Friends, Romans…..Anyone?

I shouldn’t let any of it hold sway, but astrology piques my interest.  As a teen and into my 20’s I bought into it completely – Western and Chinese.

By Western standards, I’m a Cancerian a few days short of Leo and depending on what you read I have Taurus or Aries rising and the moon affects me as well as some of that Leo fire.  Being a water sign and with tides being controlled by the pull of the moon (and with our bodies being mostly made up of water) this can apparently make one’s moods fluctuate constantly.  Being on the cusp of Leo apparently means that I have a very sociable side tempered by a need to be away from people – I want to be in the thick of it but at the same time, side-step it!  People see a different side to me at social gatherings, bright, carefree, outgoing and yet I find such events uncomfortable and can become disengaged.  That part is true enough. Cancer is the adolescent of the zodiac – moody, changeable teen…?

By Chinese standards I am a Metal Boar born in a “Golden year” during the hours of the Rat (which makes me shrewd, apparently), with great mental and physical strength.  The Boar resides in the twelfth House and whilst it was the last to complete the race, it is the most mature and accomplished.

Being this particular type of boar apparently means however that I:

“…underestimate my enemies and overestimate my friends.”.

Now that is spot on.

I read that line many years ago and I still haven’t learnt from the latter part of that declaration. Others who are apparently “in my house” are: Sir Alan Sugar, Bryan Adams, Hillary Clinton, Alice Cooper, Simon Cowell, Amy Winehouse, Carlos Santana, Henry Ford, Iggy Pop, Stephen King, Meat Loaf, Oliver Cromwell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John, The Dalai Lama, Wolfgang Mozart, Luciano Pavarotti.

I see many among them whom I find it hard to believe could be taken for granted – and I also see some very damaged, highly creative and flat out brilliant individuals…  I do not count myself as such, but will accede to having been very badly damaged. And having got back up again. And again. And again….

And then there are famous Cancerians whom I admire or whose work I enjoy (some a great deal) but am I anything like them?  Until today I had no idea (bar George Michael, Henry VIII, Caesar and Tom Cruise) that they shared my sign:  John Cusack, Meryl Streep, Sofia Vergara, Emmeline Pankhurst, Oliver Sacks, Edmund Hillary, Malala Yousafzai, Erin Brokovich, Nikola Tesla, Robin Williams, Kathy Bates, Frances McDormand, Gustav Klimt, Pablo Neruda, Harrison Ford, Bob Marley, Gustav Mahler, Alan Turing, Josh Hartnett, Nelson Mandela, Peter Paul Rubens, Jake La Motta, Edgar Degas, Steve McQueen, Alexander the Great….

Again there are some incredible individuals in that list.  Could I ever aspire to or attain the brilliance of Oliver Sacks, the depth of creativity of Rubens or Neruda, the immense talents of John Cusack or Meryl Streep, the emotional and rebellious musicality of Bob Marley, the fortitude of Mandela or La Motta, the wonderful comic timing and genius of Sofia Vergara or Robin Williams?  All of these people have moved me and continue to affect me; I get them.  They speak my language whether in print, with a brush or on film.

But I’m pretty sure I could find two dozen or ten dozen others with whom I also vibrate sympathetically and who are neither Cancerian or metal boars (bores…!).

I expect so much because I give so much – my “sign ” has naught to do with it.  Naively I still believe that what I so readily give will be reciprocated yet time and again it is not.  I think I will always be a “giving more than I receive” person because it is hard wired into me. Stings a bit though, especially if I’m not available when someone pulls the string and suddenly I am “persona non grata”!

Do I get taken for granted?  Yes.

Do I resent that?  Yes, sometimes I bloody well do!

Do I forgive it?  No, not always and a hardening begins (that crabby shell?).

But if you’re always there, what makes you necessary…..?  I hit upon this earlier today and it is an incredibly complex idea.

I’ve been told that I’m tenancious and formidable.  Could be that shell, but shells can be broken and claws lopped off…  Then again I’m apparently a metal boar (bore?) and a boar can be pretty damn ferocious if provoked, never mind one made of metal!  But I’m not a crab and I’m no boar (bore).

I’m just me.

The truth is I can (and have been) all of the above.  I’ve been stomped on and gone to pieces.  I’ve pulled in, disappeared and taken decades to re-emerge after being let down by people.  I’ve been a chattering ray of sunshine and harsh, cold showers.

Ask me who I am and I’ll say I’m an inquisitive, feeling, strong person who is loyal, shy, sunny, tough, sappy, melancholy, deeply loving, giving, self-sacrificing, sociable, sensitive, intuitive, insular, trusting, cynical, stubborn, cautious and impulsive, with a creative streak, sometimes a lazy bone, a fierce temper when provoked and a soppy centre.  I am independent and also long to let go and give over control but that takes trust. Who I am depends which mood or even decade you happen to catch hold of me in.  I can be warm or incredibly cold, but not quite unfeeling and I can feel too much one way or the other to my detriment. I’m a tricky combo, often misunderstood. Life gave me lemons early on and I didn’t learn how to make lemonade until I hit 40.  It’s also said when life gives you lemons, grab tequila and salt  – or just throw them at someone!!  Two songs that come very close to encapsulating me, who I am and where I’m at or have been at almost any given time in my life:  Four Seasons in One Day and Distant Sun – both by Crowded House.

Where am I going with this…?  Basically, where are my wonderful friends and family when I am in need? When I spent 2 hours on the phone while you railed at the world, when I dropped everything to see you or that time when you called and sucked up my evening when I was half way through dinner and my son ate alone while I listened and sympathised about how blue you were feeling?  Where are you?

I don’t necessarily need your advice but time off from being “me” would be nice once in a while!  And being me isn’t some terrible dark world it’s actually mostly light and happy but when those clouds gather, I’d like one of you to be present with a big umbrella!  I’m not bitter but it’s a bit rich when I push back and you decide to drop me like a hot potato!  And don’t I allow that to happen because I’m understanding, forgiving and soft, yes all true, but I can also be a hard-faced bitch.  I’ve cut people off over the years. There are some I’ve regretted and I learnt all the while, however I think time and recent life experiences are making me hard (tougher?).

It’s not a bad thing so long as it doesn’t run out of control and I end up a Julius Caesar or Henry VIII type  – or even a Robin Williams, God rest his soul…

I’m the only person I can depend upon, even when I let my stupid self down by being everything for those I care about the most.  Heck, I’m even 150% there for my boss all the while knowing he isn’t always going to match my input/effort.  So I get let down a great deal.  But I absorb it, let it out and move on.  Mostly…

Perhaps I need to learn faster and better what most people already practice: “Me, Myself and I”.

It’s not really me though – and there’s the rub!  I need to love, be loved and love myself more. I should continue to let people in but temper their subconscious or even conscious need to dominate my time and subjugate me.  Love – sexual, emotional, familial or intellectual – has to be breathed in and out, taken in and out, expressed, felt and wholly, unconditionally reciprocated and not flow only in one direction.

Love is about growth not the diminution of another.

I’ll end with this from The Bard:

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”

Oh tell me the truth about love…

Love is a dark stain upon the human consciousness.

It can start a war.

It can bind.

It can kill…

Love can maim and mutilate the mind, the body, the spirit.  It can twist you into something you no longer recognise.

Love is pressure and release…

Love is an atom bomb; unrequited – a damp squib.

Love is faith and hope.

Love is a mirror…we behold that which we need reflected back into our soul.

To love is to be neglectful of yourself.  It is not selfish.

It is undemanding.

It does not control.

It does not contort nor contain prohibitively.

Love can stop a war.

Love can change us for good or ill.  The right words or the wrong look are the difference between a heart that takes flight and one that is shot down.

Real love is a complex feeling.  It waxes and wanes, is never static, never staid and is ever constant, refreshed and renewed.  Real love sustains the lover and beloved and remains “real” whatever is thrown at it.

“True love” is the domain of the lusty teenage fantasist  – or 40 year old virgin.  And you can be a virgin when you have already lost your virginity….  There are men and women all around us who have not been loved in the right way, who haven’t matured emotionally and as a result, confuse the ideas of “true” love with real love.

When real love comes along, it’s like you’ve been hit by a freight train.  Now that doesn’t happen every day – nor does real love – and it takes a while to stand up straight, get your bearings and check you’re actually still “you” because it’s utterly devastating.  But if you do get back up, you’ll have a journey to end all journeys when you grab on with both hands.

Love is fear and self-loathing. This is particularly so when the object of your affection is on a pedestal at a height you feel you could never attain.  Why do we do that…?

Love is life-affirming and confidence boosting.

Love can build as well as destroy, make you light and heavy.  The good kind builds us up, slays the darkness, makes us happy with a heart that’s full.  The bad kind kind lifts us briefly then swiftly brings us down, empties the head of reason and dashes the soul to pieces even as it keeps it bound.

Good love and good reason co-exist in a good heart.

Love can pull you together and tear you apart at the same time – heat.  Hate can pull you together and tear you apart at the same time – cold.  The distance between love and hate is not so far at all.  Great deeds have been done under the guise of both, sometimes the one masquerading as the other and ultimately leading to tragedy.

Love conquers all… I don’t know about that.  Reason has to get in there somewhere as a life lived in pure emotion is both irrational and unsustainable, perhaps even maddening.  Reason helps steer the right path and makes love not exactly heel – love should be free, unfettered – but lends it the lines within which it can move, change and grow safely.  This calls to mind what Bruce Lee had to say about love:

“Young love is a flame: very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering.  The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”

and:

“I’m not one of those who do not believe in love at first sight – but I believe in taking a second look.”

and:

“Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens but much extinguishes it.”

I agree with his statements but am I any clearer on the truth about love, from his viewpoint or mine?

No. And that’s the point.

Love is a moving, feeling, ever-changing animal, presenting itself in many hued colours like beautiful, soft radiant silks in a crowded bazaar, surrounded by men and women who call out persistently, inviting you to touch, to experience, to fall for their rich, sensual offerings.  We helplessly buy into the whole experience but sometimes the sight and sound is overwhelming and we need to duck into a cool, quiet alley before we dive back in and decide from amongst that bewildering array of delights what it is we truly want and, how much there is to pay for it…

When love ends because you and/or your lover did not completely buy in to it, learn from it.  Grow into a better person and be all the better a lover for the experience.  Don’t carry it with you into the next relationship and certainly don’t let it set you adrift and alone.  Loving someone or something is what defines us, sets us up or knocks us down – and that includes loving ourselves.  When we don’t love ourselves we become sorry, sad, dangerous, (self) destructive creatures.  The road back from there is a long and dark one.  So many cannot avoid it but the upside is that once travelled, a great deal is learnt about the self and about others.  During the journey two qualities are born, qualities that many strive to possess and never attain: wisdom and immense inner strength.  I read on my dark journey that “Depression is the illness of the strong” and I add to it that wisdom is the domain of the brave.

When love comes knocking invite it in but above all, simply enjoy it and let it breathe because the truth about love is this:

Unhealthy analysis kills it stone dead.

 

 

 

 

Rebel with a Cause

1. Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviours aimed at destroying or taking over the position of an established authority such as a government, governor, president, political leader, financial institution, or person in charge.

Don’t tow the line if the line begins to twine around ones’ throat, thereby causing suffocation and death….

Change is inevitable.

Growth is profitable.

Stagnation kills off the boldest heart if no-one or no thing stirs it up.

We rebel on a daily basis:  Why should I do this…?  I don’t want to go there and won’t….   I’ll do it in my own time  – not because you said to….

And we acquiesce on a daily basis also:  Ok, but only to shut you up…  Alright, alright, anything for a quiet life…  Well if it means you’ll leave me be…

The internal struggle is a thing of terror and of beauty; without it we’d just be animals.

Being human is the easiest or hardest form of existence that we alone make hard or easy by the way in which we tackle what life puts in our way.  I have seen very poor, put upon people who exude sunshine and wealthy people who lack spirit and direction.  The wealthy always want more of they don’t quite know what and envy those who lead simpler lives, whilst not wishing to lead the simple life themselves! And giving to charity does not fill the hole for them either…

The poor (in spirit, body or mind) have the capacity to elevate themselves above the dross.  The poor suffer, no doubt about it, but are stoical as well as long-suffering.  The poor grieve but appreciate all the more, the best that life can offer – and their view of the best life has to give is quite different to what you would expect.  I have seen both sides and it may be too facile to say that an emotionally and materially poor person with beautiful, healthy, intelligent children is more wealthy than an emotionally redundant person with money and means, but of the two I know who would be happier, certainly stronger.

Money can buy an awful lot and yes, we need it.  But people are worth more than gold and a heart cannot be weighed in the same way.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m headed with this suffice to say, don’t settle.  Rebel.  With every fibre of your being, kick out against the accepted norms and breathe in what life can give you when you push back and say:  This is what I want. Not that. This.

It is possible to shake loose from a lifetime of regret and to do so at any stage of life.  As I head relatively comfortably into my Autumn years, as my body heads gradually downhill and my mind grows up, I’ve realised that this is the golden time of life.  I haven’t got it sussed by any stretch of the mark, but I am more grounded because I finally know who I am. I have a much more relaxed attitude and approach to life and I am told that it shows.  Apparently I have a light around and about me.  Those who’ve known me for years said it hadn’t quite gone out but acknowledged I was a sad sight to behold during the years that I had folded in on myself.  My son likes this version of me and is glad I struck out and stopped labouring under the banner of “duty” – duty to all but myself.  It frustrated him for years and the irony was that I laboured so for his sake, for the family ideal that I wanted for him – the ideal that never actually existed.  And therein lies the joke at the heart of it all!  Only nobody was laughing….

Rebellions don’t always amount to anything though….  There were times I (semi) boldly sallied forth and was promptly put back in what “the enemy” felt was my proper place  – and I don’t just mean my marital situation here.  The point is to keep pushing because what’s the use of living if you’re living for anyone but you?  We are creative, loving, emotional creatures, light and dark, reasonable and unreasonable by equal and often unequal measure.  We are filled with passion and dispassion that by turns takes us up so high the light blinds us and then brings us so low we cannot fathom any way out.  Then there is the grey but we are not meant to merely exist in the grey, that shadow land of life.  We are meant to challenge ourselves in order to the reach the peak of who we are since that not only benefits us but the people around us too.  Seeing it and achieving it are not easy, believing it one stretch further.  And too many don’t get that far….

How many lights have been dimmed or snuffed out altogether by normality, banality, drudgery, misplaced duty or (the most feared) control?  Mine almost was and on more than one occasion, yet I kept getting back up and smacked back down again (sometimes by my own hand).  I don’t know why or how I kept getting up but I did.  My mother is a strong role model and the support of two very good friends and one of my cousins went a long way towards keeping my head above water when I wanted to drown.

My situation improved and changed dramatically when I listened to my heart and moreover, used my head to get there.

So I say be a rebel, especially if the cause is “you”.

 

 

La Mauricienne!

 

• Your parents secretly know how to dance sega – and so do you…. “Alalilaaaaa!!”  Mauritians always get you to do it after a rum filled evening – but you don’t have a hangover the next day…
• Tea in Mauritius always tastes better.
• The whole of Mauritius comes to pick you up from Mahebourg airport upon arrival and/or to see you off.
• The first things Uncles and Aunties in Mauritius always say when they see you is “Gette coumant lin vin graaand” and “Qui class to pe faire?”
• Mauritian family think you are richer than the Queen just because ‘to Anglais’!  You get asked by a non-relation to buy them the latest mobile phone or their ticket to England because you must be loaded living “en Londres”.  Well, you flew to “Maurice” didn’t you?  (whether you’re renting a clapped out villa or not…..).
• You just can’t get enough of good old Mauritian Dhal Pourri or Aloouda.
• Your grandparents think vapour rub is the cure for everything.
• “Arr-Arr!!”, “Aahhbeh…” and “Aiiii-yoh!” are standard vocab and roughly translate as: 1.”As if!”,  “Bite me!” or “Get stuffed!!”, 2. “Ohhh right, I see…” and 3. “Ouch!!!” or “Dammit!!”  That and “Assez amerde mo derriere, don!” – literally “Stop annoying my backside, you!”.  All were learnt at the feet of my late grandmother!  I can hear her now….
• Your parents start buying stuff to bring for family in Mauritius a year before they actually go.
• Kraft cheddar is the only cheese you eat when you’re out there….
• Mauritian family never bring anything truly decent when they come to England.
• Mauritians come up with random remedies like blowing on your eyelashes to cure hiccups…..(I kid you not).
• Creoles believe in the power of God and the power of Voodoo.  Don’t ever attempt to touch a painted coconut with strings attached, situated above or near a doorway or your Mum will hiss at you like a demented cat as she yanks your hand out of harms way, saying:  “Don’t touch it!!! It’s black magic!!!” and failing to explain (to this day) exactly what about it makes it so….?  It’s a bloody coconut with a weird face painted onto it.
• You love to eavesdrop if you can hear people speaking Creole in a public place…and you feel like you’re part of some secret society because you can understand what they’re saying.
• At the same time, you try to steer clear of Mauritians in London because they suddenly lose their command of English and want to talk to you “en creole”, mostly about your families and how you might be connected.  And the loosest thing can be used by a Mauritian to make a connection….

I found some of these at http://nav007.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/how-you-know-youre-mauritian.html and edited/added some of my own observations.  The list there is damn near spot-on and laugh out loud funny in places.

Island people – you can’t beat ’em, mai zotte kapav bat twa!

On Reason and Passion

On Reason and Passion
 Kahlil Gibran

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows — then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky — then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.”
And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

Hello world!

So, here I am….

I’ve wrestled with the idea of blogging for well over a decade.  A writer friend told me to go for it way back then and I wasn’t brave enough.  I didn’t think anyone would give a flying fig about anything I had to say. That same friend prompted me again recently when I suggested I might dip my toe in the sphere of blogging and he said “Just write for yourself…”.  His words of praise for my prose have brought me here.

Why “Drops of Sanity”?

We live in a world punctuated with all too much reality, drudgery, insecurity and darkness and most of us seek to escape from it in daydreams, crazy ideas, holidays, books, film…the list goes on.  And we don’t just live in this world, we also live in a world of our own creation.  It can be a prison, a heaven or hell (and trust me, heaven can be a prison if it eludes you).  Some people can’t/won’t/don’t escape and merely exist. That is a prison every one of us has been to and will likely frequent more than once in a lifetime….

But every now and then there are “drops of sanity”, moments when we achieve clarity through our own thought process, human interaction or simply stumbling across a great line in a book.  These moments or people always seem to come along when you need them most and always when you stopped looking.

But one person’s sanity is another’s insanity and this makes me recall the saying:  A crazy person doesn’t know that they are crazy!

My blog will expound upon the highs and lows and in-betweens of life and there will be drops of sanity as well as insanity, complexity and no small amount of contradiction!  We are not one personality our whole lives; we are constantly in a state of flux which can be unnerving, exhilarating and exhausting all at once. The point is to keep moving and adapting.  Of course that’s easier said than done.

Life happens.  Shit happens.  It’s what we do in those dark and often simply long grey moments that defines who we are.  I am a passionate person who knows all about dispassion from within the cold heart of a dead relationship that spanned just over a quarter of a century.  What happened in that crawl space changed me but it did not define me, although I once thought it had.  Passion and reason won over dispassion and irrationality:  I thought I was stuck, believed I was stuck, allowed myself to feel powerless and then got so mad at myself that I broke free.

But it took me an awfully long time to grow a shell that was tough enough to withstand all the negativity, the violence, the emotional blackmail and utter disdain that came with my decision to go against my vows, my faith, my painfully adhered to duty to family and ultimately, to go against myself and break the cycle within which I had become bound.  Change is terrifying.  Standing still is (and was) infinitely worse.  I refer to that quarter century as “death by inches”….

It was damn hard and I had to grow another new shell as I worked through it all.  What I write about here will undoubtedly reflect back on those times but mostly, I want to focus on the me in the now of my life – and it’s an exciting, challenging, far happier time!

I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride…..