Welcome to Carolyn Cowan Online; Designer, photographer, teacher, mother, counsellor and bodypainter.
Archive for 2011
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The Benefits of Running
This piece is inspired by an article in Runners World, November 2011. Running protects your heart, slows down the ageing process, and generally improves your health in many ways, some unexpected….
Running gives you a mental buzz that makes you believe you can achieve your goals. Running raises self-esteem, your expectations of yourself and of life. This in turn lowers physique anxiety.
Running lowers your risk of diabetes type 2.
A 30 minute run sharpens your mind, improves reaction times and reasoning ability. This benefit shows a marked effect in older runners.
If you regularly run for 45 minutes your metabolism is boosted for 14 hours subsequently. So you continue to burn fat over and above the excess removed during the run.
Running is a great way to deal with negative feelings and especially to fight depression. 30 minutes, 3 – 5 times a week helps people to stay calm. Clinically depressed people who exercise are less likely to relapse than those who rely on pills alone.
Contrary to current thoughts and general comments made about running, the impact of regular runs builds bone density. 15-20 miles a week has a major impact on long-term bone health, protecting the body from stress fractures and the negative effects on bone density from the menopause.
Short sprints can drastically reduce the frequency of asthma attacks. Lung function is boosted by fartleks.
Both distance runners and sprinters who do 30 second bursts of speed have a lower risk of heart disease. Also pregnant exercisers give birth to babies with better cardiovascular profiles.
Another myth is that running is bad for your knees. A long-term study from Stanford University has concluded that runners who regularly clocked 5 runs of 60 minutes each week suffered drastically fewer joint problems in later life. The process of tightening and strengthening the joints starts in the first week of running, so no need to wait for these benefits.
6 hours of running a week will burn a pound of fat!
40 minutes of running a week for 12 weeks will get rid of long term constipation issues.
Running lowers your blood pressure.
3 runs of 45 minutes per week for 4 months will boost your muscle mass.
Running reduces cholesterol. It is the most effective exercise for this issue.
Runners have better sex lives according to fetcheveryone.com. Inactive males have a higher incidence of erectile dysfunction, 71%, and an hour of aerobic exercise 4 times per week improves quality and quantity of sexual encounters. I feel a lot could be inferred here and I leave it to you to interpret this one as it works best for you.
Running slashes your risk of silent strokes by almost 50%. A silent stroke is caused by tiny blockages in the blood vessels in the brain which damage the brain tissue but do not leave the same devastating outward signs of a stroke.
And back to Stanford’s research which is a wild read, and proves that runners do live longer…….
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Squaring Up To Reality
Tis a full moon in the next few hours and apparently I have to make serious, conscious decisions which will profoundly affect the next 28.5 years of my life.Added to this potential reality there is a Chinese curse which says: may you live in interesting times.
So I feel pressure.
There are lots of varying reasons for the pressure: the economics created by rafts of Hedge Fund Managers run wild, unchecked bankers, laws which allow those with money to divest the rest of us with impunity, I am a parent of two kids, I run a small business under the abstracted eye of Mr Cameron, plus I am going through divorce.
When I instigated the process I was met with no resistance to the petition by my ex-husband and have had the decree nisi for over a year one. The decree absolute is another experience entirely.
After a year of fruitless attempts at settlement met with ridiculous demands by the ex-husband I now find myself turned to the charms of the Court.
It feels potent and the right choice of routes forward but the process is wild, unknown and impossible to explain by anyone other than those who have trodden the path before me, stressful and very expensive.
I stand on the threshold of changing case law which adds an interesting flavour to the process, (but in reality is not as exciting as it sounds), and bids me to tread with firm feet and steadfast resolve.
So I have a massive learning curve going on 24/7.
I thought I knew a lot about stress management and have a lot of tools. But my body reacts to the current reality in ways that astound me. Ulcers, back aches, dislocation of joints, trapped nerves, styes…. The list is long and unattractive.
If I had not been teaching spiritual practice on a regular basis for the past 18 months and been forced to walk the walk and talk the talk I would have been in serious trouble. But I have been held high and strong by my practice, the teachings, great friends, new friends, an emerging relationship, my creativity and a rock steady belief that I deserve to have all that I am fighting for.
So this full moon I have been advised to be utterly present and now in my desires for the future. To be completely clear about how the future is, not how I want it to be. To make certain in my mind, that all my desires and longings are already manifested in how I move forward over this huge full moon. This means that I affirm my life, as I desire it in the future, to be my reality now.
Hey, the world is an insane and crazy place right now. Why would this not work? Why would I not leap on an opportunity for personal and world peace? The only person I can change is me, no one else, just my reality, my attachments, my reactions, beliefs, my attachment to suffering and drama. Go Ghandi,
I think it is a great idea and I am going for it, now, sitting on an aeroplane, 35,000 feet above the Alps. Please may the concepts and determination come with lots of glue to make it stick into the future as my resolve can sometimes lack fervour.
But then this is important stuff, this is the rest of my life, this is me, my kids, my future, and the validation of 18 years of excessively hard work emotionally, physically and financially. I will not walk away, I will not give in, I will stand and fight.
Bless me please whoever you are that bestows beneficience. I need it now.
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Swagger & Dash Collection, Autumn & Winter
I am thrilled with the collection. It is richly coloured and textured, the fabrics are sumptuous and voluptuous, it has been great fun putting it all together and the results are stunning.It is a rich tapestry of colour, texture, form and history. I have made a film that gives an overview of the main pieces in the collection. It is the first clip on the page.
I have new dresses in the Victorian and Opera lines. Glorious silks, checks, slubbed duppions, colours that shine and shimmer and a new, shorter length. For these dresses there are also films to show how to wear them. There are so many different options when it comes to styling the cuts.
The Caro Dress and the Flared Shirt now both come in the heavy cord and in divinely luscious cashmere.
I have a new section called The Mother of the Bride with a film to accompany the information. I have put together a collection of clothes that work well for ceremonies, weddings, parties and those times when nothing but stylish drama will do…..
There are also Devotion Suits! This is a whole new area for me, but as so many of you are business women, doctors, lawyers, therapists etc and need to look smart, it seems the way to move forward. But there are also moments when sensible is not enough, so for these times….. the Swagger Suit is a mad homage to the 60′s, Carnaby Street, the Beat Generation…… so many influences.
The collection of jackets has been expanded to include a beautiful collection of hand embroidered pieces from LET it FRAY by Carey Marvin. Carey is a wonderfully creative embroiderer and her designs for Devotion are beautiful.
I have expanded my range to include new lines in skirts: The Penn Skirt is sexy and flattering and a homage to the work of Irving Penn in the 50s, the Full Circle skirts are exactly that, full, heavy, evocative and filled with character, and in the felted wool, so warm.
In trousers there are stunning Narrow Trousers in rich silk colours. As of today, these are still patiently waiting to go up onto the store. By Friday they will be in place.
The lovely Caroline Townsend of Mandarina Shoes lent me a huge collection to match mine. Oh how wild it was….. I lust after so many pairs it is outrageous! And I cannot choose which I prefer the most. I already have 4 pairs of her shoes anyway, and wear them all the time. I think it will have to be the Leopard Print ankle boots…. She goes up to a comfortable size 42
Do take a look at the films, I have added lots of new ones and by Thursday I will have expanded the original clips to include the new pieces so you will be able to see the new trousers, too.
Also remember that I can make any of my cuts in any fabric and size, my shop is in my house in Camberwell and is by appointment. Please do call 00442077019269 or email to make an appointment.
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It is so easy…..
To judge and pass comment on all that transpired in London over the past week is so easy, everyone is doing it.I am nothing more than a middle aged, middle class mother and business woman living in South London, on the edges of Peckham, employing local people, using local shops and living on the edge of bankruptcy on a month by month basis. I used to live on credit, money against my mortgage but that ran out and since then I have been completely self employed and lived only from what I earn. I am fully paid up tax-wise and have never been on benefits apart from receiving Child Allowance as do all the bankers, politicians and mothers of the rioters under 16.
What is only now being brought into the light is the real link, as far as anyone living in the real world is concerned: The awful disparity between the lives of those who did take an opportunity to thoughtlessly and indiscriminately raid the High Street and those who live in an altered reality where a £60,000 car is an every day experience, their wages and expense accounts are all paid for, they earn thousands in bonuses for playing with money etherically and have no sense of responsibility at all towards society and move most of their money abroad through tax evasion incentives set up by the government to stop the money market moving elsewhere.
Daily life is stressful, and the lack of money makes for huge stresses despite being a functioning creative with a business. Try running a small business….. the incentives are appalling, the costs ridiculous, the rewards puny, the work, phenomenally exhausting and my recent brush with a disgruntled employee and the Industrial Tribunal system showed me very clearly where the governments sympathies lie: Huge multi national industries that all play in this wild and exciting banking and monetary system that the rest of us have nothing to do with. Vast sums of money being made globally by people whose psychological profile is the same as that of a Psychopath. (A recent article about this appeared in the Financial Times. I think it was up for an hour before it was lost in the mists of history, never to be seen again. Far too inflammatory… )
Watching the two concurrent news stories over the week has been fascinating as a social study. Endless men in suits getting really stressed over computer screens showing a little red worm slowly snaking it’s way down a mountain. Or flaming red and black images of naughty local kids venting rage and fury in the only way they know how: To kick against a system that wants nothing more for them than that they are in thrall to a system that expects them to do nothing but consume with every penny they have, like sheep on a treadmill until they drop dead. There is no thought for the individual any more, fashion, the media, facebook, Apple, Amazon and all the other huge conglomerates have seen to that….. turn all eyes towards mind-numbing, unfulfilling purchasing and chasing of highs that are heavily taxed and you have a workforce that will do as you say. If they do not, they are social misfits who need to be punished. Meanwhile the shiny Range Rovers and smart suited boys can go to their brokers and rake in millions with lots of dodgy tax scams that benefit no one but themselves and their families. And rather like the camaraderie that exists between those in the office doorway, dragging on a quick fag, they are all together in arms against those who dare get angry.
I come from the Ghandi school of response: Through peaceful protest. I do not have any desire to smash anything up but I do, so strongly, want a future for my Peckham kids that is not one of hopelessness and fury because the men who make the rules are all wildly partying together at their great good fortune to have gone to the right schools, have the best hedge fund manager and know how to spend It…
How to find a leader out there who can speak for the feeling of betrayal that exists outside of the politicians and bankers cosy worlds seems to be a challenging task, but if the police can individually identify 2200 masked hoodies, mostly I would guess by other’s plea bargaining, then sure we can all keep our eyes peeled for a strong woman who can stand up and say “Enough….. let’s try a different way….”
Why a woman? Will they be better at it? Who knows, but the last few years has been so profoundly male, what with the Wars, the Bankers, the Politicians and the Footballers…… a different point of view must without.
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What Was in My Handbag When I Got Sober….
I am flirting with 20 years of sobriety. ‘Tis a wild reality. I have been sober for as long as I used. Yes, the maths are sobering in themselves: I started when I was 11 and I am now 51.I am thinking about this quite a lot at the moment. Since last year, turning 50 was a leap. I stand on a different page in my life, I am older, am I wiser? I am as yet unconvinced, but I am in the throes of divorce and may say that I had no idea what I was walking into when I decided it was time to end the marriage.
I have learned a lot, but now know that there is a long way to go on this curve, and finding it fun seems to be the hardest part. If I look at all that is plastered around me on my journey it is a collection of platitudes, so called great writers who cull and tease the words of others so they fit into the empowered new speak of the Me generations. The overall message seems to be that it is all perfect. I am failing if I cannot or do not find it to be so. The fine line between suicidal misery and getting out of a rut is never explained, expanded upon nor open to discussion in this high-speed life where misery is apparently optional.
I teach in Camden twice a week. I get off the tube and walk through an interesting melee of people and am always caught by the punks who hold up the signs for the tattoo parlours. Why punks holding the signs? I have no idea. Why do I look at the punks? Because I was a punk….. before they were a punk….. and as I hit 20 years sober I have met yet another rock bottom.
I do not drink, smoke, take drugs, eat any sugar and now, kicking and screaming to the altar of 24/7 consciousness, I cannot take another mouthful of caffeine in either tea or coffee without exploding in fury, irritation, stress and veins filled with sand. I have finally had to admit that I cannot take it any more. I have to be caffeine free. I do not want to be. I do not. Why can there not be just one last piece of comfort: A great cup of builders tea or a strong latte? Why not? It makes me furious.
But here is the oxymoron: I feel so much better it is just awful!
And so I look back at the punks and remember. I was up on stage at the Roundhouse when the audience ripped up all the seating at the Clash concert and threw it all on the stage. I had a Saturday job at Scissors in the Kings Road and had bright blue hair standing up on end in 1976. I went out with the man who started BOY in the Kings Road and aged 16 was regularly locked in the shop whilst the punks and the skinheads rioted outside in the street. I was at the Tubes concert when Fee Waybill jumped into the audience with a functioning chainsaw turned on, broke his leg and carried on the rest of the concert….
When I went to my first NA meeting in Dublin in 1991 the man who took me suggested I empty my handbag of all paraphernalia. 2 hip flasks (both empty), one large flick knife, a set of playing cards, a roll of poker dice, a razor blade, a bag of hash, some downers and a packet of Rizlas.
And now I cannot drink a cup of tea without loosing the plot? It is a disaster.
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Beautiful Incisions
You may or may not know that I am an excellent portrait photographer.It is a skill that I put down for a while to build up Devotion. I now feel it is time to pick it up again. I have certain projects that interest me greatly and I wonder if you would be interested or able to take part;
I want to continue photographing women with scars. This does not exclusively mean breast cancer scars although the image here is as the result of a mastectomy. All scars are what I am intrigued by. I work discretely, in my house, away from assistants. The images are only shown in an exhibition with your permission and a print for you, the sitter, is absolutely part of the exchange between us. For many women, this work is a great experience and a lot of physical confidence can be built as the result if that is what is needed or lacking. Otherwise it is a wonderful way to pass a few hours, naked with me. My years as a body painter allow me to hold a very comfortable space.
Another project, one that requires the Great Outdoors and to be fully dressed, is a series on Women who Shoot. If you are a woman who shoots, be it deer, pheasant, big game etc, I would love to photograph you. If you know anyone who might be willing to participate or who hosts a shoot themselves, please do pass this on. Again, it is great way to spend a few hours together, always an interesting way to get to know someone better and a print is a part of the exchange.
I have a very wonderful photography site. In the section current projects you will see more.
If you are interested in working with me on this level please do email me and we can take it from there.
First published March 27th 2011.
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Another One of Those Days
Here is sit, in the shade of two beautiful mountains, in South Africa. I am here because I chaperone my daughter, 8 years old, in her role as the third lead in a Bollywood movie.We are watching one of the mountains very closely, waiting for a skydiver to appear as a tiny blue dot against this beautiful background. The dot is meant to be my daughter who, in her role, is supposed to have jumped off the mountain wearing a parachute and then deftly caught a helicopter on her way down and so landed safely.
The joys of being 8 are unchallenged. I am the one who is challenged. I am seriously struggling with the Perfection of the Universe.
I rail against this reality. I want to be elsewhere, doing other things than sitting in the background making sure she is safe and hydrated. I want to be in another reality, a different experience…. And it causes me to suffer hugely. I was with a friend who lives out here for the last few days and her mantra was endless: It is all perfect, the universe is perfect. It gets irritating to listen to and even more annoying to realise that my endless issue, the lack of trust that I have in this perfection, is so painful.
In retrospect everything is always fine and good, all turns out well. But sitting here surrounded by the most exquisite view on the planet, being paid to be here, all expenses covered, all creature comforts considered, I still range, roam mentally and itch to be elsewhere.
I guess it is the addict in me that will never sit still. Nothing is ever enough. I need to take care of this aspect of me every day, moment by moment. I am aware of this beast inside me. I know how to cage and tame it. I am just not good at it when the caging and taming are not enough. How to reign in the screaming wildness inside me that surfaces when things are not going my way?
My plans have been waylaid by circumstances beyond my control, I should no longer have been here; I ought to have been at home, quietly stroking and tending to my business, instead I am stretched beyond the gap I had allowed for this experience in my life and I loathe it.
I have stretched my body as far as I can with my yoga practice. (I cannot run here, apparently it is too dangerous for women to run alone…), I have meditated, here I write to offload my writhing, and I will breathe deeply all day and work with the Just for Today Card. An aspect of 12 Step Recovery that is life transforming, takes me out of my self-centeredness and puts me firmly on the side.
The first line says: Just for today I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do something for 12 hours that would appal me if I felt I had to keep it up for a lifetime.It goes on in this way, rather in the vein of Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual masters, to bring everything into the moment. The moment is perfect, I feel better. I can square my shoulders and turn to the next person with a calm smile.The universe is perfect…….. just for today.
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Can I Say This?
The sun is shining, I am officially in Paradise. Not my version because my reality is that it is not place bound, but gratitude is important and the view spectacular. To confess to it being anything other than earthly perfection would be churlish.
But it is interesting to be conscious of clarity coming in; to see how my view of my vision adjusts as understanding lands. Small moments of awareness are gently folding themselves open and the vast expanses of beauty rests upon some very dead weight. I live in South London. I live in an area where I am frequently the only white person on the bus or in the shops or on the street. Many of my friends are mixed race, black, (what is the current PC description? I loose track).
Do I ever feel more than? No. Do I ever feel threatened? Never. I know I am the wrong generation to be threatened and I am extremely human, full of frailties and therefore no better than anyone.
But here. Gosh. As my eyes open and I see what goes on, how it is, the expectations, the voices, the glances. the comments, the realities…. Paradise is very flawed. Look at at the sea and it is lovely. Turn to look around at all that allows me be to be here looking at the sea and it is not lovely at all.
Sitting at breakfast in a 5 star hotel, only the guests and the manager are white. I asked the very tight lipped, suited manager about where I could run. She was surprised and took time to answer. I should never run alone was the final response and no, there was no one to run with me or with whom I could run. She confessed to being a runner herself, but ran far too far and too fast to run with me. I thought nothing of it until later, walking down the rocks to the beach, realising that I was in fact in serious danger. Not from the rocks or the elements but the fact that I am white, alone with a child, gold jewellery, handbag, female……. By the time I got it I was at sea level with a long walk back up through bushes, scrubland, hidden pathways, in front of me.
It is many years since I moved through my daily life watching my back. True, I worked in Africa a lot 20 years ago and now remember the sensations, the endless threat of rape, not trusting anyone. It is an unpleasant experience and it is very evident amongst the women here, the fear, but also the endless divisions as to what is done by black, what is owed, due and owned by white. 3 days in and I am no longer filled with delight and awe. I am horrified.
Corrective rape is the new black in Capetown and this week a famous black lesbian was gang raped and murdered in the city. My friend here is white and gay and I am interested to see what her take will be. She is rich, privileged, less than honest about the realities of life, lives with a woman. I want to see what it is like for her. Is she able to be open about her sexual choices? Does she have impunity? Is it perhaps even trendy to be white, gay, rich? I’ll bet all the tea in China it is fine.
The politics of female sexuality and it’s expression are not getting any easier. The UN may have decided to make rape in all it’s forms an illegal act of war but does anyone out there know? Or care? Or get caught?
“It is such a tricky subject, rape”. Another one of those Facebook sentences that never makes it to my “personal status”.It is never talked about, goes on all the time all over the world, one is labeled a feminist for having views, a victim for the experience. It is as complex an issue as masturbation to discuss, or miscarriage. Bring it up and a huge space looms which no one quite dares to fall into. The space is dark and frightening. Compassion looms within in a very broad, sweeping way for anyone but what to say to the individual who has experienced it? Now or years ago…… just a huge yawning gulf of unspoken, unsupported terror.
To walk in what one assumes is an area rendolent of luxury and all it’s thrall and in that moment realize that one actually has no rights, no impunity, no safety, no power at all is a very shocking realization. It quite takes one’s breath away. Yesterday, as it dawned upon me what I was doing, I stopped, understood and felt so utterly stupid, so devoid of all the protection that my closeted life in the wilds of South London gives me and took a deep breath. “Keep calm, smile, breathe and walk with determination back up the hill”, through the myriad of hidden recesses and unknown shadows and try to concentrate. Attempt to wrap my 51 year old reality and my 8 year old daughter in a completely different blanket, one that is untrusting, overly vigilant and aware all the time. How unparadise-like can I get? But keep smiling, keep being grateful, open and positive and enjoy the view, wait for the dolphins to leap past with all their promise of fairy dust and a better world, but watch my back all the way and do not for a moment suggest to my beautiful child that life is anything less than perfect.
Having said that, questions are bubbling up in her: Why are we only served by blacks? Why do blacks not have proper houses? Why do they walk and not drive? A small cavalcade of questions that when answered as honestly as I can answer them with my limited knowledge of life here, beg more and more quizzes. Are they rich? Why not? If they work so hard why do the whites have all the money?
Sat on the film set, right now, in one of the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat upon, fur rug at my feet, I watch all the layers moving in front of me. The film is financed by an Indian Billionaire. Louis Vuitton twinkles from all the Indian corners of the Directors troupe and the star’s girlfriend. Limited edition wallets and handbags in shiny patent leather lie sparkling on dark wooden tables, the rooms are splendid, the comfort beyond even the reach of Ralph Lauren and his fantasy furniture. Someone mentioned the location, a weekend house, is worth £50,000,000. How lovely. It is. Please don’t get me wrong. It is stunning, the view, the location, the décor, the peace and the stillness. Utter perfection. And the layers beneath, what maintains it, cleans it, feeds and serves us, the crew….. the layers are quite fascinating.
My mother does not venture out into the world much but she has been here and has written, begging me to keep the hotel swimming pool. I am starting to see why.Posted in -
The Rear View
I went to the theatre last night with a friend. We went to see a new play that had no reviews…. Enough said. But dinner afterwards was at Joe Allens in Exeter Street. Thirty years later, I could not remember where the loos were, but it all came flooding back as I descended into the brick walled room….. The drunken evenings, the cocaine in the toilets, the Bloody Marys, me and my friends at twenty something, rolling out of Rumours, the cocktail bar round the corner and staggering noisily into dinner at Joes. It was an institution and one that had slipped out of my thoughts completely.As I sat down, I looked up into the room and there, a few tables away, still utterly resplendent was the beautiful Michelle Paradise, thirty years later. Time had folded and we were both still wearing red lipstick. Neither of us works in the industry where we met, but we have moved on into similar fields: the endless fascination with empowerment.
So the introduction is that I looked good. I had made an effort to go to the theatre: excellent haircut, slim, wearing a skirt I have not worn for 12 years, and a tight fitting black V necked T shirt.
As I brushed my teeth, looking at myself in the mirror I wondered what my new haircut looked like from the back. With an electric toothbrush still whizzing it’s way gaily round my jaw I turned to hold up a mirror to see the back of me. I have a certain way that I look at myself in the mirror. I lift my chin, slightly pull in my checks, tighten my belly and smile slightly. All of this is an attempt, mostly successful, to diminish the pain of looking at the parts of me that do not behave as I desire them to.
I will digress here… When my children were small, and my daughter had really long hair, I had this ongoing story about Invisible Pigs in velvet waistcoats and smoking hats that had combs dipped in honey. Every night they would dance around Isadora’s bed whilst she slept, tangling her hair with the honey dipped combs. It was a funny story that trailed along with us for years and if Isadora tripped over, she had fallen over an Invisible Pig.
I now know that the Invisible Pigs have a new remit: Adjust the flesh on my body in areas that I cannot change, flex or suck in. Make sure the changes are permanent, depressing and true to type.
So I return to last night, the tooth brush whirring away but slowing down as my gaze swept across my 51 year old rear view. Damme, frankly. Not what I want others to see or know is going on as I gaily trip out of the room, walk away, storm off, turn to do something else or present my back whilst I work, cook, read, or any number of other daily tasks that require my attention to be turned away from the gaze of the person looking at me.
I jest, in a way, I do.
I do not enjoy the ageing process, tis true, but I am doing it quite well considering all the drink, drugs, mayhem, smoking, sunbathing and hooliganism that my life has largely consisted of. It is just that when I look at the front, as long as I am concentrating, I have quite a lot of control over it all….. my mirror face is good. But the back, my back, the chocolate mousse under the arms, the bra lines, the waist, there is no way that I can bend it to my will.
Coming back to the mirror, I exhaled, released about thirty muscles down the front of my body, took a long hard look at me now, shrugged, put down the mirror, released the toothbrush from it’s slavery and went to bed thinking about time, thirty years ago and the horror of 51 year old under arm flesh.
The only good news, according to the delightful woman at Rigby & Peller, the Queens Brassier Constructors, is that all women have it…. But that does not make me feel any better about it. A long flared coat is the only way forward……
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A Little Too Personal
I did promise I would write and I have sat back many times and thought about what to say….. it leads me into the realms of my personal life in ways that I am not comfortable with. I have contemplated what I could write that skirts the issues, but all seems to just wind endlessly around the same drawing pins stuck in my notions of what is an acceptable landscape and in the end I find I am not being honest which ultimately defeats the purpose of it all and the need for openness about the Human Condition is the basis of what fuels my writing.So I am neatly back round to myself and my reality: Do I write weblog or do I shy away from public disclosure of my reality?
Clearly I have made the decision to write.
I am the mother of two delightful children and in July last year I instigated divorce proceedings against the man I married 18 years ago.
Of course there is a bigger picture as to why, and the broadest brush can say I have been unhappy for years, for such a long time, that I woke up on my 50th birthday last year, in February, and realised that there was no way I could live the second half of my life being so deeply unhappy. It is a big decision to make and one that has had and continues to have huge ramifications in my life. It is scary and stressful, slow and painful, but there is not a moment when I regret my decision. It is just taking a long time to get to where I really want to be in my life; To unravel the possessions, the behaviour patterns, the choices, compromises and unspoken longings and desires that have built up into an intolerable wall of pain that I now need to take apart, concept by concept, without causing unnecessary suffering and pain to our two children.
The choices I now make have polarised friendships, led to big changes in how I run my business and have left me feeling very isolated, but then that in turn creates new friendships, new behaviour patterns and new learning curves, all of which I really enjoy. Judgements by others have, in the main been bearable, but there are moments when people show themselves in the harshest and most intolerable light and I wonder if I ever really knew them at all. By the same token, other lesser known acquaintances have become extraordinary friends and exhibited great emotional generosity and I find that I wonder how I never saw this side to them. And there are those to whom my actions appear terrifying: The very idea that I could stand up and say I am unhappy and that I have had enough, they reel against, turning away in fear and a certain disgust is apparent as though they are witnessing road kill happen. How could I dare? Is written across their faces, but at the same time there is a fascination for the notion that it is possible, but ultimately too many structures are threatened and the only way forward is to turn away. So turn away they do.
The process has not unravelled itself as I had imagined it would. It is harder, more tangled, far more subtle and more gross than I hoped or dared to think, it has taken far, far longer to get where I am now than I ever thought, and I feel as if I have made no progress at all. As I turn to the possibility of a court divorce, I realise that I have not even met real stress yet. I need lessons in how to adjust my mind to allow things to unfold, not to see each step as profoundly personal, but part of a bigger process that is a massive beast that will ultimately bite all of us. That thought can stop me in my track, but time spent living as I currently live instantly reminds me that I have no option but to find a way through and out.
I have had to use all of my tools, the meditation, the running, breathing practices and tools to still my mind, over and over again, I have honed my practices until they are second nature to me. I have better boundaries, I am clearer in my communications and more circumspect in my disclosures. I feel endlessly aware of my children and the consequences to them but had no choice but to effect this massive change in all our lives. Will they be ok? I really do work to do my best for them in all decisions and actions. I went through my parents’ unhappy marriages without over being told what was happening until it was a done deed. That was a profoundly disturbing experience that had repercussions for all of us and for some, still does. Marriages made without notice to us, divorces, moving house overnight, boarding school the next day. It was a horrifying bad dream that I thought I would never wake up from.
Whether I do the right thing in being open to my kids, I can only pray that I do, I have been open and clear about every step I take. I have instigated a policy of telling the truth about the situation, why, what is happening, where I am with it and what comes next. To break the no talk rule seemed to me to be one of the most important steps I could take. To have spent so long in a conspiracy of silence, of learned behaviour passed down through generations, is a terrible act. I will no longer play along. So openness and it’s subsequent consequences are my only route and friend now. The status quo will no longer be maintained or bolstered by my silence and compliance. It has to be held open, bare and present. I have made the right decision, I want to be divorced and as I look to the future I am happier than I have ever been since making these changes and seeing that there is a future ahead.
So now it is out. I have told as much of my reality as I can in this strange land that is the world wide web. In future I want to write more openly about what it takes, as a 50 year old woman, to go on, what I face and fear and the triumphs as I step further into being myself. I hope that what I say resonates with other women who have had similar experiences: divorce whilst running a business, a marriage contract not in my language, nor in my country, a large mortgage and the joy of debt.
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