All this reading has got me to thinking: Where did these books come from?
Paul’s book (trust me, you too will feel comfortable enough to call him Paul once you have read his book…) is based on his life so it's a bit more obvious. Except that it isn’t. What makes his experience a good book? Or more to the point – would my life make a good book? And which bits? And how much detail?
There is an effortless, crazy, twirling, narcissistic hedonism that carrys Paul’s book. I loved every word of that book. Every. Word.
The magical realism of Morgenstern and Gaiman is more baffling to me. I really like magical realism (and its leather clad sister ‘urban fiction’.) The bringing together of the everyday with the whimsical is just so heart stoppingly delightful. Neil Gaiman, Suzanna Clarke and Lauren Beukes are just some of my favourites. I defy anyone to find a more artful love letter to Johannesburg than Beukes’ Zoo City.
When I read these books I feel like my brain is being slowly peeled open like an orange. I see the skill in the writing; I marvel at the extreme detail and am so excited by the otherness I want to suck the story right into my bones. I am left giddy and unsure of where my fantasies end and my mothering, working, school-lifting reality begins.
And, these books also leave me with a desire that scares the pants of me.
I want to write a book like that. I want to write something that makes a reader stop and say “Ha!” to no one in particular when the story takes an unexpected turn. I want my books to become a best friend and for a reader to feel slightly bereft when the final chapter is finished.
But do I have it in me? Am I brave enough to even try? What if its shit? What if the best I can produce is a piece of derivative crap?
I am certainly too frightened to begin that journey today.
For now I am going to go back to Googling Paul Carr, reading The Night Circus and waiting patiently for Lauren’s next book.
One of the cover stories in this month’s Fair Lady is on how to STOP BEING A WAGE SLAVE NOW!
Just in case we thought it was something we could sleep on there is the exclamation mark, red underlining and even yellow highlighting ensuring that we understand that time is of the essence. Moving out of a salaried position is not something to consider. No! It’s something that must be done. NOW!
The subtext is powerful. It whispers, “You don’t want to get left behind now do you? All the cool kids are doing it…”
There is a subtle suggestion that it’s slightly embarrassing to be an employee. People with ambition, passion and a sense of self don’t hang around waiting for payday. What are you? A mouse? Or an entrepreneur? Choose! NOW!
Hmm…
I used to be a business owner. A few months ago I shut down the PR agency I had spent close on nine years growing.
For the last four of those nine years I was a wage slave. But it wasn’t to my wage – it was to the wages of my employees.
I was enslaved by the payroll, tethered to the VAT bill and shackled to the shame of my overdraft.
During the good times it was really good. The blessings of business ownership are immense. And they deserve to be. It’s hard, its lonely and it takes sacrifice and stamina to run a business - small or large.
But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. And it doesn’t mean that it’s forever.
I am just finishing my second month of full time employment and I love it. I have cut loose the burden of responsibility and faced my fear of failure.
I can feel my creativity sinking back into my soul. My sense of humour has moved from the dark (lank dark!) sarcasm I had begun to think of as my normal wit to something less likely to end in tears. I have joined a gym and I am re-learning how to completely relax.
So you can call me a wage slave and I will smile and agree because it’s true. But less true than its been for a while.
Some meaningful “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Some random “Time spent with cats is never wasted.”
Some wise “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
And some, downright mean. Like this little gem I happened upon: “The goal of psychoanalysis is to convert neurotic misery into ordinary unhappiness.”
And here I thought the objective of all this therapy was my eventual happiness…
Nope. It is, in fact, to take my Technicolor drama of a life and transform it into the everyday.
I have been cheated. I don’t want to be unhappy in ‘the normal way’. If I must be unhappy I want it to be the tragic suffering of a heroine, the melancholy only a Queen can feel or the exquisite despair reserved exclusively for saints.
I don’t want to be just a little bit down like Mrs. Marshall across the road. Good lord. Why bother with 4 years of drama school if all I am up to, is feeling blue, a bit sad or off colour... Where’s the poetry in that?
So I am off to read some Jung. I am sure he has something more uplifting and insightful to say about my brand of super special, extra deep – think abyss – depression.
This isn’t everyday stuff Mr. Freud. I am special. A princess. I know its true - my dad told me so.
I got this from friend yesterday. As I read it I felt my world shift on its axis.
Everything I know about love is wrong.
My experience, or rather, my interpretation of my experience, is based on a soft, pasty, and marshmallow expectation of love.
Today, I awake, fully conscious to the fact that the love I seek has many more sharp edges, dark deep places and dangerous paths than I have been willing to admit.
PLAYBOY: Where, would you say, should romantic love fit into the life of a rational person whose single driving passion is work?
RAND: It is his greatest reward. The only man capable of experiencing a profound romantic love is the man driven by passion for his work -- because love is an expression of self-esteem, of the deepest values in a man's or a woman's character. One falls in love with the person who shares these values. If a man has no clearly defined values, and no moral character, he is not able to appreciate another person. In this respect, I would like to quote from The Fountainhead, in which the hero utters a line that has often been quoted by readers: "To say 'I love you' one must know first know how to say the 'I.''
PLAYBOY: You hold that one's own happiness is the highest end, and that self-sacrifice is immoral. Does this apply to love as well as work?
RAND: To love, more than to anything else. When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
My wonderful friend Anel wrote a post detailing her year in its own words. And I love it. It got me thinking about what kind of year I am in relationship with and what is was asking me to do, not do, thinking about or leave behind.
Beginning Scene opens with Me standing centre stage. A tall cocktail table beside Me, upon which is a keyboard and computer mouse. A game of Tetris is being played slowly on a large screen behind Me. So far the game is going well.
(Scuffling, banging and chains rattling heard to stage left and the occasional angry screech of a woman)
Year enters stage right: You had better let her out you know. Eventually she will break out and when she does she will destroy everything.
Me: I am a little busy right now. Way too busy to let Creativity out. And the last time I let her anywhere near the game it was a bloody disaster. Took me a whole weekend to get Me back.
(Woman screams. More rattling and banging.)
Tetris games speeds up. Me frantically bangs the key board and clicks the mouse. It’s getting too much.
Me: You see how disruptive She is? Can you see? And She is still trapped in the dungeon. Imagine the damage if I let Her out? No.
Middle Scene opens with Me on a treadmill facing the audience. It’s going slowly and it all looks pleasantly under control.
Year enters stage right: Where’s Creativity?
Me: I let her out for a walk
Year: And?
Me: And what?
Year: And why are you here on the treadmill and not walking with her?
Me: What? You want me to walking with Creativity out there. No. This is good. (Pause.) I like this. I am really happy. (Forced smile.)
Almost the end Scene opens with Year reading a note from Me.
Year: Me says that she is really glad you all felt so interested in seeing the end. She too really hopes to make the end. But right now, its not the end and she has no idea how and when it will end. So she has taken her kids and Creativity to Barrydale fora few days.
Me hopes to see you soon but suggested to set up a Google Alert on her rather than actually wait here. She believes the end will take a long time to arrive, because although it appears that we may be close, Me thinks there is another Year coming.
I am the glass that must be melted completely before it can be reformed in the shape of its future. I am the iron repeatedly heated and beaten into the shape of its becoming. I am the stew that must boil, simmer and suck into the flavours of the bouquet garni before its succulence is ready to nourish.
It’s bloody hot, it’s mostly uncomfortable and it’s most certainly my path. Once I am shaped I will emerge from this fire. I will be changed – still glass or iron or food – but transformed into the shape that will be my carriage through the next phase of my life.
On another note: It’s officially a midlife crisis when you have a CD of poetry in your car and find yourself occasional nodding in agreement at red robots. For those of you interested in claiming the poetry of a midlife moment, I highly recommend David Whyte’s works.
I am currently listening to Midlife and the Great Unknown. It's a miraculous and compassionate investigation of how lost and found we are in midlife.
In Tarot, the first card is not number one, but zero – the Fool. It's a delightful card that is filled with playfulness, serendipity and joy.
The second card is number one – the Magician, who represents manifestation and mastery of our personal universe.
The order of the cards sends a clear message. The Magician can’t begin his mastery before the Fool has completed learning about his environment through play.
And yet here I am working so damn hard on mastering my personal universe that I don’t have time for something as trifling or self indulgent as play. Can you see the problem here?
I can’t remember the last time I really played. When did I last lose myself in an activity for no reason other than that it brought me joy? It doesn’t happen often. And mostly not without some form of chemical support, which renders the play utterly useless in terms of leading to a place of mastery.
The only time I consistently feel a childlike sense of play is when I dance. And only when I dance on my own, in a class rather than at a club or at a party. Social environments reduce dancing to a mating ritual carried out with strategic intent. It’s not play. (Caveat: I believe that once I learn how to play more easily and more often, I will be able to play within social environments without fear. But for now this is not possible.)
Classes put the intent into learning, which frees me up to play. I went to a salsa class a few weeks ago and mostly enjoyed it. It was great to think of nothing but what my feet were doing for two hours. The trouble was, we paired up and I constantly felt under scrutiny and somehow responsible for (or maybe to) the person I was dancing with. It was the most fun I had had for ages, but it was also quite stressful.
I need to dance on my own to play. (Well, certainly at the moment.) I am so out of step with my own sense of play that I need to find it deep within myself before venturing out and finding others to play with.
And this can’t continue. I must bring 'play' back – you can have sexy, JT*; I am bringing play back into my life. It’s time to have some unbridled, transformative fun.
So I am choosing to play the fool and get back to Nia. There is the protective veil of anonymity that can be found in a group, with the added benefit of no expectation from others that you will in some way enhance their experience. You dance your own class and let others do the same.
I have struggled to integrate Nia into my routine. But the more I consider the lack of play in my life, the more convinced I am that dancing will open up the path and remind me how it is done.
LA Story quote: “Let your mind go and your body will follow.” But I’m going to let my body go and pray that my mind shakes itself out of its self-imposed seriousness and follows.
I have been away for a week in a Karoo guesthouse with my kids, my parents and my sister and her children. There were eight other families here – most of us new to each other.
Each family, and specifically each marriage, is different in their make up but they do have a simple thing in common. There is deep care between the husbands and wives.
It is an almost a visible golden thread between each couple. It fascinates me. I have been studying the men in particular. They seem to connect in a deep way with their wives and their children. It’s not simply that they are in the room or on the trampoline or tennis court. It is that they are completely, totally and utterly there eating breakfast or riding bikes or reading.
They are fully present and intact. There is something for the wives and children to reach out and connect with. There are no multiple calls for attention before being noticed, no angry battles about who turn it is do this or that between spouses and lots of laughter.
They are taking care of each other by simply being present. The families are aware and actively being with each other.
It's a peaceful, beautiful thing and I want it.
16h10 on Wednesday 5 October 2011
I have been considering this post all day. And I think I have absorbed it. The only way to have this golden thread in my own relationships is to offer it.
I need to just be with my family – and in return a family that will be with me will be offered.
I am a comfort eater. There is no emotion so bad that it can’t be soothed by a whole bag of Ghost Pops, a few crispy roast potatoes with extra salt, or three or four peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches.
I come from a long line of emotional eaters. Our language of love is so tied up with mealtimes that you can practically tell the mood of each home by what is being rustled up in the kitchen.
A welcome is salmon sandwiches with capers and lemon pieces. A good report card is slow-roasted chicken with herb butter. Support is Ouma rusks dipped in tea. Sunday family time is spaghetti bolognaise or cottage pie. Parents-going-out is pasta and pesto with cheese and olives. Just simply happy is ice cream in a cone with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top.
Negative emotions are not communicated by specific foods but by a lack of care. Disappointment is more likely to be communicated by a slightly overcooked and squishy plate of fusilli than a harsh word. Sadness can be found in too many toasted sandwiches for dinner in one week. Bitterness is an ordered-too-late takeaway meal, or no-dinner-at-all-I-ate-with-the-kids.
But emotional eating is one thing and emotion eating is quite another.
How many emotions I have chewed on and swallowed instead of expressing them? How many times have I offered biscuits instead of words of support? A packet of chips rather than a ten-minute chat to find out why my kids are whining so much today? How often have I expected my husband to see the roast chicken as an expression of love rather than just a meal? How many times have I read too much into a steak sandwich?
I have been comfort eating through most of the winter. As we come into the full beauty of spring, I am going to communicate differently with myself. Ideally, support will be a few minutes of silence, love will be a hug and disappointment will be a good cry. And food will be a sublime, perfect experience of taste and nourishment.
Well. After this bag of wasabi chips. Have you tasted them? They’re just like first love – but better!
For a number of reasons, none intentional, I haven’t taken my antidepressants in five days. I am not coming off them – it’s just that between the finishing of the packet and the travelling and the forgetting, it’s been five days. Whatever it is that keeps my in my safe zone has left my system and I am feeling very raw.
My emotions feel like an ocean and I am a little boat riding the tide. It’s not so much the ups and downs that scare me, it's the depths.
On antidepressants I can see the bottom. The water is clear and I can see the sand, the rocks, the coral gardens. I am not surrounded by the dark green of deep water. Without them, I don't know how far down it goes or even what lives there. What forgotten dark creature will I meet if I dive in?
My needs have reverted back to a basic primal state. After four years of denial, I re-meet my animal self in all her furry, snarling fury. I am craving physical contact – crazy, wild, abandoned and dangerous. If I am not frightened right now, I am not interested.
I am so far out of my safe zone that I don’t even want to go back. I want to let go and see what happens. How does this Sarah, the one who isn’t concerned with ‘how it looks’, deal with her life? How far does she push? What does she get? At what cost to herself and others? Does this way of being in the world work? If so, when and why?
I have been so tame (mostly) for so long, I have forgotten just how raw rawness can be.
Wednesday afternoon
Well! Enough of that. One collected prescription and a few rescue remedy tablets later and I can see my em-ocean return to its calm blue and the fish come back. Thank God.
One day I will dive into that dark blue ocean and see how far it goes and what creatures live below. Not today, though. I have too many other creatures to meet and tame. But one day. One day soon.
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