The Aloneness of Christmas

Of course, this title is untrue in my world. I am entirely surrounded by humanity, being in the City of Melbourne, and have been riding the agitated river that we two leggeds embark upon Christmas-wards, forming queues in shops that sell colourful plastic rubbish destined for the garbage bin in a week. This festival wordlessly imposed on the citizenry, even though significant parts are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, atheists. I wonder if everyone just comes along for the ride, as really, they have no choice when our whole year revolves around this holiday and the sales. “Consumer confidence is down”, or up, or whichever obtuse code the high priests of Capitalism measure the mystery of economics. I really don’t believe they have a true grasp on what is occurring.  If they did, economic crises would be averted and volatility would be an under-rated concept.

But that’s not really what I wanted to write about. It’s the festive season after all, and I’m not entirely cynical.  Two weekends ago after my morning shower, my coffee pot followed the arc my body carved as I turned quickly from the stove, as if connected by an invisible line. It dipped and tipped, and with fantastic speed and a triumphant crescendo, the white porcelain smashed into the black ceramic kitchen floor tiles. The hot black liquid covered my legs and feet, cooling surprisingly quickly; it dripped down the walls in elegant dribbles.

I’d needed that coffee. It was 11am and my head was thick, swollen with heat that my liver kicked out. An eruption of anger shot up from the base of my torso, larva, but I paused, reluctant to give it steam or space.  Could I really be bothered with another morning of extreme emotion, rage against what simply is? What occurred, objectively, I thought, was that my favourite coffee pot tipped over because I’d switched the cast iron pot supports above the gas jets when I cleaned the stove, and hadn’t noticed that the vessel wasn’t adequately supported. What happened was that the coffee pot had smashed and the floor and walls were now covered in coffee and porcelain shards.  That was all. I chose to simply clean it up, rather than falling into the torrid stream of thought where existence was punishing me, neglecting me once again.

Instead of writing, as I had planned to do, a prospect I regarded as enticing as cleaning the fridge, I decided to go to the Mediterranean Wholesalers on Sydney Road and buy a new coffee pot. I’d also buy one for my ex-boyfriend whose last girlfriend broke his, the emotional context of this breakage politely undefined.

What a fabulous exit strategy from the onerous task that writing a novel had become.

The Saturday morning traffic crawled down Sydney Road, predictably everyone and their kids out. The ring of pre-Christmas shopping thrummed in the air and I was pulled deeper into the Mediterranean Wholesaler by the sensory cacophony of this broad, bustling, purposeful community.

On top of the usual Saturday morning business, people hovered around the mountains of panettone and Christmas sweets. Beautiful tins of biscuits embossed with nostalgic pictures of little girls, delicate butterflies and misty-eyed damsels from that romantic yesteryear were on display. Plain torrone or covered in chocolate and filled with Strega, thirty varieties of bright fruit liqueurs, mountains of wafers, crackers, cookies - everything looked delectable.

Without warning my heart sent a lump of sadness to my throat to burn the back of my eyes – my family. Christmas again in this hot mad land of Australia with no family. I chose it again this time, needing a break from the financially draining transcontinental travel, needing to stabilise my health and income after a year of sizzling burnout.

But this searing, this sadness that fell over me like a useless tent emptied me out, cut off all connection to the buzzing families around me. Once more I was truly alone, relentlessly, excruciatingly alone.

Submerged under this hollow fog, I wandered down the Aisle of Pasta; I’ve always loved being in this spacious shop; the sense of it, of Europe, of an old fashioned family store. The giant pasta shells appealed to me, and I found anchovies, a pale smelly cheese, preserved artichokes, the coffee pots I wanted.  The packs of lemony crostoli were too big for one person.

Once safely out on the pavement, I considered that I could act on the sadness and buy an air ticket to Jo’burg that afternoon, mess up my finances and create more recovery work but bask in the perfection of Johannesburg's summer, or wait for the wave of sadness to pass, and plan for next year.

In the hot Aussie Saturday summer, I moved up Sydney Road through the crowds of Muslim women draped in fabric, dark moustachioed Mediterranean men and the bright pale skinned young things seeing the world through their heavy black eyeglass frames and kooky gear, into the refuge of Spotlight where the beauty of hundreds of pattered fabrics soon diverted my heart’s focus from its empty homestead to enchanting prospects of all the things that can be made, sewn together; the bliss of fabric.

So soothed, I made my way home, and the next day my dear friend’s mother announced without prompting that she was adopting me, that I would spend Christmas with their family and always be considered part of their family. How sweet, and kind, and timeous.

I feel less alone, and have been very attentive to my mother that she is taken care of for Christmas, spending time with her family in Pretoria, as her tired eighty year old heart would also be heavy.  And my brother so far away in London; well, they’re burying his wife’s mother this week, the deep sadness around and life moves on. So fast, and so intense, that I daily have to slow down, slow right down to locate my heart and assure it that it is safe, that all is ok. And today is Chanukah - which is about light, peace and those lovely donuts. Blessings to all this festive season!

Smashed

Its just as well I had the session with the Maori astrologer in June this year. In her Jungian language, she warned of rough seas from July though to October, and that it would be wise to find shelter out of the cities, far from the noise, traffic and intensity. To commune with nature.

The western cedar house in Mullumbimby was the perfect hide-out for the winter months. I had spectacular days at Brunswick Beach whilst the whales migrated south, days of sun and squalls, days of multiple rainbows and pods of dolphins surfing transparent waves in perfect unison. The days which most arrested and shocked me were clear sky days when I strolled along the breakwater, the Brunswick River flowing in to meet the sea, days when this ocean-river water ran luminously clear to magnify the different schools of fish racing along the rocks, suddenly herded by a dolphin cow with her calf, a flash of deep grey.

The two of them came back a few days in a row, swimming right up to a delighted couple lolling in the delicious water. And on my last trip to the beach where the river yet again granted me the clarity of an aquarium, a sea eagle dropped down to catch a fish and soared up and into the coastal forest.

What tremendous blessings I had for those six weeks, to be that close to nature.

The astrologer had warned that I would be faced with a choice during this time – I could either keep doing the psychotherapeutic work I did or finally turn towards and honour my creativity. Knowing that I had been avoiding writing something comprehensive for years, The Book that had been stewing away on the back-burner by now nursed a nasty burnt crust, it had waited so long, probably twenty years. So I seized the rare opportunity of time off and enrolled in a ten month online writing course.

And this has been my companion since the 25^th July, the daily ritual of following the teachings and taking chances on material that seems to want to be written. Some days the discomfort wrings me out, but I know myself well enough that I simply have to show up and write something daily, I must and I will, and I am bound by the investment I have made and am far too tight to squander the money I have paid for this course!

Some days I read what I have written and my confidence is renewed that I can actually do this. Other days, like the last few, are far too bleak, and the material feels dull and that it has a limited shelf life.

Thankfully, our course is peppered with encouragement, quotes drilling into us to simply write everyday. So I do. The last few days I have felt nauseated by the novel, and missed the spontaneity of daily observation. And I have missed my blog, and the medium it offers. So, back I am in blog-land, perhaps not daily, but certainly, I love the platform to interact with the world that it offers. A kind of scrap book of ideas.

********

I mentioned that the astrologer said there would be a choice. It came hard and fast and my fondness for earning money magnetised me. At the very last minute, I was offered a week’s work, to facilitate a workshop, which is what I do. And of course I said yes, even though I didn’t have the right clothes, nor was I in my usual crisp working frame of mind. I was somewhat woolly, but I have extensive experience and proficiency in this work, so I said yes. Not knowing that I was pulling on the cord that would ring the bell, the death knell to my career.

Dramatic sounding? Perhaps, but let me tell you that since the 8^th July, nothing has been the same. I had no idea that one could feel like this, that one could end up in the shower, something like this:

The hot water rained from the showerhead and she let the silent tears glob out and mix with the chlorinated water. “I’m all broken,” the thought nearly came out loud, but she didn’t want her mother down the hallway to hear her.

“I’m all broken and I just can’t handle anymore. I get so flooded by company, by people, how am I ever going to manage letting anyone love me, letting anyone in? My nerves are frayed after three months off and I’m shattered.” A little girl in a 43 year old body. “Restoring furniture, quiet, in a cool old shopfront or garage, now that sounds appealing, but my head hurts, my neck feels twisted and this lump, here, at the base of my skull, this lump of muscle is pulling all of my bones out of their rightful places.”

She cried and let the sadness take form in the tears and snot, felt the pain ease in the left side of her head, and a valve in her heart that had been gathering despair empty out, pour out the weight and let it wash into the water that connects all waters.

“Better. Better for letting it move and come out of the body,” she whispered, as she towelled herself down, the thick blue cotton soft on her thin skin. Able to function now, without donning a brittle surface that would crack at the first dialogue and either splinter into dangerous shards or icicle coolness, the door to her heart near frozen.

“Better.” It was just now, only now that she had to deal with. Only now.

They call it Burn Out. It’s a good term, apt. If you can picture a human form, then see the nervous system alive in it, perhaps see it in fluorescent green so that you get a sense of the phenomenal speed and variety of ceaseless activity is entertains, and then imagine all the peripheral endings singed, burnt, so that the neurological traffic hits walls, creating shortages, you may even hear a metallic voice blurting “system overload” or smell electrical burning, but that would make it funny, which sometimes it really has to be.

So one’s capacity, let me own it, my capacity for life is different. On a bad day I would say its impaired, damaged, broken. But perhaps its just different. My sense of presence in very expanded, now that I live this slow life, I see colours more intensely, I get messages from people’s bodies when I massage them, so yes, something has been broken, cracked, something has fragmented, but perhaps this is what is needed when we have constructed a concrete shelter around our being. That its needs to dissemble, so that we can feel again.

I like the tenderness I feel. I am making friends with my soul. I am listening, I take time every day to be with my soul.

In the last week my divine friend R suggested I find the original hope that I held BEFORE the shock of being human kicked in. Before the trauma, the attachment, before the story. And my original hope was that I be treasured, loved, held and protected. Which is what I would love from a man whom I am calling in.

And I am thrilled to be finding in myself, to be treasuring my own heart, making decisions that value and protect me. And I guess I would never have done this had I said no to that last minute workshop, that smashed me up against a wall I had never met before.

Australia's Most Important Political Campaign

Dr Wong's Acupuncture Model

"You too sensitive," Dr Wong tells me, "don't take things so bloody personally." He pronounces bloody as "bwuddy", and tacks on, "you such a perfectionist. Why you have to be so bwuddy perfect all the time?"

 In the anonymity of Murrumbeena, the suburban sprawl that spreads out of Melbourne like an oil leak, he places his needles with jaunty precision. When he's done, he pats me on the leg and says soothingly, with great care, "you rest now". And I breathe in the aromas of moksha sticks, wintergreen and the smoky whisps of previous treatments. When my mind settles, I suddenly drop into deep rest, and if I'm lucky, a far away sleep before he bounces in and says, "You can go back to work now. See you next time."
 

Sydney Road

 I love Sydney Road; there is something so homely about it, so familiar. I love that its so different from other areas of Melbourne, that I am guaranteed to hear flavours of Arabic, and eat delicious food. I love that you buy baklava, or sweets as they are known, by the kilo, and the Lebanese pizza at the A1 bakery, particularly the zataar on pita bread, is freshly baked. Even though the A1 is a big cafe, it feels like you're in a family business, its so personalised.

The A1 Bakery

 And then there are the cars. Vince Colosimo talked about how, as young men, they'd drive their polished cars up and down Sydney Road, so they could look at their reflections in the shop windows. When there's not a tram gumming up the works, you're bound to experience a dropped down, muffler-stripped shining beast of a car, roaring along on pure testosterone. 

A friend who has lived in Brunswick for years tells me there are 85 cultures represented in the area. Along with great live music, some class op-shops, bars and cafes, its a precious part of Melbourne.

Northern Rivers Winter

Home is where the hearth is, home is where the heart is, wherever I lay my hat that’s my home, and John Steinbeck said that home is “where I keep my books”.

I have found a home in Northern NSW for six weeks, and have settled right in. My clothes are packed on the shelves the owners of the house left empty for me, and my food is in a drawer emptied for me too. I’ve made an office for myself next to the fireplace; my only requirements for this home being a fireplace and nature's embrace. 

The peeling outside table has migrated inside, looking out to the northside of the deck, into the forest of tall gumtrees, bracken ferns and ubiquitous camphor laurel trees. This morning a young kookaburra alighted on the branch of a dying camphor tree, directly in the center of the big glass sliding door in front of me. Laughter, joy, they represent and remind one.

I’ve been thinking what I should write for my blog, how I should update it. I notice the writing is far more personal, introspective these Australian days, way less gritty than when I was in Africa. A little embarrassing, but tracking the journey nonetheless. There is less external tension here, at least for me, Australia is so much easier to navigate than Africa, perhaps simply because I’ve been here for over ten years and am habituated to its ways. And I'm learning about how to articulate my journey, without detailing my internal processing, which could be very tedious for readers.

I wrote in my journal a few days ago, “I couldn’t hear myself tell my story one more time. By yesterday, it was enough. The hang-dog feel of things going wrong, getting bent out of shape, even giving it the bland corporate packaging of a life having “a set-back” had started to grate on me.

Time to tell the story differently then.

A week ago, a long drive and a slow day in the country unfolded on Sunday, visiting my friends, the fabulous elders M and B, who live an hour and a half from Melbourne in dry Australian country. The magnificent old gumtrees at their gate are sentries, old ladies, observing the comings and goings of those who visit The Clan. When I returned to Melbourne at the end of the day, it occurred to me that I could simply wait, like those trees, I could be patient and wait for the seeds that I have planted to germinate. I don’t have to throw it all out in the quest for an immediate solution.

You see, as my week in Melbourne got a bit easier, I could take some distance from the incessant distress playing out in my head, the story of not having a home, not knowing which continent to live on, what work to pursue that doesn’t eat me alive. A temporary solution of three dvd’s, a packet of lollies and nine cups of rooibos tea allowed the two day headache to lift.

Images of Africa had started to rise up again. Just flashes of scenes, nothing exotic, like driving to the supermarket or the post office with my mum through Irene near Pretoria, which behind  and beside its genteel country persona sits the dryness of the exhausted grasslands, who witness the tardy creations that the humans bring to form, the second-hand shops with lurid signs, mechanics’ garages shrouded in grease and toil and the promise of emptying your wallet. Nothing built for the sake of beauty, all for function, dominance, visibility, access, nothing built to serve our delicate senses. A creeper spread its suckers all over a bulky concrete pedestrian bridge to the station, forming delicate patterns and covering over the brutality of purpose.

On the way to Pretoria, a four or six lane roadway carves a nature reserve, where late last year a small bush burst forth with clusters of pink and purple blooms, painting the rusting hills with sweeps of colour.

Amidst the brutality of Gauteng, nature seems to slip through. I wonder which plants quietly rise in the baby farms in Nigeria that my friend told me about, the places where women give birth and hand their babies over for $100 to be trafficked?

So during the last week in Preston, in the north of Melbourne, I slept on a single mattress on the floor of my good friend K’s spare room, my generous, quiet friend. I looked forward to leaving for  Byron Bay's soft light and vegetation bursting out of its skin, to stay in this house which I rented in a fit of burnout and distress about what my life had become.  I was trying to take steps to get myself out of the therapeutic work I've been doing, counselling and running workshops, but whilst in Melbourne, I met with two people from a program that is helping me with my finances, and it became clear that I need to keep working. That there is no magic cure. That there is sensible, responsible, and that loving what you do and doing what you love is something you build into, grow into. My plan is to use the time in Byron to write, to spend some time taking care of admin – tax, creating new business opportunities, setting income generating activities up, and to walk on the beach. I’m so fortunate to be here in Australia and to be supported in getting my survival stuff in order.

So what are the blessings of my circumstances? I perceive suffering and hardship in not having a home, but I get to have intimate conversations with my friends, lots of closeness, not have to take full responsibility for the lease or the house, I get to be free and move around a lot. And I get space .. lots of it.

Off Chapel St, Prahran, Melbourne

One of my favourite buildings in Swanston St, Melbourne

Today is Saturday in my beloved Mullumbimby, home of six weeks. A rarity, it has no traffic light and only recently got a traffic circle.  Slow and colourful, it is a haven for old hippies and freaks, spaced out meditators and rainbow people. There are a few old farmers too, and a fusty RSL that no doubt has cheap beer and some kind of schnitzel.

I am impressed with myself for this gift of six weeks of rural bliss - impressed as my default position is "workaholic". I can’t tell you how lovely the house is; the smell of the western cedar they used to build it, the orange, lemon and grapefruit trees dripping fruit, the vegetable garden sprouting a variety of lettuces. How much I enjoy the rhythm of setting the fire, scrunching old newspaper, gathering kindling, lighting and tending it, carting wood around and finally sinking back into the beanbag to watch the patterns in the flames.

M came to deliver firewood yesterday, 1.6 cubic meters to be precise, or a ute-load. I stayed to talk with him whilst he unloaded it, threw the chunks of ironbark off the back of the vehicle. His shins were scarred, knees too. He gave me detailed advice on how to build a fire, how to make a good one, the kindling and its different sizes, that it needs air, and that a glass of red should accompany the process so that you can be still and keep an eye on the embers forming.

I bought a new axe yesterday, a little one, a tomahawk I believe its called, so that I can split the logs into kindling. I tried this morning, and it feels far too brutal for me and the wood is so hard. I'm out of touch with that rugged side of me, that loves working the land, brush-cutting, mowing, mulching. I’m feeling delicate, and I need a man to do this work. Perhaps my ex, perhaps a new friend, lets see who comes into my life who would love to yield the axe!

So now I have space to write, space to ponder and meditate, space to walk on the beach which is ten minutes drive away. Its lovely and quiet, and we’re due for some serious weather in the next few days, a lot of rain and possibly flooding. I have supplies ready – kindling, firelighters, food, matches, wine, books, music.

And the good news is that there is a possibility of funding for the project in South Africa. Now, it is a matter of deciding whether or not I want to pursue it.Its something to weigh up, as I feel into what I would like my life to be, not what I think it should be.

I’ll leave it at that, and close with a picture of my desk, up here in Mullumbimby, NSW.

An unexpected salute to Marianne Williamson

30^th May 2011

I am looking for someone to share the depths of life with, not necessarily the minutae of shoes, socks, electricity bills, political commentary. It’s the deeper love I’m thinking of, shared over a cup of tea, after a rapture of entry and outlandish longing, a gate opening beyond its own spectrum, a love never glimpsed but who made its name familiar by the persistent calling it echoed in the night, the early morning mussed up sheets, the afternoons of heart-stopping surges. Power surges who cry, who am I not to love? Who am I not to breathe sharp breath at the sight of four dolphins hurtling down a wave, perfectly aligned? Who am I not to heed the message I requested of the sea eagle, not to sing the song that issues, pouring from my lips? Who am I not to belong, to claim the earth of my red hot homeland, to feel the stillness of time stopping on a beach that holds my secret heart so dear?

Who am I not to claim the unknown, the messiness so exquisitely crafted into foundations for divinity, ordinary divine presence in the greens of the Japanese weeds along the beach, wedgewood blue of the skies that frame the gulls, the crows, pair of butterflies?

Who am I not to love, to extend my friendship, to let my curiosity out on a lead to sniff around your ankles, lick your face like a Jack Russell who never knew any inhibitions?

What gives me the right to keep it all safe when what I see is so utterly imperfect. Sure I can feel unloved or rejected when he replies to my elaborate txt with a greyscale  “ok”.  But today I saw a pod of dolphins splashing close to the shore, the sea eagle flew really low so I could discern his detail, and the terns threw themselves at the water with divebomb enthusiasm, and I am alive, curious about how this illusion works, nervous about participating in a medicine circle, silently inspired by a matrix of healing in the job I get paid to do.

Who am I not to simply melt, and let it all wash away, let it all be loose, and forgiving, and pray-hope that I haven’t done too much harm.

“Park off,” she cried, so I did, right next to the Goddess, as we waited for the kings to arrive.