Have I ever said it? October 31, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , 1 comment so farI realised I’ve never blogged about my twin sister, Cate.
The time is now. For a couple of reasons:
- We’ve just had our very middle aged birthday and
- We both have a thing for Jesus
Don’t get me wrong – our fascination comes not in a fundamentalist way, but rather, as an aesthetic sensibility and appreciation of religious iconography and the role of the teacher in our midst.
I got a picture from her yesterday with the following request:
I thought you should know that this is the picture I want on my funeral booklet. Thanks to Michael for unearthing it from who knows where, but I think it completely captures what I’m all about: irritating to Jesus who is ready to bonk me on the head because I talk too much; envious of other older women who can still pull handsome sailors and, of course, a lifelong, studious disregard for my own appearance.
With that request, and with that photo, I realised I loved her more than ever before. She’s clear, she’s unapologetic and she’s joyous (yay even unto death and men that sail the 7 seas).
Death is, funnily enough, on both our minds as we’re coming up to the anniversary of our dad’s death. He died over 20 years ago now, and so didn’t live to see his twin grandchildren turn 21, or my other sister’s Gab’s children reach their maturity. His anniversary this year will coincide with a large family reunion we’ll be having with our cousins, and as a catholic family we have scads of cousins – and of course we drink! Dad would surely endorse this dual celebration of life and death.
Cate and I both have a proclivity for dreaming as well, and often share notes – seeking help and insights from our shared family paradigm, culture and personal history.
My own significant dream this last week was, I believe, portentous. It featured, as mine often do, totemic animals, often blue in colour, that talk or visit or leave me gifts. The message I took from th
is last one was a wake up call to check my health and in particular the health of my heart. I took it also as a direct message from my Dad who had died early from a heart attack. Of course, I did check only to find out my blood pressure was much higher than normal, with a consequent need to run a series of blood tests to find out what’s going on.
Cate’s dream this week was about being at the edge of an endless ocean, on fine white sand, more exquisite than she’d ever seen before. Her take on it was a view of the limitless, ego-less boundaries a sort of heaven on earth – when the spirit in action and the numinous in life are realised. Cate reminded me that (as Gnostic Jesus says) ‘The kingdom of Heaven is at hand and men/women don’t see it.’
Clearly our shared preoccupation with Jesus, that grew out of a Catholic childhood, is also a pursuit of the perfect life. A life that was lived; that is – a life worth living, for however long. A life more about the journey than the destination. More about the process that the result. And of course one that can be shared (if you’re lucky enough) with someone you love.
I looked up the meaning of my latest blue (dream) totem – the cricket , to find out that it is the protector of hearth and home (hence my linking it to Dad). It’s also a totem best known for chirping and singing, which it does by rubbing its wings against a leaf. In my dream the cricket was sick and only when it started moving around did I put it back on a leaf (I guess to start singing again). Is this me, coming back to life after Bloke – getting ready to sing up a storm?
In any event, with the love of my life gone, and the other half of my heart on the other side of the world, it seems that life “just isn’t cricket” any more. So what’s a girl to do?
Dust off the blues (and in my case working in a blue collar environment perhaps shed them altogether), get truly green, turn over a new leaf and sing aloud.. Here’s one for Jesus, One for Cate and one for me. Have I ever said it better?
I love you S.H
What’s your life for? October 20, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Yellow , add a commentI asked my friend L yesterday, “What’s your life for?”. Her answer was, simply, “To live it”.
As an agnostic, she doesn’t believe in anything after death. Life here and now is all we know for sure. There is a force within us that drives us and pushes us - an irreversible momentum – regardless of what happens to us (except murder or suicide).
She marvelled at her own ability or willingness to go on living her life after the devastating death of her only daughter several years ago. She would have been less surprised if her body failed to take another breath and she too expired with her daughter. To her way of thinking thiswas a more understandable consequence of such a devastating death – it would have made more sense. Her eggs and her DNA helped with the birth of her daughter, therefore her daughter’s death could just as easily linked them again. The hopeless irreovocable force of it could have, should have swept them both away – but it didn’t. She was left. And she chose to do something.
A life force is the only answer. A force through us, outside us, parallel to us, in us and perhaps as a result of us, that causes the self – this miriad of cells and blood and skin and breath – to get up out of bed, put some food in our mouth and go on with the next day and the day after that and the day after that.
I asked L how she moved forward after the death of her daughter, and she told me that after a certain time, she compartmentalised or “put aside” the feelings so that they didn’t imobolise her. She still had the feelings, but they were put in a special place, out of the way, and as such she was able to go on with life. Her raison d’etre is – I guess – is that life is for living.
L is more driven than I am. So, although only a few years older than me, she owns more, works at a job she is passionate about, has a happy marriage, lots of friends, she earns more money and believes in herself more than I do, and of course, she therefore contributes more to the world.
I’ve ground to a complete standstill, I’m contributing nothing. I can’t move on past Bloke I guess. I think I might have peaked already – and now it’s just a matter of waiting until I die as well. Because I believe Bloke’s gone somewhere, I can still talk to him. Is this somewhere Heaven? “the other side”, in my head? in my mythic imagination? Whatever the location, it is a location that is still accessible to me. This dialogue, my friend L might call “inner dialogue”. The trouble is – I can’t stop yakking!
Today it’s 3 years since he died. And as the day before my birthday – I read through the correspondence he’d written to me during our marriage. I’d already stored or “compartmentalised” the missives in a booklet, so I pulled it off the shelf and read each one. Some cards were for birthdays, some were coaching notes when I’d be facing challenges at work, some were consoling, when I was feeling worried, and some were love letters – missing me when either I was travelling or he was. I began to cry at card No 1.
At the time he wrote the notes, I needed the coaching, the calming, the cajoling and the laughs. I still do. He was one of the funniest men I’d ever met, and amidst the tears I had a few good belly laughs. He was the best medicine for me when he was alive, and now 3 years later – he still hits the mark with his wisdom and consistently good advice.
If L is right, and the dead live in our memories, then it would work the same way as if he was in some “heavenly realm”, it’s just a matter of geography or nomenclature. For instance, I didn’t hear his voice read the notes out to me, but his strong cursive handwriting cut through me like a knife. Not yet cutting me free, just fragmenting me.
What’s life for? It’s for living as close as possible to the centre of love in your life. That’s the force that goes on after death. That’s the force that gets us out and up after devastation. The trick is, to eventually, slice by slice, cut free from the past, but take the love along with you.
Lub! big!
Gearing up for the sell October 9, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Yellow , add a commentI have an interview on Tuesday for a new job.
I’m relieved that I made the “cut” and am one of six who have to sell themselves one over another to persuade a panel of three that they are the best for the job.
At the same time I’m preparing for the interview I’m preparing to undergo a radical elimination diet to find out what is making me feel so ”blurrrr” and “blahmk”; to fnd out what is possibly triggering an allergic reaction (to everything!)
Both are eliminations. Both are necessary and both are appropriately simultaneously occuring at the same time. mmmm but why?
Will I be chucked out at the end of the job interview as an “also-ran”, beaten to within a hair’s breadth by a charming younger woman, adept at this and that and even then some?
Will I be retained and identified as a safe food group – easy to digest, no trigger reaction, no cause for sneezes or rashes or hives. I’ll let you know in a later blog.
Today I tried to find out what the panel wanted (I mean really wanted and expected from the person filling the role). I figured that in a 30 minute interview – and I’ve had my fair share of them – the panel are hard pressed to get through all the questions – let alone give quality time to cogitate on the answers. Of course the answers were not forthcoming.
If my memory serves me correctly, interviews like this are more an endurance under pressure test; and a test of memory, matching your verbal recall to each of the stunning successes you presented in your pulitzer prize winning application for the job.
And then at the end, when everyone wants to just run away, and you feel sure that the reason the older panelist didn’t look at you is because there’s something physically wrong with your face and hair, will there be time to pin the panel down to answering questions I want to ask; will there be time to interview them?
I think so many work choice mistakes are made by the pace of the one-sided interview, invariably with the script driven by the decision making employers. And we, the interviewees, are often so desperate to sell ourselves, to be liked, to be chosen, we overlook the critical thinking questions that would determine whether the workplace is going to match our personal style, values and for that matter our diet.
My own elimination diet, no matter how much I withdraw from and add in to the mix, will inevitably come to the conclusion I made some time ago, that I throw back far too much wine that can be justified in a healthy life style. This gay practice of swilling and imbibing has got to do with our generation and in my case catholic background. Like my mates, I’m practically a fermented experience all on my own.
My younger workmate told me this morning of her evening out with 2 older sisters. They, like me, do a fair share of imbibing, and have a miriad of internal complaints to show for it. It’s sort of like a secret club, that has run out of credit in the healthy bank and have to make increasing withdrawls in the face of a wilting, drooping, decaying landscape. Yikes! I’m depressed writing about it, and I have no panacea, because – yes, you guessed it – wine is one of the first things to be eliminated!
So I’ll throw myself into both experiences with gusto. Relatively clear headed (give or take a sneeze here and there) but keen to explore and interview them about what I want from such a job, and what I can expect from a renovated internal system.
Do you think I can have fries with that?
