Pondicherry

Tags

awareness, India, Pondicherry, Travel, writing

Pondicherry DRAFT chapter for book

I dislike long bus journeys, I much prefer trains for the long distances.  The experience of having to ask the bus driver from Goa to Hampi to stop for me to have a pee is not one I want to repeat, but there wasn’t a train to Pondicherry so we had no choice.  The journey was three to four hours so not huge.  I felt anxious, but when the bus arrived and we got on, I relaxed.  It was very comfortable; blue luxurious seats, magazine racks on the seat in front like on an airplane and free small bottles of water.  The seats were comfortable and I sat next to the window.  I do love travelling, just moving and looking out of the window.  The trees had the brightest red-orange blossom.  We actually did stop for a food and loo break; there was a stray dog in the car park and a little stall, I bought biscuits and fed the dog.

Our guesthouse was down a run down looking alleyway, and didn’t look as nice as the pictures on the internet.  It had almost art deco style small chrome and coloured glass screens at the balcony, which reminded me of the coloured glass at the first place in Chennai.  Just beyond our room was an invisible step in the marble that we had to be mindful of, and beyond that another little balcony that looked out onto the alleyway.

The ‘spiritual journey’ can be lonely sometimes.  I wrote in my notebook:  I feel far away… maybe that’s part of it, necessary, and that I’ll come back, naturally.  I could force it, like I forced the grounding last time; through fear or guilt, but no, wait it out.  Who would notice, anyway?

My husband is used to me being quiet or chatty, and doesn’t get unsettled if I am off by myself either emotionally or spiritually.
I thought about D, completely devoted to the pursuit of self realisation, seemingly sure of his path, with a guru and long periods spent in ashrams, and C, a Christian with faith in God.

Should I be doing more?  I wondered.  Should I be more focussed on ‘the quest’ or associated practices, do something more ‘formal’ rather than this strange and ever changing way of mine?  But at the same time, feeling spiritual and sensory overload.

Maybe it’s all part of the same thing for me.  I knew there was a reason I’m walking round wearing a huge Om, it’s to remind me, not for others, about the different levels of consciousness, or rather the different places that our consciousness resides in.

Maybe I experience ‘the absolute state’ via experiencing the world through the five senses?  I can’t do any more, but maybe I don’t need to do any more.

‘Every enlightenment has its own melody,’ as R from Switzerland said.

It doesn’t feel like anything, not bliss or joy, although that comes on the way, it’s a clear minded observance, awareness (Osho emphasised being in a state of awareness), above pleasure and pain (the Worldly Winds described in Buddhism).

The hot windowless room of the guesthouse in Pondicherry was not conducive to writing, or maybe it was my emotional/spiritual state.  Plus we didn’t feel that well.  We’d been eating at different places in Chennai and had also been quite casual about drinking the water off the table even at new places, saying no to the bottles often offered to foreigners and drinking the free water* everywhere like locals.  Maybe we’d been too cavalier.  One of the catchphrases of the Pondicherry trip was coming out of the toilet and saying, ‘Well that wasn’t normal!’

Or maybe I just needed a break.  I am not that good at taking breaks though.  I didn’t do much actual writing except making notes, but I did stay up late reading blogs.  WordPress was especially inspiring and I was almost overloaded with things to think about.

I read a blog about family influences, about the process of working out the influences that have come from our parents, and which to keep and which to strip away.  I read a blog about not having any friends, and had a dream where I realised, ‘No one likes me.’ ‘No one likes me, and that’s okay.’  Really feeling, accepting and at peace with this realisation.  (Which isn’t actually true) ‘The most terrifying thing of all is to accept oneself completely.’  (Jung).  The next day I woke up and discovered that it was friendship day.

Those first couple of days in Pondicherry I was reflective, almost over inspired.  Engaging with other bloggers in the comments sections helped me, as it often does, to clarify my own thoughts:

I still over pressurise myself now re writing vs experiencing and going to see stuff vs just being.  But my focus now is, what benefits me, what strengthens my centre, what do I really want above all else and nothing else is going to distract me?  (For me, finish the fxxxing book, and self realisation, which may be the same thing?)  Which means I am unfit and look a mess and haven’t learnt any other language (other than a few words), but all of that is a price so very, very worth paying.

… the spiritual journey thing can become a kind of trap; it makes you think you should get somewhere, that where you are isn’t okay or enough.  Realising that you are already there, and that there’s nothing to find, that it isn’t all high bliss and blazing lights, (although that can come on the way, it’s not the aim I don’t think, although people are so focussed on chasing happiness and pleasure) it’s a calm clear awareness, an observy kind of state.  The hard bit is carrying it through into daily life, when things irritate, or the body is sick etc. 

I agree with Osho saying, ‘Don’t seek don’t knock, just be still and it will come,’ and Krishnamurty who said it’s all about getting to know yourself, and Buddhism, which says there’s nothing to find re sense of self, re who you really are, and with Bojack Horseman’s Diane who says, ‘I don’t think there is any deep down, there’s just what you do.’  Here’s to another day of observing and trying to iron out the kinks, after a day of calm observing mixed with mindless eating of cakes!

Where am I at?  Just stop trying.  Remember that you are both already there…  All you have to do is realise it.  Don’t get distracted re new development activities.  E.g. working out which traits inherited from parents and which deliberately abandoned, which opposing ones adopted, which to keep, even though that would be a great exercise.  Or reflecting on friendships and the ‘well of loneliness’… (also like re the book, I don’t get distracted by submitting articles or trying to get freelance work, that can be done later.  I don’t even read at the moment, although I have many things I would read if I did, I have a reading list.  (Okay I have names of books and authors scribbled randomly within the pages of my notebook))

Just stop trying.

It doesn’t feel like anything (sometimes).  But sometimes it does:  An orange cat sitting on a wall in a warm dusty alleyway, or the light glittering on the raindrops on the shutters of my room.

It doesn’t feel the same as four years ago when I was meditating and reading and seeking.  It’s in daily life now as opposed to a separate spiritual practice.  Now it’s all integrated and more stable.  All that seeking was to get here, and now we’re here (for now).

What does it look like?  Peaceful, stable, with moments of illumination.  Interspersed with dark nights of the soul, keeping the faith, and all turning out okay.  Guilt, and permission to be happy.  That’s my desert-without-water.

It means living in the moment, fully, then letting go (Thank you to Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha for this).  Act silly, make a joke, snuggle up with my husband.  Eat something nice.

Use all experiences to reinforce my centre.  Do not allow others to destabilise it.

In quiet moments I sat on the invisible step and looked through the railings into the alleyway below.  I thought how I had travelled there, how I had the room, money, a plan for what I was doing next.  I thought about creating a little pocket of safety.  I thought about should it be more edgy, is it too easy?  I thought about how even people in more edgy environments would still have little pockets of stillness like this, a place to sit and at least eat safely, a place to sleep.  (I’m always comparing myself unfavourably to others; hard core backpackers, war correspondents.  I know, weird huh?)  I thought that if I have that, a safe place to sleep, and somewhere to sit and have a quiet moment, I am okay.

The other catchphrase of the Pondicherry spell was in restaurants after eating, ‘Well it wasn’t brilliant food was it?’  A lot of the food was fusion or Indian food with a European twist and we didn’t enjoy it that much.  We got excited about a shop almost next door to the guesthouse that sold dried fruit and nuts, soya milk and health food type items.  I drank almost a whole big carton of soya milk in one go.  One day I bought hummus, crisps and fancy lemonade for lunch.  Everything was expensive, and none of it tasted particularly nice.

Meeting the Yoga teacher in Chennai, who was so surprised that I did yoga; meeting the Italian man who asked us if we were right-wing (we’re not, if I have to say it); and the covering up, and wearing of ill-fitting or unflattering clothes that weren’t always my style in India, triggered yet another minor identity crisis.  I read somewhere that style was about saying who you are without words.  Really?  Maybe?  Yet at the same time, I can feel myself dissolving under these sartorial experiments.  Playing with sense of self, identity…  Being here, that is the work.

We saw Indian women tourists in Pondicherry in short dresses and shorts, albeit near the beach, but I decided to relax my self-imposed modest dress code a little while we were there.  My husband supports me whatever I do, but I know that he thinks I am overly covered up sometimes.

So I went for a walk by myself wearing my lungi dress- above the knee, with side slits- without loose black trousers underneath and without a scarf over my shoulders.  I had got so used to walking around with trousers and a scarf that I felt half-naked and vulnerable.  I walked down the road and to the park, feeling a little self-conscious.  I saw no one dressed in as little as me, then at the park, although there were people around and it was daytime and there was a policeman outside the gate, I still felt uncomfortable.  This could have just been me, I get anxious, you could say I have anxiety except I haven’t been diagnosed or labelled; anyway I get paranoid the drop of a hat.  I didn’t stay long, came home, put some trousers on and grabbed my scarf.

We went to the beach at Pondicherry which was completely different to Chennai beach.  It was very clean, no rubbish, bins everywhere, and a new looking wide pedestrianised boulevard.  There was a beautiful statue of Gandhi.  There were lots of Indian tourists, well off looking; we saw lots of expensive looking gold sarees.  We sat on a low wall between the boulevard and the beach.  We saw a little Indian owl like in Panaji.  I drank takeaway coffee that tasted bitter.  I foolishly said hi to some kids selling plastic tat and then they wouldn’t leave us alone until we got up to leave.

(My favourite shop window in Pondicherry, or possibly, ever!)

We went to a big weekly street market.  The length of a big main street was lined with stalls selling leather belts, parts for cars, all kinds of everyday household items and products and clothes including God dresses, gold gowns and dresses that looked like little girls’ princess dresses in adult sizes.  In the street I saw a woman wearing a floor length fairy tale gown of red and white net with red velvet applique flowers.

Plastic animal face masks were sold on stalls and in bunches like balloons by street sellers.  The smell of coffee, citrus fruit, and occasionally toilet smells.

It was the first time I had seen women’s underwear since leaving the UK.  First plain white then padded bras in bright colours with polka dots and slinky night dresses.

My husband bought pants (underpants), they had a pocket in them!  The man explained that that, plus the top pocket in the short-sleeved shirts that India men wear, was where Indian men kept their money and their phones, as they wear lungis that are essentially a piece of material and so has no pockets.  D told us that some Indian women sew a tiny pouch into the tucked in end of their saree and that is where they keep their money.  The man on the stall explained how money was safer in the pants pocket as it could fall out of the top shirt one when you bend over to pray.  Later my husband tried on his pants and put his mobile phone in the pocket.  It did indeed seem safe and ideal.  He even thought about keeping the passports there!

Pondicherry streets were a mixture.  Down one side pretty coloured buildings with intricate lattice iron work, on the other side grey and dusty concrete, people living in very basic pavement dwellings.  Metal grills like big drain covers propped to make ramps at kerbs and pavements, outside shops and restaurants, like in Chennai.  Chalk rangoli patterns decorated the pavements outside shops, like in Kanyakumari.

We didn’t go to the temple that the Italian man we’d met at Broadlands in Chennai had recommended.  We went to a different one, that Y had suggested.  We didn’t feel like going to more than one, involving as it did a trip in a taxi.

If we go everywhere people recommend we won’t have any space to just be spontaneous and discover things for ourselves.  We both really enjoy just discovering the local area, getting to know the shopkeepers a little, the guesthouse staff, and just being there in the immediate surroundings and the place that we are staying in.

We went to the temple at Chidambaram.  Chidambaram is where the God Lord Shiva is represented as Cosmos.  That, plus the fact that Y had recommended it, was why I chose it.  The temple that the Italian man had recommended, Tiruvanramalay, is dedicated to Shiva as Fire.  Kanchipuram, not far from Chennai, is for Shiva as Earth.

The driver stayed with us and took us around.  This was good in that it meant we didn’t accidentally walk in a wrong area or the wrong way, but bad in that he whisked us around so fast we could barely take anything in.  He’d been there maybe thirty times before, he said.  He didn’t have enough English to explain things so we didn’t know what we were looking at.

We were called over by two monks who gave us a blessing and asked us to write our names in the visitors book, then asked us for money.  We gave money, we would have done anyway, for our visit.  The monks blessed only us, and asked only us to write our names, even though our driver was the only one who was a Hindu, which I felt a bit uncomfortable with.

The temple was made of several buildings, each one incredible to look at, and beautifully coloured.  I could stand and look at one area for hours and still not take it in; sensory overload, again.

We came outside and sat in the shade on the stone floor of the grounds.  I went for a little walk across the courtyard by myself.  People and cows were asleep under the cool stone walkways.  I stood and soaked up the sight of blue sky above a row of gold minarets, and below, a beautiful white cow statue.  Those two sights alone filled me to the brim with beauty.

The evening before the temple trip an important political figure died in a Chennai hospital, he was a much loved ex Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.  In India each state has its own political parties and Chief Minister.  We had been out for a very late lunch/early tea, we’d eaten light as we’d intended to eat again later.  On our way back we saw that the street was almost dark and the metal shutters of shops and restaurants were half closed or closed.  We thought at first there was a power cut.  In Chennai the power had been scheduled to be off from nine am to five pm for maintenance.

We got back to the guesthouse, several men were gathered in the lobby.  The guesthouse staff explained what had happened and advised us to go out and buy bread, as there would be nothing open that evening or the next day.  We went back out and joined many others in a shopping rush.  The restaurants were already closed, but from street stalls and shops we bought nuts, biscuits, crisps, bananas and water.  Within an hour everything had closed.

Literally overnight there appeared framed photographs on tables, with flower garlands and coconut shells, like little shrines.  Huge billboard posters of the Minister’s face and shoulders, some with huge real flower garlands hung around his neck.  A level of adoration UK politicians could only dream of.

In the morning we checked out of the guesthouse as planned, intending to go to the temple and then get our bus back to Chennai.  We got a message confirming that the temple trip was still going ahead, but in the car on the way to the temple we got a message saying that the bus to Chennai had been cancelled as part of the closures.  We asked the driver if he’d take us to Chennai, he said it was too dangerous, that later would be better.  His manager said he could arrange for us to be taken back by another driver later on, but we’d still have a few hours to kill in Pondicherry.

When we got back to Pondicherry we met some Westerners that were trying to get back to Chennai, they decided to get a rickshaw to a halfway point and stay there the night, they said that people had thrown stones at taxis in Chennai (for being disrespectful by working).  We didn’t want to stay in Pondicherry,  which we hadn’t liked much for a fifth night and were eager to get back to Chennai, which we loved.  Everything was closed, there was nowhere even to go to the loo.  We asked the guesthouse if we could rent a room for just a couple of hours but they said they would charge a whole day.  We weren’t prepared to do that, the room wasn’t very nice and it had been at the top end of our budget anyway.

We sat on a big concrete step at the side of the road around the corner from the guesthouse, with our bags of snacks and our backpacks and wondered what to do.  Just then a taxi pulled up on the opposite side of the road.  We asked the driver if he’d take us to Chennai.  We told him what we had heard and asked him if it were safe.  He asked us which area we were going to, he called a guesthouse in that area and then said yes, it was okay to go.

*usually comes from big bottles like gym water bottles, or is carefully boiled tap water.  But if it isn’t a regular place you visit you don’t always know if it is okay for you.

Next up, Chennai Part Four, then Thailand.

Travel update

Koh Phangan, Thailand.  We moved from Haad Rin, party bit, North to Thong Sala which is more of a proper town and our place is right on the beach and very quiet.  Tomorrow we move further North to the yoga and vegan area.  About a week later I will travel to Bangkok and then to Tokyo.  My husband is going to Cambodia, and we are meeting again in Kolkatta, India on 1st October.

In a bar the other night I caught the end of an advert for India.  ‘Find the incredible you…  Incredible India.’  Amen.  See you soon, India.

Writing update

This week I worked on this piece, everyday except Saturday, day off, and Tuesday, when we went to Koh Samui to extend our visas.  I have more to add in from notes and notebook that I didn’t have time to put in this week, that can be added in later for the book.  These drafts on the blog are a great way of me testing things out and your feedback is much appreciated!!  It shows me what is working well and what needs fuller explanation or description.  Dear Indian readers please forgive me if I make mistakes, and feel free to correct me.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

 

 

Chennai, part two

Tags

Broadlands, Cats, Enlightenment, Hindu stories, Hindu temples, India

I fell in love with you and I cried:  Chennai, part two

(Draft chapter cont’d, with extra bits for the blog)

When we arrived in Chennai, I said out loud to my husband, ‘I’ll finish ‘Kochi,’ then I’ll just do a bit for Chennai; there probably won’t be much to write about, it’s a city and I’ve probably used up all my noticing everything energy on Kochi.’  ‘Ha ha ha,’ said the forces of the universe.

We stayed one night in the first guesthouse then moved to Broadlands which had been recommended by Y who lives in Chennai (who we met at Osho’s guesthouse when we first arrived in Varkala).  The guesthouse, set on a dusty side street off the main Triplicane High Road, didn’t look like much from the outside except for its quirky welcome sign (see Instagram travelswithanthony for Broadlands pics).

Stepping inside though, was like stepping inside an old French chateau; the guesthouse has around thirty to forty rooms, built around a central courtyard with a square balcony, with stone floors and dusty hallways, and winding stone staircases leading to tucked away rooms and a roof terrace.  The rough- surfaced old walls were painted faded old white, the paintwork of the banisters of the balcony and the many doors leading off it old baby blue gloss, (the same colour as my Goa birthday ring).

In the courtyard below there were plants in big old white painted stone plant pots and a big green tree, full of crows, its branches growing up above the banisters.  On the dusty stone walkway of the balcony there was an orange cat; one of the guests was taking care of her.  ‘She’s sick, and pregnant, she needs to drink, she’s dehydrated,’ the guest said.

Our room was big and spacious with white washed walls, blue doors and concrete floor.  The high ceiling had wood beams painted baby pink, and lots of cobwebs.  There were three big windows in the room and one in the bathroom, all fitted with mosquito mesh and blue shutters.

From the windows in the room we could see the big white mosque next door, the flock of pigeons on the waste ground between us and the mosque, the neat paved grounds and car park of the mosque, houses and flats in blue, green and peach, and a red flowered green tree.

From the window in the bathroom, white buildings with a glimpse of bright yellow house in-between.  The balconies at the corner of one of the white buildings made gaps like two windows; through the top one I could see the yellow building, through the bottom a green one.  I looked again another day, the green had changed colour.  I was momentarily confused, that scene had been so strong, had I misremembered?  No, there was a sheet or a towel on the balcony!

I saw Indian squirrels for the first time since Panaji, before that I’d only seen them in Hampi, running about on the abandoned sheds of the waste ground outside our window.

At night with the light off, when we opened the double blue doors to the bathroom and put the bathroom light on, the bathroom glowed blue like a portal.

In the morning we were woken at 04:45 by the call to prayer.  We were so close to the mosque that it felt almost painful on my ears.  I went back to sleep, and despite the early morning wake up we have both loved it each time we’ve stayed near a mosque; there’s something timeless and quite magical about hearing the call to prayer.

The next day I sat on the blue painted wooden threshold between the space outside our room and the balcony walkway.  I was writing or should have been writing and having a few moments to myself.  Instead of writing I was trying to find a title for my book, the kind of thing writers can waste hours on.  Going over and over, searching, trying to come up with something, even though I knew that wasn’t how it was going to happen, that a title needs to just come.

At least I’ve set my intention, put it out there that I want to find one, I thought.  I wondered if there was an Indian word, like Namaste (‘Namaste India’), but something less well known, that I could use…  I could ask Y, I thought.  (Y was coming round in the evening to take us to a temple.)

In the courtyard below were three women, part of the house keeping staff of the hotel, standing together in a group.  They were wearing everyday cotton sarees; everyday for them but beautiful to me, like so many things in India.  One red with purple swirls of colour; one an orangey pink with black print; one pale blue almost matching the gloss work with a printed pattern of creamy yellow buttermilk and orange pink leggings which matched the orange-pink saree of the other woman.

The woman with the red-purple saree was wearing a big gold nose stud which flashed like a light.  She was standing with the sun on it in just the right place.  I was sitting in just the right place to see it, and looking at just the right moment.

The three women standing in a circle, or a triangle, in the courtyard and the nose stud shining in the sun was like a scene from a film; easily as beautiful as if they had been dressed in Indian wedding finery and as special to me as the orange cat from the night before.

I forgot to ask Y, but he gave me a title anyway.

I got ready for going to the temple and had a little time to spare, (interstitial time*).  My husband was downstairs using the WiFi and talking to C from Detroit who was staying across the walkway from us.  Y was on his way.

It was raining, we had been surprised by the rain in Chennai, apparently it doesn’t always rain at this time.  The mosque and its lights were white in the dark and the mosque’s pool of water glittered.  I moved the cane chairs with their cushions and our clothes hanging on them back from the windows with their open shutters and sat down, my feet propped up on the other chair.  I had only the low light on so as not to attract mosquitos.

In front of me was a little red table.  Spread out to cover the bed were my lungis, purple and gold and green and gold.  The light from the mosque shone on the rainwater on the blue painted shutters, they looked as if they had been sprinkled in blue glitter.  A fork of lightning flashed in the sky in the gap in between the shutters, one open, one closed.  As the wind blew the shutters the light danced over the raindrops and they glittered even more.

Is it okay to just to be happy?  And what do you have to do to get there?  A lot, because of how things are set up in life.  I thought of the John Lennon quote:  His teacher asked him, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’  ‘Happy.’ he said.  ‘She told me that I didn’t understand the question.  I told her she didn’t understand life.’

(Here, I got a notification that I had to resign into the WiFi. I went on WordPress for a break and saw, ‘For my life to have any meaning, I have to live it for myself.’  That’s the meaning of life, to live it.  To live it for yourself, via escaping conditioning, family, everything that gets in the (your) way)

Y arrived and the three of us got a rickshaw to a completely different part of town.  The area around the temple was busy and colourful with stalls selling, ‘Everything to do with visiting the temple,’ Y explained.  God clothes, which I had previously thought were children’s clothes, fresh flower garlands; the smell of the blossom sweet and strong, the same as the blossom I had put in my hair at the temple in Kanyakumari), ‘And of course food,’ for afterwards.

We walked (clockwise) around the outside areas (non-Hindus are not allowed inside).  The rain had pooled in puddles on the stone floor under our bare feet.  The outside of the temple was decorated with beautiful coloured mouldings.  Coloured electric lights, like fairy lights, were placed around, decorating a statue of Ganesha, a juxtaposition of old and new.

There was a stable full of well fed, happy looking cows, some milk white, the others different shades of browns.  Keeping cows at the temple was a mixture of cow rescue and to use the milk.

Y told us Hindu stories (I couldn’t find the one he told us, but here’s another)  and pointed out religious devotional writing on the stone walls.  ‘It’s all like love poetry,’ Y said, ‘Like, ‘‘I fell in love with you and I cried.’’

I felt myself well up.  Even though Y is one of us, we’ve said anything to each other (I’m beginning to believe you find your people via travel, or on the internet?), and the other person there with us was my husband, I choked back the emotion and changed the subject back to the cows.  But when Y said I could go see them, that made me all the more emotional, thinking of how gentle they are, of the street cows left to eat out of garbage, the horrors of the dairy industry.

At the temple there are poojas six times a day; we saw the last one of the day, which is longer and bigger as it is the closing ceremony of the day.  Everyone stood outside the main temple and looked in.  The crowd began to chant, a low, repetitive singing that wrapped itself around us.  Clouds of incense filled the temple and the courtyard where we stood.  The main statue of the God was being bathed in milk.  Lots and lots of milk, poured over like a fountain or a waterfall.  Y told us it’s not just milk that is used, it’s fruit salad, all kinds of offerings…  I was bordering on being overwhelmed.  Nothing can beat this, experiencing a Hindu temple with a Hindu and a good friend.

In another temple room, the God’s wife was dressed up in a gold and green silk dress.  The dresses are changed during every pooja; people bring the dresses, hence the stalls outside.  At the end the God’s feet were carried on a small chariot from his temple to hers, where they spend the night, symbolising the God spending the night with his wife.  ‘Even the gods need sex,’ Y said.

I had wondered what happens to all the milk.  Afterwards, walking away I saw cats.  ‘There’s lots of cats,’ I said.  ‘There’s a lot of milk!’  Y said.  People take some of it, some of it runs off, the cats drink it.  Rivers of milk, for cats.  There were cats on a wall just outside the temple, just beyond the wall was a little house.  I could see into their downstairs room, there were lots of orange and orange and white cats inside, like a cat cafe.

Later I admitted to having a moment.  I told Y about the poetry, about the title for my book, that ‘I fell in love with you and I cried,’ could be my title, although I forgot to tell him the bit about asking him for it.

I told Y about the women in the courtyard, the beautiful scene, the nose stud.  He told me that in Kanyakumari (my favourite place in India, so far) there is a statue of the Goddess Kanyakumari, apparently the nose stud of the statue shone so bright sailors thought it was a lighthouse and ended up getting caught on the rocks.

(I’d always thought a lighthouse was to warn sailors of rocks, to tell them where not to go, rather than somewhere for them to head to.  Discombobulated that I could have totally misunderstood something so everyday I looked it up on Wikipedia.  Yes lighthouses were originally built to guide ships in to a safe harbour.  Later in more modern times they became warnings re where not to go.  Here is a link to the page and another to a surprising interesting biography about a famous lighthouse designer and builder, a great story about getting gifted opportunities and making the most of them.)

Back at the guesthouse the three of us chatted, swapping ‘spiritual’ experiences we’d had since the last time we’d last seen each other.  Y told us about returning to Chennai the day after we’d met and spent our evening together, he’d had to get a fifteen hour bus ride back to Chennai then go into work to prepare for teaching.

At work he had loads to do- photocopying and getting ready- and only half an hour in which to do it.  He felt spaced out, paranoid, thinking he looked stoned; but everyone was smiling at him and offering to help.  Y realised he hadn’t eaten for fifteen hours.  He asked for some water, one of his students poured some Red Bull into a glass; it looked like a potion.

He thought of what R (who we met at Osho’s guesthouse at the same time) had said about drinking the potion when you are born, the potion that causes us to forget who we are.  ‘Don’t drink all of it, then you’ll remember,’ R had told us.  Y remembered this, and only drank some of it.

Y felt a force of energy crackle all the way up one side and pass all the way though his head and body.  Time altered.  He felt full of energy.  He did all the work, that he had so much of and so little time to do, the work that he’d had only half an hour for but that should have taken even more.  He looked at clock, only ten minutes had passed.

Chennai…  Pondicherry…  Chennai…  Thailand… to be continued…

Travel update 

For pics see my husband’s Instagram travelswithanthony

We are in Thailand, Koh Phangan, same place as last week; my stepdaughter came out to Thailand for a holiday with us.  Thailand is clean, orderly, great food, beach, sea…  Did I mention the food?  Noodles, tofu, fresh vegetables!  Heaven.  But I am still looking forward to getting back to India.

My husband left on Wednesday with my stepdaughter to get the ferry to the mainland, stay the night in the town there before getting the all day train to Bangkok on Thursday.  They will spend one night in Bangkok, then on Friday my step daughter flies home, and at around same time our friend arrives from the UK.  My husband and our friend will stay the night and the next day in Bangkok before getting night train here on Saturday.  They will arrive here around lunchtime on Sunday.  So I have four nights on my own.

First night, couldn’t sleep, and stricken with anxiety especially after we had a spider a couple of days ago.  (My brain fuzzed this out so it looked like fluff, and my husband dealt with it while I cowered crouched on top of the toilet in case it ran into the bathroom).  (My strategy while he is away is to stay outside the room as long as possible then keep the lights off in evening and at night so if there is anything I won’t see it.  I trust that we will keep out of each other’s way.)

The next morning, I pulled myself together, tidied up and put all our stuff away, and arranged for the room to be cleaned, especially dusted.  I went for a swim, a walk on the beach, and wrote.  Kind of like a retreat, in the midst of an idyllic holiday resort that’s gearing up for the Full Moon Party…  Be flexible Rachel, it’s all experience…

Writing update

WordPress, as well as daily life, and discussions with my husband, has been inspirational recently and I hope to get onto that over the next few weeks.  Thank you to Des and Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha for almost giving me more than I can process.

I’m seeing patterns in my writing, which I’m seeing as helpful re writing and as validation re being on the right path.

Sat- day off, (over did it Fri, lack of sleep, travel, etc).  Sun- typed over breakfast and after lunch while the others were doing other stuff, just typing from notebook, organising, moving bits, reading notebook.  Mon- no, busy/out.  Tue- some typing up from notebook.  Wed, Thu, working on this.  I got it done on Thursday evening, so proud of myself!

*Whit by Iain Banks  Talks about interstitial time, religion, cults, and (healing hands) healing.  I recommend it!

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

Throwback Thursday

Tags

anxiety, awareness, Blogging, healing, spirituality, writing

I used to go swimming a lot.  I looked up how to do front crawl and printed out tips from Dundee Arnhall swimming club (randomly) (thank you, they were great) which I used to read before getting into the pool and hold in my mind:  fingertips enter the water first, pull back towards your belly button with the flat of your hand…  Of course I never thought I was that good, unfairly comparing myself to club swimmers half my age in the neighbouring lanes.  I used to overdo it.  I often used to swim a mile (sixty-four lengths), would berate myself if I only did forty.  I remember once sticking to a routine of doing seventy, eighty lengths, even when my shoulder hurt deep inside.

As you can see I hadn’t yet gotten with the programme re veganism (think of the cows!)

But in between overdoing it in and out of work somehow a little bit of light and awareness managed to get through.

This is what happiness looks like  (First published in May 2014)

I called my sister.  My nephew answered and we had a good talk about ICT- his favourite subject, I did my best with my limited knowledge and gave him encouragement with regard to school as he struggles in some other subjects.  I spoke to my sister and invited myself to visit.  She put me off until half term which is a few weeks away but still, we have arranged a date.  We had a bit of a chat, it was nice, easy.

My husband and I got dressed up and went out for dinner.

I went swimming three times this week.  I bought nuts, seeds, dried fruit, herbal tea and vegetable juice.  I went a whole week without eating cheese.

My boss agreed for me to have a six month break from my therapy group.  Usually therapists get burned out and need a break from their patients but in this case I need a break from the other therapists.  Even though some of them were annoyed, I felt ecstatic, like a huge burden had been lifted from me.  I didn’t even feel guilty.  It gives me loads of extra time too.

I noticed the serendipitous little events and occurrences that make life that bit sweeter: arriving at the pool one day after work, hungry, I found a packet of crisps my stepdaughter had left in the car.  And exactly enough change to get a Snickers bar out of the vending machine (which shows that my healthy eating turnaround isn’t yet totally embedded).  The pool, normally so busy at that time of day, was half empty and the one or two swimmers I was sharing a lane with were polite and considerate, pulling over to allow me to overtake.

I texted a couple of friends to arrange meeting up.  Another friend called me out of the blue and we went out for a curry and to the cinema.  I got lost one day and went into a veterinary surgery to ask for directions and the receptionist very kindly printed out a map and directions for me.

I am training to be a healer and was invited to attend the organisation’s AGM.  It was on a Saturday morning and I was probably feeling neutral at best about attending a morning meeting on my day off.  When I got there I discovered the time had been changed and I was there an hour early.  I felt a little put out and considered just leaving but I stuck around with a group of other early people who complained about the organisation- proving that being a healer doesn’t necessarily guarantee continual sweetness and light.  After the meeting, another trainee who is further along than me was getting assessed and I had the opportunity to watch.  In the event I couldn’t hear what was going on and my teacher said, don’t feel like you have to stay, I know you were expecting to leave earlier.  I checked my phone; I had a couple of missed calls from my son, whom I had loosely arranged to meet up with after the meeting.  But I was drawn to stay and say goodbye to one of the examiners who had held my hand for a long time when we had been introduced and had said quietly to me, when it is your turn, you will pass, I have just assessed you.  So I waited until he was finished and afterwards he asked me to demonstrate on him.   He told me that I was very powerful and one of the best trainees he had ever encountered.  Sometimes obstacles are put in our way to test our commitment and if we remain committed, we are rewarded.

At work I did some healing as part of a staff wellbeing day.  I worked for two hours nonstop, nine people in total, with noticeable, powerful effects.  We were set up in the dining room and had such a queue of people that we went on into lunch and I was still standing there, eyes closed, arms outstretched, looking like I don’t know what when the maintenance department came in to have lunch.  Its official, I thought, the weirdest girl in school is now the weirdest woman at work.   Only now, no one seems to mind!

In Stephen King’s book On Writing he describes a phase he went through when he was drinking heavily and the whole family had to revolve around his work.  He said he used to have a huge leather desk that dominated the room.  Now he says he has a small desk in the corner of the room.  Life is not a support system for art, he says, it’s the other way around.  I didn’t fully understand when I first read it, now I think I do:  my life used to be tormented by my writing; always thinking about it, always thinking should I be at home writing, declining invitations.  I thought writing was The Thing but because it was so hard I used to wonder about and experiment with giving up completely as I said before.  Now I realise, Life is The Thing.  Writing is my own personal support system for life.  I live, I write it down to help me make sense of it.  I live a bit more.  It relaxes me, supports me, wipes away ridiculous worry thoughts and OCD by calming and focussing my mind, giving me clarity of purpose in my life.  That’s all it is.  That’s ALL??!!  Sounds pretty amazing really; I have a personal support system that can be bought for the price of a decent pen and a pad of paper.  Isn’t that better than winning the Booker Prize?

Like my spiritual journey, maybe I have been on a writing journey, pushing myself, experimenting.  As a child I wrote stories.  As a teenager I wrote poetry.  In my twenties I wrote a film script and a novel.  In my thirties I finally plucked up the courage to join a creative writing class and wrote everything:  all kinds of poems and stories, even a novella in a month.  I wrote and performed spoken word poetry and performance stories, learning everything by heart.  I wrote and had published several short stories of women’s erotica, culminating in putting on a launch event at a local sex shop.  Now in my forties, I wrote a therapy self help manual and a relationships guide with my husband before my most recent project, my spiritual memoir.  But it was all still with the overall aim of achieving some kind of end product.  Even my spiritual memoir, even though I found it very helpful and even though I kept thinking it was about something other than writing a book, it wasn’t until after it was finished that I realised: it was about something else, it was about living.  That’s what’s so great about blogging: The living comes first.                            

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

 

Like nailing jelly to a wall

Tags

dreams, Getting started, spirituality, Travel, writing

An update on my ‘spiritual position.’

Honestly, working this stuff out is a full time job.  (See previous posts:  The story so far.  Green Mist theory).

If there is a God (and when I say God I am usually referring to a kind of vague yet huge concept that encompasses The Field and The Collective Consciousness; like a kind of golden light or the feeling that you get when looking at a butterfly.  It goes beyond my explorations of different religions and Buddhism and beyond being an omnist (someone who acknowledges the truth of all religions).

What I think right now is this:  If there is a God and God has a plan for me then it’s this:  It’s what I am doing right now.  It’s what I did in the recent lead up (Orientation) and it’s what I intend to do next (go back to the UK, live on a boat for a bit, then go off travelling around the USA*).

Whilst of course being aware that it’s only ever right now, plans change, and that although all this sounds so easy, unless we are going to turn into full time spiritual devotees and only meditate, study spiritual texts, discuss spiritual matters, and eat, sleep and use the bathroom, life as it is distracts us.  As in Journey the East, it is so, so easy to allow oneself to get knocked off the path and for one’s awareness to slip.

* possibly combining it with a DIY book promotion tour with readings at independent bookshops and vegan cafes

My husband and I have been having a lot of talks about the nature of reality, etc etc.  Last Thursday night I couldn’t sleep so I got up and wrote last week’s blog post.  In the morning I finished the blog post and then we talked some more and I came up with my new spiritual position as described above.  I then typed it up and then went to work on the book (can you see where this is going?)  I don’t usually do anything on the book on a Friday, but I thought I had free time as I had got the blog done early (by dint of being awake typing through the night…)

My eyes began to blur and I couldn’t focus.  I tried to push on through but in the end I had to give up.  I laid on the bed and closed my eyes.  All I could see was a bright white, like a blank page on a computer screen, with distorted tool bar icons making a row of triangles across the top.  I took off my t-shirt and put it over my eyes.  I tried to send myself healing and to relax.

It came to me that by overdoing the spiritual talks, not sleeping and overdoing the writing I had triggered some kind of episode in my brain and that my mind was being somehow cleansed and reset.  A feeling of otherworldly peace came over me and for a few moments I thought, I have a choice, mental illness or a higher state of consciousness, I can’t have both.

After a while I got up and felt very strange so I did a load of stuff to ground myself.  I went out onto the balcony and ate a banana ball and a banana.  I counted five things I can see, hear, feel etc.  I stood on one leg.  I went on YouTube to listen to a song my friend told me about (the one at the top of this post).

The ad below came on (‘Sometimes to find your way you have to lose your mind’)

 

My husband came home and gave me a pep talk about how my mind is  really strong and I am totally sane, and reminded me of a line from one of the first books I read on this journey (the spiritual one not the travel one) ‘The last vestige of the ego is to tell yourself you are going mad.’ (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)

In hindsight it might have been better to just allow myself to stay in a slightly altered state of consciousness; by trying to get out of it I probably made it feel worse, but I suppose I was scared.

Anyway, as Jung says, this stuff isn’t all about butterflies and rainbows, it’s also about making the darkness conscious.  Last night I also couldn’t sleep, but this time I let myself go down into the things that I am afraid of, my childhood memories, the meaning I extrapolate from them, the effects I have allowed them to have.  And I realised that there was nothing to find…  I have explored the worst case scenarios and survived.

At the risk of looking and sounding like cliché, I bought a chunky silver Om pendant.  It caught my eye and overcame all resistance to shopping and spending and seemed a fitting souvenir for my altered consciousness last week.  I looked up what it actually meant (previously I knew it as the sound of the universe, and the man who sold it said it offers protection but I didn’t really know what each bit meant).

https://goo.gl/images/ARZtQC

It explained to me what I had instinctively felt; when we are in one state we aren’t in the other.  One level of consciousness is the normal level, where we experience the world through the five senses, another is deep sleep, another is dream state, another is a higher state of consciousness which is the aim of spiritual practices.  We move between them and they are separate states.

Travel update

We will be here in Varkala for another month and have been busy planning our trip and getting excited about moving on.

 

Writing update

I have been working hard on Goa Part Two (Anjuna, Arambol, Panaji) this week and hope to have a draft completed on Monday.  From Monday I will be working on Kerala, bringing it up to date, as well as looking at the proposal for Hay House.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

The edge of the world

Tags

India, Moving, Travel

On Thursday we packed and cleaned up the house, dropped the keys into the estate agents and drove to our hotel in Norwich.  Except that it wasn’t quite as simple as that.  Snowdrifts had blocked roads and we had to try several different routes and go on many detours to finally make it in.  What is normally a forty-five minute journey took almost three hours.  Kind people wrapped up in balaclavas standing out in blizzard conditions guided us, people in four by fours led the way in case we needed help, and despite a very scary journey on snow-covered roads in the middle of nowhere in an old overloaded but ultimately trusty Peugeot, we got there.

So moving day was harder than I had anticipated.  Being at the Travelodge also wasn’t quite as relaxing as I had imagined.  Too tired to celebrate, all I wanted to do was sleep.  The last-minute shopping wasn’t much fun in the freezing wind and on ice-covered pavements.  Our to do list suddenly seemed very long and we were overwhelmed with ‘stuff’ (despite all the decluttering, and all my fantasies about just walking away with a rucksack each, we actually ended up with about three carloads of stuff).

But today feels better.  My husband has sorted out our stuff so our hotel room and car look a lot better.  We have practiced packing our rucksacks for India and that feels good.  I have had the energy to make phone calls and answer texts today.  Tomorrow we will meet up with my son, as well as hopefully finish most of the jobs on our to do list.

Thank you for all your support.  This part of the journey is harder than I thought it would be.  Moving house is stressful, I knew that, but I think I forgot about the emotional impact.  I felt really stressed on moving day, and yesterday.  But that’s okay…  I’m still here, and so are you.

The view from the hotel yesterday

My freshly made final cover up tattoo.  I had it done on Friday morning (this was booked ages ago, and not meant to be the day after moving  day, but it’s good to have it done!).

 

Thank you very much for reading

Rachel xxx

The Gift of Freedom

Tags

escape the matrix, family, Guilt, Mom guilt, The matrix

This Valentine’s my husband gave me something far more useful than flowers.

I could wallow forever in the dirty water where the fish won’t go.  I could never get up again.  I could say to myself, how can I live.  I could rake over and over the past, looking for a possible way things could have been made different.  I could cry forever and it wouldn’t change a thing.

I did everything I was able to do at the time.  I remember us both going to the dentist in New Zealand and me buying us electric toothbrushes to use out there as we’d left ours in the UK.  He was fifteen.  Everything was okay then, teeth wise.  But not long after, I stopped being able to make him do anything he didn’t want to do.

Since he’s been an adult, I have watched his teeth deteriorate, and no amount of encouragement from anyone in the family was able to persuade him to go to the dentist.  Realising nothing I said made any difference, for the last few years I have stopped saying anything in case it actually makes him even less likely to go, and also because I don’t want to spoil the times we have together.  But every now and again I’d think, am I being remiss, am I copping out, am I wasting opportunities…  all the time they are getting worse and worse, and I am not saying anything.

But of course he has mirrors, and eyes.  And as I write this I’m thinking, Oh my God, did we do this?  Did we make him dig his heels in more by trying to encourage him to visit the dentist?  But would a person really do that to themselves, not brush their teeth, not go to the dentist, just to be oppositional to their family?

I don’t talk about any of this to anyone but the night before Valentine’s Day my son messaged my husband and said he was finally ready to go through with the required treatment.  This will involve sedation, anaesthetic, and because things are so very far gone, implants.  So I ended up talking (and crying) about it until way past my bedtime and the conclusion I arrived at was that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever I can do.  A person needs to psych themselves up to face dentistry, blood tests or open heart surgery themselves, no one else can do it for them.  They need to be brave and they need to be a grown up.  My son is 28 years old and anxiety or no anxiety, the only thing I can do is think of him as an adult who is capable of facing this.

It is time for it to cease being my problem.

The next morning I felt a little better, like the day after an argument has blown over, still a little fragile, but recovering.  I still have CDs to go through so I put on The Jesus and Mary Chain album Stoned and Dethroned.  Track one is above.  It felt like the first day of the rest of my life.

Today, in an ironic twist I went to the dentist, which meant I got to sleep in and go into work late.  I came out into the warm sunshine and felt… happy.  I bought a birthday card and a box of vegan chocolates for my step grandma, and new spare cat name tags as they keep losing theirs.  Getting these things off my list and not having them to do on Saturday when we are already busy gave me a sense of elation out of all proportion.

Walking back through the town, thinking, yes, the post office, the chocolate shop, the pet shop, the cute alleyway, yes, they are all nice, just as dressing nicely for work is nice, but, it isn’t everything.  It should have been easier to walk away from our last place which was not pretty and was boring, but it’s been being in this lovely place that has inspired and propelled us to give up everything.  Is it because we needed to be happy in order to be able to dream, whereas before we were just surviving?

We have both been unwell for what seems like ages, colds etc, plus last-minute wobbles re vaccinations/not, water purification options, malaria, plus a long to do list, a house to clear and work to finish.

But as I said to my husband, I’d feel really good right now if I wasn’t feeling ill.  I had my bloods done and my doctor put my thyroxine up, which feels like it did when I first went on it, like the clouds clearing after a storm, everything shiny, wide awake, excited.

I said re our to do list, it seems as though simplifying our life is actually really complicated.  That’s because the matrix doesn’t want you to do it, my husband said.  The matrix wants everyone hooked into the complexity of everything, that is why it makes unhooking yourself feel so difficult.

See you on the other side.

I have set up an instagram account for when we are travelling followingthebrownrabbit

 

Thank you for reading.

 

How to deal with shame

Tags

Bojack Horseman, Shame, therapy

 

How to deal with shame

Whatever else you do, however hard you work on moving forward, your subconscious beliefs about shame and guilt can hold you back.  Internal as well as external work is needed.  That said, releasing shame can just as easily involve practical exercises as well as deep reflections.

I only realised I was working on ‘releasing shame’ when I found myself taking and sharing pictures of my messy kitchen.  At the same time I discovered the blog Educated Unemployed Indian.  This blogger wrote about their realisation that they needed to put their own advice into practice before blogging about it.  In this way, WordPress has once again shown itself to be an interesting source of support to me.

After much supportive discussion over email (with another blogger I met on WordPress), I finally decided to share my blog with all my friends and anyone else who seems interested, with the exception of family members.

I have expressed feelings and emotions within my family, as detailed in my previous post.  It might have only merited a sentence of my post but it was a significant event within my life.

I have begun to act differently.  I have processed some difficult aspects of my family experience.  I have been brave enough to be honest with myself, even though, especially though, that means uncovering and looking at the less likeable aspects of myself.  In order to do all this, or rather as part of doing all this, I have overcome blocks.  I have overcome some of the effects of shame (reticence, self-doubt, emotions being too overwhelming, emotions being shut off) and that in turn has helped me overcome and release the shame itself.

Why bother?

Here I will document the positive effects, noticeable even after the first day or two.

A release of creative energy:  new ideas!  With less shame taking up space inside me, I find I can do more.

Increased sense of humour, increased ability both to find things funny and to make things funny.  Me and my husband laughing and laughing about my ‘food blog’ pictures.  Him saying apropos of nothing, ‘So last night I was doing some numerology’ and us both finding this hysterical for some reason (I think it just illustrated the randomness of our lives together).

Increased motivation, less energy spent on shame or worry about whether or not to clean the car, meant time and energy to spend on sorting out CDs.  Do it or don’t do it, but don’t beat yourself up.  I can live with a dirty car, so I have decided not to worry about it.  Other things, I feel much better for doing such as booking an eye test and asking the doctors for a travel prescription.

More confidence.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the simplest of things.  Having miscalculated the maths re the cat food, I realised I would need to deliver some more before my next scheduled visit.  I’m such an idiot!  Why am I so stupid?!  I said.  Why so harsh re something so easily  fixed?  I was reminded of my manager in New Zealand who could cope with any amount of emergency mental health issues, suicidal clients, AWOL clients, arrested clients, but run up a big phone bill and he’d have a meltdown.

I put it off until the last day of my long weekend then forced myself out of my hermit state.  I tend to put things off that involve phoning people, driving and parking if I am feeling anxious.  I arranged it so I didn’t need to leave the house until 1 o’clock, thereby giving myself time for tea in bed, breakfast and blogging, time for me, before going out to buy and deliver the cat food.  I noticed as I drove there, as I parked, and as I stayed and had a cup of tea:  This feels easy.

This is life

Tags

family, Mom guilt, Parenting

 

So, family…  I have been processing some family/me stuff.  My son had some personal/life problems recently and called up my husband who went and supported him.  When I got home from work my husband told me all about it and said, you just need to phone him up and tell him you love him and that you are proud of him.  So I did (when I am out of my depth and don’t know what to do my husband gives good advice).

Then on Saturday we went to see a show that my son had curated and exhibited in.  All the artists have mental health problems.  My husband is at ease at these events, talking to the people from Rethink who sponsored the event and knowing just the right thing to say about my son’s work.  I think the work is good and I say so.  I know he has worked hard and that he’s come a long way and I recognise his achievements.

But I feel like I am expected to say more and that whatever I say isn’t enough.  I dislike the feeling of pressure on me, the fact that what I say is so weighted, so that my words seem to sound awkward.  I am not good at dealing with this stuff.  Why does it matter so much what I think, I’m just a human being, I don’t mean anything.   That’s not for you to say, you are his mother.  It’s for the child to come to that realisation themselves.  In the meantime, just be a parent, act the role, do what’s needed.  Sometimes you just have to give people what they need, and he just needs praise off his mum.  Why is it so hard to do that?  I noticed my mum was much less forthcoming than me; I was chatty, I gave out praise, even though I wasn’t as at ease as my husband.  On the way home we talked and talked until I worked out why I feel uncomfortable at these events.

The people from Rethink might judge me as a bad mother because my son has mental health problems.  He might even have spoken about the tumultuous teenage years and said critical things about me.  But mainly it’s this:

The whole event revolves around having mental health problems.  Everyone’s talking about it, it’s right there.  And there on the wall is a series of three of my son’s paintings.  Yes they are very good.  As my husband said you could see them in a gallery and you wouldn’t think they were out of place.

But they are unsettling/distressing.  The paragraph of text beside them explains that they are all about living with a mental health problem and what that feels like.  That’s fine when it is someone else.  But when it is your own child you are looking at something no parent wants to see.

Yes of course the exhibition is a great achievement, as are the paintings, but it means coming face to face with my child’s suffering.  I think this is even worse for my mum, because I think in some ways grandparents can get even more upset.  I noticed she didn’t even read the text.  I read it, to be polite and supportive, but it was sad.  And as the artist’s mother, it was really sad.

This post isn’t about self pity, it’s about playing detective.  So that’s why it’s hard, because it’s upsetting.  I am expected to give praise and be happy about his achievements, which I do and I am, whilst experiencing distress from having to literally look at his mental suffering.

So that all makes sense now.

That’s why it was so nice going round to his place the week before the exhibition.  He answered the door in a paint splattered t-shirt and a lungi, and showed me into the sitting room.  He and his girlfriend were working on several huge canvasses, sheets spread over the carpet, creating a makeshift studio.  It reminded me of the places I lived in during the late 80s.  For a moment, everything just looked exactly the way I would have wanted.

I am very pleased and amazed he got into art school, with no prior qualifications, it is a towering achievement.  But what I am most pleased about, even though it hasn’t been easy for him or us, is that he has followed his path.  Despite pressure from everyone, including me in the past, he has resolutely devoted himself to being an artist.

 

Thank you for reading.

F is for Family*

Tags

Guilt, healing, Mom guilt, Parenting, Teenagers

Warning, contains depressing content

My son is 28.  Christmas 2016, I pretended to go away for Christmas because I couldn’t face us spending Christmas together.  He wouldn’t have wanted to come anyway; we’d only been speaking since the September and things were still slightly frosty.  Prior to that we hadn’t spoken since Christmas 2015:  I had picked him up to bring him to ours for Christmas and he started fidgeting and then shouting in the car on the dual carriageway.  I was frightened, exasperated and completely incapable of dealing with it.  You work in mental health, you’re supposed to help people, I remember him saying.  I stupidly tried to reason with him, to connect with a part of us that was above all this, to explain that I wasn’t the one to help him, because if I had, I would have been.  In the middle of a panic attack isn’t the time, and he was extremely angry and disappointed with my response and my inability to respond.

I think what he doesn’t understand is how upsetting it is for me, but then he probably also doesn’t understand why I can’t just be all mumsy and cuddly, and I don’t either, but I can’t.  I don’t believe that would make any difference, but I understand why he’d be dismayed and upset that I couldn’t.

I remember one time dropping him off at the walk in centre with a girlfriend and just leaving him there, another time him at the doctor’s clinging onto me and me just being unable to touch him.  (This was when he was sixteen or older, in the middle of our relationship being very poor, him having a panic attack).

I used to think there was something deeply wrong with me, that I didn’t love him, or wasn’t able to love him, but then one night in meditation a year or so ago this came into my head:  you love him, that’s why it hurts so much.

Before I got pregnant, I wanted a baby very much.  When he was born his father and I were super attentive and loving.  When he was a young child we had lots of fun times, baking, playing with the dog, painting- there was always an easel and a washing line to hang up the paintings in the kitchen; riding trikes and bikes indoors, having big unruly birthday parties.  It’s nice to remember the good stuff.  Because there was bad stuff: it was quite hard for me, I was very young, a single mum from when he was one, and he was sometimes very ill with a serious medical condition, so there’s a lot of bad memories around that, hospitals, blood tests, unpleasant tests and medicines.  But even so, overall, it was a pretty happy, child centred life with supportive and loving friends and family.

Then he hit 12, 13, went to middle school, and having been very happy at first school, began school refusing, truanting, later at 15, petty criminal stuff and got arrested.  He and his friend would just mess up the house and break everything, so the sitting room ended up empty, it didn’t feel like a home…

Refusing all medical treatment, refusing to have baths or change his clothes… at 16, 17, 18, refusing to go to college or get a job or come out of his room.  I knew something was wrong but was powerless to fix it.  I sought mental health services advice, they said it was behavioural and he wouldn’t engage in any case.  I had no idea what to do.  The relationship had completely broken down.  Everyone gave different advice, I felt like a complete failure as a mother.

I became seriously suicidal.  When he was 16 I called the council about housing options for him.  The woman who answered the phone said you have to chuck him out and he has to turn up here with his bag and nowhere to go.  I can’t do that, I said.  She said, well you haven’t reached the end of your tether yet then, when you have, that’s what you’ll have to do.  Two years later, sitting at the top of the stairs, my boyfriend holding me, me screaming about suicide and paracetamol and knives, I reached it.  I packed up his stuff and called my mum and asked her to have him.  He was 18.  He actually went to stay with his girlfriend, got a place in a hostel, got given a council flat, couldn’t manage it, and now rents a room in a shared house where he’s been for several years.

I am sure there were a million other ways to handle those years but whether or not the person I was then would have been able to implement them even if she had known.  Like a series of random dropped stitches that ultimately cause everything to unravel.  Was there something, were there things I could have done differently?  Was there another way it could have turned out?  I’ll never know, because I can’t go back in time, and there’s no control group for a life.

Relatively speaking, the years up to twelve had been easy.  I suppose I’d always thought love would be enough.  So when this child who you’ve given so much love to, who had previously seemed so happy in your company, becomes someone who no longer responds to you, it is very difficult.  It is hurtful, confusing, and all confidence in parenting abilities goes out of the window.  I just didn’t have the skills to deal with this new person.

After he moved out, I used to see him and drop off bits of money, always feeling bad for not giving enough whilst at the same time thinking I shouldn’t give much so that he’d be motivated to sign on or get a job…  He usually wanted a lift, and it was often difficult, him criticising my driving and us arguing.  His council flat was given to him bare and empty, the same as when I’d been given one at 22 when he was 3 years old.  But whereas I had bought and laid the cheapest office cord and painted it myself, he did not do anything.  His washing up and rubbish piled up everywhere.  My mum paid for flooring, my (now) husband spent a day mucking out the flat.  I went round one day after work when I had a cold and painted the kitchen but he didn’t help and we argued.  He got diagnosed with anxiety.  I paid for endless CBT.  My husband and I spent hours on the phone giving advice about panic attacks when he called us up.  Nothing made any difference.  Until I just kind of stopped trying to help as much.  He got himself a nice room in a shared house, where he still is.  He got himself into college and then university, where he is today.

A Round-Heeled Woman, predominantly about sex but includes a devastating passage about her son, who seemingly ‘punishes’ her failings as a mother by running away, not calling, and living on the streets, in freezing conditions, eventually calling her up on Christmas Day, destitute and freezing cold but refusing to come home.

The only other time I have come across people like me (mothers almost destroyed by guilt) is on an ASD training day where parents of kids with Autism spoke to us.  These mothers had kids who didn’t sleep, who flew into rages and smashed up the house.  They looked like battle worn survivors.  I was in awe of them.  But what I remember most is what they said about how they felt as mothers:  as a mother, you feel like you’ve got ‘guilty’ stamped on one side of you, and ‘failure’ on the other. 

What is the name of the emotion I feel when I see or think about his teeth, which are in a terrible state- I took him to the dentist and made sure he brushed his teeth as a child, but his illness, and poor care as a teenager and adult have taken a severe toll (recently he has said he is going to the dentist and going to go through with what is now major work, and I have given him the money to do this)…

Or when he recently asked for ‘anything from my childhood to remind me it wasn’t all bad because all I can remember is hospitals’…  To quote Alice Sebold, well that last comment just ripped me a new arsehole:  I spent my whole adult life from 18 to now, 47, loving, caring, worrying, and it was all for nothing, because all there was was bad and nothing I did mattered and nothing I do now makes any difference?

What is the name of the emotion again?  Suicidal, if that’s an emotion… despair… anger… panic… paralysis… horror… fear… tension.  Mostly there’s a bit of tension.

I used to work in an anorexia hospital and I am ashamed to say we used to judge the parents sometimes, we used to think they were cold.  Now I realise they were just wretched, forced to look at something no parent would ever want to see, their child yellow, furry and emaciated.  I was afraid of what I saw on my first day; they have to face both the horror and the fact that they haven’t been able to stop it or help with it.

Okay, I’ve felt it.  I’ve taken it all out and looked at it.  Instead of pushing those feelings away, tightening up and thinking that I can’t bear to look and won’t be able to cope, instead of that I’ve let my chest relax and my arms fall open and I’ve sat here with those feelings.  There’s a peace in accepting ‘guilt’, in letting it wash over me, just letting it be, sitting with it without fighting it.  Ready to start over…  To make mistakes every day.  We all do.  Start again every day.  What else can we do?

Is there anything I can do?  No.

There’s a comfort in this calm acceptance, in the moments where I can find it, that feels better than the pushing away or the anxious worrying or the futile attempts at problem solving.  It definitely feels better than endlessly going over past mistakes and missed opportunities.

Like a jumper that has unravelled beyond repair, the only way is to remake it from scratch.

And like my mother says re coping with the ageing process, well you don’t have any choice but to cope with it, because the only alternative is not to be here.

Right now, drag my mind into the present.  Right now, drag my thoughts and my gaze towards the positive.

So this Christmas, when my son said he’d come over Christmas Eve and stay until Boxing Day, especially as my husband was working and I would need to pick him up and drive him an hour to ours, I was a little nervous.  Whatever you do, don’t get angry, or don’t sound angry, my husband said.

The car journey was okay, and once home I made dinner, we swapped YouTube and Netflix recommendations, and the evening passed without incident.  Christmas Day we saw my mum, my husband came home, and my son’s girlfriend arrived in the evening and we all played Cluedo.  So yeah, I guess my Christmas was okay.

 

With metta

 

*F is for Family is my third favourite of the adult cartoons on Netflix, along with my second favourite Big Mouth which is a very warm portrayal of going through puberty, a largely neglected topic that has certainly never been covered like this before, and my favourite, so much loved that I wrote a post about it here, BoJack Horseman