Wake up call

A conversation with my mother, this morning, reminded me that I am neglecting this blog. Neglecting to blog.

So this is a note to self: blog

I don't post stuff that isn't mine, as a rule. This is a favourite of Cheryl's and it's a piece of writing I really admire. So simple yet so elegant and evocative. So I post it here as inspiration:

My parents kept me from children who were rough - Stephen Spender

My parents kept me from children who were rough
and who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.
Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street
And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron
And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.
I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys
Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges
Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud
And I looked another way, pretending to smile,
I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

It's been a while ...

I did some housekeeping yesterday. It's a holiday weekend and there are one or two tasks which have been lurking in the corner, gathering dust and cobwebs, while I've been doing my best to find more important things to occupy my time.

There's a company or two in my office, taking up nearly as much space as they have in my mind.

So, the records at least, are dusted off and packed away. Neatly labelled and bound with string.

It's sad. So much work, so much sweat and hope.

Consigned to storage and scrap paper.

Dreams

I seldom remember dreams, although recently I have been plagued with clear memories of dreams I would prefer not to recall. Not unpleasant, just desperately mundane. Spreadsheets and sales reports, business plans and cash flow statements ... deathly boring, ordinary and indicative of my unhealthy obsession with work.

C tells me that I have been sitting up in bed and talking to her

M: What did you do with the spreadsheet?

C: WTF are you talking about. Nothing.

M: I sent it to you

C: You did not

This continues for some time until, mid-sentence, I fall back to my pillow, apparently deeply asleep.

I am interested that C engages in these conversations, it's not like they hold much entertainment value. Mind you, I would encourage that conversation if roles were reversed ... and see if I could guide it into more interesting territory. But then I can be a bit of a bastard that way.

So last night I dreamed (the snippet I remember on waking) that I had sent some hard friends to have a word with someone who is irritating me at the moment.

It's Brad and Janet, hardly the hardest of my acquaintances. They are standing at the offenders door, arms around each others shoulders. They are arguing about who will knock when the door opens and the offender, jaw jutting, pupils pinpricked in blazing bloodshot eyes says "what?"

There are three of them now, perhaps they felt they needed help. I think it's Clyde. They are all identically dressd for a school production of West Side Story. Leather jackets and white T's. they have shaven heads though and are a little buffer than in life. They look friendly, but menacing. (How do they pull that off?)

Brad looks at Clyde and says "let's throw the fucker off the balcony, nobody will miss him"

Clyde says "Righto" in an English accent and disappears inside, his arm around the shoulders of the offender, shoulders slumped he seems resigned.

I know that's the last I will see of him. I feel nothing.

Brad is sharing a sandwich with Janet.

Now "let's throw the fucker off the balcony, nobody will miss him" is a line I heard uttered when I was lying beaten on the floor of a hotel room, in another life. I remember thinking ... you are right, get it over with ... it's easier than fighting back.

a most unusual meditation

I have become conscious that I manically multitask, sipping coffee, lighting cigarette, typing left handed. But meditation aint like that is it? Kinda sacred, requiring the exculsion of all else. Besides, I have always thought of it as just sitting (before it became walking and a few other things I won't cop to here). Hmmm.

A few weeks ago I fell in love with a little orchid from the Mekong Delta. They had been cleverly potted in snail shells, which was cool until you put them on a flat surface. So I made a mobile. Bamboo and raffia, feathers (of course) and a couple of large crystals which were not that happy with the light on my god-spot. It's been christened the "questionably cathartic potatoes on a string" by a smug and cynical friend. qcpoas (there's a fine san click in that like "!darrell". If you do not know that amusing story, drop me a line, I'd love to share it).

Yeah, yeah ... I know what you are thinking. He's making shit with refuse from the gods again ... up the lithium dose. Give me a break, at least it's not hanging from a fresh piercing. That's growth innit?

Anyhoo ... It didn't like the light (or the cigarette smoke) in the study either.

So it grew a little, courtesy of the Bluebird whole food market and my apparent inability to visit there without shedding a few k. And moved to a new spot above the bath. It's very happy there.

So long as I have run the bath well in advance and can't hear the geyser filling, I like to meditate in the bath. With my head under the water I can hear my heartbeat. Makes me feel like I have achieved a new level of mastery.

So, I have taken to doing my "torture pillow" exercise, in the bath, with ice packs on my knee (to get that over and done with and to increase the load ... (I wanna walk in Spain and Greece and I can do without crutches on a camel in Giza)

... and meditating.

This morning the damned geyser was doing it's thing and my heart and I were not connecting. I opened my eyes and got such a gift.

I like the view of qcpoas from below; but this morning it was awesome. Wreathed in the rising steam the orchids looked fat and warm, wet and happy. The feathers were beaded with moisture and the overhead light had pierced the top of the central crystal, punching scattered pinpricks of colour.

Sorry heartbeat, you'll have to wait your turn. I blissed out in that little landscape for half an hour.

It's going to be a very good day.

a hitch in the unfurl

Hmmm.

In taking my inventory it's my part that is important so before the ... to be continued there's this post, post script.

I've been here before. I create this.

I am handling this very differently but I still seem to create a victims role for myself. WTF is that about I wonder?

The sticky unfurling of tenuous wings ...

or

4:30 am and nothing better to do

So here we are. In a pretty pickle ... just the way I wanted it and wondering at the wisdom of that.

A friend from the land of oz suggested that this was a spiritual awakening, well yeah, isn't it all if the consciousness is engaged?

But I do get the drift, it's only when things are hard that I grow, when I realise that my view of the road is blocked by the close up I have of my own ass.

I give my head a shake and take a step to the side, out of my own way.

Reframe.

Hmmm ... there's a tawdry collection of mixed metaphorish nonsense.

Oh well.

So life got a little more interesting for Sheriff Woody yesterday, tight assed little goody two-shoes, hell bent on impressing the irrelevant. There I was; counting the days left in a job where all luster was lost. Covering my ass and going all co-dependent on my staff’s asses. (There are a lot of asses about this morning … wonder what the Freudian significance is there?)

Buzz Lightyear had blown into town a few weeks ago, explaining a lot of Machiavellian bullshit and abuse (allow me a little whine, or stop reading now ‘cos I guess I am feeling a tad sorry for myself, righteous and resolved of course, but self pitying nonetheless. There is bound to be more)

Where was I, oh yes, Buzz. Very smart and qualified and focused … not a very good fit in this burg. A BBBEE appointment to the position that I had been offered, and accepted. The appointment would have been entirely justified without assassinating Woody. A smart move really. Woody really should have had his wits about him. Sometimes Woody can be Mr Potato Head. Actually, sometimes Woody can be Rex … "I don't think I could take that kind of rejection!" even when the whole plan is to leave.

Being pushed this way is just not cool.

On the sensible advice of friends this, the larger portion of this blog, has been suspended in goodwill for the undeserving.

Watch this space.

I am starting to feel like this …

To be continued …

Oh, before I go. All this of course needs to be framed. Reframed.

This is a good thing. This frees me up to do what I want to do. It's not the way I would have chosen to exit. I have old fashioned ideas about honour and dignity. I am something of a pompous ass sometimes.

But it is undeniably good. Faster than I could have engineered. When did I ever complain about a little instant gratification?

Now if I can just get a little help with formatting this damned blog.

I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter... starter... starter...
Starter...

Procrastination, priorities and motivation (to the cadence of wampeters foma and granfaloons)

A Wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. Facebook or any social network might be a case in point.

"Foma" are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel”

A "granfalloon" is a proud and meaningless association of human beings.

Face book, I guess is an example

That’s a damned good title for Vonnegut Jnr’s book.

Quite why book titles would be running through my head as I wake and check the time, several times after 1am, is unclear. Why those thoughts should be shot through with restructured legal agreements and images of discussing a business plan with a uni professor is more obvious but no more reassuring.

I have work undone.

Procrastination, like masturbation, seems like a good idea at the time. But in the end, I am only fucking myself. So I roll out of bed into the cold at 3:30am. Fill and fire up the kettle en route to light incense in the study.

Coffee has become a meditation. Warming plunger and favourite cup, heating the milk just so, filtered water allowed to rest for 20 seconds before splashing over exotic crushed beans releases the scent and my synapses start to twitch. The first sip a judgement. Hmmm some nicotine. Now I am ready to face my keyboard.

And so I blog. Revised forecast, business plan and partnership agreements chitter softly in the background. Supporting one another in their judgment of this selfish indulgence. Screw em. If procrastination be the food of sloth, play on.

A friend lost his son last week, not being careless, the child died a few hours after birth. I was so moved by his response. He shared about the outpouring of love from friends and fellows. He was not unprepared for the loss and believed that the love he had for his firstborn son would somehow fill the gap. That did not happen and he was overwhelmed by the grief of the loss. In the depth of that feeling he found a message. The guy is a recovering smack addict. A no-hoper who has, by grace, been clean for ten years in the program which saved his life, and mine. He shared this: “Recovery has taught me how to be a man i never thought i could be. Because of the steps i am able to be strong for my partner when she needs me to be, to be there for my son when he needs me, to ask for help and receive love when i need it.”

… taught me to receive love when I need it. There’s a statement of self worth without arrogance. I like that.

I have been meaning to write that for a while. Procrastination has not been the problem. Priorities, the little suckers. I have been wrapped up in satisfying others needs for a while. That and keeping my lily white ass covered ‘cos I am not keen on the static if I do not maintain my diligence. I’m fifty years old and I still do not like getting into trouble. I will go to some really pussy level lengths to avoid it. Like 3:30 am starts to my day.

So this is my reward this morning. A little procrastinatory prose.

Gotta stop that goddamn chittering. I am ashamed that it is going to be the forecast which gets cut from the herd, the benefit of this prize, this motivational interlude. That is not the priority … it’s just the piece of work which will keep me out of trouble.