Archive for June, 2006

  • Nearly There

    The photography course is finished and now I am moments, well, hours away from the plaane to inida.
    I have not really had time to think about it properly, but I noticed, yesterday, that I was nervous about it.
    I have not had the time to get into the terror that sometimes comes, thank god, and hopefully tday, with all the preparations, it will not rise up and make me irritable and scared.
    Amanda is so excited, so I ma hoping that will stop me.

    I am thrilled to know that I can now tell the difference between intuition and PTSD. it does make life easier.

    The great fun and games has begun with the computer not wanting to pick up emails, on a saturday. just before I go away. The the delights of technology never cease to thrill and amaze me. Truthfully i get really pissed off, but as I am being positive, I will be discrete.

    I am concerned about staying vegan in India. It is not out of obsession, really not, but because I feel staggeringly better since not having dairy. I am really quite amazed. All the rash of spots that Ihat on my cheek have gone, I am far, far less stressed and I sleep much better. On top of that, or rather less than that, is all the weight I have lost. I know it is only for a week, and I can go back to being vegan when I return home,
    but I am also quite alcoholic about these things. When I slip, I really tumble down the slope and getting back up it again can be extremely challenging. Although I am being vegan for reasons other than addiction, in the main.

    Butter. That is the prolem.

    The tiresome aspects of being human.

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  • Teaching photography

    I am teaching a photography course. Just a quiet affair. A few lights and a camera. A bit of daylight here and there.

    It is really interesting, even though it is quiet and low key. I am facinated by what I say. It is so surprising. I have taught the odd two hours here and there, but never longer, and I am teaching a man. Why would that be interesting? Because I have spent most of my life in the fashion and advertising world making women look like men’s fantasies. And now as a photographer I have spent the last 10 years finding out what I like and how to get people to project themselves, their iinner selves, into the camera. So to teach a man is quite a thing.

    It is going well. As my husband pointed out last night it is lucky I am loquacious. I agree. It would be long days with no talking! But it is going well. I listen to myself teaching and am amazed to hear some of the things I can say and discuss. it is so funny. It is like I am teaching my self. I must do it more often. I will probably be amazed at what I find out. But then they do say that if you want to learn a thing you must teach it. I certainly became a better body painter after I started teaching.

    Rollo n day two.

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  • Getting organised

    India is looming, in all it’s heat and intensity, it is getting closer. Today I will know if my delightful friend is coming with me. I hope she can. I have been there on my own so much, it will be interesting to see how it is with company. To see it through the eyes of another.

    I have started making the little piles of things, delicately balanced around the house, that make up my luggage. I am spoilt, I know, but it is also hard work. The heat will be the hardest. 45 degress morning and night, and I think I want to live there….

    I am uninspired this morning, by the idea of writing. I think I have much to say, but have learned to keep me comments to myself! I can say much else other than comment, but comment is the thing today, and as I am on 40 days of being positive, it is another reason to keep it tight and small. I don’t want to slip.

    What do the Bhuddists say? Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary? The three things to think before speaking. Can you imagine taking time out from the instant gratification of talking and actually thinking before speaking? It would be wild if we all took it up and most of the dialogue of everyday just disappeared. Fizzled away in spontaneous and random acts of kindness. How Divine. Maybe that’s the new black? Being thoughtful. Perhaps we could start a Ghandi like movement of overwhelming acts of kindness coupled with delayed gratification? The world has become so instant and right now. Whatever goes. I am not sure it would take on too well, but I have planted a seed. How’s that for delayed gratification. It is a start.

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  • Funny how long things take

    I have had a yoga class at home for years. it has alawys been there, and up until now has been very quiet. Usually no one there except Baptiste and I. All of a sudden it is the new black. Two people this morning! Wild. Some days there are even three, and more facinating than all of that is that mostly it is all men.

    After all the years of only teaching women, I now mainly teach men. I have no explanation for it.

    On another note, I am studying numerology and strange things are starting to take shape. Formations in the universe. I like it. I like learning, and this is wild. patterns emerging from chaos, behaviours being explainable, particularly my own. I lie and let it dissolve into me as though there is a shower of understanding falling upon me. Pathways, previously hidden, reveal themselves and things make an amount of sense. Not enough yet for it to be too useful, but stimulating, none the less.

    Following a similar line, but not really the same, I had a big class here over the weekend. SOmeone always looses something in the melee, and this time it was a bunuch of keys. They rang at 11.30 at night. Luckily I have no phones in the bedroom, so had no compunction to deal with it, but when I played the message in the morning I knew the keys were not in the house, they were in a black bag.

    So I searched the house twice, then got Baptitste on the case and finally she rang to say they had found the keys in a black bag. At this point I was hot, sweaty and cross. Mostly cross because I knew in my self that they were not here, but had not stood my ground and beleived it. Time to get the point.

    What’s the point? That there is so much more than we allow our tiny realm of expreience to see or trust.

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  • I have retired as a body painter

    It was not exactly with a bang, but the end of my carreer was delightful.

    We had such a good course and all the participants and models were so wonderful that no one wanted to leave last night. So we went on through dinner and had a great time. It was fun. I have no regrets and am now an ex bodypainter.

    I am not sure what that will change. Hopefully it will give me more focus and more time to devote to the children and my husband and Devotion. Less distraction. Although there was a big new distraction yesterday.

    A man brough a 3D camera to photograph the bodypaintings. It does the moving 3D, not the kind that you need the glasses for. Quite an amazing contraption. I got involved in the lighting and position of the sitters and WOW! Such fun. He now thinks he should lend me a camera for a while. Yes please. I could get very distracted!

    On another note, I have been wondering again about PTSD. I lay awake last night for a while in the heat with a window rattling. Too lazy to get up and do anything about it, hoping I would get used to the noise and not mind it any more. As I lay there I found myself wondering if there was about to be a big bang. Half expecting the world to end and wondering if I would find it painful. It is the most awful sensation, bracing oneself for the invisible end. waiting to hear the explosion. Wondering if it will be instant or slow. Am I the only one that does it? Somehow I feel not, but that most people don’t admit it. Or perhaps it is just me and everyone else has pure unadulterated faith in the world, the polititicans, the police…… I finally fell asleep and wished the night had been longer when I woke.

    Do others people think about death as much? Does it matter? I mean whether they do or not? I think aobut it a lot. I watch movies like the Great Escape and wonder about how I would feel being in the Airforce, being shot down and then captured, I watch my children and hope I never have to face the loss of one or both. I watch my husband and hope he survivies me. It turns on my head so much. How would it be. How will I die. What will my end be like….. It is not really morbid, although it may seem so in the reading. It is more a fascination, which of course could be a morbid one, but we all have to go. Old films: they are all dead now, yet one can still watch the actors so vibrant and beautiful. It is bizarre to think about it. And as I watch myself get older, more lined, softer and greyer, I know I am getting closer, like a piece of metal to a magnet, to the end. And then ……….

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  • Being positive

    Maybe because it was was a week later, or just because some days are harder than others, yesterday was not a good day. It ended well, but the main part was filled with negativity, unfinished work, and a truly terrible mind.

    I managed to watch it most of the time, rather than go with it, but even the watching was tiresome. I think it is a great place to be when one gets tired of oneself. Bored of the self obsession. It is at these points that the largest leaps in growth are made. Cartainly thai is my experience. And yesterday was no exception. A long day of getting truly tired of myself.

    I lay in bed last night wonderfing if I was going to spend the rest of my life worrying about money, other people, and my body. I decided that perhaps, given that I had been going around these issues for most of my life and there had always been money, other people and my relation to them had always been up and down and my body is the way it is, I should really get bored of the endless cycles.

    The body is an interesting one. The endless feeling that I should have a different one. That the one I have is not right or good enough. I hated it when I was 15, 18, 25, 31, and now, two children later, I would love to have it how it was at any point other than now. It is tragic to be in such a state of mind for all of one’s life. I would like acceptance to be a pill that one can swallow and all is fine, rather than a mountain that you never quite reach the top of because it is always swelling and moving in front of you.

    Money is fun, too. There is always money, but I would always like a little more. We sat in the car last night, early for a dinner and discussed other people and their sucess. I had said I thought other people had some secret formula for sucess that I lacked. Baptiste asked me to name one person that I thought was sucessful. A fun game. Everyone has their stuff, their issues. That is why we are here. I know people with money, but would not say they were sucessful. What is sucess? Now I think it is being a good parent, learning life’s lessons, accepting everything, resisting nothing.

    Other people. That is a battle at times. I have never felt that I belong anywhere. Always felt that I was just put here. Perhaps because of knowing nothing at all about my background or family history. I was not adopted, but my mother will never talk about her past. I know none of my uncles or aunts or cousins and my father left when I was 3. I am just here. No history apart from that which I make myself. Nothing to refer back to and no lineage to live up to. I have married a man with enough history and background for both of us, yet I still find it odd at times to be with others. And at this age it is hard to make new friends. Hard to establish a deep connection with people. Resistance is futile. Give up worrying about it.

    Thank God I have reached a point in my life where Grumpy Old Men don’t scare me any more. That is a delightful place to be. I am thrilled by the realisation. That is a mountain that I have finally climed and find myself no longer needing to be liked, loved or approved of by GOM. It totally disempowers them and I feel a sense of total liberation. Aking to the moment when I decided that my stepfather was not longer MY stepfather. He was my mother’s husband. Oh, the releif. She was furious, it was so funny, that I had made him all hers. So abstract, yet so cleansing.

    As I can see, it was not all bad yesterday. Just challenging. And this morning is too early. I woke up and wished I hadn’t. I wanted the night to be much longer.

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  • Short nights with too much thinking.

    I have lain awake since 3am, twirling and whirling both physically and mentally.
    I get moments when I wish I was a better person, and I am coming close to that feeling now. I suppose now I am up and doing stuff it will fade away, but it is such an awful sensation. It has lessened over the years, diminishing a little each time and coming less and less frequently, but it is the saddest, most flaying sensation. As though one is tearing flesh from oneself.

    I have been aware that the pain of death passed, and it was an intense series of sensations, leading into a holiday. A period of just being. But the eternal questioning has returned. The endless wondering why we are here. What is the point. Does it have to be so eternal. Am I really supposed to work all the hours God sends for the rest of my life. Is there any way not to have to. How can I educate my children as I want to if I don’t work forever more. I have given up on question marks. They would dominate the entire page.

    I watch my husband loathing the fact that he does not have a title for his life, and long not to have one for mine. It is so ironic and mad.

    So I lay awake this morning and tried to make sense of it all. Of course I have failed miserably, which is obvious by my text.

    We have done well recently in the business. What does that mean? Sold well, given away catalogues etc. Now we have to invest more. Work harder and make it bigger. Then sell more. An endless cycle of life that I am having trouble understanding.

    And at the same time I do not know what my life would be if I did not do that. Would I just lie there? Would I immediatly invest in another project? It is all a mystery that I just cannot fathom today.

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  • It was a good week

    The shop was a success. Lots of work setting up and we are still in the throes of dismantling it, but it worked. We met great people, sold lots of clothes and have found a good way forward. It is such a relief, I slept really deeply last night.

    I was interested to see who came from all those that I knew in the locale. And who came out of my friends. The private view was a disaster, but I did get over it pretty quickly, yet it was still an interesting thing. Someone recently, I remember, it was a friend at the Yoga Festival, said to watch who was loyal in friendship. It has stuck in my mind like a drawing pin. Who is loyal. Noticing this has been so interesting. But also mirroring it. Who am I loyal to? Intention is not always everything, although I frequently say it is.

    Laura had a photographic show, a joint one, with all the students at her year in college. It was in a great gallery that has just opened in Peckham. The work was really good, and it inspired me to want to go further and do the course. Or did it really? I cannot tell. I have been thinking about it since last night. Laura warned me that I would fight with him and could teach him a lot. So maybe I just want to go and impress him. Am I really so shallow?

    I am girding my loins for India. Oh boy, I know what is coming. I did it this time last year.

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  • Not so early

    Something has happened. An inexorable desire for sleep. I woke at 6am this morning and feel as though I have wasted most of the day.

    I did start at 4 the day before and went to bed in a state of exhaustion with all the heat, so I suppose it is not too awful. It is just that with the yoga, the meditation and the VAT something has to go.

    We are besiged by the sun at the moment. That and the football. The entire world is sunbathing and drinking large amounts of beer. I shut the shop early yesterday becasue the streets were deserted, the pubs were full and I was far too hot. That awful sheen of perspiration that covers the face and neck and feels extremely menopausal. I really do not enjoy it. And I am about to go to India and experience it by the bucket load, literally.

    I have gained so much confidence in all the business from this week in Dulwich. Especially the clothes. They are doing so well it is great. My list of reasons to go to India has grown hugely and the timing could not be more perfect, given that clothes take months. The only dilemma is that I have nothing left for the European Yoga Festival apart from yoga clothes which do not sell well there! Ironically. I lay in the heat of the bedroom last night trying to gather my thoughts and decide what I could get made up and back in the UK one week after my return from India. I could not come up with much. So then I wonder if it is worth taking the shop to the festival. It would be so relaxing not to do so……..

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  • Shops and shoppers

    4 days into the experience of shopkeeping and life is changing a lot.

    I am pleasantly surprised by the reactions that people have to the stock, and even more, the way they are buying is beyond all my expectations, but at the same time the experience has vastly increased my confidence in the business as a whole. We have met great people ove rhtese days and it has been relaxing and fun. It is absolutely the right thing to do and I feel so much lighter about it all than I have in months.

    I now have to think about christmas, and have booked my flight t0 India in two weeks. It will be excruciatingly hot, but if I don’t do it now I will not have any time left in the build up to Christmas. I have to make a new catalogue as well and need the aritcles to photograph for the pages. The heat will be terrible.I remember it well from last year, but at least it will be quiet. Is that a good thing? I am not sure right now. I still find myself wishing that someone would come with me. Pathetic, I know, but the truth. In fact I have so much work to do that I need to be alone and clear headed to get everything done in such a short length of time.

    Someone who came to the shop today was a marine biologist who had spent time in Yemen. We had a long conversation about the place and how it is to travel there now. I really want to go back. It is one of the most fabulous places I have ever been. I have been trying to look on the internet to find out more, but have been somewhat unsucessful. Life changes with children. Their needs have to come first and school holidays delineate all travel plans. Will Air Yemen be safe? It does not sound as secure as Virgin, but hey. When you’ve got to go, that’s it.

    Being positive is going well. Rather fun to watch myself, in fact, and I am not slipping as frequently as I expected.

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