It's that time of the year, although I've never found myself in this place before...
I am well and truly stuck - For blog material, for words to describe where I'm at - I'm at what we call in Therapy an impasse.
I am enjoying reading your words out there in Blogworld.
I am thinking of Christmas and what I have left to do.
I am contemplating having some time off from therapy and work over the holidays to re-charge my batteries.
My lovely son, Grizz, has broken up with his long-term girlfriend and I worry about them - I do, but I won't interfere... Will she want the rattykins back, when we are so ensconced with them now?
I have no weddings until mid-January.
I need to read some books to catch up on therapy work.
I am contemplating taking the counselling course forward for another year, so I can call myself a Psychotherapist. I have to make that decision in January.
Today is my birthday and I spent it in College, although I met my lovely cousin, David, whom I call "Coz", straight from Shakespeare, for lunch. He was sweet. He always is. Sweet and wonderful and clever and slippery. He likes to be slippery! I think it's a quality I need to cultivate.
Perhaps if I were more slippery I'd not get as stuck as Pooh in the wooky-hole, or honey-tree, whatever it is he gets stuck in?!
A bientot, mes bloggy reves...
Soon, with better stuff, greater inspiration and less stuckiness!
I recall recently bemoaning the fact that I felt as if I didn't have enough fun.
I've mourned for my Free Child, the child within me as adult, whom I believe - I know - I over-feed to keep happy.
My Free Child likes to go to concerts, theatre and the cinema. She likes to stay up late, watching old movies or stuff on TV that only she likes, while her other, older half lies snoring in bed... She likes to sleep in late till Midday, being softly awoken with orange juice, toast and a boiled egg, or preferably two.
Last weekend, for our intensive training course, we were asked to bring in photos of ourselves from when we were younger... As I type this, I'm still not sure what this exercise will evoke.
As I searched, photo after photo of me and my life to date came out from under the bed.
In the oldest photo I can find amid my stash, at seventeen, I stand happy, reaching down to the family dog in my parent's back garden.
The sun is out, the dog, a scruffy Yorkshire Terrier, Shandy, is as sweet and loveable as he ever was, and I'm in a blindingly white cheesecloth hippy tunic, wearing a long cotton cross-over Indian Paisley print skirt in china blue and white.
I can still sense the softness of that cotton on my skin now. I know on my feet that I'm wearing flat, white toe-post sandals with gold script, that I lived in during my teen years...
When I wasn't going barefoot!
The thing is, in all of the pictures I have chosen, from seventeen on, I am happy enough. ...The smile is real, shows all my teeth, and crinkles show at the corners of my eyes.
There's me at Henley with Sarah in our early twenties after Uni, both with wide-brimmed hats, very Eighties', holding on for fear of losing them to the wind, while whishing past the sculls, seated with her father on his referee's boat; There's me clutching Grizz in a sailor suit on my knee at home in my late twenties, just after his Church christening; I still have that suit.
There we are, Grizz and I, perched by the harbour upon a metal bollard just after going to see the vast boats; I'm seated rather precariously, holding on to him because he wants to run away from me, full of excitement and boundless energy - He was so full of beans when he was little, I could hardly keep up with him most of the time...
Shortly after that photo was taken, I lost my mother.
I still don't really know where she went, but bits of her live on in me.
She puts words in my mouth some days. They come out, and I hear her voice, what she would say, the expressions she used, and I remember these are not my words...
And I wonder if it is then, at that time, that my soi-disant Free Child got stuck, then was pushed down still further and forgotten in the torment of watching my dad slowly ebb away, after years of cancer made him thin and brittle-boned...
I'm sorry this hasn't been a very uplifting post.
For me, it's probably been quite revealing though.
Can I invite you to look through your photos, mes bloggy loves, to think things through, and to consider bringing more fun into your lives, if you so desire?
And Paulo Coelho tells me this:
Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live...
Evitar los problemas que debes enfrentar es evitar la vida que tienes que vivir.
"Under the knowing eye of a flock of children, a tramway proceeds through the streets of Dunkirk at the beginning of the 20th century", between 1908 and 1913. Later, the town was practically destroyed by bombardment during the Second World War. !In the middle of the ruins, only the statue of Jean Bart that you can spot in the film remains today.
Everyday life unfurls via a long tracking shot: shopkeepers, businessmen, housewives, hawkers, all kinds of onlookers take part in the hustle and bustle of urban life. Then as we move away from the centre, the town is concealed and another movement, that of the outskirts, has the upper hand.
From a nitrate copy, this documentary tinged with timeless beauty is a witness of the impact time has on the filmic image and its subject.
Director: Anonymous Nationality: French Length: 5' 15" Genre: documentary Sound: silent with soundtrack Original elements: black & white Composer: Ivan Boumans Molina Original language: French"
I love this piece of film which tells of the fleeting nature and passage of time on us. People. And a town, which was captured on celluloid at this brief moment, but whose life would never be quite the same again.
And I make no excuse, to take us back again to my favourite wise, wise words which can be found within The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam dating from 1859, perhaps fifty years before this film saw the light of day:
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it".
Please share what these words mean to you here today, if you can spare a few moments from the hectic round of present wrapping, bow tying, elbowing rival shoppers out of the way and mixing up figgy puddings...
For it is at this time of year, is it not, that we think about what has gone before, we make promises of how things are going to be different next year, and sometimes bitter-sweet regret mingles with a few scattered memories of pleasure...
Earlier last week, I sat down to watch a film I had recorded. Millions was directed by Trainspotting (and Slumdog Millionaire - which I've still yet to see!), producer and director, Danny Boyle, in 2004.
This is a comedic story that deals with just what delights and frights unfold in his life when an idealistic and saint-obsessed, seven-year old boy finds 'millions' of pounds in a huge gym-bag that lands slap-bang on his cardboard den, right by the railway sidings, after his mother's untimely death...
The film follows Damien's attempts to give the money away via a series of good deeds to the poor and semi-righteous, (ably aided and abetted by several imposing and improbable saints), and his older brother's attempts to spend the money on real estate... And no story is complete without the evil baddie, attempting to get the stolen money back to its 'rightful owners'.
By turns, amusing, laugh out loud funny, thought-provoking, beautiful, lovely, and incredibly poignant, it was just the sort of film to reduce me to tears. To get such wonderful performances from two young actors is a real achievement, and the cinematography of the film - Colours reminiscent of films such as Amelie, (with saints bouncing right out of El Greco paintings), was enchanting.
The story is based in and around Manchester and Widnes, more usually known for their gritty northern, fade-to-greyness... But this is a real gem of a movie, worth far more than the millions of the title and way more than its actual box-office receipts... (Set up, as it was, against Mr Cruise's War of the Worlds...)
Look closely at the 'great train robbery' scenes in the film and you will see snippets of my beloved and beautiful Newcastle, where I toil relentlessly, and spend much of my time when not asleep...
A little note for my visitors from far and wide, especially Over The Pond... You might need to watch the film with the subtitles on, given the lovely Mancunian accents... Just saying.
And take heed of your loving Fhina's advice...
For the scene where Damien is re-united with his lovely lost mum, whom he so wants to see become a saint in heaven, have a box of tissues handy...
