Zoe Copley's Blog: Spring to Mind, page 3
February 12, 2011
Silence is Golden
After a couple of tries (and fails) to write a blog this past week I felt sure I was onto a winner when I came across the above title stored away in the lists of posts I had "prepared earlier". I was only thinking today when the Off-Spring were masquerading as marauding tigers and gazelles, just how true the adage is - Silence is Golden. And as rare...
Imagine my disappointment to find that all I had done previously with said draft blog was type the title - there was nothing in the body of the post at all. No doubt - knowing only too well my own sense of humour and terrible memory for certain details - I would have left it blank like that to amuse my future self when she, as I did tonight, retrieved the draft and sought to update it. Or perhaps in a more relaxed and perhaps sardonic moment, back in October 2010, I intended to post only the title and let the empty blog speak for itself.
I have some sympathy with that.
There is too much being said these days. Too much opinion and too much editorial. And all of it is too widely accessible. While wordy, I am also a "less is more" sort of person in many ways. So I do find myself pulled hither and thither in this age of tell all, say all, speak all and share all. I'm not great at tweeting my latest banal thought, or sharing or "liking" my latest meal - how interesting can fruit with Special K get, after all? But the world has moved on and my pre 1995 sensitivities really have no place in the digital age.
And searching for topics to write about, it's always tempting to descend into the banal and obvious, so many columnists (earning great salaries) do. I could go on at length about my sore throat, bickering children, the weather, TV (check out Hawaii 5-0), some new film (Rabbit Hole is on my list), the cost of petrol and groceries (every item I buy at Waitrose has increased in price since 1 January by an average of 15 p with the exception of Agave Syrup which they studiously match to Tesco and bananas and a couple of other fruits. There seems to be a view that anything slightly pleasant or indulgent should be charged at extortionate boutique luxury prices - dark chocolate is not a Luxury Mr W. Rose!). While I'm on the topic I should just let you know that a certain retailer will sell you 100grams of crystallised violet petals for the very affordable £14.99. Thankfully one needs only one such petal to feel truly ill, but there you are. Even feeling sick is an expensive pursuit these days.
So where were we going with all of this? Oh yes - silence.
I blogged a little while ago about having a rural idyll to which One might escape, to write and muse and take stock. I still feel a "room of one's own" at home ought to do the trick but ideally it needs to be soundproofed and lockable.
I manage to create a virtual "room of my own" in the later hours of the evening when Off-Spring slumber and Mr Spring-Girl is abroad. It was here in tranquil yet studious concentration that I finished my second novel last week. It's a doozy!
It's all about a woman called Verity - once a high flying ad exec - who struggles with parenting - a bit of perfectionist, desperate to keep up with the other mothers, she throws everything into creating the ideal home and ideal children, all the time neglecting husband and self, but convinced - most of the time - she is onto an amazing and sustaining life calling. Until one day the wheels fall off and a Betty Draper ("Mad Men") look alike threatens to lure her husband away to goodness knows what or where and all those hours in yoga classes and on the PTA amount to nothing. It's a very funny tale - obviously I amuse myself with my writing but I'll give you a little flavour so you can see for yourself. Here is a precis:
Tempted?
In this extract Verity is moaning about the school PTA president:
So, there are 75,000 words in a similar vein.
Not convinced that silence is golden when promoting a novel, I joined a writers' forum last week and uploaded some blogs for review. So far I have 10 messages begging me to review other people's work and one (more intelligent and subtle) message endorsing mine. Thanks "Liz" whoever you are - you get my vote right back!
You see - what one doesn't know until one writes a book and purports to have it published, is that there are very few books that actually get published in any year, unless the author is a celebrity, a chef or a previous best-selling writer. I guess I knew it would be hard, but the statistics are anything but encouraging. My first book was a personal story and one that I was committed to seeing into print under my own stream as I believed it encapsulated some humour and wisdom that needed to be shared.
Verity's tale, however, is pure fiction, and thus far more commercial and marketable. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is pretty much coincidental, only occasionally accidental and in one case very much deliberate (she begged to be in there under her own name and I couldn't turn down the promise of one reader, could I?). Best of all I discovered a capacity I didn't know I had. Writing fiction was an absolute delight. One that I had convinced myself was not in my repertoire. Original ideas - a story? No, I told myself - my domain was more the social commentary, self-effacing-critique-of-everyone-else-style. Until one day out came this character who had to be given life. She and her quest for answers had to be shared - just in a longer form than all those people on Twitter seem to like.
But in terms of getting it "out there"? Well, I sometimes think I would have more luck making a screenplay about Verity - or even getting fly on the wall mockumentary made about middle class women and their angst and worries - than I will have of getting my novel into the hands of any serious publisher.
Not that that is a bad thing - self-publishing is a great option - and in a couple of months you can all buy it or download it and tell all your friends about it. And "Like" it on Facebook too... Oh and retweet this on Twitter.
BTW - don't any of you steal that mockumentary idea! I said it first!
Imagine my disappointment to find that all I had done previously with said draft blog was type the title - there was nothing in the body of the post at all. No doubt - knowing only too well my own sense of humour and terrible memory for certain details - I would have left it blank like that to amuse my future self when she, as I did tonight, retrieved the draft and sought to update it. Or perhaps in a more relaxed and perhaps sardonic moment, back in October 2010, I intended to post only the title and let the empty blog speak for itself.
I have some sympathy with that.
There is too much being said these days. Too much opinion and too much editorial. And all of it is too widely accessible. While wordy, I am also a "less is more" sort of person in many ways. So I do find myself pulled hither and thither in this age of tell all, say all, speak all and share all. I'm not great at tweeting my latest banal thought, or sharing or "liking" my latest meal - how interesting can fruit with Special K get, after all? But the world has moved on and my pre 1995 sensitivities really have no place in the digital age.
And searching for topics to write about, it's always tempting to descend into the banal and obvious, so many columnists (earning great salaries) do. I could go on at length about my sore throat, bickering children, the weather, TV (check out Hawaii 5-0), some new film (Rabbit Hole is on my list), the cost of petrol and groceries (every item I buy at Waitrose has increased in price since 1 January by an average of 15 p with the exception of Agave Syrup which they studiously match to Tesco and bananas and a couple of other fruits. There seems to be a view that anything slightly pleasant or indulgent should be charged at extortionate boutique luxury prices - dark chocolate is not a Luxury Mr W. Rose!). While I'm on the topic I should just let you know that a certain retailer will sell you 100grams of crystallised violet petals for the very affordable £14.99. Thankfully one needs only one such petal to feel truly ill, but there you are. Even feeling sick is an expensive pursuit these days.
So where were we going with all of this? Oh yes - silence.
I blogged a little while ago about having a rural idyll to which One might escape, to write and muse and take stock. I still feel a "room of one's own" at home ought to do the trick but ideally it needs to be soundproofed and lockable.
I manage to create a virtual "room of my own" in the later hours of the evening when Off-Spring slumber and Mr Spring-Girl is abroad. It was here in tranquil yet studious concentration that I finished my second novel last week. It's a doozy!
It's all about a woman called Verity - once a high flying ad exec - who struggles with parenting - a bit of perfectionist, desperate to keep up with the other mothers, she throws everything into creating the ideal home and ideal children, all the time neglecting husband and self, but convinced - most of the time - she is onto an amazing and sustaining life calling. Until one day the wheels fall off and a Betty Draper ("Mad Men") look alike threatens to lure her husband away to goodness knows what or where and all those hours in yoga classes and on the PTA amount to nothing. It's a very funny tale - obviously I amuse myself with my writing but I'll give you a little flavour so you can see for yourself. Here is a precis:
Between yoga and the gym, charity morning teas and book club, night classes and helping out at school, Verity is stretched. Jumping (or wearily clambering) on the self-help bandwagons and struggling to keep abreast of the latest trends in parenting has left her lost, alone and confused. To find a fresh perspective, Verity starts an "Inner Child Journal". But what use is a diary, Chicken Soup or the Secret if your child is average, potty training doesn't work, your mother thinks you're a sell-out and your husband goes AWOL to find himself.
Distracted, desperate and deeply in denial, Verity is forced to confront her own demons – loss of control, ballet mums and bad coffee – with nothing to call upon but instincts (oh and pride, a gruelling fitness regime and a killer sense of humour).
While her husband searches for meaning in the soup kitchens of Asia, Verity makes a few discoveries of her own. Like, pride does go before a fall, there is such a thing as being too thin and too rich and playing to one's strengths beats playing around. Lone parenting has never been this much fun.
Tempted?
In this extract Verity is moaning about the school PTA president:
"Her latest ploy was to set up a Facebook page for the Mortimer Montessori Parents' Association (PAMM). Now she only communicates to parents through this medium. This is perverse. First, not everyone uses Facebook so it excludes and marginalises people. Second, she posts meaningless self-serving drivel about herself and her daughters and almost nothing about school or the Association or its events. Generally, anything we need to know is printed in the school newsletter and handed out each week by Mrs Blythe, in any case. It's obvious the Facebook thing is another self promotion tactic. I finally signed up with a false name in order to "Like" the bloody PAMM when Helen kept talking about the fantastic recipes her chums were posting there. I refuse to use Facebook legitimately because I know Kate and several women from the gym and yoga have all "Friended" each other and would find me to friend too. It's bad enough running into some of them socially or at the shops, without having to see pictures of them all over my laptop and hear about their kids' first day at school/swimming/karate/juvenile lock up ad nauseum. Anyway, I had to laugh when Wendy accepted my friend request under the alias "Loosy Lude". In fact Loosy has over 47 friends, no profile, nor photos and no personal info. But she likes PAMM and "The Good Wife". Go figure.
I'll admit that I enjoy certain elements of getting involved at school, like meeting new people and rolling my sleeves up to help, but it seems contrived, if not desperate, to see the school as a complete occupation. Admittedly, I don't have a role of the gravitas and responsibility that Wendy holds (voluntarily, mind you, since no one wanted to do it when Jeff stepped down), but I wonder if I lack the perseverance, tenacity and political will to do it well, in the first place.Note to self: sign up at Gracie's next school for important political role before alienating any parents."
So, there are 75,000 words in a similar vein.
Not convinced that silence is golden when promoting a novel, I joined a writers' forum last week and uploaded some blogs for review. So far I have 10 messages begging me to review other people's work and one (more intelligent and subtle) message endorsing mine. Thanks "Liz" whoever you are - you get my vote right back!
You see - what one doesn't know until one writes a book and purports to have it published, is that there are very few books that actually get published in any year, unless the author is a celebrity, a chef or a previous best-selling writer. I guess I knew it would be hard, but the statistics are anything but encouraging. My first book was a personal story and one that I was committed to seeing into print under my own stream as I believed it encapsulated some humour and wisdom that needed to be shared.
Verity's tale, however, is pure fiction, and thus far more commercial and marketable. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is pretty much coincidental, only occasionally accidental and in one case very much deliberate (she begged to be in there under her own name and I couldn't turn down the promise of one reader, could I?). Best of all I discovered a capacity I didn't know I had. Writing fiction was an absolute delight. One that I had convinced myself was not in my repertoire. Original ideas - a story? No, I told myself - my domain was more the social commentary, self-effacing-critique-of-everyone-else-style. Until one day out came this character who had to be given life. She and her quest for answers had to be shared - just in a longer form than all those people on Twitter seem to like.
But in terms of getting it "out there"? Well, I sometimes think I would have more luck making a screenplay about Verity - or even getting fly on the wall mockumentary made about middle class women and their angst and worries - than I will have of getting my novel into the hands of any serious publisher.
Not that that is a bad thing - self-publishing is a great option - and in a couple of months you can all buy it or download it and tell all your friends about it. And "Like" it on Facebook too... Oh and retweet this on Twitter.
BTW - don't any of you steal that mockumentary idea! I said it first!
January 20, 2011
Hair today...
They say a change is as good as a holiday. I always remind myself of this when contemplating a haircut. Let me just say, for the avoidance of doubt, that high maintenance is not my style. A trim once a year is about my speed. But, today I had 5 inches of hair cut off and and new style crafted by Trina from Perth. This has been coming on for some time. I had Googled celebrities with short cropped locks for a few hours last week and felt relatively convinced that it was time for a change. I have often mused about doing a Sharon Stone or Ginnifer what's her name, but without the make-up, jewellery or facial structure to carry those off, I had doubts. I noted that style journalists think Kate Middleton needs a new look. Luckily and serendipitously, I am now up to series 4 in the Friends Series Rewatch of Winter 2010-11 (where Monica sports several short "dos"). So, while it seemed spur of the moment, it was actually a long time brewing, this decision, and not such a big deal to secure a walk-in appointment and announce proudly that I wanted them to "take it all off".
In hindsight, as I recalling the wet tresses tumbling laconically to the floor, I should have collected that hair and sold it like Jo of "Little Women". I suppose at a deep unconscious level, given the clients marching in for their weekly wash and blow-dry sessions, I knew it would be ridiculous to do so - to reveal a morbid self-love or worse, display my current state of penury.
Which is more or less where the haircut gets its inspiration from. Not morbid self-love. But given my struggle to find purposeful employment that plays to my strengths and an outlet for my myriad talents, I have been suffering a sort of malaise, an energy low, if you will. When one feels like that a new haircut is often the answer. Its benefits are three-fold. First, it distracts. For a few days one enjoys the new look, playing around with the style and popping pins and bows in here and there, trying on hats and coats and seeing oneself afresh. Second, it sparks conversation. It is in some ways a cry for attention and validation - one feels pampered, one gets noticed by people who never normally acknowledge one, friends are curious - What were you thinking? they say, innocently - secretly miffed that something deeply personal was going on that one did not share with them. Third, inevitably, as all that weighty old dead stuff is removed, one feels lighter, purer and fresher. One recovers some zest for life. If for no other reason than the thrill of facing a stranger in the mirror through the fogs of sleep on a dark January morning, it has to be worth doing.
A lot of bang for the buck, you see!
Now in most cases, two days later after a gruelling workout and a rushed shampoo, the cute and glossy style is long gone and the hair looks shabby and frizzy, asserting its own mind once more and one is left frustrated and sorrowful, lamenting the loss of the option of throwing it up in a pony tail and knowing all would be fine...
But no. This time I am mindfully intent on having no regrets.Life is too short. There is still good coffee and great books to enjoy.
Also, even if I do not look like Katie Holmes strolling out of Starbucks with my toddler bedecked in patent high heels beside me, the cut is a good one and has taken years off me (or so I have convinced myself by putting that ladybird clip in!).
It is not easy to navigate the "hair ways" of life. You see we are a product of our home lives. My late mother was always of the view that women of a certain age look better with shorter hair. Indeed this seems to be the prevailing opinion in Australia where long hair on anyone over 45 who is not in showbiz is a rarity. But here in London and across the northern hemisphere as a whole, this is not the case. Indeed in a concerted effort to prove my commitment to fundraising for the Off-Spring's school at the PTA Christmas Fair late last year, I offered to auction snips of my long locks, only to be met with gasps of horror and exclamations of "No - you must not!" from the assembled committee. Indeed given the overwhelming lack of response to most of my ideas and initiatives as chair of the PTA, it was a startling reminder that people do express emotion and can form an opinion when the subject matter is important to them (nb women with short hair and cooking with children seem to be matters that invite a spirited response).
In a similar vein, I was met with absolute horror at school pick-up today when I collected the Off-Spring. Number 3 was home ill - not that ill really, just tired - and accompanied me to the salon. where the fun of sitting in high chairs, spraying water on wigs and being consulted on matters of style and appearance rendered him supportive and thoroughly engaged. Number 2 smiled at me with delight from afar but told me I looked hideous. Number 1 could barely look at me such was his devastation, saying I was ugly and disgusting.
Thankfully Number 1 resiled from this viewpoint after an hour when a clip with a flower on it was pulled through the side of the hair and also I suspect after some introspective musings about the true nature of love and acceptance. Number 2 is a pushover. A pure aesthete - for him the issue was the change rather than the style.
At the end of the evening no one was too bothered. I explained to them that (unlike Sampson whose strength lay in his long locks) I would be a more fun and laid back person with my new hip, cool and funky do and if they gave it a chance they might find things were better under the new regime. I certainly inspired them to new heights of homework concentration and energy, so who knows....
.......
Does one's hair really matter that much? Apparently, yes!
I could make all sorts of statements about the relative value of appearance and haircare as opposed to curing cancer and diabetes and eradicating poverty, but seriously, who would listen?
I know now, only too well, the value of a nice fresh style; of letting go of old ways of being. (Imagine, some people look and feel great all the time!) And to top it off, as I saw with the Off-Spring, haircuts help people to adapt to change and accept differences in each other.
Hair as a concept, as a form of self-expression, as a symbol of our identity or lack thereof and as a reflection of our values and beliefs is crucial to our personal growth and development and the evolution of the species as a whole. We have but to consider hair through the ages to see how important it is as a barometer of societal stability, prosperity and cultural progress. I am not qualified, nor wish, to analyse the significance of hair and style and all that it means to people. Suffice to say, it is a big business for a reason. It is after all, (body art, clothes and plastic surgery aside) the only thing we have about our person that we can affect or influence. It is the sole physical canvas upon which to create something truly representative of our inner self.
Sure, I like seeing what people are doing with their hair. Good style is always attractive. Glossy, shiny, healthy tresses are beautiful. But I have denied the obvious for too long. I hate to admit it after years of wanton maltreatment of my hair; I have missed the boat! What messages have I been sending about myself? What opportunities have I missed to show the world who I am! Expensive hats? Inner work? Intellectual pursuits? To what end, I ask you?
Hair is a phenomenological and semiotic minefield.
But it is never too late!
If Justin Bieber can do it...
In hindsight, as I recalling the wet tresses tumbling laconically to the floor, I should have collected that hair and sold it like Jo of "Little Women". I suppose at a deep unconscious level, given the clients marching in for their weekly wash and blow-dry sessions, I knew it would be ridiculous to do so - to reveal a morbid self-love or worse, display my current state of penury.
Which is more or less where the haircut gets its inspiration from. Not morbid self-love. But given my struggle to find purposeful employment that plays to my strengths and an outlet for my myriad talents, I have been suffering a sort of malaise, an energy low, if you will. When one feels like that a new haircut is often the answer. Its benefits are three-fold. First, it distracts. For a few days one enjoys the new look, playing around with the style and popping pins and bows in here and there, trying on hats and coats and seeing oneself afresh. Second, it sparks conversation. It is in some ways a cry for attention and validation - one feels pampered, one gets noticed by people who never normally acknowledge one, friends are curious - What were you thinking? they say, innocently - secretly miffed that something deeply personal was going on that one did not share with them. Third, inevitably, as all that weighty old dead stuff is removed, one feels lighter, purer and fresher. One recovers some zest for life. If for no other reason than the thrill of facing a stranger in the mirror through the fogs of sleep on a dark January morning, it has to be worth doing.
A lot of bang for the buck, you see!
Now in most cases, two days later after a gruelling workout and a rushed shampoo, the cute and glossy style is long gone and the hair looks shabby and frizzy, asserting its own mind once more and one is left frustrated and sorrowful, lamenting the loss of the option of throwing it up in a pony tail and knowing all would be fine...
But no. This time I am mindfully intent on having no regrets.Life is too short. There is still good coffee and great books to enjoy.
Also, even if I do not look like Katie Holmes strolling out of Starbucks with my toddler bedecked in patent high heels beside me, the cut is a good one and has taken years off me (or so I have convinced myself by putting that ladybird clip in!).
It is not easy to navigate the "hair ways" of life. You see we are a product of our home lives. My late mother was always of the view that women of a certain age look better with shorter hair. Indeed this seems to be the prevailing opinion in Australia where long hair on anyone over 45 who is not in showbiz is a rarity. But here in London and across the northern hemisphere as a whole, this is not the case. Indeed in a concerted effort to prove my commitment to fundraising for the Off-Spring's school at the PTA Christmas Fair late last year, I offered to auction snips of my long locks, only to be met with gasps of horror and exclamations of "No - you must not!" from the assembled committee. Indeed given the overwhelming lack of response to most of my ideas and initiatives as chair of the PTA, it was a startling reminder that people do express emotion and can form an opinion when the subject matter is important to them (nb women with short hair and cooking with children seem to be matters that invite a spirited response).
In a similar vein, I was met with absolute horror at school pick-up today when I collected the Off-Spring. Number 3 was home ill - not that ill really, just tired - and accompanied me to the salon. where the fun of sitting in high chairs, spraying water on wigs and being consulted on matters of style and appearance rendered him supportive and thoroughly engaged. Number 2 smiled at me with delight from afar but told me I looked hideous. Number 1 could barely look at me such was his devastation, saying I was ugly and disgusting.
Thankfully Number 1 resiled from this viewpoint after an hour when a clip with a flower on it was pulled through the side of the hair and also I suspect after some introspective musings about the true nature of love and acceptance. Number 2 is a pushover. A pure aesthete - for him the issue was the change rather than the style.
At the end of the evening no one was too bothered. I explained to them that (unlike Sampson whose strength lay in his long locks) I would be a more fun and laid back person with my new hip, cool and funky do and if they gave it a chance they might find things were better under the new regime. I certainly inspired them to new heights of homework concentration and energy, so who knows....
.......
Does one's hair really matter that much? Apparently, yes!
I could make all sorts of statements about the relative value of appearance and haircare as opposed to curing cancer and diabetes and eradicating poverty, but seriously, who would listen?
I know now, only too well, the value of a nice fresh style; of letting go of old ways of being. (Imagine, some people look and feel great all the time!) And to top it off, as I saw with the Off-Spring, haircuts help people to adapt to change and accept differences in each other.
Hair as a concept, as a form of self-expression, as a symbol of our identity or lack thereof and as a reflection of our values and beliefs is crucial to our personal growth and development and the evolution of the species as a whole. We have but to consider hair through the ages to see how important it is as a barometer of societal stability, prosperity and cultural progress. I am not qualified, nor wish, to analyse the significance of hair and style and all that it means to people. Suffice to say, it is a big business for a reason. It is after all, (body art, clothes and plastic surgery aside) the only thing we have about our person that we can affect or influence. It is the sole physical canvas upon which to create something truly representative of our inner self.
Sure, I like seeing what people are doing with their hair. Good style is always attractive. Glossy, shiny, healthy tresses are beautiful. But I have denied the obvious for too long. I hate to admit it after years of wanton maltreatment of my hair; I have missed the boat! What messages have I been sending about myself? What opportunities have I missed to show the world who I am! Expensive hats? Inner work? Intellectual pursuits? To what end, I ask you?
Hair is a phenomenological and semiotic minefield.
But it is never too late!
If Justin Bieber can do it...
January 4, 2011
How to write a best seller. Or Not - depending...
It is with not a little churlishness (or should that just be "churl"?) that I note the best selling books here in the UK this Christmas (as listed and updated hourly on Amazon). Predictably, recipe books abound - at one end of the specutrum devotees of 30 minute meals have bought more books than those who were given a slow cooker for Christmas - but only by a whisker. As always, crime novels and thrillers are well represented, as are diet books and the ubiquitous "Girl with..", "Girl who.." trilogy. None of which constitutes grounds for sniping, admittedly.
However, I am a little miffed that guides on how to be a Jedi rank higher than good fiction. But most of all I am amazed that books purporting to make people happy rank as highly as they do (though not as high as how to be a Jedi and how to cook a delicious thirty minute meal, which says something about the priorities of modern Brits).
Anyway, I just think that given the market is clearly there for happiness guides it really is time for me to get mine out there. I recognise now that "Spring to Mind" was too subtle for many. While ostensibly a novel it was at heart a guide to happiness and how to get it, dressed up as a coaching self-help book. The error was all mine. You see, I thought, naively, that people would baulk at being told how to get happy, at the preposterous notion that another person has the answers to their unasked, even unthought questions. I did not trust the notion that we all want to be happy. One sees so much evidence to the contrary after all...
I was so wrong.
People's wants and desires are not so complex Springgirl. You do them a disservice assuming they will find their own way and that the answers they seek lie within them. Wake up, Springgirl before another million self help books written by someone else are sold!
Jump on this wagon before it well and truly departs the station, mix your metaphors and stand still at your peril!
So here goes:
I am not going to beat around the bush anymore. I am going to draw on 40 years of experience, learning and cynicism to give you the definitive guide to happiness. I am not going to tell you "I can make you happy" or that "you can be happy". No. There is no "can" about it. You WILL be happy. Not only that, you WILL be fitter and you WILL be a domestic goddess capable of winning "The Apprentice" and cooking without a recipe book. I am here to kill all the birds with one stone and so I give you the "The Happy Person's Guide to Modern Life - The Essential Handbook".
If you buy one new book this year - make it this one!
I give you here a brief overview of the main themes.
1. Happiness is subjective. Trust your gut not what advertisers, your mother or you partner tell you. No product, holiday, person, car, team, drink, hand bag or shoe will give you sustained happiness. Yes they can dull the pain and distract you for a while but they are only band-aids, not cures. Step 1 is to stop relying on them to solve your problems.
2. Fit people are happier and live longer - unless they are killed in pursuit of their fitness or sport - but at least they die happy. So get off the sofa, put the biscuits in the cupboard and go for a walk. Then sustain it - join a gym or a running club.
3. Music lifts your spirits - sing as you work. As you clean the house, wash the dishes or walk, pretend you are in en episode of "The Partridge Family", on stage with Kylie or singing back up for Katy Perry. Get humming as you get moving. Also listen to the lyrics of these fine pop tunes. many wise words to mull over...
4. Spend time every day doing something you love - apart from eating, smoking or drinking to excess. Keep it simple. Perhaps it is browsing in a book store for great self help books like this, or sipping coffee and watching the world go by. Perhaps it is playing golf or watching documentaries about space travel, seeing friends or reading peacefully like you did before you took on the cares of the world and became the sole provider for 287 little mouths.... Just do it.
5. Spend time every day doing something you are good at - people who play to their strengths are happier than people who keep doing things badly. Focus on what you know you can do well - yoga, sewing, baking, building stuff, brewing your own beer. If it makes you happy it will be worth the fights with the family. Be true to yourself. Do what you are good at - win - enjoy it - do it more- get better - win more.... A virtuous circle.
6. Friends and community lift our spirits - social people are happier. But heed this advisedly. Don't socialise at the expense of sleep, fitness, health or engagement with meaningful and fun things you would enjoy more. But if you are doing what you love and do well, then surely you will find people to share the fun with (provided you are not a crazy aggressive lunatic who has to destroy all opponents at the bridge club or on the squash court).
7. Be grateful for what is good in your life - and keep it simple. Watching your child sleep, the morning coffee, a sunny day, a seat on the train, everyone at Christmas lunch believing that you made the dessert, no new pimples...
8. Get real. Keep your expectations within safe bounds. You will not be happy dreaming of being a supermodel or getting discovered as you hum in the dairy aisles at Waitrose (especially if you are 44, frumpy and look as sad as you do in those saggy track pants). But you might get some great 3 for 2 offers on fruit or stumble onto a new thriller by your favourite author or run into an old mate keen to catch up over a low-fat croissant. Realistic goals and expectations also pertain to your hopes for loved ones. Stop living vicariously and projecting disappointed longings, ego and preoccupations with status onto your partner and children.
9. Forget about what other people think. Define yourself in terms that makes sense to you. If that means you don't return certain calls, so be it. More time for the things you really want to do. You will have met loads of new people following steps 1-8 above anyway - many of whom will have no preconceived notions about you!
10. Take yourself with a grain of salt. Lighten up. Keep things in perspective.
Finally, above all else, eat only good chocolate and don't expect to be happy all the time.
Oh and remember that through the tough times comes growth and learning, resilience and humour, maybe new found strengths and friends and the knowledge gained first hand that shoes and football teams don't really matter when the chips are really down...
So that is what I can offer.
As I re-read this though I feel a little bit doubtful. Does anyone really wants this sort of advice? It is all very well to dole out the answers but what happens when the reader just can't be "bovvered" to join the gym or focus on the simple and good things in her life while her partner spends every night making home brew in the garden shed, texting his mates? What good is the above list if the reader cannot even work out a reasonable expectation from a crazy delusional pipe dream?
Maybe there is a reason that cook books sell so well. Perhaps I need to pen "Navigating the Terrain between Slow and Quick Cooking: The Ultimate Guide for Wannabe Domestic Deities" or all those who would kill to look as good as Nigella (or Jamie for that matter).
But what do I know about cooking? Pesto, salad, roasting things?
Perhaps I should pen a thriller? A follow up to the Millennium trilogy in which Lisbeth meets "The Girl with the Bad Advice" and has to single-handedly take on the entire self-help movement, slow cooking establishment, Jedi Revivalist cult speaking Swedish and winning over apprentice domestic goddesses starved almost to death on the Skittles diet favoured by slim girls everywhere...
However, I am a little miffed that guides on how to be a Jedi rank higher than good fiction. But most of all I am amazed that books purporting to make people happy rank as highly as they do (though not as high as how to be a Jedi and how to cook a delicious thirty minute meal, which says something about the priorities of modern Brits).
Anyway, I just think that given the market is clearly there for happiness guides it really is time for me to get mine out there. I recognise now that "Spring to Mind" was too subtle for many. While ostensibly a novel it was at heart a guide to happiness and how to get it, dressed up as a coaching self-help book. The error was all mine. You see, I thought, naively, that people would baulk at being told how to get happy, at the preposterous notion that another person has the answers to their unasked, even unthought questions. I did not trust the notion that we all want to be happy. One sees so much evidence to the contrary after all...
I was so wrong.
People's wants and desires are not so complex Springgirl. You do them a disservice assuming they will find their own way and that the answers they seek lie within them. Wake up, Springgirl before another million self help books written by someone else are sold!
Jump on this wagon before it well and truly departs the station, mix your metaphors and stand still at your peril!
So here goes:
I am not going to beat around the bush anymore. I am going to draw on 40 years of experience, learning and cynicism to give you the definitive guide to happiness. I am not going to tell you "I can make you happy" or that "you can be happy". No. There is no "can" about it. You WILL be happy. Not only that, you WILL be fitter and you WILL be a domestic goddess capable of winning "The Apprentice" and cooking without a recipe book. I am here to kill all the birds with one stone and so I give you the "The Happy Person's Guide to Modern Life - The Essential Handbook".
If you buy one new book this year - make it this one!
I give you here a brief overview of the main themes.
1. Happiness is subjective. Trust your gut not what advertisers, your mother or you partner tell you. No product, holiday, person, car, team, drink, hand bag or shoe will give you sustained happiness. Yes they can dull the pain and distract you for a while but they are only band-aids, not cures. Step 1 is to stop relying on them to solve your problems.
2. Fit people are happier and live longer - unless they are killed in pursuit of their fitness or sport - but at least they die happy. So get off the sofa, put the biscuits in the cupboard and go for a walk. Then sustain it - join a gym or a running club.
3. Music lifts your spirits - sing as you work. As you clean the house, wash the dishes or walk, pretend you are in en episode of "The Partridge Family", on stage with Kylie or singing back up for Katy Perry. Get humming as you get moving. Also listen to the lyrics of these fine pop tunes. many wise words to mull over...
4. Spend time every day doing something you love - apart from eating, smoking or drinking to excess. Keep it simple. Perhaps it is browsing in a book store for great self help books like this, or sipping coffee and watching the world go by. Perhaps it is playing golf or watching documentaries about space travel, seeing friends or reading peacefully like you did before you took on the cares of the world and became the sole provider for 287 little mouths.... Just do it.
5. Spend time every day doing something you are good at - people who play to their strengths are happier than people who keep doing things badly. Focus on what you know you can do well - yoga, sewing, baking, building stuff, brewing your own beer. If it makes you happy it will be worth the fights with the family. Be true to yourself. Do what you are good at - win - enjoy it - do it more- get better - win more.... A virtuous circle.
6. Friends and community lift our spirits - social people are happier. But heed this advisedly. Don't socialise at the expense of sleep, fitness, health or engagement with meaningful and fun things you would enjoy more. But if you are doing what you love and do well, then surely you will find people to share the fun with (provided you are not a crazy aggressive lunatic who has to destroy all opponents at the bridge club or on the squash court).
7. Be grateful for what is good in your life - and keep it simple. Watching your child sleep, the morning coffee, a sunny day, a seat on the train, everyone at Christmas lunch believing that you made the dessert, no new pimples...
8. Get real. Keep your expectations within safe bounds. You will not be happy dreaming of being a supermodel or getting discovered as you hum in the dairy aisles at Waitrose (especially if you are 44, frumpy and look as sad as you do in those saggy track pants). But you might get some great 3 for 2 offers on fruit or stumble onto a new thriller by your favourite author or run into an old mate keen to catch up over a low-fat croissant. Realistic goals and expectations also pertain to your hopes for loved ones. Stop living vicariously and projecting disappointed longings, ego and preoccupations with status onto your partner and children.
9. Forget about what other people think. Define yourself in terms that makes sense to you. If that means you don't return certain calls, so be it. More time for the things you really want to do. You will have met loads of new people following steps 1-8 above anyway - many of whom will have no preconceived notions about you!
10. Take yourself with a grain of salt. Lighten up. Keep things in perspective.
Finally, above all else, eat only good chocolate and don't expect to be happy all the time.
Oh and remember that through the tough times comes growth and learning, resilience and humour, maybe new found strengths and friends and the knowledge gained first hand that shoes and football teams don't really matter when the chips are really down...
So that is what I can offer.
As I re-read this though I feel a little bit doubtful. Does anyone really wants this sort of advice? It is all very well to dole out the answers but what happens when the reader just can't be "bovvered" to join the gym or focus on the simple and good things in her life while her partner spends every night making home brew in the garden shed, texting his mates? What good is the above list if the reader cannot even work out a reasonable expectation from a crazy delusional pipe dream?
Maybe there is a reason that cook books sell so well. Perhaps I need to pen "Navigating the Terrain between Slow and Quick Cooking: The Ultimate Guide for Wannabe Domestic Deities" or all those who would kill to look as good as Nigella (or Jamie for that matter).
But what do I know about cooking? Pesto, salad, roasting things?
Perhaps I should pen a thriller? A follow up to the Millennium trilogy in which Lisbeth meets "The Girl with the Bad Advice" and has to single-handedly take on the entire self-help movement, slow cooking establishment, Jedi Revivalist cult speaking Swedish and winning over apprentice domestic goddesses starved almost to death on the Skittles diet favoured by slim girls everywhere...
December 20, 2010
A room of her own...
I was scanning the on-line news today in search of a reliable update on the travel chaos in Europe caused by the cold snap. Internet news is so difficult to follow - one clicks on links and follows little distracting stories about hair and sales and weather updates and movie reviews and what so-and-so thinks about the coalition's comments on such and such and before long amidst solving problems on the domestic front because someone has someone else's felt tip and the phone is ringing and the kettle is boiling and there is a buzz at the door and no, thank goodness it is only the postman delivering Grand-dad's presents, not a Tiger coming for Tea - again - and then realising that it is colder than one thought and one had better put socks on and goodness what was I looking for in the first place - oh yes I must google headache on right side of head and see whether it is indeed an aneurysm (hate those "sm" words that are hard to spell) or just a pinched nerve in my taut and uptight shoulders due to 48 hours gym deprivation and what was it again that I was on-line looking for..
Right - Heathrow, havoc and such. So the paper describes in terms of peril and woe how the UK has ground to a halt. And yet in my little haven, it is anything but at a standstill... Indeed I can barely gulp down the Nespressos fast enough to keep pace with the rumpus, dressing up and general melee in the second bedroom (just the Offspring at play, I assure you), while colouring the increasingly grey locks and writing the list for the store. You see if the country is at a standstill then the shelves will soon be bare as we all rush out and do our panic buying. And it occurs to me that one cannot really be embracing a "panic buying" opportunity if one is carrying a list and has time to browse for those books the supermarkets sell which are perfect holiday reading - the Lee Childs and the Tami Hoag's and the like (though I did buy two packs of Special K and two Agave Syrup squeezy dispenser things and another dozen eggs and 1.5 kgs of frozen fat oven chips - so a hefty shop by my standards).
And after all of that it was time for lunch and I could suddenly relate to people who say that sometimes they seem to get nothing done...
I am not so interested in the misery at Heathrow as I seem, I should add. It is merely that Mr Springgirl may not get back for Christmas given that flights from Accra are cancelled for the third day and there must be a lot of passengers to accommodate when they do resume... Now I should say that Mr Springgirl is not one to let the grass grow under his feet and if there is a seat on a flight he will get it. This tenacity, while admirable in many ways, can be disconcerting to the likes of me who tends to stand back to let others in first and hates crowds and so on and would really just like to board at the last minute.... so again, I realise how lucky and blessed I am - despite the whole stuck in doors due to the cold, feeling just a little bit like a caged animal - because I do not have to jostle for a flight, queue with hundreds of desperate travellers and worry anxiously whether I will be home for Christmas. I am reminded of that carol about being home for Christmas - Bing Cosby sings it on "White Christmas" - which informed me as a girl as to what Christmas really meant - being Australian and sweating over roast turkey and Christmas pudding and praying for a storm to come after lunch to cool things down while we finished the washing up, I really had no idea that Christmas could be cold and dark and full of fear that snow might prevent one from reaching one's loved ones.
Be careful what you wish for - as Mum would say.
And amidst all of that mayhem, and thoughts of "well I really should make the most of the time at home this week and finish the novel", I came across the following (before the Offspring hijacked the computer and watched two straight hours of BBC's Planet Earth ):
"Imagine a small cottage in an idyllic country village. It is a very small cottage - 15ft square - probably medieval and rebuilt about 1700. In 2001 it exchanged hands for £50,000 and restored for a further £25,000: what was once garden privy is now a washhouse.It was bought at the instigation of a single person, who had in mind a single purpose - to make such a space available, rent and running costs free, to a woman over 40 who has need of seclusion and financial security to get on with her written work.The charity - for such it is - takes its inspiration from Virginia Woolf's famous remark in her essay A Room of One's Own - "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."The woman who takes up residence in the cottage need not be writing novels but must offer some evidence that she can produce written work. She is given £750 a month for living expenses, and most of all, freedom from worry."
Well, one does come across the most astounding things on-line, no?
The mind boggles - a quiet idyll away from worry and responsibility, with living expenses of £750/month, for a year. Mmmm.
I have drafted an application but see a few potential issues.
1. I like my family, friends, colleagues and neighbours and would miss them if away for a year.
2. Heretofore, I have found that two-three hours solitude (say at a movie, or gym and reflexology) are ample for providing a fresh perspective and recharging my energy and motivation. I admit to being lucky enough to have had as many as two weeks away from my family in recent times. Every moment seems a lifetime (in the words of Michael Buble), - but in a very good way - and immensely restful. Much longer and I start to feel cast adrift, anchorless, selfish.
3. If one was to be paid for the privilege of writing - even just expenses of £750/month (nothing to sneeze at) - one would be a lazy cow to not be able to get on with it in one's own house, surrounded by the familiar and well loved.
4. If one could take a year out of life, would one not prefer to have a life changing experience like walking to a Pole or two or learning a new skill, helping someone who otherwise might perish or suffer?
5. I do like a good chat - is one allowed to take a phone?
6. Given I wrote a book over five months sitting on my bed between 8 and 10 pm every night, the pressure to deliver something truly amazing if blessed with a room of one's own for a year would be almost crippling, I suspect.
7. What does one do for inspiration and ideas if one is stuck in isolation? Solitary confinement if you will?
8. Surely the true value of a room of one's own is that it lies within the heart of one's life and existence - at the epicentre of all that one is and does and enjoys, such that one can access it easily and readily (if one can quiet the demons urging one to do and be more all the time). Is this not what holidays and nations grinding to a halt are for after all?
9. I need a gym and decent coffee more than space and time alone.
10. No one is their right mind would expect to win such a prize and return to their old life happy. In my case, the credit that would be owed to Mr Offspring if a year on my own were to be accommodated would be so massive and debilitating as to make the entire project utterly untenable.
I may not know my Virginia Wolf, but isn't the point really to help people - indeed, women - create a "room of their own" within their lives and within their minds? To help them carve out the space and time amidst the responsibility, the striving, the worry, the exams, the rows at school and in the office, the disappointed longings, the doctor's appointments, the pounds gained and the shopping and washing not done (reminds me - put the load on tonight!), to know and express something of themselves? For it is in how we cope with the bad times that we show our mettle and worth? Don't we wish to celebrate the works of fiction, achievement, humour and success that rise from the ashes of real felt life with all of its chaos and pain, rather than spend thousands so that one woman can go and be a hermit?
A room of her own? Hardly - more a cell, a sentence, or a vocation perhaps.
While I won't tell the Offspring, I quite like the crumbs underfoot and the "pictures for you Mummy" piled on the shelf and the fact that I cannot find my purse beneath the half used tissues. I quite like switching key and refocussing, even if only for a second as I gaze upon the sleeping head of my child or a photo of a loved one or the view from my shared room.
I quite like the idea of a room of my own where the door is always open and the real world can enter any time it likes.Continue reading the main story
December 19, 2010
Baby it's cold outside...
As I write this, snuggled under my duvet/doona/eiderdown, the mercury plummeting (the whole "mercury" metaphor being this season's most hackneyed phrase in weather obsessed Britain, as "Arctic" weather systems wreak "havoc" on Christmas shopping and travel plans), as the "big freeze" continues and forecasters speculate on the "record lows" ahead, it seems opportune to reflect on this chill season and lament the suffering of those stranded, cold and disheartened in airports, on motorways and in train stations, unable to move due to the impact of the ice and the continuous subzero temperatures.
Mr Springgirl is due to travel to the UK from warm and sunny Africa on Tuesday. He may be delayed, like so many. I daresay the Offspring will recover from the disappointment as long as Santa finds a way through next Saturday morning. Thankfully, beans on toast and scrambled eggs would not disappoint my three, in the event that supermarket shelves are cleaned out and we miss out on the typical festive fare this year. Though, having said that, the freezing weather ought to ensure nothing actually rots this week - if left on the back step - so I really had better dash (slip and slide) to the stores tomorrow for some meat and vegies... just in case.
It is difficult when one is really cold to imagine being really hot. This time last year, in west Africa, we were really hot. It seems like no time ago despite the old clichés about so much happening since etc etc.
There we were in the humid scorching sun (not in it, actually), sweat beading on the brow over breakfast, make-up dripping off, red-faced children begging for water, lathering on the mosquito repellent. While I know that it is a bit of a cheat - reusing old material in a blog - I am going to post the reflections I shared this time last year from Ghana when I wrote home.
Goodness knows it is more interesting than snowball fights, "brush your teeth, no story if you take too long" and pesto pasta for dinner (again)...
From Accra - December 2009 - email from Springgirl to her sister
"Today the Off-Spring were given a big bag of glitter, cardboard, glue and decorating stuff and are having a great time making cards and xmas decorations, some of which now adorn the besser brick wall near the front door of the house. So creative to make something more of the lovely besser. They are being helped by Effe's (maid) son, Elvis, who is 11, but seems younger. Elvis is in Heaven with all this stuff to play with. I just checked on them - they have used up all the glue sticking said decorations to house walls and front door, ie a big old mess for me and Effe to clean off. All the years of "don't draw on walls; never stick things on walls" goes out the window when a couple of local kids think it will look nice. After all, it's not like they ever had the chance to do it before; stick stuff on besser - that is (and by "they" I mean the Offspring as well as Elvis and Ama). Now Effe is out there scrubbing the colour out of the white walls. The colour from the paper has bled into the paint leaving rectangular "frames". Hope Mr Springgirl doesn't lose it when he sees it. Five minutes wiping at it and I was a lather of sweat. The youngest Offspring (3) is now telling Elvis and Ama not to "carry him up". Ghanaian kids are very affectionate and demonstrative and they always try to pick up little kids. The youngest Offspring is trying to explain it so patiently: "I am using words to tell you that I do not want anyone to carry me up."
We drove west along the coast to Cape Coast (formerly a massive centre for the slave trade) yesterday. We stopped on the way at a very nice beach for a swim and some lunch. A friend of Mr Offspring has bought into a beach club: pseudo mud huts and lots of palm and coconut trees down to the water. One can camp or stay in the chalets/huts. Some of the new ones look pretty comfy - air con and tv for a start - and new bathrooms, though I saw several cockroaches crawling around outside one. We might go back overnight next week (with insect spray) and use it as a base for more exploring. There is an eco-tourism award winning attraction an hour or two on from there called Kakum which is a forest with a canopy walk. Apparently high up in the trees there are rope and suspension walkways; say 6 storeys up. I would like to see it but the kids may be too small for the adventure just yet. Long way to climb down if they change their minds, though great for the legs after eating one to many fried plantains this week...
Anyway the beach was pretty clean for Ghana, where shortage of bins and cultural insensitivities means that the beach is often polluted with rubbish and the assorted debris of village life; can lids - with serrated and jagged edges, of course - faecal matter, string, assorted fruit skins, cigarettes, papers, plastic bags. The beach club have built a breezy timber restaurant on stilts under which the waves lapping at high tide. The food was ok, all local and fresh, but the views and the breeze were really worth paying for. The sand of the beach is brownish, so the water is pretty murky, but is is covered in lovely little spiral shells which the Offspring collected by the handful before lunch. I suggested we send some to you. The club has more or less banned the locals from coming inside its perimeter so the club's beach was empty apart from us and a handful of holiday makers staying there. The drama was outside - by the nearby village. We wandered up the beach to watch the village people pulling in their catch of fish in massive nets cast out past the breakers. There were more than 50 people of all ages, singing and pulling up the catch which took a good half an hour. The Offspring were captivated. In the end, there was a pretty good haul - but all small fish -15 cms or less. The big international trawlers take the big fish - out on the horizon. But the daily catch would feed the village - and beach club - nicely. And they are all well fed - not fat (although some of the women are definitely plump, perhaps due to too much palm nut oil in the cooking) - but there is no shortage of food here. A little girl of about three picked up shells to add to my handful while we watched the fish dying in the nets. A teenager asked me my age - 27 - and told me my "babies" were "handsome".
We loved the beach and our time there so much that we returned after visiting Great Grandma in Cape Coast, for another swim. The water was warm - perhaps 25 degrees, but still refreshing. There was good but gentle surf. We watched the sun set over some hills along the coastline. It is strange to see the sun settling at that angle, but as the coast runs east to west, virtually along the Equator, there is no sun over the water to witness. However, due to the haze and the salt air it was a huge orange disc slowly sinking, while we splashed in the waves one last time; stealing the last safe moments before the mozzies descended at nightfall.
While driving to the beach we made a list of all the natural resources of Ghana; for the children's benefit mainly (being keen on educating them about the place), but between cocoa, pineapples, rice, yam, fish, goat, cows, chicken, paw paw, citrus fruits, corn, wheat, sugar, coffee, oil, gold and natural gas, not to mention sand for cement (besser!) and rocks for gravel, there is really no reason for anyone to be hungry or poor, and yet they are very poor. It is both humbling and depressing to see how life is still as it was 100 or more years ago for many. No sanitation or running water. They have tvs and phones and Nike shoes but the Government cannot seem to lay roads or run pipes. It is really harsh. The first president - Nkruma - a visionary and nation builder -built the dam that provides most of the electric power, on the Volta River, built roads and universities, got the gold mining tribes organised into companies etc, but while his legacy lives on, much of the infrastructure remains as it was when first established in the 60s. The signs and building at the Dam feel like something out of a 1960's James Bond film. I don't know where the tax and export money is spent. Also there are many people who do very little. A lot of sitting around in the village, waiting for the catch or the next meal or game of football. They are not miserable, by any stretch, but the thing that one sees, coming from the west, is that there is not a sense of initiative or energy. A few small boys could clean up rubbish, even just put a bin out! The men could dig sewers or repair the roads. But why would you bother? It functions ok, after all. They have food, family, faith. Admittedly the road to the beach club is pretty good - I suspect that the owner pays local youths to regravel it every few weeks - but organising work teams to do this on a massive scale seems to be a bridge too far. The wheels of bureacracy turn slowly. The well to do and the returning expats love talking things over. Every conversation involves strategies for change. And with all that besser and cement they could really clean things up.
I suppose to say so is naive and insensitive. I daresay to impose western mores is just another form of tyranny. Yet, even in the towns there is still a lack of basic amenity. Great Grandma has no toilet. The Offspring used her chamber pot, but as they kept threatening to need to do more than ideally accommodated therin, one's visit is never very long. I have never really asked whether Mr Offspring or his siblings could perhaps have a bathroom installed in the old colonial house for her. I daresay it is moot if there is no actual pipeline infrastructure to attach it to beyond the front door. Another quandry is the use of straw switch brooms. Even here at the family house in Accra, Effe uses a little brush thing to sweep up. It is effective enough, especially with all the dust that accumulates in the dry season, but one has to bend down double. I waltz in from the developed world expecting to use a chux and a broom; all of which are sold up the road at a roadside stall (open 24 hours by candlelight), but the old ways seems to prevail, nevertheless. Sadly the Offspring used the wrong end of the broom to sweep up spilt glitter - or at least move it around some more - such that most of the straw is now lying around the courtyard...
Reading the history of the place is very interesting. Independence from Britain came in 1957 and yet they really just left a mess behind, in material terms. I think cultuarlly and spiritually the place is very intact and highly functioning, a heady blend of timeless Ghanaian traditions and legacies from colonial times mixed together with modern globalisation. Also like in India the local language and commitment to education, is rich and prized. But is is clear that trade was the key - gold and cocoa and slaves made the Dutch, French, Portuguese and British very wealthy. Indeed, Ghanaian soldiers sent to the East Indies by the Dutch settlers brought back Indonesian craft and batik - a common print now on local cloth. A rich and harsh history.
Mr Offspring has gone to the cemetery to attend a memorial for his cousin's mum - they are unveiling the tombstone for close family. On Saturday we will attend a church service and reception at the house for all who knew her - ad in the paper announced it. In Ghana, like much of the developing world, funerals and memorials are a huge to-do. Friday and Saturday are funeral days and anyone who has known you will come. In the villages everyone wears balck and white apart from members of the chief's family. The cheiftancy is noted by the wearing of some sort of red. It is quite spectacular to behold the cloth and the people all walking through the streets dressed up. The men wear toga style cloths over one shoulder. Coffin making is a huge industry, and recession proof. They make very elaborate designs - like sharks, boats and animals - carved into the wood - all local of course. Funerals are very social. A man from up the road died two weeks ago and we could barely pass the house due to the cars clogging the street for the week up to the funeral. I suppose if it keeps the bereaved from thinking too much for a while it is a blessing, but it seemed a little much to expect the widow and kids to be sitting up receiving visitors day and night up to the funeral. But that is how it is done and they expect and are used to it.
Today we will drop in on a few friends to say merry xmas and leave some little gifts for the kids. It is so humid that one just wants to jump in a pool most of the day so I will take swimmers in the hope we can do so at some point. Mind you Ghanaian ladies tend not to swim - messes up the hair.
I will have to stop for some coffee somewhere as well. Thinking it would be economical and good for the country for me to buy local I bought some ground coffee for the plunger last week at the nearby Lebanese supermarket which is basically a rip off. Anything imported is marked up astronomically. Special K costs $10 for a 350gm box. Pampers (small pack) are $36 - thank Heavens the Offspring are past that stage. The coffee I bought is called "Daniel" and was only $7 as opposed to $24 charged for something recognisable from Italy (expired use by date). But "Daniel" had either gone off for being on the shelf too long or it is just gross, as it tasted like dirt mixed with tanin, flavoured with cordite and dried in a tannery - or as I imagine that would taste. Needless to say I went and bought the american brand next time we were at the store. It's the little things that get you down...
Hark, a year on. My Nespresso coffee maker will whir reliably for me tomorrow morning as I look upon sparkling, white, snowy garden outside my window. The Offspring will shiver delightedly in their parkas and wellington boots as we crunch through the snow to the communal garden igloo. Will they remember the glitter, the fishing nets and the chamber pot of Christmas 2009? I hope so.
So while we have so much and are surrounded by so many who even in the midst of freezing conditions and austerity, will be warm and well-fed next Saturday, it is timely as the year draws to an end, to think of those with very little. While our pipes may threaten to freeze, they will still take the dirty water away and bring fresh to us, reliably, and every day we will fill not only our tummies, but our hearts and minds with riches and plenty.
But it's cold outside for many.
Mr Springgirl is due to travel to the UK from warm and sunny Africa on Tuesday. He may be delayed, like so many. I daresay the Offspring will recover from the disappointment as long as Santa finds a way through next Saturday morning. Thankfully, beans on toast and scrambled eggs would not disappoint my three, in the event that supermarket shelves are cleaned out and we miss out on the typical festive fare this year. Though, having said that, the freezing weather ought to ensure nothing actually rots this week - if left on the back step - so I really had better dash (slip and slide) to the stores tomorrow for some meat and vegies... just in case.
It is difficult when one is really cold to imagine being really hot. This time last year, in west Africa, we were really hot. It seems like no time ago despite the old clichés about so much happening since etc etc.
There we were in the humid scorching sun (not in it, actually), sweat beading on the brow over breakfast, make-up dripping off, red-faced children begging for water, lathering on the mosquito repellent. While I know that it is a bit of a cheat - reusing old material in a blog - I am going to post the reflections I shared this time last year from Ghana when I wrote home.
Goodness knows it is more interesting than snowball fights, "brush your teeth, no story if you take too long" and pesto pasta for dinner (again)...
From Accra - December 2009 - email from Springgirl to her sister
"Today the Off-Spring were given a big bag of glitter, cardboard, glue and decorating stuff and are having a great time making cards and xmas decorations, some of which now adorn the besser brick wall near the front door of the house. So creative to make something more of the lovely besser. They are being helped by Effe's (maid) son, Elvis, who is 11, but seems younger. Elvis is in Heaven with all this stuff to play with. I just checked on them - they have used up all the glue sticking said decorations to house walls and front door, ie a big old mess for me and Effe to clean off. All the years of "don't draw on walls; never stick things on walls" goes out the window when a couple of local kids think it will look nice. After all, it's not like they ever had the chance to do it before; stick stuff on besser - that is (and by "they" I mean the Offspring as well as Elvis and Ama). Now Effe is out there scrubbing the colour out of the white walls. The colour from the paper has bled into the paint leaving rectangular "frames". Hope Mr Springgirl doesn't lose it when he sees it. Five minutes wiping at it and I was a lather of sweat. The youngest Offspring (3) is now telling Elvis and Ama not to "carry him up". Ghanaian kids are very affectionate and demonstrative and they always try to pick up little kids. The youngest Offspring is trying to explain it so patiently: "I am using words to tell you that I do not want anyone to carry me up."
We drove west along the coast to Cape Coast (formerly a massive centre for the slave trade) yesterday. We stopped on the way at a very nice beach for a swim and some lunch. A friend of Mr Offspring has bought into a beach club: pseudo mud huts and lots of palm and coconut trees down to the water. One can camp or stay in the chalets/huts. Some of the new ones look pretty comfy - air con and tv for a start - and new bathrooms, though I saw several cockroaches crawling around outside one. We might go back overnight next week (with insect spray) and use it as a base for more exploring. There is an eco-tourism award winning attraction an hour or two on from there called Kakum which is a forest with a canopy walk. Apparently high up in the trees there are rope and suspension walkways; say 6 storeys up. I would like to see it but the kids may be too small for the adventure just yet. Long way to climb down if they change their minds, though great for the legs after eating one to many fried plantains this week...
Anyway the beach was pretty clean for Ghana, where shortage of bins and cultural insensitivities means that the beach is often polluted with rubbish and the assorted debris of village life; can lids - with serrated and jagged edges, of course - faecal matter, string, assorted fruit skins, cigarettes, papers, plastic bags. The beach club have built a breezy timber restaurant on stilts under which the waves lapping at high tide. The food was ok, all local and fresh, but the views and the breeze were really worth paying for. The sand of the beach is brownish, so the water is pretty murky, but is is covered in lovely little spiral shells which the Offspring collected by the handful before lunch. I suggested we send some to you. The club has more or less banned the locals from coming inside its perimeter so the club's beach was empty apart from us and a handful of holiday makers staying there. The drama was outside - by the nearby village. We wandered up the beach to watch the village people pulling in their catch of fish in massive nets cast out past the breakers. There were more than 50 people of all ages, singing and pulling up the catch which took a good half an hour. The Offspring were captivated. In the end, there was a pretty good haul - but all small fish -15 cms or less. The big international trawlers take the big fish - out on the horizon. But the daily catch would feed the village - and beach club - nicely. And they are all well fed - not fat (although some of the women are definitely plump, perhaps due to too much palm nut oil in the cooking) - but there is no shortage of food here. A little girl of about three picked up shells to add to my handful while we watched the fish dying in the nets. A teenager asked me my age - 27 - and told me my "babies" were "handsome".
We loved the beach and our time there so much that we returned after visiting Great Grandma in Cape Coast, for another swim. The water was warm - perhaps 25 degrees, but still refreshing. There was good but gentle surf. We watched the sun set over some hills along the coastline. It is strange to see the sun settling at that angle, but as the coast runs east to west, virtually along the Equator, there is no sun over the water to witness. However, due to the haze and the salt air it was a huge orange disc slowly sinking, while we splashed in the waves one last time; stealing the last safe moments before the mozzies descended at nightfall.
While driving to the beach we made a list of all the natural resources of Ghana; for the children's benefit mainly (being keen on educating them about the place), but between cocoa, pineapples, rice, yam, fish, goat, cows, chicken, paw paw, citrus fruits, corn, wheat, sugar, coffee, oil, gold and natural gas, not to mention sand for cement (besser!) and rocks for gravel, there is really no reason for anyone to be hungry or poor, and yet they are very poor. It is both humbling and depressing to see how life is still as it was 100 or more years ago for many. No sanitation or running water. They have tvs and phones and Nike shoes but the Government cannot seem to lay roads or run pipes. It is really harsh. The first president - Nkruma - a visionary and nation builder -built the dam that provides most of the electric power, on the Volta River, built roads and universities, got the gold mining tribes organised into companies etc, but while his legacy lives on, much of the infrastructure remains as it was when first established in the 60s. The signs and building at the Dam feel like something out of a 1960's James Bond film. I don't know where the tax and export money is spent. Also there are many people who do very little. A lot of sitting around in the village, waiting for the catch or the next meal or game of football. They are not miserable, by any stretch, but the thing that one sees, coming from the west, is that there is not a sense of initiative or energy. A few small boys could clean up rubbish, even just put a bin out! The men could dig sewers or repair the roads. But why would you bother? It functions ok, after all. They have food, family, faith. Admittedly the road to the beach club is pretty good - I suspect that the owner pays local youths to regravel it every few weeks - but organising work teams to do this on a massive scale seems to be a bridge too far. The wheels of bureacracy turn slowly. The well to do and the returning expats love talking things over. Every conversation involves strategies for change. And with all that besser and cement they could really clean things up.
I suppose to say so is naive and insensitive. I daresay to impose western mores is just another form of tyranny. Yet, even in the towns there is still a lack of basic amenity. Great Grandma has no toilet. The Offspring used her chamber pot, but as they kept threatening to need to do more than ideally accommodated therin, one's visit is never very long. I have never really asked whether Mr Offspring or his siblings could perhaps have a bathroom installed in the old colonial house for her. I daresay it is moot if there is no actual pipeline infrastructure to attach it to beyond the front door. Another quandry is the use of straw switch brooms. Even here at the family house in Accra, Effe uses a little brush thing to sweep up. It is effective enough, especially with all the dust that accumulates in the dry season, but one has to bend down double. I waltz in from the developed world expecting to use a chux and a broom; all of which are sold up the road at a roadside stall (open 24 hours by candlelight), but the old ways seems to prevail, nevertheless. Sadly the Offspring used the wrong end of the broom to sweep up spilt glitter - or at least move it around some more - such that most of the straw is now lying around the courtyard...
Reading the history of the place is very interesting. Independence from Britain came in 1957 and yet they really just left a mess behind, in material terms. I think cultuarlly and spiritually the place is very intact and highly functioning, a heady blend of timeless Ghanaian traditions and legacies from colonial times mixed together with modern globalisation. Also like in India the local language and commitment to education, is rich and prized. But is is clear that trade was the key - gold and cocoa and slaves made the Dutch, French, Portuguese and British very wealthy. Indeed, Ghanaian soldiers sent to the East Indies by the Dutch settlers brought back Indonesian craft and batik - a common print now on local cloth. A rich and harsh history.
Mr Offspring has gone to the cemetery to attend a memorial for his cousin's mum - they are unveiling the tombstone for close family. On Saturday we will attend a church service and reception at the house for all who knew her - ad in the paper announced it. In Ghana, like much of the developing world, funerals and memorials are a huge to-do. Friday and Saturday are funeral days and anyone who has known you will come. In the villages everyone wears balck and white apart from members of the chief's family. The cheiftancy is noted by the wearing of some sort of red. It is quite spectacular to behold the cloth and the people all walking through the streets dressed up. The men wear toga style cloths over one shoulder. Coffin making is a huge industry, and recession proof. They make very elaborate designs - like sharks, boats and animals - carved into the wood - all local of course. Funerals are very social. A man from up the road died two weeks ago and we could barely pass the house due to the cars clogging the street for the week up to the funeral. I suppose if it keeps the bereaved from thinking too much for a while it is a blessing, but it seemed a little much to expect the widow and kids to be sitting up receiving visitors day and night up to the funeral. But that is how it is done and they expect and are used to it.
Today we will drop in on a few friends to say merry xmas and leave some little gifts for the kids. It is so humid that one just wants to jump in a pool most of the day so I will take swimmers in the hope we can do so at some point. Mind you Ghanaian ladies tend not to swim - messes up the hair.
I will have to stop for some coffee somewhere as well. Thinking it would be economical and good for the country for me to buy local I bought some ground coffee for the plunger last week at the nearby Lebanese supermarket which is basically a rip off. Anything imported is marked up astronomically. Special K costs $10 for a 350gm box. Pampers (small pack) are $36 - thank Heavens the Offspring are past that stage. The coffee I bought is called "Daniel" and was only $7 as opposed to $24 charged for something recognisable from Italy (expired use by date). But "Daniel" had either gone off for being on the shelf too long or it is just gross, as it tasted like dirt mixed with tanin, flavoured with cordite and dried in a tannery - or as I imagine that would taste. Needless to say I went and bought the american brand next time we were at the store. It's the little things that get you down...
Hark, a year on. My Nespresso coffee maker will whir reliably for me tomorrow morning as I look upon sparkling, white, snowy garden outside my window. The Offspring will shiver delightedly in their parkas and wellington boots as we crunch through the snow to the communal garden igloo. Will they remember the glitter, the fishing nets and the chamber pot of Christmas 2009? I hope so.
So while we have so much and are surrounded by so many who even in the midst of freezing conditions and austerity, will be warm and well-fed next Saturday, it is timely as the year draws to an end, to think of those with very little. While our pipes may threaten to freeze, they will still take the dirty water away and bring fresh to us, reliably, and every day we will fill not only our tummies, but our hearts and minds with riches and plenty.
But it's cold outside for many.
November 29, 2010
Woolly hats and functional fitness
Well, it has been a while since I posted a blog. I have no excuse for my silence; my absence.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions they say. But in this case I doubt that I am much further down that road, since I have not had any intentions to post a blog at all.
So, no, unlike a couple of months ago when not posting disappointed me, it is not a case of hoping to blog and letting myself down. Clearly I have adjusted my expectations down - the secret of a happy life - after all.
No, I have simply not had a lot to say - which for me is somewhat surprising. I admit that I have had a lot to say in my off-line life though. Perhaps the secret of blogging success is a rare and enticing blend of no mates (no offence keen bloggers - I speak only for myself), time and ideas, coupled with motivation and a desire to express something.
In any case, rather than labour the point I will just say that sometimes one wants to blog and sometimes one does not. I am aware that my little blog audience may have abandoned me during this time. I may have to build back up from scratch again. Oh well... Live and learn.
So what's been happening?
I have been keeping out of trouble in a few ways. Promoting my play based communication coaching initiative for children in a variety of local schools has perhaps been the highlight. Though keeping an eye on adult learning and development roles in-house and sending my cv to recruiters in the hope of persuading them that my unconventional background - tax lawyer, turned author and leadership, engagement (not marital but psychological, though I do address engaged couple coaching in my book) and communication coach is a great combination for a learning facilitator and not a volatile and potentially devastating mix of bossy, anal, control freak meets boring, nerd-like, number cruncher who finds reading tax law interesting, is quite a laugh as well.
Then there is running the PTA at the Off-Springs' school which is never dull. I have delighted myself by creating the most gorgeous, colourful calendar featuring pictures and snippets of the story from my e-book "Tess and the Seaside Girl" (every home should have a couple) and managed - without trying to - to sell a further 50 copies of "Spring to Mind" via my publisher's distribution channels. This is very exciting because that means that a quarter of all my sales came this past month without a second's effort from me. Finally all of these fun pursuits have been fit in around the gym and domestic jobs and parenting, of course. Apart from the surprise book sales I seem to keep very busy making no money whatsoever. I need to monetise this PTA thing somehow...
The upshot of all of that blatant self-promotion is that I have learn loads of new things.
So as I am conscious that I may have lost your interest over the past month, and am eager now to regain it - quickly and decisively - I will share only the "best" parts of this recent learning with you. Forgive me if this is all old hat for you.
1. I discovered while shopping for photocopier paper for the school PTA newsletter in a paper shop, that Katy Perry sings yet another one of those catchy tunes that are always on the radio. Between the "shut up... that's what you get for waking up in Vegas", "you're a firework" and "livin' a teenage dream" - I really feel that this girl is a kindred spirit.
I honestly feel that I am living a youngish middle aged person's dream (more on that next time), am quite a firecracker and often wake up with an early onset Alzheimers sense that I may have lost some of the previous night. I really need to get more sleep...
2. Despite the really cold weather here in London this past week - daytime highs of 1 degree Celcius - I am toasty and snug when out and about. The secret? A woolly hat! Also one of those duvet/doona/parker jackets. I am amazed that I have endured 13 winters in the UK without taking these steps before this. Me, the big hat wearer of yesteryear would not buy a hat for fear fo winter hat head. Just shows you how a significant birthday and overcommitting oneself can force one to embrace a common sense approach to weathering the cold.
3. Wearing my hair out/down (never happens) and "big" a la Cheryl Cole in a big breeze, with plenty of eye make-up around the normally sunken and dull peepers, can make one feel and look young and vital. Indeed - a bit like Cheryl herself. You see, I hosted the school fundraising Bingo Night last weekend dolled up and in character as Trinny Knowall (Woodall) of Trinny and Susannah - of "What Not to Wear" fame. The occasional, only very odd glimmer of self doubt in the preceding week, that perhaps I was going to crash and burn, ensured that I was well prepared, looking the part and primed with comic and cutting repartee - snowflake sweaters and fetching hairstyles among the parents giving me plenty to work with, admittedly.
The night was a success - I had a blast and several parents and staff reported they also enjoyed themselves. All of this while feeling young and vital due to said hair and make-up.
This leads to interesting discovery number 3:
3. If I enjoy myself I really don't feel bad if others don't (this is in the context of a party, not in life per se). I mean, I want them to have fun and be happy, but I feel no responsibility for their enjoyment. This is very liberating. As a result I am thinking that Dame Edna Everage might need to pop her head in and do a turn as host at the next fundraiser...
4. Positive mindsets bring out the best in people. Literally. I see this with the parents at school, people one smiles at in the course of day-to-day life and in children, increasingly. Children are the richest source of learning. The scope they have to be inquisitive and engaged and excited about the world they inhabit is amazing - if they feel listened to and valued. The way they come alive and thrive in circumstances where they have the freedom to express themselves and move and interact with each other is amazing. It's like watering a plant. It seems obvious. Yet the tedium, the chores, the rushing to get things done, the tests, the keeping up standards, the arriving on time and the homework, can cloud that clarity. Hence, my renewed commitment this past month to getting Play on Words Communication Coaching front and centre of my own commercial and business agenda.
5. Pushing back is a good strategy. We should play to our strengths and be valued for what we do well and can contribute with ease and aplomb, rather than apologise for not being things we are not. How can we twist ourselves into shapes we could never be?
6. Sometimes people live in bubbles - thick, impenetrable and opaque bubble. 724 newsletters, 496 emails and 298 signs on the school gate and still parents say they did not know "such and such" was happening at school. Skywriters, radio announcements, billboards, clowns, mime artists? What would it take to reach them?
Nothing. Stop trying.
And when you do.... They suddenly get it.
7. At the gym when they rave on about "functional strength" they really know what they are talking about. All those classes where several muscle groups are worked in combination are amazing for overall fitness. The difference between fit and functionally fit is quite startling. The latter means fit for life - for broken elevators and literally chasing children up steep hills and squatting for minutes on end to tie shoelaces and wipe tears and pick up after them... It is treading water for hours not minutes and carrying bag upon bag of groceries home.
8. In the words of my amazing sister when she began her career as a social worker, Eleanor Rooselvelt and a Chinese Proverb as well, it is indeed better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
So I leave you with that thought - light some candles - even if no one else wants to, even if cursing the darkness is easier or more popular, even if your fingers get a little bit burnt. The winter is cold and dark enough.
Oh and buy a good hat!
The road to hell is paved with good intentions they say. But in this case I doubt that I am much further down that road, since I have not had any intentions to post a blog at all.
So, no, unlike a couple of months ago when not posting disappointed me, it is not a case of hoping to blog and letting myself down. Clearly I have adjusted my expectations down - the secret of a happy life - after all.
No, I have simply not had a lot to say - which for me is somewhat surprising. I admit that I have had a lot to say in my off-line life though. Perhaps the secret of blogging success is a rare and enticing blend of no mates (no offence keen bloggers - I speak only for myself), time and ideas, coupled with motivation and a desire to express something.
In any case, rather than labour the point I will just say that sometimes one wants to blog and sometimes one does not. I am aware that my little blog audience may have abandoned me during this time. I may have to build back up from scratch again. Oh well... Live and learn.
So what's been happening?
I have been keeping out of trouble in a few ways. Promoting my play based communication coaching initiative for children in a variety of local schools has perhaps been the highlight. Though keeping an eye on adult learning and development roles in-house and sending my cv to recruiters in the hope of persuading them that my unconventional background - tax lawyer, turned author and leadership, engagement (not marital but psychological, though I do address engaged couple coaching in my book) and communication coach is a great combination for a learning facilitator and not a volatile and potentially devastating mix of bossy, anal, control freak meets boring, nerd-like, number cruncher who finds reading tax law interesting, is quite a laugh as well.
Then there is running the PTA at the Off-Springs' school which is never dull. I have delighted myself by creating the most gorgeous, colourful calendar featuring pictures and snippets of the story from my e-book "Tess and the Seaside Girl" (every home should have a couple) and managed - without trying to - to sell a further 50 copies of "Spring to Mind" via my publisher's distribution channels. This is very exciting because that means that a quarter of all my sales came this past month without a second's effort from me. Finally all of these fun pursuits have been fit in around the gym and domestic jobs and parenting, of course. Apart from the surprise book sales I seem to keep very busy making no money whatsoever. I need to monetise this PTA thing somehow...
The upshot of all of that blatant self-promotion is that I have learn loads of new things.
So as I am conscious that I may have lost your interest over the past month, and am eager now to regain it - quickly and decisively - I will share only the "best" parts of this recent learning with you. Forgive me if this is all old hat for you.
1. I discovered while shopping for photocopier paper for the school PTA newsletter in a paper shop, that Katy Perry sings yet another one of those catchy tunes that are always on the radio. Between the "shut up... that's what you get for waking up in Vegas", "you're a firework" and "livin' a teenage dream" - I really feel that this girl is a kindred spirit.
I honestly feel that I am living a youngish middle aged person's dream (more on that next time), am quite a firecracker and often wake up with an early onset Alzheimers sense that I may have lost some of the previous night. I really need to get more sleep...
2. Despite the really cold weather here in London this past week - daytime highs of 1 degree Celcius - I am toasty and snug when out and about. The secret? A woolly hat! Also one of those duvet/doona/parker jackets. I am amazed that I have endured 13 winters in the UK without taking these steps before this. Me, the big hat wearer of yesteryear would not buy a hat for fear fo winter hat head. Just shows you how a significant birthday and overcommitting oneself can force one to embrace a common sense approach to weathering the cold.
3. Wearing my hair out/down (never happens) and "big" a la Cheryl Cole in a big breeze, with plenty of eye make-up around the normally sunken and dull peepers, can make one feel and look young and vital. Indeed - a bit like Cheryl herself. You see, I hosted the school fundraising Bingo Night last weekend dolled up and in character as Trinny Knowall (Woodall) of Trinny and Susannah - of "What Not to Wear" fame. The occasional, only very odd glimmer of self doubt in the preceding week, that perhaps I was going to crash and burn, ensured that I was well prepared, looking the part and primed with comic and cutting repartee - snowflake sweaters and fetching hairstyles among the parents giving me plenty to work with, admittedly.
The night was a success - I had a blast and several parents and staff reported they also enjoyed themselves. All of this while feeling young and vital due to said hair and make-up.
This leads to interesting discovery number 3:
3. If I enjoy myself I really don't feel bad if others don't (this is in the context of a party, not in life per se). I mean, I want them to have fun and be happy, but I feel no responsibility for their enjoyment. This is very liberating. As a result I am thinking that Dame Edna Everage might need to pop her head in and do a turn as host at the next fundraiser...
4. Positive mindsets bring out the best in people. Literally. I see this with the parents at school, people one smiles at in the course of day-to-day life and in children, increasingly. Children are the richest source of learning. The scope they have to be inquisitive and engaged and excited about the world they inhabit is amazing - if they feel listened to and valued. The way they come alive and thrive in circumstances where they have the freedom to express themselves and move and interact with each other is amazing. It's like watering a plant. It seems obvious. Yet the tedium, the chores, the rushing to get things done, the tests, the keeping up standards, the arriving on time and the homework, can cloud that clarity. Hence, my renewed commitment this past month to getting Play on Words Communication Coaching front and centre of my own commercial and business agenda.
5. Pushing back is a good strategy. We should play to our strengths and be valued for what we do well and can contribute with ease and aplomb, rather than apologise for not being things we are not. How can we twist ourselves into shapes we could never be?
6. Sometimes people live in bubbles - thick, impenetrable and opaque bubble. 724 newsletters, 496 emails and 298 signs on the school gate and still parents say they did not know "such and such" was happening at school. Skywriters, radio announcements, billboards, clowns, mime artists? What would it take to reach them?
Nothing. Stop trying.
And when you do.... They suddenly get it.
7. At the gym when they rave on about "functional strength" they really know what they are talking about. All those classes where several muscle groups are worked in combination are amazing for overall fitness. The difference between fit and functionally fit is quite startling. The latter means fit for life - for broken elevators and literally chasing children up steep hills and squatting for minutes on end to tie shoelaces and wipe tears and pick up after them... It is treading water for hours not minutes and carrying bag upon bag of groceries home.
8. In the words of my amazing sister when she began her career as a social worker, Eleanor Rooselvelt and a Chinese Proverb as well, it is indeed better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
So I leave you with that thought - light some candles - even if no one else wants to, even if cursing the darkness is easier or more popular, even if your fingers get a little bit burnt. The winter is cold and dark enough.
Oh and buy a good hat!
October 31, 2010
Trick or treat?
I began this blog in the Springtime as the little leaves were budding outside my room, the daffodils formed a carpet in the shadows of the trees in the garden and the days grew longer and milder and promised a warm and bonny summer ahead.
This morning we turned our clocks back an hour and now we see out the summer with all the crazy commercial madness that Halloween has turned into over the past few years in the UK. Outside, the leaves are yellow and red, orange and brown; most days there is rain. The skies are often leaden, but the oppression of the grey is still elusive. There is still enough daylight and warmth to keep those sensations at bay. For now amidst the excitement of tricks and treats and then fireworks next weekend for Guy Fawkes night, then the (7 week) rush to Christmas, it will be some time before the winter really gets us down.
More significant perhaps than the details of the festivities of this particular season - the costumes, the pumpkins, the sweets - is the passage of time; the never-ending cycle of our lives that brings us once more to an Autumn.
There is a magic in the showers of rain that impede our outings. There is a frisson in the morning air. The crunch of leaves and the peril of uncollected dog droppings squelching beneath them is always exciting. The fairy lights and Christmas lights herald a joyful anticipation (and a huge anticlimax) as we approach the "holidays" and no matter how nostalgic or sad the short days and chill evenings may leave us feeling, we can always head to the shops for our fill of commercial and capitalist glee and purpose.
It is hard to be cynical when everyone else is so moved, so excited. The radio reported that 30% of the nation have begun stocking up on food for Christmas - spreading the cost - they said. (That's not all they will be spreading, thinks Springgirl.) The Off-Spring caught the Halloween bug in the communal garden some weeks ago. Long before October began, but shortly after the shops began selling the orange and black wrapped sweets and cards and faux spiders' webs (early September when the back to school shelves were depleted and the kids were off our hands once more), the collective imagination was seized by the notion of dressing as ghosts and ghoulies and asking the neighbours for sweets. Springgirl is not poo-pooing the occasion - hey, each to their own. It is just that celebrating without understanding the underlying meaning of an occasion always feels purposeless and wanton. Perhaps it is my convent upbringing....
So I explained to to two of the Off-Spring (well all three were present but one is not attending the trick or treating and sausage sizzle due to some naughty behaviour for which Springgirl is secretly grateful as she can also miss out...) that Halloween comes from the Celtic festival of Samhain (the end of the harvest and beginning of the "darker half" of the year) and the Christian holiday of All Saints' Day.
In that way the Off-Spring were warned that the sweets symbolised the end of the plentiful "light half" of the year and should thus be consumed sparingly (not all within 10 minutes tonight) and saved to cheer the dark days ahead.
"Oh come on Springgirl, lighten up," you may think. "You are always telling everyone to lighten up. It is just a bit of fun, some dressing up, some laughs."
Indeed.
I do have sympathy for our Parish church which sent a plaintive suggestion in the last two newsletters - a valiant attempt to shut the gate after the proverbial horse, firmly behind the cart, had strayed - that children might like to dress as saints.
Nevertheless, but for the communal garden, that richest source of community, entertainment and education in an urban landscape of anonymity and consumption, we would not be traipsing into this new territory. Unless one is constantly taking one's children shopping one can avoid much of the hype, after all. So I am grateful for this opportunity to inform them about times gone by and the union of the pagan with the Christian and the endless cycle of the seasons and man's courageous attempts to shackle and control the environment through marking such occasions, while I book a check up at the dentist.
Seriously though, I have always loved Autumn in the UK. The colours of the leaves and the crispness of the air are restorative and invigorating. The streets seem fresher despite the day's fall of leaves. The air seems purer despite the huddles of smokers drawing warmth from their cigarettes. The stars seem brighter, when one can get out of the city to see them. While much of the natural world prepares for sleep now, still more of it seems to teem with life and purpose.
So with renewed purpose and motivation I collect conkers and make apple crumbles and cobblers, soups and stews. I hunker down of an evening with rich pickings of programmes to catch up on. I baton down the hatches preparing for the storm of preparation for the seasonal celebrations at school (PTA busy season just around the corner) and I revel in the spring that comes into my step as the cool autumn winds blow out the cobwebs in my mind.
I have a new book idea to work on now, having finished "Tom's Dreamflight" and created a colourful and if I do say so myself, delightful, calendar of "Tess and the Seaside Girl". Turning to marketing them - well, what better to do on a cold grey Autumn Sunday than settle down with a good book (specially targeted at 8-11 year old boy readers). And how better to prepare the little ones for 2011 and all that lies in store than with a beautiful calendar of original prints depicting a little girl's seaside odyssey?
Best of all, it is raining now! As we prepare to venture to the country to visit friends we relish the prospect of donning the Wellington boots and splashing in puddles and squelching through mud (rather than dog-do), of sitting by an open fire perchance and sipping hot drinks brewed with love.
Alas, no trick or treating if it rains though...
This morning we turned our clocks back an hour and now we see out the summer with all the crazy commercial madness that Halloween has turned into over the past few years in the UK. Outside, the leaves are yellow and red, orange and brown; most days there is rain. The skies are often leaden, but the oppression of the grey is still elusive. There is still enough daylight and warmth to keep those sensations at bay. For now amidst the excitement of tricks and treats and then fireworks next weekend for Guy Fawkes night, then the (7 week) rush to Christmas, it will be some time before the winter really gets us down.
More significant perhaps than the details of the festivities of this particular season - the costumes, the pumpkins, the sweets - is the passage of time; the never-ending cycle of our lives that brings us once more to an Autumn.
There is a magic in the showers of rain that impede our outings. There is a frisson in the morning air. The crunch of leaves and the peril of uncollected dog droppings squelching beneath them is always exciting. The fairy lights and Christmas lights herald a joyful anticipation (and a huge anticlimax) as we approach the "holidays" and no matter how nostalgic or sad the short days and chill evenings may leave us feeling, we can always head to the shops for our fill of commercial and capitalist glee and purpose.
It is hard to be cynical when everyone else is so moved, so excited. The radio reported that 30% of the nation have begun stocking up on food for Christmas - spreading the cost - they said. (That's not all they will be spreading, thinks Springgirl.) The Off-Spring caught the Halloween bug in the communal garden some weeks ago. Long before October began, but shortly after the shops began selling the orange and black wrapped sweets and cards and faux spiders' webs (early September when the back to school shelves were depleted and the kids were off our hands once more), the collective imagination was seized by the notion of dressing as ghosts and ghoulies and asking the neighbours for sweets. Springgirl is not poo-pooing the occasion - hey, each to their own. It is just that celebrating without understanding the underlying meaning of an occasion always feels purposeless and wanton. Perhaps it is my convent upbringing....
So I explained to to two of the Off-Spring (well all three were present but one is not attending the trick or treating and sausage sizzle due to some naughty behaviour for which Springgirl is secretly grateful as she can also miss out...) that Halloween comes from the Celtic festival of Samhain (the end of the harvest and beginning of the "darker half" of the year) and the Christian holiday of All Saints' Day.
In that way the Off-Spring were warned that the sweets symbolised the end of the plentiful "light half" of the year and should thus be consumed sparingly (not all within 10 minutes tonight) and saved to cheer the dark days ahead.
"Oh come on Springgirl, lighten up," you may think. "You are always telling everyone to lighten up. It is just a bit of fun, some dressing up, some laughs."
Indeed.
I do have sympathy for our Parish church which sent a plaintive suggestion in the last two newsletters - a valiant attempt to shut the gate after the proverbial horse, firmly behind the cart, had strayed - that children might like to dress as saints.
Nevertheless, but for the communal garden, that richest source of community, entertainment and education in an urban landscape of anonymity and consumption, we would not be traipsing into this new territory. Unless one is constantly taking one's children shopping one can avoid much of the hype, after all. So I am grateful for this opportunity to inform them about times gone by and the union of the pagan with the Christian and the endless cycle of the seasons and man's courageous attempts to shackle and control the environment through marking such occasions, while I book a check up at the dentist.
Seriously though, I have always loved Autumn in the UK. The colours of the leaves and the crispness of the air are restorative and invigorating. The streets seem fresher despite the day's fall of leaves. The air seems purer despite the huddles of smokers drawing warmth from their cigarettes. The stars seem brighter, when one can get out of the city to see them. While much of the natural world prepares for sleep now, still more of it seems to teem with life and purpose.
So with renewed purpose and motivation I collect conkers and make apple crumbles and cobblers, soups and stews. I hunker down of an evening with rich pickings of programmes to catch up on. I baton down the hatches preparing for the storm of preparation for the seasonal celebrations at school (PTA busy season just around the corner) and I revel in the spring that comes into my step as the cool autumn winds blow out the cobwebs in my mind.
I have a new book idea to work on now, having finished "Tom's Dreamflight" and created a colourful and if I do say so myself, delightful, calendar of "Tess and the Seaside Girl". Turning to marketing them - well, what better to do on a cold grey Autumn Sunday than settle down with a good book (specially targeted at 8-11 year old boy readers). And how better to prepare the little ones for 2011 and all that lies in store than with a beautiful calendar of original prints depicting a little girl's seaside odyssey?
Best of all, it is raining now! As we prepare to venture to the country to visit friends we relish the prospect of donning the Wellington boots and splashing in puddles and squelching through mud (rather than dog-do), of sitting by an open fire perchance and sipping hot drinks brewed with love.
Alas, no trick or treating if it rains though...
Spring to Mind
A humorous look at all things Spring. A fresh take on the seasons and hues of urban life.
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