The Blue & Yellow Post

Is July the month of death?

I always thought so. I expect because my mother, favoured aunt and grandpa all died in July. Perhaps it’s because the cold chills me to the bone. It just feels like a dead month.

Magnolia

But during this month, the most magnificent blooms come into their own. The Magnolia - with their sensuous broad white petals somehow emerging from tightly wrapped spiral shells. Some remain bud-like on the gnarled branches, tightly enlosed and secretive for as long as they can.  But invariably, as the month grows older, they  too start to change, they can’t resist.

They open bit  by bit. Some more eager than others appear almost wanton. Opening wider and wider, leaning backwards in complete surrender, curling back of themselves.  It’s a daring move. So daring, the cold couldn’t get to them even if it wanted to. for they’re beyond caring. They’ve gone to that stage just before death with such abandon I am ashamed to watch. Ashamed, that is, because I can’t be that open.

Gabby told me a story once about the birth of her third child, who was born in the month of July. When she was born there was no bed in the hospital other than one that lay at the end of the ward for mothers of still-born babies. And so, on that morning when the nurses brought her clean, healthy, fair, beautiful and serene baby for her first feeding, they did so through a valley of death.

She was born on our grandfather’s anniversary. And christened Phoebe. Gabby chose the name for a number of personal reasons, only to find out some time later, that same name had been used by our grandfather, as a term of endearment our mother when she was a child. They might have been dead   but I’m starting to think they were there in spirit- endorsing the name and celebrating new life.

My mother loved magnolias. We had one blooming in the garden of our family home. I’ve painted the magnolia for years, trying to recapture the memory associated with it, marvelling at its seductive beauty and calm strength. It blooms for such a short time, the study and execution is intense. I have yet to really capture one the way I would wish.  Perhaps because it represents so much of what is transient.

I painted them when Bloke was sick, using gold-leaf and paint on paper I tried to capture that fragile passing, trying to vainly lock it safely in beaten metal. I’ve painted them on 6 panels - human height, as if in a garden with branches that spanned the width of a wall. But they don’t come close to the beauty of the tree in our front garden and the one I passed this morning.

So in a month or so, when they’re gone, I’ll still look for them. I’ll yearn for them in wonder at that fleeting splendour and its power to bring me undone. Every July when the cold chills me to the bone I’ll miss them. Just like I miss all that have died. And I’ll remember how splendidly open they were in the moment before their passing. Fragile in a world of beating metal and  winter winds.

I had lunch with my aunty yesterday and showed her the pictures of my recent trip overseas.

She was particularly enamoured of one where a boat is pointing outwards to the horizon, not yet launched, still in harbour waiting and safe. She thought I should use it on my blog - so here it is.

My aunt is in her seventies and is a fiercely loyal woman, loyal to family and to her faith and to her memories. Loyalty is a fabulous quality to have and if you don’t “get” it at birth it’s hard to acquire along the way.

These days, there’s always something to push our buttons, convince us to change brands and form new attachments. I envy her that gift of the spirit, to stick with what she knows and to love it in all its “ordinariness” and to hang on, sometimes in the face of fierce persuasion, to the direction she set and the choices she’s made. She’s a nun - so she knows all about that.

One of the hardest things in coming home after an expansive trip is to accept that your “ordinary” life, the one you left behind, is still there waiting for you. On first impressions, it doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

Maybe the date, maybe the temperature, maybe even the hair colour of your gal pals changes, but as for deep and sustainable change (to the way people think, behave, live, and choose) not a change at all.  Same playing field - just a different ball game.

But what if you want to change? How to do it? I thought the world would do it first. Isn’t that the way things work? Isn’t that why I went away.  I know from experience there’s no shortage of bad change that happens ‘out there’. Let’s face it, shit happens and your world goes arse up more often than not. So why can’t it change when you want it to (as opposed to when you didn’t want it to)?

Clearly for things to change in my life- it’s up to me. It’s up to me to re-enter the stratosphere with the firm commitment to move away from the things I didn’t miss, and move towards the things I did miss when I was away. Move towards good friends, and away from boring work. Move towards healthy lifestyle and away from too much booze. Move towards creative expansion and away from fear and small mindedness. 

Of course I should expand into new arenas, after all that’s what growth is all about. And of course I should embrace the dying-off of the old. Let it go. Don’t try to put on the top you’ve outgrown, or sit in the chair that’s broken, renovate! move up and out. But I’m afraid.

Despite the fear,  I’m changing from the outside in. I’ve started with the way I work and live. I want less contact hours with a traditional way of working and more hours of a creative pursuit. I want to write more and paint more. I want to carve out work that matters to me, create messages that resonate with me. I want to meet more people and talk to them to make sense of my own journey and the world we live in, and what it means to be human, and loyal.

But now that it’s just up to me - I’m stuffed!  I’m not afraid to admit I need help. I need mentors. Hell I need to re-enter the world with a midwife!

Two very good friends of mine, who have midwifed my last big life change (ie meeting blokey all those years ago) are about to relocate to Canada for 5 months. And I’ll miss them. I was going to stay with them whilst I renovated at home, and I was going to lean on them, learn from them all about living well and living boldly. But they were so bold they went off on another adventure.  

So I have to learn all about being bold for myself here in home harbours. So there you have it - alone again. Admittedly I have an expanded view of the horizon and admittedly my personal world did change from outside after all - the perennial question is, as it always will be, am I up to dealing with the consequences?

My sister, Gab and I have been discussing her new blog - one dedicated to the food she is encountering on her travels - entitled the digestive trac-k-t.

Can you see it, taste it? Where were you when you ate that fabulous rosetta desert? What did you learn about the town when you ate their famous fish stew?

 I think it’s a great idea. What better way to embrace and anchor yourself in a place than via the digestive tract? or the taste-buds?

For people like my sister, they have the ability to recall towns and places through their visceral memory bank. Her trip through eastern Europe will sound and taste much finer when seasoned with memories of chorbe-de-fasola (bean soup!) than it would by her traumatised memory of being fined by an abrasive Bulgarian guard on a Brashov bus, because she didnt have a ticket.

A fair deal of our Travels are all in the mind. My own approach to travel isnt as broad minded nor as cruisy as my sister or my neices. I have a default position, when out of my comfort zone - when confronted by something out of the ordinary or off the plan I have formulated - I invariably  panic about what will happen, when it will happen if it will happen etc.

For instance, 3 days ago, we were on a ferry from Dubrovnik to Hvar, and the ferry sailed right past the town of Hvar. What!! It was calmly chugging up the coast of an island that looked completely deserted, thick with pine trees and no sign of life. I started to pray. Will we get off the boat? Have we now missed it? Should I have done something to remind them we were on the boat? Have we wasted the accommodation money? Are we instead going to Split further up the Dalmation Coast? What will we do there?

Gab was no good to me, she was off somewhere on the boat, looking at the scenery, photographing, as excited as a child on an adventure. Cruising with the cruisy.

Meanwhile, I am below, praying a mantra,  in a hot head of panic. None of the reasonable facts made their way through the shroud of anxiety.  I forgot how we had checked earlier the ferry was going to arrive at Hvar at 4.00. How the ticket said it was going to Stari Grad (which on the map was on the island of Hvar); how there were a  lot of other people on the boat going to Hvar. None of those facts could stop the panic.  I was left alone with a repetive prayer. Praying for what though? The ferry to turn around? an announcement (in English please)? Anything really.

Gab arrived back down at Deck 4. Come upstairs and see us arrive! smell the pine trees! Feel the breeze! Leave the bags! come on!!! Dont miss it!

So there we were up on Deck 5 watching the coast chug past, redolent with smells of rich green pine. She was none the wiser about where we were going, but she wasnt worried. A woman came up to stand beside us. She was alone, and we three were the only ones on our part of the deck. She smiled watching the island slide past even further.

Are you going to Hvar ? she asked, and then proceeded to explain how the ferry would pull into the old port, and as they had been in the tourist business for over 100 years would ensure we would be safely deposited at our hotel and would we like a photo?   And as we returned to get our bags, Gabby said there is your angel - the answer to your prayers.

Well the island is spectacular, and our taste buds and bodies have been embalmed and delighted with warm waters, delightful flavours, sun rain, sweet wine and good sleeps. Everything the island (which does indeed boast over 100 years as a holiday-health spa destination) promised and much more.

Looking back, as always, I am ashamed of my panic, and disappointed with myself to think my age or experience hasnt changed any of those default reactions I have. But thats me, I guess, and I have to digest that along with everything else this trip is teaching me about.

Hvala Hvar.

Before I do anything I must blog! I am facing the usual list of things to do before one goes on holidays, but I don’t want to start any of them, until I dump a yellow post.

It’s strange that I’ve become so dependent on the feelings I register after a post. It helps make sense of stuff. And that’s just what I need right now.

This morning I’ve been at sixes and sevens. I missed an appointment - even though I was on time! Caught the wrong bus which went on a wierd route to finally drop me off at my childhood neighbourhood of all places, after which I then had to walk 2 kms to get to where I wanted. And I haven’t even left the country!

It’s as if I’m walking in a parallel place, where everything is upside down or back the front and time seems to accelerate and stop at once. So in this state, I’m increasingly confused and unsure of just about everything. There’s an astrological concept called “Mercury Retrograde”, where things get mixed up and go wrong. It feels like that, but I expect it has more to do with the anticipation of and distractions about my impending journey to the other side of the world.

Yesterday I was lunching with a good friend who is also preparing for an exciting new opportunity to do with work, and we were talking about baggage, shadows and expansive mind-sets. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman who seemed so familiar it stopped me in my tracks. I realised it was my cousin Cath who I haven’t seen for years. She was walking past the building that now houses Dairy Farmers, my late father’s employer.

It was a lovely conjunction of the past and future, and I took it as an omen and message from Dad that he was watching out for me, and would watch out for me on the journey ahead. As we spoke, I noticed how my cousin has the features that mark our family: the sort of nose or forehead or eyes or smile, voice, earthy nature and shared memories that connect us in a single blood line. And once in that space, you immediately re-connect to that time of childhood and family gatherings. It’s a very comforting feeling because it is so familiar.

So, this morning, as I found myself accidentally deposited in the streets I used to walk as a child, I said a silent prayer to all those in that familial bloodline who have always watched over me. In particular my granny, my aunts and my 2 mothers. One blood mother and one step-mother. As it is mother’s day tomorrow I have decided to  place a flower on their graves in thanks for the time we spent together.

Time is so fleeting that we often have to run to keep up with commitments, appointments and tasks. Have I done all I should do? Will there be time to fit in another…? Perhaps I should pack an extra….? What if I get caught out without a ….? The list is endless, and the anxiety intense especially when travel is involved.

Time get’s all out of kilter on a trip. Time differences, cultural differences, language differences heighten the experience, and much of what we achieve on the travels are relished more after we return than when we’re in the middle of them.

Right now my darling sister Gab is in Romania and emails us her fabulous impressions spelt out in a paragraph: so few words but packed with remarkable vistas and visuals. A sort of 10 second grab. I know, though that behind those grabs are the normal anxieties that come with not understanding the language, missing the hotel because of the signage, hoping that the train will arrive in time to make the connection you need in order to arrive on time somewhre new.

So it goes and this time next week I’ll be in a completely different place and space. Walking down neighbourhood roads a light year away from those I walked down today. And I’ll see and smell and hear a miriad of new impressions. But before all of that, this yellow post is one of prayer and thanks to my ancestral and familial line, and in particular to my darling parents for their generosity in affording this remarkable next journey.

Bring it on.  

Life goes round in circles.

It is this process of repeating things that creates the pattern of our life.  Some of those patterns are unique, but most are reminiscent of other, collective or universal patterns. In these we share histories, geographies, myths and dreams. They may have a different personal colours and shades but many of our life patterns are similar to other people’s. I find this immensely reassuring.

As individuals we repeat certain lessons, behaviours, or thoughts for as long as they serve us.  Even negative patterns. After that, we try new ones.  Now this is nothing very earth shattering, but it always surprises me, in those unguarded moments to actually see the patterns - like wind washed sand,  circles within circles of filigree lace.

We repeat patterns because they are reassuring and sustain the image we have of ourselves: as successful, caring, creative, provocative, entertaining, funny, serious whatever.  They’ve worked before and will work again - for this is the concept of self-efficacy. 

One such useful technique I have is to write my way into new life situations. I have done this a couple of times in the past, and I believe I’m doing that now, with this blog. The result of the writing will be known much later.  18 ago I was in a bit of a mess. I was depressed, alone and retrenched from a job I had enjoyed immensely. My brother had just been married and following the wedding I decided to go home to the USA with my sister Cate, her husband and their twins who were 3 at the time. I stayed there for 6 months. Blissful and joyous.

Over that time, I wrote. I wrote 2 stories. One was called “How to make a career out of choosing a career to make” and the other was a stream of consciousness, regarding my own fecundity and depression. In that second story, I played the central character who thought she was a turtle, who deposited hundreds and hundreds of egs, and the second character was a psychologist called Stephen who tried to address this psychosis.  This story I kept private and no-one knew of it at all.

It repeated itself, however in the following way. 5 years later I married a psychologist called Stephen. Like the theme in my story, we had trouble conceiving. As one of many treatments we visited a chinese herbalist who prescribed - you guessed it, crushed turtle shells. Of course I discontinued treatment and alas remained childless.  At the same time Cate sent me a postcard out of the blue, with a picture of a turtle. This turtle was part of a polynesian myth in which she gave birth to all the peoples of the south pacific, hundreds and hundreds of eggs.  Neither Stephen nor Cate knew of my story. Nor had I read the polynesian myth before. 

I love that sort of synchronicity. It doesn’t change the outcome, but it does change the energy around it - marking it as moment of significance.

Several years ago, a psychic I have seen several times, told me my life was an open book. The first half was written but the second was completely blank. I asked if this meant I was going to die.  She told me that it was blank because that half had yet to be written.

So let’s see where the Blue and Yellow Post ends up. Perhaps a year or two from now, there will be a pattern, like another pattern, reminiscent of a further pattern. And I’ll know it had served the right purpose.

See you in the next chapter

A long time ago someone took this photo. It was the week after the death of our mother. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Just as a picture records seminal moments like these, those same moments highlight the essence of who we are.

I believe those moments of death, birth and marriage highlight a hunger for certainty and meaning.  We make meaning of things with the head and the heart, and for want of a better word, with the spirit.

How much of our spiritual skills are handed down and how much do we acquire? Can we acquire any after a certain age? And do seminal moments up the ante at all?

My own seminal moments include:

• The death of my mother when I was four years old
• The death of my father when I was 30 years old
• My marriage when I was 37
• The death of my husband when I was 48 years old
• The death of my stepmother when I was 48 years old

The primary death of my mother was the defining one.  As one of four siblings we each had a different way of responding to that event. These responses set in motion an entire approach to the way we live our lives.  And this approach is well explained by a particular spiritual system.

The Enneagram has gone the farthest to explaining what these responses were. All of the family is into the Enneagram. So much so, that we’ll describe the behaviour of a family member as a typical 6 or that’s a 3 for you!

The Enneagram is based in a Sufi practice and is a dynamic program to define the spiritual self in relation to others and the world. The system went through a number of iterations to become what it is today.

The system is good for our family for a number of reasons: it is dynamic and inter-related. In other words, we are who we are, in relation to ourselves, to others and to the world. And the best part is that each type is in the process of change and growth. It perfects itself in movement towards or away from other types. 

There are nine types. And each type is defined by a reaction to an impulse (in our case this was pain and fear). No type is any better than another. There are ways to find out what your type is, but I always believe that when you find out your type, you are invariably embarrassed and or humbled by the insight.

We four sit together. We have a 5, two 6s and a 7. Each one of us reacted to the pain of losing our mother in a slightly different - though connected - way. One retreated to the head (5) to find an intellectual explanation; two joined a bigger system (6) to offset the anxiety and belong somewhere and the last one chose the path of sensation to feel alive and to avoid pain (7).

I wanted to write a book with my sisters. Gab was to write the path of epicurean delight – food and pleasure; Cate was to write a dissertation on sense-making and intellectual control and I was to write the third path on myth making and imagination. In the middle of the story, a fairy tale would link and explain the three types. We got so far but no farther.  As it matters more to me, I will pick it up again one day.

The dynamic process of the Enneagram means that as a 6 I have the potential to move towards a number 9. I am not changing types but, if I continue to grow, I can develop a new set of spiritual skills, represented by the number 9.

When I am at my best as a 6, I am self-affirming, trusting of self and others, independent yet symbiotically interdependent and cooperative as an equal. A belief in self leads to true courage, positive thinking, leadership, and rich self-expression.

Number 9, at their best are self-possessed, feel autonomous and fulfilled: have great equanimity and contentment because they are present to themselves. They are intensely alive and fully connected to self and others.

One of my nieces is a 9 so I can learn from her what it feels like to live like a 9. Another one of my nieces is like me, a 6. So if I can live well and fully, I might assist her in understanding herself a bit better.

We are attracted to other types and can understand them. I have a penchant for 5s (given that my twin sister and husband were both 5s). I certainly understand them and I lean on them to make sense of the world inside my head. I also ‘get’ 7s and lean on them when I nudge the bottle or cook up a feast to comfort myself.

So way back when I was 4 years old and the worst thing in the world that could happen did happen; I assumed the mantle of the fearful loyalist. To face whatever it was I had to face, front-on; counter-phobic and confrontational. Confined by and in this awful situation, I was wrapped in a straight-jacket of anxiety. My twin sister, also 4 years old followed another path – one of the eremitic Investigator; equally valid, but different to mine.

Neither of us could tell where the paths would lead. But they were set in motion by this momentous event, and they would diverge many times in the years that followed.

A picture does indeed tells of a thousand worlds still to be lived.  

I have trouble deciding.

I’ve always had trouble but it’s getting worse. Right now I can’t  decide on the sort of work I want to do  and even more pressing, I can’t decide what to do with my bathroom.

Because the blue and yellow journey is a comprehensive one, I consider all incidents and thoughts as inter-related. If I can’t decide about my bathroom, what does that say about my life in general and most particularly, what does it say about the work I want to do?

I’m an text-book Libran, which means I get swayed by the last expert opinion I received. There is no end of experts when it comes to work and bathrooms. So, what’s a gal to do? Give into the most persuasive, because he’s had 30 years in the same bathroom business  and he simply takes the deciding over? Or go with the other guy, who seems adept and who just does what you tell him - after all you’re the boss of your own bathroom?

Do you take a job advertised in a paper or website because it’s sort of a match, and it’s like what you’ve done in the past. Or do you take a different tack altogether?  Should you determine own work-life mix, with a portfolio approach of skills and talents and abilities and place it out there in the world to see where and how it hits the mark?

So in true Libran fashion, I’ve been sitting with the problem;  actually I’ve been sitting in the problem.

I’m seeing a career coach to figure out how to change the work-life mix. What’s my value added proposition?  What can I do that others can’t?  And does anyone want what I do?  Right now, in the Public Service, there’s a  lot of not wanting what I do. But that’s cool, I’ve had a good soak. It’s like starting off in a nice hot bath but having to continually top it up the longer you stay in. The longer you stay in of course, the more wrinkled you get, and the more relaxed you become.

Because my bloke used to do be my coach and he’s no longer here, I now have to pay for those skills.  I’m OK with that because the bulk of the coaching is self-directed.  The value in seeing someone like a  coach is that you allow youreself a time and place to tackle just that topic.  You talk about wishes, dreams, ambitions and you listen for negative self-talk and limiting thoughts. 

So it’s no surprise I talk to the coach and the bathroom guys about the same stuff - I need more space. Ergo I need to get rid of the bath. 

Baths have had their day. When the dam levels were high and it was OK to lay about and relax That’s not this day. This day is a day for movement. Moving to the right space where I can do what matters to me. Moving around in more space, to change and grow and develop more skills.  This is not a day to submerge ideas and talent in a luke-warm environment,  which, if left unattended becomes soporific. This is a brand new day for doing what I do best of all with people that want what I do. This is a day for change.    

I read somewhere that colds and flu are a sign of confusion. Well if that’s right - I’m knee deep in confusion, because I can boast the worst cold in a millenium.

What we have here is doubtless a case of psychosomatic illness. As you change your thoughts it reflects in the body.  Your spleen gets damp when you have trouble digesting life, or is that your stomach that gets acidic when you have trouble with your partner? Was the asthma suffocation or was it that my sinusitis was veiled anger? Duh!

I discovered the joys of psychosomatic illness during the neurotic bent of my almost 30s.  I was unable to hold down a satisfying job, and I used the body rather than the CV to explore the boundaries of life.  All was fine in my ill world.  I sniffled my way across every new age book shelf, until at last I could go no farther. My waterloo was a book with the title, “Love your rectum back to health.” Arguably the finest title of all from the mother of all body  illness relativity, Louise Hay. An angel of hope to everyone that had a sneeze, rash or piles. But for me it signalled enough.

I’m happy to say that sort of navel-gazing and rectum loving is all behind me. But the sustaining message I took from the literature is one of personal responsiblity. I was “reared” as a Catholic, which often meant abrogating responsibility. Or at least handballing the lion’s share of it to something called sin, a fall from grace or dodgey advice from a guardian angel. Non- Catholics had no idea that we had a 24-hour 365 days a year counselling life-line (in the shape of a guardian angel.)

The guardian angel was supposed to be good. But there was one religious icon I recall from my early childhood that showed a bad angel talking into one of the saint’s ear, and good angel earbashing the other.  What a conundrum. The secret was to rely on your inbuilt conscience. Truly an elusive component - especially for little kids, who had their work cut out for them managing anything under this 24/7 surveillance.

Angels and colds are, I admit, hardly parallel realities. But, lately my thinking has been preoccupied with both. Perhaps it’s because I just finished a charming book, Miss Garnett’s Angel, by Salley Vickers. In any event, I’m head over heels back in love with the idea of visitations from winged dudes to help you over tricky times.  But then again, my thinking is cloudy with the infected cavities of my head and maybe illness is an essential criteria for seeing them.

My darling bloke saw angels coming out of the walls in our bedroom - as he lay dying. One of them had long hair with body paint, and he danced “between us”, Stephen told me. Those that know Stephen (aka bloke), would know such an image would be most unlikely if he were in good health.  Clearly another great mystery about transition.

Garnett’s book also included a reference to the bridge of separation, over which a soul must travel when they die, assisted of course by an angel. Stephen, in one of the morphia-ridden rambles that characterised those precious last days, also mentioned a bridge. He told me he “was building a bridge between heaven and earth”.

So, Holmes, Hays or Vickers - what next? Is the bridge accessible to me too? Can I get over it? Will I ever get over it? Apparantly that’s the task of those left behind. A chilling idea indeed. No wonder I’m sniffling.

I have developed a penchant for steps.

They are a fit metaphor for my program of personal change. It’s a multi-step program to correlate with my great age. So far, the program includes:

• A stepping out exercise component to move the lard off my arse
• A 12-step program to move the booze out of my larder
• A quick-step program to excuse my weird fascination with the TV show, “So you think you can dance?”
• A step-up-to-the-plate program to learn more about new media
• A one-step-at-a-time program to manage my stress levels
• A Steppenwolf program to explore my cultural and philosophical bent and
• A Russian Steppes program to facilitate overseas travel.

Of course, I’m not the only one undergoing such a venture. Like many other women our age, my own sisters are taking steps of their own.

Yesterday I watched my sister, Gabby record her first podcast about positive parenting and how to set limits with love, helping parents in what is arguably the most noble of all professions - bringing up kids.

And this morning I congratulated my twin sister, Cate on getting a sweet gig, doing what she does best - mediation in the courts. 

I’m using this blog as part of my watch your step program. Just watch what happens. With the help of a  great career coach and suprisingly non-neurotic therapist,  I’m submitting my own ”matters for mention”  about and in a process of personal change.

Matters Blue and MattersYellow.

Blue matters when you’re still, stable, satisfied, safe, secure and speaking your truth. Did you know that marketers use blue if they want to build trust?

Yellow matters when you’re changing, moving, altering, striving, climbing and creating new ways of thought. Did you know that couples fight more when living in rooms with yellow walls?

So as my mult-step program evolves,  I’ll be moving between Yellow and Blue moments. Sure, I’ll want more blue moments but I know I’ll have to have an equal if not greater number of  yellow ones. 

And for the significant moments  the “oh my god, of course!! ” moments, I dare say, there’ll doubtless be a story that makes sense of it all.  A story about what drove me in the past, and a story that reveals what the future is and what role I’ll play in it. 

So all I have to do is to keep writing up and down the steps, until  I get to the top or the bottom of what really matters. 

Be sweet.