Things I'm Learning About Writing A Book

I'm learning ...

I don't write a book in the same way I might train my body at the gym.  It's not about pushing the limits and building up strength.  It's not about endurance. 

And it's not about 9 to 5.  It's about 'anytime'.  My most exciting idea, so far, came while I was walking back through city streets in the early morning, a 5 celsius day.  I was thinking bad thoughts about Antwerp's polluted air.

I smsed my idea to myself.  I had a book for the tram and I know how time stretches and warps on these journeys of mine.  I need to make notes.  Always.  Because I forget stuff.  Even brilliant stuff.

Always make notes.

I have a song, sometimes more than one but usually just one, that I put on repeat ... endlessly on repeat.  It helps somehow.  It disappears into the background but creates a state of mind.  I recently heard Man Booker prize winner, Eleanor Catton, admit to doing it and I thought, 'So it's normal'!'  Many have tried to convince me that it's so far from normal and I should stop immediately.

So, currently, whenever I hear Ben Howard's 'Old Pine' then I know it's time to work.  Maybe I should put a dedication to him in the front of this book.  I've played his song hundreds, if not thousands, of times already. 

Obviously this can only be done when I'm working alone here ...

I am learning to steal the Belgian's bloke's desk-chair the moment he leaves for work, as my chair is an ergonomic disaster, even though we were careful in choosing it and paid more than we wanted to.  He just sighs, rolls my chair away from his desk, and waits while I return his in the evenings.  Thank goodness he works away from home all day ...

Most importantly perhaps, I'm learning not to panic when I can't think of what to write, how to dive in and begin when I have 'just 3 hours to produce something new!!!!'  It will come.  It does.

Oh and if I have the 130 photographs I have chosen (so far) for the book colour-photocopied to A4-size to work on, in batches of 20, then it seems less wicked.  Or is that like the kid playing hide-n-seek, standing in the middle of the room with her hands over her eyes, pretending that she can't be seen.  Hmmmm.

And finally, I'm learning that committing to writing a blog post everyday in November has been more helpful than I could have imagined.

Now,  I'll leave you with Ben. 

Oh ... I've posted this song before?  At least you don't share an office with me  :-)

Soul Stuff ...

 

The practice of any art isn’t to make a living, it’s to make your soul grow.

Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt's quotes seemed like an answer to my angst about money and art. 

Meanwhile, this singer is making me smile. Most particularly, her song, 'You and I'. 

I love the lines: let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance.

I was out early this morning, 5 celsius, a clear-sky day but the air hurts the lungs we decided.  Cold or pollution, or both, we couldn't decide.

I'm using Frances Mayes book, Under the Tuscan Sun, to pull me through the quieter moments.  The tram was packed coming home but I was off in my mind and wandering with her in Sovana, where she wrote of being in ancient places, We can walk here, the latest little dots on the time line.  Knowing that, it always amazes me that I am intensely interested in how the map is folded, where the gas gauge is pointed, whether we have withdrawn enough cash, how everything matters intensely even as it is disappearing.

 

The Magic of Myth, an enchanted journey by Elizabeth Duvivier

It would not be untrue if I wrote that I love this woman's blog best of all blogs.

I have written of her work before.  A snippet here and snippet there.  Mystic Vixen is where I wander when I need a fix of beauty, both in words and in images.  There's quite some wisdom to be found over there too.

Wandering there is like opening a window onto a beautiful view ... it simply restores my soul. 

And she shares her dogs too.

So, Elizabeth is even more than I knew her to be.  I've attached the video where you get to know a little about her and work.  She's responsible for Squam, as founder and director.  You have to read about Squam to believe it but obviously any place where I read 'creativity as a way of life' in the subtitle I'm going to be interested.

Anyway, the video below, it's all about Elizabeth and an exciting new offering she has created for Squam - The Magic of Myth, an enchanted journey. 

Take a peek ... see what you think.

the MAGIC of MYTH :: an enchanted journey from Squam on Vimeo.

Balance ...

I am always searching for a kind of balance in life ...

I work hard. I work long hours.  There is no income.  However I have finally decided to commit to the life of an artist.  And I'm lucky, my Belgian bloke is pleased  that I am finally writing again.  It was the thing I loved first, the thing friends back in New Zealand most associated with me, it turns out.

So I write in the mornings these days and depending on whether I'm on the school pick-up run, which is lunch-times two days per week, my writing often runs on into the afternoon.  And the evening.

And I edit for friends and causes I believe in the way some people do crossword puzzles. That's my hobby.  I love making texts beautiful.

And I can be lured out of the house to shoot an event or a portrait for friends I admire or whose business impresses me. That was last night.  And I sparkle on the inside.  I love the energy that shoots through me when I'm working with my camera. And I always meet really superb people.  There was this wine-maker last night.  An extraordinary woman that I will interview on Saturday.

So I have all these things that I love doing but they rarely involve money.  And making them earn money while bowing to the gods of taxes, social security, and etc, can only be described as a Kafka story.

Do I kill all the art and get a real job? 

It feels so much like cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I can create beauty.  I'm pleased with the shape the book on Genova is taking.  My photographs seem to please people and even if they don't, I find them pleasing.  I printed 20 of my Genova photographs off as A4 colour photocopies. 

I was like a mother with her new baby.  Who knows if the baby is ugly, I was that mother who was besotted.  The images looked so powerful laid out in front of me.  I needed that.  I was bored with looking at them on the computer.

The scales that weigh the content or purpose of my life are sensitive things.  Sometimes I have them in balance - my work is good, I should continue with photography and writing, the housework, and this crazy extended family of mine.  Other times it's ... who do I think I am.  Some princess who can live so irresponsibly and lightly in the world!?  I must find a job!'

We live in a world where the arts are always first against the wall in budget cut and yet art is the thing that makes humans different to animals, isn't it?  Art is the place we all escape to ... into books, into music.  And yet the raised eyebrow, the idea that we are spoiled ones ... oh how that messes with my head.

I was out with a friend last night and I said, I should get a job.  She said, but you work.  I said but I make no money.  She said you work really hard.  We laughed.  I do enjoy Ruth's company.  She keeps me sane.

So here I am, living what feels a little like life in bubble.  If I float out here, kind of disconnected from the world, then I can write this book I've been carrying inside of me for a long time but ... like being on the edge of a cliff, I can't look down.   If I look down, I'll may fall into despair and despair means I struggle to write and create.  Bitterness is deadly.

Lately I've read through a million job decriptions, trying to work out who would hire me, woman of strange abilities.  And I can't get past what I might gently call the 'wankspeak' of job descriptions.  I think you're meant to apply anyway and then everyone laughs and says noooooo, you're absolutely what we need but we had to write that other stuff ...like,  fluent in 17 languages, with the ability to get our newsletter out into the world in 17 seconds flat.  But maybe it's better those jobs have seemed impossible.

This morning began with a bit of a crisis.  Oh, you guessed.  Maybe I've written it out of me and tomorrow I'll delete this and we'll pretend it never happened. 

But make no mistake, this needs to be read knowing I'm smiling.  I have fought off the despair.  I'm going to write now. 

Sarah Neirinckx and Bloom - Third Culture Coaching

Sarah Neirinckx returned to Belgium after 15 years of living and working abroad.  Back home she has begun a coaching practice called Third Culture Coaching.  She is focused on providing guidance and support to modern nomads, expatriates, and repatriates.

Sarah explained that her aim is to support the transition processes while encouraging personal growth and development .  Most people tend to underestimate the need for support and guidance as they transition from one continent to another after returning home from a life lived abroad.  While there are the obvious and practical steps one must take, there is also the little-discussed personal and a psychological impact of returning home.  Many professional organisations seem to ignore the probability of culture shock when moving their employees around the world, or bringing them home.

The phenomenon of Third Culture is all about the fact that while people living and working abroad didn't really fit into the country they were based in, they often find they no longer fit their own culture either. People often live within an expat community where they are protected from the full force of culture shock abroad however on returning home they feel the way that foreign experience has altered their personality.


HR, management, coaches, therapists, and psychologists pay scant attention to this issue of third culture issues and it was for this reason that Sarah began Bloom Co-creation.

She works with global nomads, third culture children, expatriates, repatriates, and people who are in a transition phase.  She would love to hear from you.

Sarah wrote, We are excited to announce that Bloom is celebrating their launch with a Brenda Davies workshop - Creating the Life You Would Love To Live here in Antwerp, Belgium.

This exciting two-day workshop can either be followed as the two-day, or there is the possibility of attening for just one of the two days.  Choose what suits you.

You can read more about Brenda on her website over here.

Reservations, phone Sarah at +32 477758291 or email her at: sarahneirinckx@bloom-cocreation.com

 

A Rather Fabulous Kiwi/Belgian Collaboration

Why yes ... that wonderful smell is coming from our kitchen.

As I write here, downstairs there is this stunning concoction that combines the best of Belgian and New Zealand cuisine, simmering away in the great big pot.

2.5kgs of Pure South New Zealand venison is cooking with a rather special bottle of Belgian beer.  There are onions, jenever (juniper) berries, cloves, fresh thyme, a pear and apple syrup-style spread,  and bay leaves too. 

It's Armistice Day here in Belgium and a public holiday.  How better to celebrate the end of that war that saw so many New Zealanders pour into Belgium, along with the rest of the 'Allies', in an attempt to save Belgium from the 'other side'.

I have fresh bread baking for the morning and the laundry is in, after a day spent hanging in biting sunshine.

It's all happening here tonight.  I don't quite recall how it was to spend spring, summer and autumn out and wandering.  It's fading ...

Oh, liked the look of this documentary by Leon McCarron and Al Humphreys. 

In November and December 2012, Leon crossed 1000 miles of the Empty Quarter desert in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The journey began in Salalah, Oman and finished six weeks later in the glitz and glamour of Dubai, UAE. The trip roughly traced some of the routes famously trodden by the British explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger, who criss-crossed the desert in the 1940's.

Adjusting ...

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go” responded the cat. “I don’t know” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “It doesn’t matter.

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Source: Oh Fairies

It's fascinating (for me) to watch myself struggle with having made space and silence to write ...

I didn't realise quite how addicted I had become to distraction.  'Addicted' for want of a better word.  Facebook is perfect as a distraction.  It's full of some of my favourite people and, often, it's the only place I easily and instantly reach them.  It's playtime all day, if I allow it be.  Or forget that it shouldn't be ... on a slow day when I am quite lost and lacking in self-discipline.

And my FB wall was full of interesting folk.  It wasn't the tedious stuff you read about in the 'worst of FB' stories.  They were posting politically and intellectually interesting stuff ... as well as day-to-day life, links to good music, and their stories too.

These days of allowing this silence to fall around me haven't been simple but slowly I'm growing  used to the peace of it all.  Instead of multiple story-lines telling of other worlds running there in my head, I only have my stories ... mostly.

The loveliest thing is that I am receiving long emails from friends who have either already left facebook or who want to stay in touch.  Long emails are bliss and I find myself setting aside time to reply, instead of them being lost in the avalanche of action that my life used to be.  And links to good music are often included.  I would hate to lose those introductions to music others love.

Yesterday I was consumed by a desire to further prepare myself for the long winter ahead.  Bookshelves were moved, the sofa went upstairs to Miss 9's room, replaced by a exquisite yellow armchair I found secondhand and today this office space/bedroom is so much more beautiful.  When the sun angles in through the window behind me now, it is no longer absorbed by the other deep-red bookshelf, instead it reflects off the wall painted a warm terrocotta (I think) and lights the middle of the room with a warm glow.

Light, and that colour range from pale yellow through into a deep gold, they are things that I love.  My desk area is clearer than ever, and the small round red patterned rug that we found is perfect under my chair.

The paddling-people delighted me, in the image below, but so did the house.  If I had a Pinterest board, I'm almost sure that it would be filled with images of houses and rooms made for dreaming and writing in...

Under The Tuscan Sun ...(or a recipe for dreaming)

Whenever I am unable to create my own sense of beauty, I have this book that has traveled with me since the 90's.  The date I wrote in the front reads 'pre 1999'.  I remember how it saved me when we moved to Te Anau, from the disruption and loneliness that is moving, and that it has saved me so many times since.  For me, there is this sense of falling into the beauty that is Frances Mayes prose, like sinking below the surface of a swimming pool, immersed for a while.

Whatever a guidebook says, whether or not you leave somewhere with a sense of the place is entirely a matter of smell and instinct.  There are places I've been which are lost to me.

I've heard so many angry women talk of Frances Mayes book 'Under the Tuscan Sun' - and make no mistake, I am talking of the book not the movie, which is another story entirely - and these women rage about this book and that woman's unrealistic portrayal of a life lived partially in Italy.

I listen, sometimes I speak up but mostly I quietly decide that they are not lovers of beautiful poetic prose writing ... that they simply lack a dreamy writerly soul. But truly, I'm not sure why I love what they hate.

The outrage ... I would love to unpick it, to understand where it comes from. 

The second-floor bedroom that opens onto a brick terrace gleams.  They've made the bed with the new blue sheets and left the terrace door open to the sound of the cuckoos and wild canaries in the linden trees.  We pick the last of the pink roses on the front terrace and fill two old Chianti bottles with them.  The shuttered room with its whitewashed walls, just-waxed floors, pristine bed with new sheets, and sweet roses on the windowsill, all lit with a dangling forty-watt bulb, seems as pure as a Franciscan cell.  As soon as I walk in, I think it is the most perfect room in the world.

These are soul-soothing words for me.  I once lived in the brick house of a friend who was so good to me when I divorced.  It was everything sensible, that borrowed brick house, but my soul needed something else.  I found a funny little 1.5 bedroom cottage out on the Otago peninsula. 

I moved there and was happy.  I would drink my morning coffee out in front of the massive rough wooden-framed windows that made up the front wall of that  cottage.  My view, a few metres of lawn, maybe 2, a small road just below, and the sheltered water of that beautiful harbour.

I require beauty but mostly it's simple.  It's about Nature and good air, it's about views that make you stop and dream for a while.  It's about having a dog, when possible. 

New Zealand spoilt me in a way.  My Belgian bloke understood more of me after our trip home last year.  He realised that while I believe natural beauty is a right, he understands beauty is a luxury.  He comes from a small country, 1/10th the size of New Zealand.  In Belgium there are 11 million people, New Zealand has 4 million.

After a few days, my life takes on its own rhythm.  I wake up and read for an hour at three a.m.; I eat small snacks - a ripe tomato eaten like an apple - at eleven and three rather than lunch at one.  At six I'm up, but by siesta time, the heat of the day, I'm ready for two hours in bed.  Slumber sounds heavier than sleep, and with the hum of a small fan, it's slumber I fall into. 

Finally entering into university studies at 34 was one of the best things I have ever done.  There was an appreciation of all that I studied, an excitement that I might not have felt back when I was 18.  In those days, I lived in 4 different homes along the peninsula.  My first husband and I bought an exquisite cottage down there back in 1999.  We divorced and I lived in a series of cottages on that narrow strip of land between the harbour and the Pacific Ocean. 

Under the Tuscan Sun got me through dark times and lonely times too.  It was like a burst from a sun-lamp perhaps.  It traveled to Istanbul with me, as one of the few things I could take from the old to the new life.  It lives here on my deep-red book shelves in Belgium, a much-loved book that I recently pulled out as these autumn days grow grey and the darkness comes so much earlier.

For me, the book is a meditation on the beautiful moments, written in the prose of a woman who began as a poet and went on with prose.  It's a writers book.  A book for dreamers and lovers of beauty. 

Siesta becomes a ritual.  We pull in the shutters, leaving the windows open. All over the house, ladders of light fall across the floor.

 

 

Excellent Stuff Found Lately ...

I love the work of war photographer, Robert Capa.  I have his book, Slightly Out of Focus, and two fictions based around the facts of his life, Waiting for Capa, and Seducing Ingrid Bergman.

Last night I discovered a 1hour and 23 minute documentary about Capa, on Youtube, titled Robert Capa: In Love and War.  Brilliant!  I was searching for information on another war photographer at the time. 

Note to self, never watch two documentaries about war photographers back-to-back.

Erkan Saka's Daily News is one of my favourite news sources.  I have recently deleted my Facebook account and unsubscribed from so many different newsletters and updates but kept Erkan.   I think it's clear why he's undeletable.

Laurie, a lovely friend, introduced me to Ed Sheeran's music and this song has to be a favourite.  Peter Jackson agreed and this song was created for the Hobbit movie. 

Russell Brand, comedian and all kinds of other things, is out there doing his thing.  I can imagine how that red-necked friend of mine in Australia will love this link.  Here's the interview that started it all ... for me anyway.  Jeremy Paxman almost seems to take on more than expected when interviewing the Russell.

People, he's a comedian.  I've had to remind people although so is Jon Stewart...

I've committed to the NaBloPoMo month of daily blogging ... an interesting challenge, to rock up here everyday and write something that I've decided is okay to publish. 

NaBloPoMo ... I was inspired to sign up by this beautiful soul. It's all about turning up and writing, and I needed to work on that habit. 

I was gifted the documentary Restrepo recently.  Tim Heatherington was a rather remarkable war photographer, a rather remarkable human being actually, killed in Libya in 2011.  This documentary was the result of being embedded with a platoon stationed in Afghanistan.  He worked on it with Sebastian Junger, author, journalist and documentarian, most famous for the best-selling book The Perfect Storm.

Nate Thayer wrote of a musician's protest against 'working for exposure', as opposed to cash, going viral.  An important story.  One that is happening across the arts fields, as musicians, writers and photographers are increasingly told, by large corporations and organisations, that there is no budget for the ... 

A long overdue conversation. 

News to end this post with.  I sparked a bit of conversation back when I was still on Facebook.  Turns out that I might be the only person of my generation in the world who didn't know the music of Van Morrison.  To be fair, I knew a lot of songs once I started really looking but he has so many sounds ...

Okay, fairly shameful.  I was watching my favourite television show of all time ... The Newsroom, and there was Van Morrison, singing that song.  I picked up some lyrics, searched them, found him.

And now ...the Ostrich.

Merel - Life is an Art, Art is my Life

Merel is a Belgian artist who lives and works in the centre of Antwerp since 1980 and devotes herself entirely to the practice and distribution of her art. 

Extract from Merel's book, Life is an Art, Art is my Life.

I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Merel's art exhibitions. An opening reception for  Life is an art, art is my life, at Leonhard's Gallery, here in Antwerp.

My lovely Belgian friend, Ruth, had introduced me to Merel's art and invited me along to the opening.

There we were, it was almost time to leave, and I was looking through Merel's exquisite hardcover coffee-table book while Ruth and Merel chatted.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered the page photographed below.

There was some surprise, much laughter, and conversations about how it happened.  Anyway, I really admire her work ...love it, wouldn't mind some on my wall.  One day, when I'm working again, I'll go buy a copy of her book.

As always, Ruth, thank you for another lovely adventure.

A Beautiful Window in Antwerp

This beautiful window is located at the end of Tram's 10 and 11, in Melkmarkt. 

I love it and stopped to photograph it today.  Later, editing it, I was bemused by the way there were almost no straight lines, beyond the window frames, on the ancient building that houses it.

The warmth of the window, the way the instruments are displayed, the light ... it all called to me so much more than the building itself and so I cropped the image down to the window. 

Autumn Scenes in Antwerp, Belgium

It's a grey and miserable autumn day here in the city and that was me, out the door and on the tram, on school run by 7.30am.  To complicate things, Wednesdays and Thursdays Miss 9 's school closes at midday so I get an hour or two at home before I'm back out and across the city to pick her up. 

Who knows why I imagined I could handle my red umbrella and my camera but I did.  I created a couple of montages - photographs taken as I wandered across Antwerp city.  A tram from the suburbs to the city centre, then a walk that wends its way through cobble-stoned backstreets and ancient buildings ...

4.30pm, it's still raining and we're losing the light fast.  It's not even winter yet.  But anyway, my adopted city ...

There's the tree-lined street ... that I don't live in.  The tram tracks curving off into the distance.  And the beautiful park I live near.  The one that often has a 'beautiful mist' softening the scenes there.  'Beautiful mist' because, pretty as it is, it is actually the horrendous pollution created by one of Europe's busiest highways just next-door there.

The next montage was made up of images I found in the city.  Antwerp is a city of painters.  Rubens also lived here and there are statues all over the place. 

Reflections, taken on the street I call the street of the antique shops.  I loved the soldiers and the wine glasses... I tried to capture them while including the street scene too.  It made what might have been a miserable day almost fun.

On Being Filmed

I'm sitting here at my computer, being filmed as I type ... telling the story of my life here in Antwerp.  How I arrived, what I like about it, and what is difficult.

It's quite odd.  I have relaxed far too much but my interviewer is lovely.  She's Belgian and (it's almost an of course) her English is far more English than mine.  I'm almost resigned to this happening though.  The Belgians seem only to need a small exposure to BBC English and they own it.  Meanwhile, New Zealanders spend their entire lives struggling out here in the world with their strangely pronounced vowel sounds.

It's Autumn ... grey and windy.  There's a walk in the park coming up and some more conversations.  Meanwhile, I've been processing some of the photographs of that previous trip to Italy

On Preferring Genova ...

A shameful admission ... perhaps, but I didn't fall in love with Verona. I don't know what I expected.  I may have accidentally watched Letters To Juliet once and you might say, that serves you right, Di. 

It was a very pretty movie set in an Italian summer.  Meanwhile I was there in September on an overcast day and I couldn't help noticing how much they had tidied things up for the movie.  And I think I was disappointed.

I really like Genova.  I like the extremes of Genova.  And it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not.  The gritty is there, right next to the pretty, in that northern Italian city located on the edge of the Ligurian Sea.

Trieste didn't seem to be pretending, not at all, during the few hours spent there.  And the local restaurant we found served food that I'm still dreaming about.  I love Rome but not like Genova.  Rome is simply something else.  Magnificent.

Acqui Terme has fabulous food and wine.  And the people were lovely but still, I preferred Genova.

Venice ... rainy, overcast, crowded.  I don't know, it didn't capture me but perhaps I need to go back there in summer, or spring.  On a sunny day anyway.  And Cinque Terre ... I'm still muttering about the crowds I found there.

Naples, that was something something else!  It was like nowhere I've ever been before.  Not like Istanbul, nor Cairo.  Not Singapore.  Naples was just its ownself.  I loved it but I imagine it's obvious by now ... not like I love Genova.

I write all of this in a bemused state of mind.  I need to pop in and visit Florence one day, and maybe drive through this Tuscan countryside everyone raves about.  Even if it only confirms what I suspect ... that Genova has everything, and more, of what I prefer.

Maybe Italy is like a pick-a-path story.  Maybe you simply find what you love best there and stay loyal to it.  I don't know but that's how it is for me.

Life Without Travel ...

The longer I'm home, the more domestic I become.  It's as if the examples laid down in my childhood just take over when I'm home too long ... ohdearlord!

The house is clean, the laundry mostly done.  There's gluten-free bread in the machine, tacos are ready to cook.  I imagine it might be the last lettuce and tomatoes I can stand to eat until next summer.  How and where do they grow these once the warm weather is done and autumn is absolutely in place? 

The tv people are coming to interview me tomorrow.  Let's see how that goes.  If it goes well, I'll share.  If not, I shall never mention it again.  It will be my third tv interview thingy and I'm hoping that I have finally learned how to self-censor.  Last time, a laughing producer said, 'Ohhhh, we had to murder some darlings!'  I was relieved that he did but concerned he was laughing.

Actually, that's over here.  They got our dates wrong.  I've been in Belgium since 2005 and Wendy, the artist, has been here for 3 years.  We had so much fun making that.  Mustn't relax tomorrow though ...

But it's a short piece and so the temptation to relax into a conversation with the interviewer may not occur in ways that make me forget the potential viewing audience.

It's getting cold ... 4 celsius this morning, rain fell most of the day.  My new book arrived.  I ordered wrong but it seems like a better starting point than Viktor e. Frankl's original 'Man's Search For Meaning'.  He expands on that book in this book.

I devoured it on the tram to the city this afternoon ... 'Existence thus may well be authentic even when it is unconscious, but man exists authentically only when he is not driven but, rather, responsible.  Authentic existence is present where a self is deciding for itself, but not where the id is driving it.'

Let's see how that unfolds over these days where I'm catching trams across the city 4 times per week.

I posted a photograph of my workspace the other day and then I decided to withdraw from my commitment to blog everyday.  I deleted the 3 posts I had written.  But then ... in a moment of brilliance, I deleted my Facebook account and voila, I am back blogging daily ... twice daily today it seems, and so I'll repost the photograph of my work space because I wouldn't mind seeing if time off from Facebook, combined with this promise to blog daily, and the fact I am beginning work on my book, doesn't inspire an evolution in my workspace over time.  I'll chart it here.  Then again, nothing may happen.

I'm struggling though.  I used to write the blog just for me now I'm more conscious of the fact I'm putting this space out there in the big new world called NaBloPoMo.  That's odd and I'm trying to get past the whole self-conscious thing.

On Gallivanting ...

 

There is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. Negative people find their walls. So never apologize for your enthusiasm. Never. Ever. Never.

Ryan Adams

I read this first thing this morning, pre-breakfast, and thought, yes.   I was reading Amy's blog.

It was a quiet yes.

One of the things I have most consistently done through time  ... and it's dancing for shadows really, is defend the way I live my life.

My ex-father-in-law was an outrageous monster sometimes ... one who made everyone laugh.  He assured me that the more he mocked the more love there was.  Eyes twinkling, he pointed out how much he must care about me.  He could be charming at times.
I can still see him there in the kitchen of 40 Tyne Street in Mosgiel.  He's gone now, that man who was planning on spending his retirement near some beach where he could fish everyday.  But his most serious and real accusation was always his ... have you been off gallivanting AGAIN?
The men I grew amongst were men who believed that a woman's place was there in the home, next to their husbands.  They also believed that a husband's place was right there next to their wives.  Kind of chained together.  And that was a problem for me because I've always wandered.
My first husband gifted me an entire month off interviewing climbers and mountaineers for a book I was writing.  If the authority figures in my young world were telling me I must stay at home, then my husbands have always told me to ignore them and wander anyway.  But maybe they knew that I had to.
'Never apologize for your enthusiasm' was timely.  I have tempered my enthusiasm over time.  It is less evident although still explodes out of me on occasions but the need for flight ...  there are no apologies in me.  If anything, I'm becoming more convinced about the beauty and the need for flight.
There is the goodbye and hello of it all.  You never stop appreciating a partner when you have a little distance sometimes.  But more than that, filled with a compulsion to fix things for people, it's better to give myself a little people-less time.  To live on toast and red wine and stand on the edge of societies I'm not part of ... there's something healing about that.
I do worry that things will collapse while I'm gone but it's so good realise that it's not all about me and that the world does go on when I wander off.  I knew it as the small child who wandered.  Perhaps I was my entire universe back then.  I didn't care so much as the teenager who disappeared with her dog and dreamed dreams that she doesn't recall now.  And I needed it on becoming a wife and a mother.
Negative people find their walls. So never apologize ...  I'll run with that I think.

On Missing Home ...

It's been an odd day here.  Some blog posts were deleted today and I decided to step away from Facebook for a bit.  I'm learning the limits of 'what else I can do while writing' and having FB available just doesn't work for me.

I've been homesick for New Zealand.  Dad's brother had a fall last week and so I spent a few evenings talking with Dad via skype.  It was sad knowing he was spending his days at the hospital, watching Uncle Brian slip away.  They couldn't save him.  The funeral was last Friday.

Uncle Brian was a butcher by trade but when I think back to my most vivid memories of him they seem to involve those backyard games of cricket played by families, and their neighbours, all over New Zealand during summer.

I think Brian might have been a Speights man back then too.  Like Dad.  I think all of them were, and I don't think he would mind the link.  That series of adverts usually makes kiwis smile some.

You will be missed, Brian Mackey.