Matrix Revelations

Tags

ageing, Art, creativity, escape the matrix, middle age, sex

 

On Saturday morning I was the body for my husband giving a massage lesson (I know, it’s a hard life…)  As I listened to him patiently and professionally deliver a one hour comprehensive introduction lesson to a complete beginner, that was pitched just right, that created just the right atmosphere, and that in the time available, did everything it could; I reflected that wow, we know stuff.  We know stuff because we have been around for a while, learning stuff.  Because we are older.

I have spent such a lot of time thinking about what I don’t know and what I can’t do, that this weekend it was really nice to spend a bit of time thinking about what I do know and what I can do.   I used to think I wasn’t very well read because I compared myself with Oxbridge educated Guardian journalists.  But the other day I casually mentioned Rebecca (by Daphne Du Maurier, a book and films) in a big work meeting and no one had heard of it.  No one.  I was surprised; I didn’t think any less of the people, I just thought, okay, my reality is different to what I thought.

At work on Friday, someone was talking about starting yoga, and about how the teacher had talked to them about the chakras.  I found myself talking a bit about them, and sending a link to a page so she could learn more.  I don’t really do spiritual/chakra stuff anymore, but for a while I was pretty into it.  Focusing on the different chakra points, their colours, their corresponding mental, psychological and physical aspects, is a very powerful tool for self healing and development.  I used to think:  Root Chakra (red) safety, security; Sacral Chakra (orange) drives, creativity; Solar Plexus Chakra (yellow) emotions; Heart Chakra (green) love; Throat Chakra (blue) self expression, communication with myself and others; Third Eye Chakra (indigo) direction and seeing my path; Crown Chakra (violet white) connection with above.

So I thought, be proud of what you know, not sad re getting old.

Of course, there are loads of things I don’t know, loads of things I haven’t learned, loads of things I have refused to learn, e.g. DIY and reverse parking.   I feel totally okay about that.  The longer you live the more things you find out about or hear about, so the list of things you don’t know how to do keeps on growing, even as you keep learning, because you can’t learn how to do everything you come across.  You have to specialise.  (Rather than feel bad about the things you don’t know about.)  Knowing things, being good at things, takes time, energy and devotion.  (I want to learn a bit of Hindi.  So far I know about 5 words, and that’s only if I keep looking at them every day.)

I thought about what’s good about getting older, which is actually what’s good about me as I get older.  And as I am older, I could just simplify that to say:  What’s good about me.  (Making this list was nice.  I recommend it as an exercise in compassion and a little pick me up!):

What’s good about me

I have no inhibitions about my body

Yesterday I stripped off in front of someone I have only just met and lay on the massage table feeling fine with nothing on except my knickers.

I am sexually liberated 

I had kind of a thing recently with a woman, and we can see each other and it is all fine, no issues.

I can say what I want in bed.

(in both senses of the meaning)

Sex just keeps on getting better and better.

That’s what no one tells twenty somethings.  If you are in a loving communicating relationship, sex just keeps on getting better and better, in new and surprising ways!

I know:  your art is the most important thing

More important than alcohol, socialising, FOMO, peer pressure, or any other ephemeral distractions.  Your art is what makes you you.  By honouring your art, you honour yourself.  By spending time with your art, you spend time with yourself.  By getting to know your art you get to know yourself.

I understand:  ‘The matrix’ is really just your own thoughts limiting you  

Re bands and art, you have to want it, and you have to stick with it, for ever if need be, enjoying the process not just aiming for the rewards of fame etc.  If you are in a band you either all have to want it, or you have to be single minded enough to drive it yourself with interchangeable musicians.

It is a myth that it is too hard to make it.  Like Charlie Higson said about writing, there’s no magic trick or secret doorway, if you are good you will be picked up.  There’s so few people who can stick at anything, look at new year’s resolutions, diets, exercise regimes.  All you have to do is stick at it, and want it, want it enough to stick at it (1% inspiration, 99% perspiration), despite all the matrix pressure to ‘be realistic’, etc etc.

In fact the only thing people can stick at is what the matrix wants them to stick at, the everyday drudgery, the oh hi, another day another dollar, oh well, maybe I will win the lottery, soon be the weekend, I have a holiday to to look forward to, or oh look a charity jeans day or a Christmas jumper day, just enough to make it seem not too bad and everyone’s doing it so it must be okay right?

And every now and again they’ll scare you, a round of redundancies, or a crisis that causes stress so you take the whole thing even more seriously, you stay late, you give up the hobby class and exercise routine, or worse you never eat or sleep properly, you’re always at work, always unhealthy…  and for what, not for personal freedom that’s for sure.

So the lesson is:  Look at what the herd is doing and do the opposite.  Look at what the herd believes and believe the opposite.  As Jon Rappoport says, in this consensus reality we live in, the limits we see there aren’t real.  I can be a writer.  I am a writer.  Or rather, I am a ………  as yet to be labelled……..  and I document it on my blog.  But let’s get away from labels altogether.  If we aren’t labelling, if we aren’t preoccupied with what people do for a living (the herd again), then we don’t need to say anything.  I can just say, in answer to  what do you do, I am a human, I live.  (And I document it on my blog)

I have set up an Instagram account for when I am away followingthebrownrabbit

 

Thank you very much for reading.