Well I've finally made it, I've got my citizenship of Aotearoa New Zealand. It has taken a few months over ten years since I moved here and I really don't want to think about how many dollars the Depts of Immigration, and Internal Affairs have had out of me between them along the way, and there's still a passport to pay for! However no matter what happens to the rules and regulations about permanent residents I know I'm safely ensconced here and I can come and go (once I've obtained aforementioned passport) whenever I like.
It was a strange experience going to the ceremony and affirming my loyalty to Queen and country (Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand that is, quite who they think QEI was I don't know). For some there it was a obviously a very emotional event. I'm not really one for ceremony and dignitaries etc, and I probably have a rather cynical view of such proceedings, I would've been quite happy just getting a letter in the post. But it was nice to be able to go through the ceremony in the atrium at Te Ahu which I'm rather fond of, and to be able to have Phyllis and William with me in support.
In many ways though it felt like rubber stamping; transferring my Quaker membership here felt like it had far more significance to me emotionally, and spiritually. Getting citizenship has been the legal side of things. As we were about to head over I said to Phyllis that I felt like I was dressed for a wedding; something old (my brooches), something new (my shawl), something borrowed (Nancy's shoes) and something blue (the shawl again). I've known a few folk who've got the legal side of their weddings done separately from the more meaningful (to them) celebration of their relationship and commitment and it does all feel rather similar, albeit lacking any kind of party 8yrs or so ago when I was formally handed over from the care of South East Scotland MM (or no doubt Area Meeting by then) of Britain YM to Waitemata North MM of the YM of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The way many Kiwis have become second class citizens in Australia in recent years, with limited or no rights to citizenship, benefits, education grants for them or their children etc etc etc has certainly been an extra incentive to ensure I did get my citizenship here. Thankfully our Government hasn't stooped to playing the same game against the Aussies, or those from any other country, yet, but to be quite honest I wouldn't put it past them. Especially now Britain has started removing rights Kiwis have previously had to health care whilst in the UK. When folk jokingly or otherwise had suggested in the past that I take the 'green card' route to residency I'd pointed out that aside from the dearth of eligible options I wouldn't want my ability to stay in the country to hang on my ability to stay in a relationship. Nor would I want it to hang on my ability to stay healthy! I don't exactly have an outstanding track record on either front, and yes the two have certainly been related at times.
There have been various occasions over the years when people I know well have risked getting arrested whilst taking part in non-violent direct action. I've never dared take part in case it affected my ability to stay here. As Kiwis are being bundled off to detention camps ready for deportation from Australia for being of 'bad character' or having clocked up a cumulative two years in jail again it is a reality that if the powers that be decide they don't like you they can kick you out if you aren't a citizen. We won't go into the irony of Australia kicking convicts out whilst still considering their convict early settlers to be next to royalty! It doesn't matter why you were in jail either; so clocking up jail time from protesting against weapons trade fairs, or against keeping refugee children in detention camps where there is torture and other human rights abuses going on would have you treated the same way as someone done for fire arms offences or grievous bodily harm. Now I'm not about to rush out and get myself arrested at the next protest march (they can still stop my benefits!), but at least my concerns on that front now are the same as the next Kiwi's, and there is certainly plenty to protest about. I'm not sure if my British citizenship (which I retain) would protect me from being treated like a second class citizen in Australia or not now I'm a Kiwi, but as I have absolutely no desire to live there (too many nasty poisonous bitey things, and that's just the politicians....) it is a moot point.
So yes, I'm proud to be a Kiwi and it is most definitely home, but that means taking the rough with the smooth. Much as we like to describe this country as paradise it is a relative term, and there is much room for improvement. I see part of my responsibilities as a citizen are to challenge the inequalities; to speak truth to power; to be part of kicking up a noisy fuss when things aren't right; especially on behalf of those who, like I was just a few days ago, don't yet have the security of knowing their place here is permanent.
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Thursday, January 28, 2016
And another one gone, and another one gone, another one bites the dust...
You know I'm getting pretty hōhā with 2016, or as some of my younger f/Friends Stateside would put it 'enough already!'
Yesterday came the announcement that yet another artist who's work makes up the soundtrack of my own life has died prematurely. Part of me is thinking that there must be a party somewhere with one heck of guest list or jam session, regardless of the fact that I have no idea really whether I believe in life after death or not, and if there is what form it might take. But it's the sort of thing that we console ourselves with though when grieving, when logic has no place.
When David Bowie died, shortly followed by Alan Rickman, I was trying to get my head around the why the passing of someone I'd never met felt like such a kick in the guts. It's not like I'd plastered my walls with posters of them, nor been a fanatical follower. Sure I have several David Bowie albums, consider a good few of Alan Rickman's films to be up there amongst my favourites of all time, and yes I too bought Black's album on the strength of 'Wonderful Life' alone but I never bought any others, nor had even realized there were any until reading Colin Vearncombe's obituary today. It was this tweet seen on Facebook though that helped made sense of what I was feeling "Thinking about how we mourn artists we've never met. We don't cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves." And, as I said before, precisely because they make up the soundtrack of our own lives.
There are lyrics that resonate with us, that make sense of our own tangled emotions, that let us know we aren't alone in feeling that way. In the same way there are characters portrayed in films that speak to us on a deeper level. But there are also the songs and scenes that stay with us because of associated memories of where we were, who we were with, who we've sat with endlessly quoting lines back and forth or even just listened to others doing just that.
After a year watching several new film versions of Robin Hood, on top of repeated viewing of the videos of the TV series the one thing our uni crowd was unanimous about was that Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham outshone the rest by far. He more than made up for the dodgy accents and Forestry Commission forests complete with signs masquerading as Sherwood, not to mention the really lousy geography. When the clip of him cancelling Christmas was shown during the obituary on the news it wasn't just Alan Rickman's brilliant acting I was seeing encapsulated in a few seconds, but 25yrs or so of friendships, and a whole gamut of Robin Hood books, films, songs and associated memories of which he was such a defining part of. It felt like my own life was flashing before my eyes rather than his acting career. And that's just one of his stellar performances.
Fran was saying on Facebook that her boss had set the office homework to come in with their favourite Bowie track after the weekend. One track???? It's just as well I wasn't expected to do the same! I realized as I worked my way through the many Bowie tracks shared on social media as well as my own itunes library that I couldn't choose any track purely on musical merit. It depends on so much; what mood I'm in, what do I want to be reminded of? The fact that David Bowie managed to cover such a wide breadth of styles over so many decades means there's pretty much a suitable track for any occasion! No wonder his work has touched so many of us; his songs transport me back to many places, times and people that have been important to me and/or define a time in one way or another. Many bands and artists have those sorts of connections for me, but Bowie represents some of the most diverse and numerous. Bowie reinvented himself and his image time after time, he was always just that little bit different, but that was okay. A good reminder to have when you find yourself feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Hopefully I can expect to see out at least another three decades and it doesn't seem quite right to think that there will be no more new Bowie tracks to define them, obviously that day was inevitable, but I wasn't quite ready for it to happen. There is a sadness for the loss of what might have been created.
'No need to laugh, and cry, it's a wonderful, wonderful life...' a song that has probably made it's way on to more compilation tapes and cds that I've put together over the years than any other. In my minds eye the song conjours up the dreadful carpets and wallpaper in our Croydon Rd flat and other images from the time, but it also makes me think of the many people since then who I've passed the song on to. Perhaps in doing so making it part of their life story at a different time.
I can't say as I felt any personal sense of loss when Lemmy or the guy from Rainbow (the band not the tv show!) died recently, their music not really being quite my cup of tea, but the fact that there seemed to be so many not quite making their three score year and ten all in a rush does still seem a bit much (okay for the pedants amongst you Lemmy had passed 70, but only by four days...). There is an expectation now that people live longer than that, especially those who can afford decent health care, even those whose lifestyle might be described as burning the candle at both ends for many years. These days seventy seems too young. Musicians and actors that are contemporaries of my parents are suddenly dropping like flies... it's no wonder really that it is getting so many of my generation worried. We're not ready to be the older generation yet!
Yesterday came the announcement that yet another artist who's work makes up the soundtrack of my own life has died prematurely. Part of me is thinking that there must be a party somewhere with one heck of guest list or jam session, regardless of the fact that I have no idea really whether I believe in life after death or not, and if there is what form it might take. But it's the sort of thing that we console ourselves with though when grieving, when logic has no place.
When David Bowie died, shortly followed by Alan Rickman, I was trying to get my head around the why the passing of someone I'd never met felt like such a kick in the guts. It's not like I'd plastered my walls with posters of them, nor been a fanatical follower. Sure I have several David Bowie albums, consider a good few of Alan Rickman's films to be up there amongst my favourites of all time, and yes I too bought Black's album on the strength of 'Wonderful Life' alone but I never bought any others, nor had even realized there were any until reading Colin Vearncombe's obituary today. It was this tweet seen on Facebook though that helped made sense of what I was feeling "Thinking about how we mourn artists we've never met. We don't cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves." And, as I said before, precisely because they make up the soundtrack of our own lives.
There are lyrics that resonate with us, that make sense of our own tangled emotions, that let us know we aren't alone in feeling that way. In the same way there are characters portrayed in films that speak to us on a deeper level. But there are also the songs and scenes that stay with us because of associated memories of where we were, who we were with, who we've sat with endlessly quoting lines back and forth or even just listened to others doing just that.
After a year watching several new film versions of Robin Hood, on top of repeated viewing of the videos of the TV series the one thing our uni crowd was unanimous about was that Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham outshone the rest by far. He more than made up for the dodgy accents and Forestry Commission forests complete with signs masquerading as Sherwood, not to mention the really lousy geography. When the clip of him cancelling Christmas was shown during the obituary on the news it wasn't just Alan Rickman's brilliant acting I was seeing encapsulated in a few seconds, but 25yrs or so of friendships, and a whole gamut of Robin Hood books, films, songs and associated memories of which he was such a defining part of. It felt like my own life was flashing before my eyes rather than his acting career. And that's just one of his stellar performances.
Fran was saying on Facebook that her boss had set the office homework to come in with their favourite Bowie track after the weekend. One track???? It's just as well I wasn't expected to do the same! I realized as I worked my way through the many Bowie tracks shared on social media as well as my own itunes library that I couldn't choose any track purely on musical merit. It depends on so much; what mood I'm in, what do I want to be reminded of? The fact that David Bowie managed to cover such a wide breadth of styles over so many decades means there's pretty much a suitable track for any occasion! No wonder his work has touched so many of us; his songs transport me back to many places, times and people that have been important to me and/or define a time in one way or another. Many bands and artists have those sorts of connections for me, but Bowie represents some of the most diverse and numerous. Bowie reinvented himself and his image time after time, he was always just that little bit different, but that was okay. A good reminder to have when you find yourself feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Hopefully I can expect to see out at least another three decades and it doesn't seem quite right to think that there will be no more new Bowie tracks to define them, obviously that day was inevitable, but I wasn't quite ready for it to happen. There is a sadness for the loss of what might have been created.
'No need to laugh, and cry, it's a wonderful, wonderful life...' a song that has probably made it's way on to more compilation tapes and cds that I've put together over the years than any other. In my minds eye the song conjours up the dreadful carpets and wallpaper in our Croydon Rd flat and other images from the time, but it also makes me think of the many people since then who I've passed the song on to. Perhaps in doing so making it part of their life story at a different time.
I can't say as I felt any personal sense of loss when Lemmy or the guy from Rainbow (the band not the tv show!) died recently, their music not really being quite my cup of tea, but the fact that there seemed to be so many not quite making their three score year and ten all in a rush does still seem a bit much (okay for the pedants amongst you Lemmy had passed 70, but only by four days...). There is an expectation now that people live longer than that, especially those who can afford decent health care, even those whose lifestyle might be described as burning the candle at both ends for many years. These days seventy seems too young. Musicians and actors that are contemporaries of my parents are suddenly dropping like flies... it's no wonder really that it is getting so many of my generation worried. We're not ready to be the older generation yet!
Friday, October 30, 2015
roots
I've been doing some research into the family of my maternal grandmother, whose surname was Cox. Having never really come across the name much I was somewhat taken aback by just how common it was in the part of Gloucestershire they come from (near Stroud, should you be interested!). If that wasn't enough it appears that just about every family in the village had a daughter who was either born Ann Cox or became Ann Cox through marriage, which made tracing my Great x3 Granny even more complicated!
The menfolk have somewhat less common names; Laban, Benjamin, Ira & Reuben. So that should've be easier right? Yeah right... how can people simply disappear for a couple of decades? Or appear in a census as very much alive thank you but not appear in any Death records? Well not that we could find at first, leaving a conundrum - Laban must've died somewhere otherwise he'd be 190yrs old by now, and much as the idea appeals I didn't think we had Time Lords or Immortals in the family.
So in an attempt to make sense of some of what was going on I started looking at the bigger picture; how come so many people from Bisley, Gloucestershire ended up in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire around the mid 1800s, and who were they?
After trawling through the census records from 1841 (the first one done) to 1891 for the district I started tracking various families and individuals over the years. I've no idea (yet...) how many of the Cox families listed are related to me, but I found myself getting quite emotionally involved in their histories. Having studied this period for my Social & Economic History A Level, plus having read a fair amount of historical fiction set in this era, I know a reasonable amount about it. However it was one thing learning about it in an abstract fashion, and quite another following the lives and deaths of real people, especially when they might be related to me. It was sobering to see how many children simply didn't make it from one census to the next, ten years later. The oldest person I recorded was 75, and few got to more than 60. Children as young as 7 and 8 had occupations listed next to their names in the 1841 census, and the designation 'pauper' was next to several names. One was living in the workhouse and another the local orphanage, several were servants in later decades and the earlier ones were full of weavers and spinners of both wool and silk, workers at various stages of the walking stick manufacturing industry (stick cutters, varnishers, polishers and bone carvers). Watermen (whatever that may mean!), railway labourers and agricultural labourers made regular appearances but the trade that cropped up again and again was stonemasonry, and that is what took sometimes just the menfolk, but sometimes entire families, up to Halifax.
According to a local history website, the district had had a lot of textile small scale industry, both wool and silk. The industrial revolution hit the area hard in the mid 1830s and many were left out of work. I've not yet figured out what the stonemasons were all working on until the 1850s that kept them in the area, but in the 1851 and 1861 census returns there are several families where the 'head' of the household is absent and the wife listed as 'wife of a stonemason'. Family tradition has it that Halifax Town Hall was built by members of our family (plus a few hundred others no doubt...) and that seems to be born out by the number of stonemasons from Bisley, including a few Coxs, who appear in the Halifax census returns in 1861.
Eventually the mystery was solved, it turned out that there weren't two Labans in the Bisley area about 10yrs apart in age, but just the older one, and someone had stuffed up (made up?) his age on a subsequent census entry. It turns out that his son Benjamin, my G.G.Grandad was from his second marriage, and the other Coxs they are later listed as living with in Halifax are from the first marriage. The reason it was all confusing is in the earliest census returns Laban is listed as living with his first family, and in the later one in Bisley he's just with his younger family, the older children being at a different address.
So it appeared that alas, no Time Lords in the family after all. Well that was until we started trying to research Benjamin's wife Janet who appears in the marriage register, several census records and the death register, but is conspicuous by her absence from any birth registers or census returns from the part of Scotland where she was supposedly born and spent her childhood! I'm reasonably certain she didn't die from having her head lopped off with a sword though as that would've caused quite a stir in Halifax in 1917, so that at least rules out her being an Immortal! Seems we're stuck with invisible for the time being instead.
A bizarre twist to the tale has been in relating some of these research challenges to long standing friends I've found that two of them also have Cox ancestry in the family from that part of Gloucestershire! I know it has long been said that Quakers makes the world a smaller place, but I wasn't expecting to end up potentially related to people I've known over half my life who also happen to have made their home in Aotearoa NZ!
The menfolk have somewhat less common names; Laban, Benjamin, Ira & Reuben. So that should've be easier right? Yeah right... how can people simply disappear for a couple of decades? Or appear in a census as very much alive thank you but not appear in any Death records? Well not that we could find at first, leaving a conundrum - Laban must've died somewhere otherwise he'd be 190yrs old by now, and much as the idea appeals I didn't think we had Time Lords or Immortals in the family.
So in an attempt to make sense of some of what was going on I started looking at the bigger picture; how come so many people from Bisley, Gloucestershire ended up in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire around the mid 1800s, and who were they?
After trawling through the census records from 1841 (the first one done) to 1891 for the district I started tracking various families and individuals over the years. I've no idea (yet...) how many of the Cox families listed are related to me, but I found myself getting quite emotionally involved in their histories. Having studied this period for my Social & Economic History A Level, plus having read a fair amount of historical fiction set in this era, I know a reasonable amount about it. However it was one thing learning about it in an abstract fashion, and quite another following the lives and deaths of real people, especially when they might be related to me. It was sobering to see how many children simply didn't make it from one census to the next, ten years later. The oldest person I recorded was 75, and few got to more than 60. Children as young as 7 and 8 had occupations listed next to their names in the 1841 census, and the designation 'pauper' was next to several names. One was living in the workhouse and another the local orphanage, several were servants in later decades and the earlier ones were full of weavers and spinners of both wool and silk, workers at various stages of the walking stick manufacturing industry (stick cutters, varnishers, polishers and bone carvers). Watermen (whatever that may mean!), railway labourers and agricultural labourers made regular appearances but the trade that cropped up again and again was stonemasonry, and that is what took sometimes just the menfolk, but sometimes entire families, up to Halifax.
According to a local history website, the district had had a lot of textile small scale industry, both wool and silk. The industrial revolution hit the area hard in the mid 1830s and many were left out of work. I've not yet figured out what the stonemasons were all working on until the 1850s that kept them in the area, but in the 1851 and 1861 census returns there are several families where the 'head' of the household is absent and the wife listed as 'wife of a stonemason'. Family tradition has it that Halifax Town Hall was built by members of our family (plus a few hundred others no doubt...) and that seems to be born out by the number of stonemasons from Bisley, including a few Coxs, who appear in the Halifax census returns in 1861.
Eventually the mystery was solved, it turned out that there weren't two Labans in the Bisley area about 10yrs apart in age, but just the older one, and someone had stuffed up (made up?) his age on a subsequent census entry. It turns out that his son Benjamin, my G.G.Grandad was from his second marriage, and the other Coxs they are later listed as living with in Halifax are from the first marriage. The reason it was all confusing is in the earliest census returns Laban is listed as living with his first family, and in the later one in Bisley he's just with his younger family, the older children being at a different address.
So it appeared that alas, no Time Lords in the family after all. Well that was until we started trying to research Benjamin's wife Janet who appears in the marriage register, several census records and the death register, but is conspicuous by her absence from any birth registers or census returns from the part of Scotland where she was supposedly born and spent her childhood! I'm reasonably certain she didn't die from having her head lopped off with a sword though as that would've caused quite a stir in Halifax in 1917, so that at least rules out her being an Immortal! Seems we're stuck with invisible for the time being instead.
A bizarre twist to the tale has been in relating some of these research challenges to long standing friends I've found that two of them also have Cox ancestry in the family from that part of Gloucestershire! I know it has long been said that Quakers makes the world a smaller place, but I wasn't expecting to end up potentially related to people I've known over half my life who also happen to have made their home in Aotearoa NZ!
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
past present
I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks working on a photobook, not for me or a Summer Gathering one (although one of those is also in progress), but as a birthday present for one of my self-appointed nephews. I'm reasonably sure no-one who sees this post will see him before he gets it, or if they do I'm sure they can keep a secret!
For almost four years we both lived around here and I spent many a weekend plus time in the school holidays looking after him. Anyone who followed my photostream on Flickr will know I took a lot of photos of him, and the ones that got uploaded were often only a fraction of those taken. I'd hear 'Take another, and another, and one of this' as he'd pull a different pose, expression or jump yet again off whichever piece of playground equipment it was, aiming for that 'perfect' shot.
These days though he's very reluctant to be in front of the camera and I practically have to plead with him to get a more up to date photo, so I figured it was time to share a reminder of how it used to be! Well that and the fact that when I was visiting recently he very proudly showed me an album with old photos, school certificates, and postcards I'd sent to him over the years. I'd thought about making the book last year but wasn't really sure the time was right so left it, this year though I knew for sure he'd appreciate it.
It was lovely looking back at the photos as I pulled the book together, it was as much a document of my life then as his. Amongst the stuff I'd recently brought back from Pukepoto was a bundle of paintings and drawings he'd done when staying with us. Those have now been photographed and recycled, it was hard to let go of them even so. But I have a box that has been covered with his pictures that I keep my files in so I do still have some originals. I think putting the photobook together helped me let go of the pictures, realizing that it was the memory of him doing the painting and drawing with me that was far more important to me than what he actually produced.
I've also been sorting through a box of cassette tapes, and I managed to halve my collection - again! It's a decade now since I had anything to play them on so it really was getting ridiculous to keep them all. I wrote a list of a pile of albums that I had that had been copied by various people that I had yet to get on cd or electronically and parted with those, and for mix tapes I'd put together either from my own or various past flatmates/boyfriend's music collections I went through and wrote a list of the tracks I now don't have, and parted with those tapes too. Mix tapes made for me by others survived to live another day, along with some recordings of friends' bands and a few originals that I still can't bring myself to part with even if I do have the cd/iTunes version now! Then to make up for what felt like a ruthless cull I splurged on iTunes and bought some of the most nostalgic 'missing' tracks, and fished out the insert cards that had friends' handwriting on and kept those too. After all, it has reached the point now where it is the memory of the people associated with it that is far more important than the physical means to listen to the music. And a few pieces of card take up way less room than a pile of C90s!
So two very different eras of my life, one recorded in photographs, the other in music (I've photos of that era too, but they are a task for another time), both now reduced to a more compact mostly digital archive. Another step towards a smaller scale of living without sacrificing the important things, the memories of people who have shaped my life; our love, laughter, tears and hugs.There's a quote from Maya Angelou: I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, this is very true and is probably the most important thing to remember about someone, but it is nice to have some physical reminders of the times you have shared all the same.
For almost four years we both lived around here and I spent many a weekend plus time in the school holidays looking after him. Anyone who followed my photostream on Flickr will know I took a lot of photos of him, and the ones that got uploaded were often only a fraction of those taken. I'd hear 'Take another, and another, and one of this' as he'd pull a different pose, expression or jump yet again off whichever piece of playground equipment it was, aiming for that 'perfect' shot.
These days though he's very reluctant to be in front of the camera and I practically have to plead with him to get a more up to date photo, so I figured it was time to share a reminder of how it used to be! Well that and the fact that when I was visiting recently he very proudly showed me an album with old photos, school certificates, and postcards I'd sent to him over the years. I'd thought about making the book last year but wasn't really sure the time was right so left it, this year though I knew for sure he'd appreciate it.
It was lovely looking back at the photos as I pulled the book together, it was as much a document of my life then as his. Amongst the stuff I'd recently brought back from Pukepoto was a bundle of paintings and drawings he'd done when staying with us. Those have now been photographed and recycled, it was hard to let go of them even so. But I have a box that has been covered with his pictures that I keep my files in so I do still have some originals. I think putting the photobook together helped me let go of the pictures, realizing that it was the memory of him doing the painting and drawing with me that was far more important to me than what he actually produced.
I've also been sorting through a box of cassette tapes, and I managed to halve my collection - again! It's a decade now since I had anything to play them on so it really was getting ridiculous to keep them all. I wrote a list of a pile of albums that I had that had been copied by various people that I had yet to get on cd or electronically and parted with those, and for mix tapes I'd put together either from my own or various past flatmates/boyfriend's music collections I went through and wrote a list of the tracks I now don't have, and parted with those tapes too. Mix tapes made for me by others survived to live another day, along with some recordings of friends' bands and a few originals that I still can't bring myself to part with even if I do have the cd/iTunes version now! Then to make up for what felt like a ruthless cull I splurged on iTunes and bought some of the most nostalgic 'missing' tracks, and fished out the insert cards that had friends' handwriting on and kept those too. After all, it has reached the point now where it is the memory of the people associated with it that is far more important than the physical means to listen to the music. And a few pieces of card take up way less room than a pile of C90s!
So two very different eras of my life, one recorded in photographs, the other in music (I've photos of that era too, but they are a task for another time), both now reduced to a more compact mostly digital archive. Another step towards a smaller scale of living without sacrificing the important things, the memories of people who have shaped my life; our love, laughter, tears and hugs.There's a quote from Maya Angelou: I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, this is very true and is probably the most important thing to remember about someone, but it is nice to have some physical reminders of the times you have shared all the same.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
migrating
Another trip to Pukepoto and another bootful of stuff has been relocated to my current abode. This time I collected one of the small bookcases and contents, and the assortment of boxes and bundles stashed in the bottom of my old wardrobe. The bookcase is now at the EcoCentre full of pre-loved books for sale, including a shelf's worth of those that had been living on it for the last few years! The remaining books have been squeezed on to the bookshelves in my room, their precariously balanced state in some cases being a good incentive to crack on with the process of replacing my photograph albums with much slimmer photobooks. Hopefully the next trip will collect my American cabinet and blanket box, but that requires the right combination of people, trailer, fine weather and time coinciding. But hey, it's taken 4.5yrs so far, what's a few more weeks?!
The feeling of satisfaction I'm getting from this process of downsizing and amalgamation is reassuring me that I'm on the right track. A few weeks ago I was overcome with a feeling of helplessness in the face of the refugee crisis and the intransigence of our politicians who just don't seem to get the idea of helping others simply because they are human too and in need. Sure, clearing out some drawers and figuring out a pile more stuff to re-home won't make any difference to those being washed up on the shores of Greece and Italy, but it gave me something to do that felt constructive, that was part of changing my own lifestyle. The motto 'live simply so others can simply live' kept going round in my head, although the only direct link between my clutter clearing and improving the lives of others I could come up with was the result of me donating stuff to the Salvation Army.
Working through all my possessions has been a very physical reminder of the fact that I am a migrant. I shifted myself, my life and my stuff from one side of the world to the opposite. I chose to do this. I have paid more than I want to contemplate to the Departments of Immigration, and Internal Affairs over the last 10yrs in order that I might remain in my new home country, but it was all above board, by the book, official. I have the stamps in my passports and pieces of paper to prove I can be here. As I now have the letter saying my citizenship application has been accepted and am now awaiting a date for the ceremony, I'll soon be entitled to have a Kiwi passport in addition to my British one.
How different is my situation to those of the dispossessed, displaced refugees and asylum seekers who are desperately trying to get into Europe, and into Lebanon, away from the horrors of war and destruction. And yet the mainstream media has been using the same word, migrant, to describe them as is befitting to describe me. How can anyone think that our situations are even remotely the same? It angers me to see their true plight being sanitized into language that can be used to manipulate people into thinking there is an element of choice in what these people have done, and even worse implying that many are doing it to 'take advantage' of the destination countries and scrounge their benefits. I've been on the dole in the UK before now, and believe you me it certainly isn't worth risking life and limb crossing the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat, then walking hundreds of miles, crawling through razor wire fences, or getting shut in a Chunnel bound lorry where you may suffocate, or hanging on to the top of a train for.
I've not seen much news over the last couple of weeks whilst I was away, so have relied on snatches of info picked up online, and now I'm back I find that, as it was before I left, the bulk of our news is about the Rugby World Cup. I am grateful to have such a great bunch of friends around the world who have kept heart-wrenching stories like this circulating around social media, reminding us of the far bigger issues out there. References to this poem by Warsan Shire popped up in my feed again, and again, and again.
I truly hope enough Help is Coming....
The feeling of satisfaction I'm getting from this process of downsizing and amalgamation is reassuring me that I'm on the right track. A few weeks ago I was overcome with a feeling of helplessness in the face of the refugee crisis and the intransigence of our politicians who just don't seem to get the idea of helping others simply because they are human too and in need. Sure, clearing out some drawers and figuring out a pile more stuff to re-home won't make any difference to those being washed up on the shores of Greece and Italy, but it gave me something to do that felt constructive, that was part of changing my own lifestyle. The motto 'live simply so others can simply live' kept going round in my head, although the only direct link between my clutter clearing and improving the lives of others I could come up with was the result of me donating stuff to the Salvation Army.
Working through all my possessions has been a very physical reminder of the fact that I am a migrant. I shifted myself, my life and my stuff from one side of the world to the opposite. I chose to do this. I have paid more than I want to contemplate to the Departments of Immigration, and Internal Affairs over the last 10yrs in order that I might remain in my new home country, but it was all above board, by the book, official. I have the stamps in my passports and pieces of paper to prove I can be here. As I now have the letter saying my citizenship application has been accepted and am now awaiting a date for the ceremony, I'll soon be entitled to have a Kiwi passport in addition to my British one.
How different is my situation to those of the dispossessed, displaced refugees and asylum seekers who are desperately trying to get into Europe, and into Lebanon, away from the horrors of war and destruction. And yet the mainstream media has been using the same word, migrant, to describe them as is befitting to describe me. How can anyone think that our situations are even remotely the same? It angers me to see their true plight being sanitized into language that can be used to manipulate people into thinking there is an element of choice in what these people have done, and even worse implying that many are doing it to 'take advantage' of the destination countries and scrounge their benefits. I've been on the dole in the UK before now, and believe you me it certainly isn't worth risking life and limb crossing the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat, then walking hundreds of miles, crawling through razor wire fences, or getting shut in a Chunnel bound lorry where you may suffocate, or hanging on to the top of a train for.
I've not seen much news over the last couple of weeks whilst I was away, so have relied on snatches of info picked up online, and now I'm back I find that, as it was before I left, the bulk of our news is about the Rugby World Cup. I am grateful to have such a great bunch of friends around the world who have kept heart-wrenching stories like this circulating around social media, reminding us of the far bigger issues out there. References to this poem by Warsan Shire popped up in my feed again, and again, and again.
I truly hope enough Help is Coming....
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
compromise and consultation
It is very satisfying seeing the pile of empty packets piling up as the negatives get sorted and filed. Well mostly. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't decided to keep August's non-recyclable plastic waste as well though! There is a sizeable bundle of those pocketed sheets negatives sometimes came back from the developers in. Part of me breathes a sigh of relief when I come across one of those as there is far less chance that the contents will have somehow got mixed up with a different film, but once the negs have been transferred to a filing page it is with something of a harrumph that the same frustration saving item is consigned to the box of plastic.
There is also a broken slides box in that collection now too, and I'm very aware that the pages I'm transferring things into have yet more plastic as part of them. But what are the alternatives? At least digital photography means the amount of plastic being used in this way has been drastically reduced, but I'm sure there are other environmental impacts just as great, they are just less in our faces. This article about the need for legislation to reduce the amount of plastic was both reassuring (I'm not the only one struggling with plastic!) and saddening. I hate that I'm adding to the landfill by clearing out, but again it is that clash of priorities - having less stuff vs the problems of throwing stuff away!
I'd called in at the local photography shop to ask if she could check with their suppliers if they still stocked such things as new pages or folders for them to go in. She rang back to say the bloke had laughed and said they'd gone out with the Dark Ages and the best thing to do was scan the negatives and put them on cds/usb sticks - a service they offered. That's all very well I pointed out, but I still have to organize them first to decide what is worth saving in that manner! Also how long will cds and usb sticks work for? Having just found a stack of 3" disks I'm realizing that whilst I have an external disk drive (somewhere...) I don't know that I have any programmes that would be able to open any of the files any more! Technologically obsolete already. At least negatives can still be turned into prints.
I've got one more pack of filing pages via TradeMe and found a supply in the UK so there is hope of eventually completing the mission. Simply transferring the negs into pages is one thing, filing them in a sensible order however is a whole different ball game! It has been great though as putting out requests for help on Facebook to identify at least what year things were held in has resulted in some collective reminiscing and conversation that probably otherwise wouldn't have happened. I'm still somewhat taken aback by the disagreement over which decade something was in though rather than which of two years in the early '90s, that I really didn't expect. And I thought I was the one having memory problems!
I dare say I'll need to pick a few more brains over the coming months as I sort out the rest. I'm just hoping that the various Pardshaw events have other things on the films as trying to decide which event of those was which is pretty tricky as you can't even always tell if it was Easter or Pre-Christmas from the number of layers we're wearing! Plus certain jumpers are almost as ubiquitous as Ken's Summer Gathering one, albeit usually more tasteful and timeless... The fact that digital photographs are automatically dated is something I'm appreciating more and more as I work through these, although the chances of me having done the equivalent of writing the names on the back of photos are even slimmer.
There is also a broken slides box in that collection now too, and I'm very aware that the pages I'm transferring things into have yet more plastic as part of them. But what are the alternatives? At least digital photography means the amount of plastic being used in this way has been drastically reduced, but I'm sure there are other environmental impacts just as great, they are just less in our faces. This article about the need for legislation to reduce the amount of plastic was both reassuring (I'm not the only one struggling with plastic!) and saddening. I hate that I'm adding to the landfill by clearing out, but again it is that clash of priorities - having less stuff vs the problems of throwing stuff away!
I'd called in at the local photography shop to ask if she could check with their suppliers if they still stocked such things as new pages or folders for them to go in. She rang back to say the bloke had laughed and said they'd gone out with the Dark Ages and the best thing to do was scan the negatives and put them on cds/usb sticks - a service they offered. That's all very well I pointed out, but I still have to organize them first to decide what is worth saving in that manner! Also how long will cds and usb sticks work for? Having just found a stack of 3" disks I'm realizing that whilst I have an external disk drive (somewhere...) I don't know that I have any programmes that would be able to open any of the files any more! Technologically obsolete already. At least negatives can still be turned into prints.
I've got one more pack of filing pages via TradeMe and found a supply in the UK so there is hope of eventually completing the mission. Simply transferring the negs into pages is one thing, filing them in a sensible order however is a whole different ball game! It has been great though as putting out requests for help on Facebook to identify at least what year things were held in has resulted in some collective reminiscing and conversation that probably otherwise wouldn't have happened. I'm still somewhat taken aback by the disagreement over which decade something was in though rather than which of two years in the early '90s, that I really didn't expect. And I thought I was the one having memory problems!
I dare say I'll need to pick a few more brains over the coming months as I sort out the rest. I'm just hoping that the various Pardshaw events have other things on the films as trying to decide which event of those was which is pretty tricky as you can't even always tell if it was Easter or Pre-Christmas from the number of layers we're wearing! Plus certain jumpers are almost as ubiquitous as Ken's Summer Gathering one, albeit usually more tasteful and timeless... The fact that digital photographs are automatically dated is something I'm appreciating more and more as I work through these, although the chances of me having done the equivalent of writing the names on the back of photos are even slimmer.
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
filling in the gaps
Today I discovered why my filing of negatives had appeared to start at a really random point in time. It seems that it wasn't 15yrs ago when I started this mission, but more like 24! I'd started with the latest film and worked backwards. So when I picked up the gauntlet 11yrs later I'd simply carried on where I'd left off!
It made me laugh to discover this, it all makes perfect sense now. Of course I started a really detailed filing system when I was in the middle of writing my dissertation - you couldn't get much more worthy in terms of procrastination, and far more satisfying than housework. It is also typical of me that I shoved something in a cupboard for years and then started it up again. It was around that same time that I finally finished a patchwork project that I'd had since secondary school. That now forms part of a cushion on the previously mentioned captain's chair! Thankfully my patchworking has never since been consigned to the 'pending...' pile for years on end.
One of today's bonus discoveries was the negative of a photo I took of my Grandad a few months before he died. I haven't had a copy of it for many, many years having given it to someone (Mum? Granny?) thinking I'd get a reprint done and then of course not getting around to it before the negative got buried too deep in the box to easily find. So finally I can fill the gap in my photo album and Granny will no longer be on that page on her own! Another loose end tied up. Plus I've found the negatives of the elusive JYM '88 photos that I'm really hoping are in the blanket box...
I'm already one box down, admittedly it's the smallest one, but it feels like a good start. There's something very satisfying about finally seeing a project through to completion (albeit that happy state is still a long way off!). I'm quite enjoying the elements of detective work involved in reuniting strips that had been taken out of their packet to get reprints done, back with the rest of the set they belong with. It is something of an eye opener to contemplate how much money I have spent on film and processing over the years too! That's probably responsible for a hefty chunk of my student overdraft and visa card being maxed out by the time I graduated.Thankfully most of the travel expenses to the various Quaker gatherings many of the photos are of were covered, otherwise I would've been living off lentils and bread from the half price bakery around the corner... oh wait, I already did.
So, after more years than I'd been alive when I started this, I'm reconstructing about a 23yr section of my life, give or take a film reel or two. Trying to put things back into chronological order (if anyone has suggestions as to how to date several entire films worth of photos of the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, with no recognizable people in to assist in this matter, they would be gratefully received!). You know life would be so much easier if I could settle for being either extremely organized or haphazard (but usually with a system of sorts - like a box, or four, with negatives in... in no particular order), but I never seem to be able to stick with just one. Not only is this project cataloging a substantial chunk of my life, but the entire endeavour reflects me in other ways too: as a person, a photographer, a documenter of events, and no doubt other things I'm too tired to think of right now. It does make me wonder if in years to come when someone comes across the end result (assuming I ever finish it!) what assumptions they would then make about me - I don't for a moment expect that to be accurate!
It made me laugh to discover this, it all makes perfect sense now. Of course I started a really detailed filing system when I was in the middle of writing my dissertation - you couldn't get much more worthy in terms of procrastination, and far more satisfying than housework. It is also typical of me that I shoved something in a cupboard for years and then started it up again. It was around that same time that I finally finished a patchwork project that I'd had since secondary school. That now forms part of a cushion on the previously mentioned captain's chair! Thankfully my patchworking has never since been consigned to the 'pending...' pile for years on end.
One of today's bonus discoveries was the negative of a photo I took of my Grandad a few months before he died. I haven't had a copy of it for many, many years having given it to someone (Mum? Granny?) thinking I'd get a reprint done and then of course not getting around to it before the negative got buried too deep in the box to easily find. So finally I can fill the gap in my photo album and Granny will no longer be on that page on her own! Another loose end tied up. Plus I've found the negatives of the elusive JYM '88 photos that I'm really hoping are in the blanket box...
I'm already one box down, admittedly it's the smallest one, but it feels like a good start. There's something very satisfying about finally seeing a project through to completion (albeit that happy state is still a long way off!). I'm quite enjoying the elements of detective work involved in reuniting strips that had been taken out of their packet to get reprints done, back with the rest of the set they belong with. It is something of an eye opener to contemplate how much money I have spent on film and processing over the years too! That's probably responsible for a hefty chunk of my student overdraft and visa card being maxed out by the time I graduated.Thankfully most of the travel expenses to the various Quaker gatherings many of the photos are of were covered, otherwise I would've been living off lentils and bread from the half price bakery around the corner... oh wait, I already did.
So, after more years than I'd been alive when I started this, I'm reconstructing about a 23yr section of my life, give or take a film reel or two. Trying to put things back into chronological order (if anyone has suggestions as to how to date several entire films worth of photos of the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, with no recognizable people in to assist in this matter, they would be gratefully received!). You know life would be so much easier if I could settle for being either extremely organized or haphazard (but usually with a system of sorts - like a box, or four, with negatives in... in no particular order), but I never seem to be able to stick with just one. Not only is this project cataloging a substantial chunk of my life, but the entire endeavour reflects me in other ways too: as a person, a photographer, a documenter of events, and no doubt other things I'm too tired to think of right now. It does make me wonder if in years to come when someone comes across the end result (assuming I ever finish it!) what assumptions they would then make about me - I don't for a moment expect that to be accurate!
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
wibbley wobbley timey wimey stuff
How did it get to the be the end of June already??? The obvious answer is one day at a time, but I'm sure weeks disappear when I'm not looking these days. I'm not sure if it is yet another fibromyalgia quirk or simply old age, but my sense of time has never been quite so abysmal as it is at the moment. Not only has my 'within five minutes maximum' sense of clock time gone completely out the window, but I'm forever being caught out by things suddenly being next week (or worse, last week!) when I was quite sure they were ages away still.
Okay so my lousy track record of getting birthday presents to arrive on time does not back me up in terms of evidence of once having had a good sense of where I am in the month. But that hasn't been though lack of awareness of the impending birthdays arrival, just my inability to get things in the post at the right time. Just to prove how fickle life can be though I successfully got two birthday presents to arrive bang on time this year that have historically arrived late on a regular basis - but that was due to luck more than anything else!
I regularly find that things I thought were a couple of days or so ago were actually over a week ago, especially things like how long it was since I last took my turn in Lexulous games or when an email came in. I suppose it hasn't been helped by having had a few weeks a bit shorter on energy where the amount I can do in a day shrinks somewhat.
Given the lack of energy I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks working my way through the Dr Who back catalogue (2005 onwards) whilst handquilting. It has been interesting pondering on the complexities of living through the same events as someone else but in a different order (as per the Doctor and River Song). I've also been following conversations in a Facebook support group about CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia etc about various symptoms people have had - many of us have the same diagnosis but experience symptoms in many different orders and combinations. It isn't a linear condition, it goes round and round, and up and down with no apparent reason. On the plus side it means that you won't necessarily get any worse than you have been before, but then again just because things are improving doesn't mean symptoms won't come back, or that something else won't turn up instead.
There is also the issue of trying to remember that whilst today might be a good day, making the most of it and running round doing all the things you can squeeze in whilst you have some energy isn't that great an idea as it'll most likely come back to haunt you. Possibly tomorrow, or the next day, or next week even. It's like the condition itself doesn't really have a grasp of how time works in the real world out there, and it too forgets that actually that 3hrs gardening wasn't yesterday after all but three days ago...
Ah well, even if I don't know if I'm coming or going some days at least I know I'm not alone with that, and there's usually someone online who's been there done that already to reassure anyone they aren't losing the plot. And I've still got several seasons of Dr Who to watch :)
Okay so my lousy track record of getting birthday presents to arrive on time does not back me up in terms of evidence of once having had a good sense of where I am in the month. But that hasn't been though lack of awareness of the impending birthdays arrival, just my inability to get things in the post at the right time. Just to prove how fickle life can be though I successfully got two birthday presents to arrive bang on time this year that have historically arrived late on a regular basis - but that was due to luck more than anything else!
I regularly find that things I thought were a couple of days or so ago were actually over a week ago, especially things like how long it was since I last took my turn in Lexulous games or when an email came in. I suppose it hasn't been helped by having had a few weeks a bit shorter on energy where the amount I can do in a day shrinks somewhat.
Given the lack of energy I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks working my way through the Dr Who back catalogue (2005 onwards) whilst handquilting. It has been interesting pondering on the complexities of living through the same events as someone else but in a different order (as per the Doctor and River Song). I've also been following conversations in a Facebook support group about CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia etc about various symptoms people have had - many of us have the same diagnosis but experience symptoms in many different orders and combinations. It isn't a linear condition, it goes round and round, and up and down with no apparent reason. On the plus side it means that you won't necessarily get any worse than you have been before, but then again just because things are improving doesn't mean symptoms won't come back, or that something else won't turn up instead.
There is also the issue of trying to remember that whilst today might be a good day, making the most of it and running round doing all the things you can squeeze in whilst you have some energy isn't that great an idea as it'll most likely come back to haunt you. Possibly tomorrow, or the next day, or next week even. It's like the condition itself doesn't really have a grasp of how time works in the real world out there, and it too forgets that actually that 3hrs gardening wasn't yesterday after all but three days ago...
Ah well, even if I don't know if I'm coming or going some days at least I know I'm not alone with that, and there's usually someone online who's been there done that already to reassure anyone they aren't losing the plot. And I've still got several seasons of Dr Who to watch :)
Saturday, April 11, 2015
clearing out (again...)
I'm having another of life's clear-outs. Slowly but surely I'm plodding my way through the remaining boxes in the shed at Pukepoto, bringing them in to town, going through them and absorbing what remains into my current space in the world. I'm determined not to add any boxes to the garage here, not that there's really any space to do so anyway as it is full of J&O's stuff!
Also over most of the last year I've been having a mental/emotional clear-out of stuff that is unhelpful through counselling. So it was somewhat bemusing to come across something I wrote about fifteen years ago about much the same thing, and how useful it had been. So in order to be able to clear another bit of physical clutter out of my life, here is what I wrote so the pages can hit the recycling pile...
[For those of you out there who were regular readers of YQ at the time and are thinking 'I don't remember reading this before' don't worry, it isn't old age taking it's toll. You most likely haven't. Just because I said I'd write something, which I finally did, doesn't mean I'd also actually get around to sending it in, which I suspect never quite happened!!]
Some time ago (er... May '87 to be honest - Kendal YFCC!) I promised then YQ Editor Jonathan Kemp that I'd write 'something' for YQ, 'after my exams'. Thankfully I don't remember specifying which exams, but having sat the last ones in '92 I feel as though I'm still somewhat overdue in writing!
So what has prompted me after all these years to finally get around to it?
Guilt. Plain and simple.
Over the last six months I've ended up having to do a lot of looking back over my life. Trying to figure out why I am where I am today, who I am, and what on earth am I doing with my life. You know, all the nice easy ones.
Part of the process has been counselling after it finally sank in that my head can only take so much without a good clear out. The amount of stuff that had just been pushed to the back of my mind 'for now' had built up to the point where if anything even vaguely difficult or challenging occurred I couldn't cope. Not a good situation to be in when you work with people with challenging behaviour.
So off I went, somewhat reluctantly at first, to counselling. Deciding to go was a big step in itself. If I had a pound for every time in my life someone had said to me "You're coping so well", "You always seem to manage, how do you do it?" etc etc I could retire tomorrow. When the world thinks you are coping it is very difficult to turn around and say well actually I'm not, can you help? Especially if they've just said that they couldn't do it themselves!
I'm getting there, but it's not always easy to bring out painful memories and look at them again. At least there's some more space in my head again though and I don't throw a wobbly every time someone else does!
Another part of the process has been physically having a clear out. As anyone who's ever visited me knows I've got rather a lot of 'stuff'. Due mainly to being put in a 'take it or it goes' situation when my parents moved house some years ago. So whilst most of you have children's books, teddies, jigsaws and toys safely stowed away in attics and spare bedrooms elsewhere, mind were under my bed, on top of my wardrobe, and fighting for shelf space along with my university notes. Like the ever promised article, I never quite got around to sorting through it all.
Then suddenly, a couple of years ago, I had to shift all my stuff several times in as many weeks, up and down far too many stairs. My life had changed, my future was unclear, but one thing was certain, some of the stuff had to go. Slowly but surely over the next four months I started to whittle it down. Another house move, still too much stuff - keep going! A year on and like all good resolutions I'd slowed down to a virtual stop, but then came the promise of a new home - somewhere stable, permanent, but small.
Bin bags were filled, boxes cleared, endless carrier bags dumped exhaustedly at the Shelter Shop. The big move came - would it all fit in? Well sort of, ish. So more had to go but but was getting harder. All the easy to part with stuff had gone. Then one day hiding from the rain in a bookshop I found my saviour 'Clear your clutter with Feng Shui' by Karen Kingston. You wouldn't believe what I've managed to do since reading it.
Clearing out clutter is in itself very theraputic - as long as you manage to throw things away and not put them back 'for now...'. In so many ways we are defined by our possessions and the things we surround ourselves with. I had an incredible amount of stuff which I'd felt I 'ought' to keep rather than wanted to. The old 'it might come in handy one day' kind of thing mixed up with 'but so-and-so gave me that'. Are my memories of people and my past so fragile that I need to keep everything? It's quite a question to ask yourself.
I compromised and started a scrapbook, it's got old tickets from concerts and the cinema, some train tickets, old NUS cards, railcards and so on so I can cringe at old photos of me, mementos from events and people. It's been good fun doing it. It satisfies a childlike instinct to play with scissors, glue and sellotape too! If I can't remember something when I find it in my sorting out it goes.
Yet with my dread of amnesia quashed with the scrapbook and so much more parted with, I still haven't finished. But there are now just a few hats on top of the wardrobe instead of a precarious pile to the ceiling, there's space in the cupboards and no longer a pile of boxes lurking in every corner of the flat.
So where has all this got me? My head is being cleared out, the flat is being tidied up, but there's still a pile of stuff that remains to be dealt with, the 'pending' tray in life. That's where this article came in. No matter how hard I 'd tried to forget that I'd ever said I'd write anything the memory kept coming back to haunt me. There are a few other things in the tray too, and I'm trying to get it emptied by the end of the year, clear it out and not let it get so full again.
Maybe someone will read this and realize that they can sort things out too. I hope so. It always seemed like such an enormous task, too big to tackle, But if you break it down into little bits, like writing an article for YQ, it can stop being so daunting, and you might even find you enjoy it!
Post script, fifteen years later...
I laugh now at the thought of that flat being small. Sure it was for the amount of gubbins we crammed in to it, but having lived with far less stuff for many years now, and spent rather a lot of time reading articles about Tiny Houses, I have a somewhat different perspective these days.
I was in that flat for four and half years before life got turned on its head yet again. Not that I'm complaining as it was the beginning of the journey that led me to a life in Aotearoa NZ, but I think had you told me what was coming back then I'd've baulked at the thought of it. Well that is once I'd picked myself up off the floor and gotten over a stitch from laughing for long enough to ask 'Are you serious?'
So no, life hasn't exactly been plain sailing since then, and it is amazing how much extra internal clutter one can acquire in fifteen years, even if you've got better at keeping the physical stuff under control. But over all I still believe what I wrote then, I just wish I'd reminded myself sooner...
Also over most of the last year I've been having a mental/emotional clear-out of stuff that is unhelpful through counselling. So it was somewhat bemusing to come across something I wrote about fifteen years ago about much the same thing, and how useful it had been. So in order to be able to clear another bit of physical clutter out of my life, here is what I wrote so the pages can hit the recycling pile...
[For those of you out there who were regular readers of YQ at the time and are thinking 'I don't remember reading this before' don't worry, it isn't old age taking it's toll. You most likely haven't. Just because I said I'd write something, which I finally did, doesn't mean I'd also actually get around to sending it in, which I suspect never quite happened!!]
Some time ago (er... May '87 to be honest - Kendal YFCC!) I promised then YQ Editor Jonathan Kemp that I'd write 'something' for YQ, 'after my exams'. Thankfully I don't remember specifying which exams, but having sat the last ones in '92 I feel as though I'm still somewhat overdue in writing!
So what has prompted me after all these years to finally get around to it?
Guilt. Plain and simple.
Over the last six months I've ended up having to do a lot of looking back over my life. Trying to figure out why I am where I am today, who I am, and what on earth am I doing with my life. You know, all the nice easy ones.
Part of the process has been counselling after it finally sank in that my head can only take so much without a good clear out. The amount of stuff that had just been pushed to the back of my mind 'for now' had built up to the point where if anything even vaguely difficult or challenging occurred I couldn't cope. Not a good situation to be in when you work with people with challenging behaviour.
So off I went, somewhat reluctantly at first, to counselling. Deciding to go was a big step in itself. If I had a pound for every time in my life someone had said to me "You're coping so well", "You always seem to manage, how do you do it?" etc etc I could retire tomorrow. When the world thinks you are coping it is very difficult to turn around and say well actually I'm not, can you help? Especially if they've just said that they couldn't do it themselves!
I'm getting there, but it's not always easy to bring out painful memories and look at them again. At least there's some more space in my head again though and I don't throw a wobbly every time someone else does!
Another part of the process has been physically having a clear out. As anyone who's ever visited me knows I've got rather a lot of 'stuff'. Due mainly to being put in a 'take it or it goes' situation when my parents moved house some years ago. So whilst most of you have children's books, teddies, jigsaws and toys safely stowed away in attics and spare bedrooms elsewhere, mind were under my bed, on top of my wardrobe, and fighting for shelf space along with my university notes. Like the ever promised article, I never quite got around to sorting through it all.
Then suddenly, a couple of years ago, I had to shift all my stuff several times in as many weeks, up and down far too many stairs. My life had changed, my future was unclear, but one thing was certain, some of the stuff had to go. Slowly but surely over the next four months I started to whittle it down. Another house move, still too much stuff - keep going! A year on and like all good resolutions I'd slowed down to a virtual stop, but then came the promise of a new home - somewhere stable, permanent, but small.
Bin bags were filled, boxes cleared, endless carrier bags dumped exhaustedly at the Shelter Shop. The big move came - would it all fit in? Well sort of, ish. So more had to go but but was getting harder. All the easy to part with stuff had gone. Then one day hiding from the rain in a bookshop I found my saviour 'Clear your clutter with Feng Shui' by Karen Kingston. You wouldn't believe what I've managed to do since reading it.
Clearing out clutter is in itself very theraputic - as long as you manage to throw things away and not put them back 'for now...'. In so many ways we are defined by our possessions and the things we surround ourselves with. I had an incredible amount of stuff which I'd felt I 'ought' to keep rather than wanted to. The old 'it might come in handy one day' kind of thing mixed up with 'but so-and-so gave me that'. Are my memories of people and my past so fragile that I need to keep everything? It's quite a question to ask yourself.
I compromised and started a scrapbook, it's got old tickets from concerts and the cinema, some train tickets, old NUS cards, railcards and so on so I can cringe at old photos of me, mementos from events and people. It's been good fun doing it. It satisfies a childlike instinct to play with scissors, glue and sellotape too! If I can't remember something when I find it in my sorting out it goes.
Yet with my dread of amnesia quashed with the scrapbook and so much more parted with, I still haven't finished. But there are now just a few hats on top of the wardrobe instead of a precarious pile to the ceiling, there's space in the cupboards and no longer a pile of boxes lurking in every corner of the flat.
So where has all this got me? My head is being cleared out, the flat is being tidied up, but there's still a pile of stuff that remains to be dealt with, the 'pending' tray in life. That's where this article came in. No matter how hard I 'd tried to forget that I'd ever said I'd write anything the memory kept coming back to haunt me. There are a few other things in the tray too, and I'm trying to get it emptied by the end of the year, clear it out and not let it get so full again.
Maybe someone will read this and realize that they can sort things out too. I hope so. It always seemed like such an enormous task, too big to tackle, But if you break it down into little bits, like writing an article for YQ, it can stop being so daunting, and you might even find you enjoy it!
Post script, fifteen years later...
I laugh now at the thought of that flat being small. Sure it was for the amount of gubbins we crammed in to it, but having lived with far less stuff for many years now, and spent rather a lot of time reading articles about Tiny Houses, I have a somewhat different perspective these days.
I was in that flat for four and half years before life got turned on its head yet again. Not that I'm complaining as it was the beginning of the journey that led me to a life in Aotearoa NZ, but I think had you told me what was coming back then I'd've baulked at the thought of it. Well that is once I'd picked myself up off the floor and gotten over a stitch from laughing for long enough to ask 'Are you serious?'
So no, life hasn't exactly been plain sailing since then, and it is amazing how much extra internal clutter one can acquire in fifteen years, even if you've got better at keeping the physical stuff under control. But over all I still believe what I wrote then, I just wish I'd reminded myself sooner...
Sunday, March 08, 2015
passing through...
A couple of days ago my Facebook feed was full of death, dying, and remembering those we've lost. I'd also spent several hours trawling through emails and files for Testimonies to the grace of god in the life of various Friends in our Yearly Meeting, some of which are just names to me, others well loved and much missed f/Friends. We never know quite how many other lives we touch as we pass through our own, who will remember us, who will mourn our passing.
I'm feeling grateful to have been a part of so many lives, sometimes just a fairly small part, and/or a long ago part, but a part none the less. Each and every one of them has helped shape me into who I am today, we're all ripples in each others' ponds.
Giving thanks for the lives of those who have passed on, celebrating who they were to each of us, keeping them alive in our hearts bears out the words of William Penn (1693) 'They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs.'
I'm feeling grateful to have been a part of so many lives, sometimes just a fairly small part, and/or a long ago part, but a part none the less. Each and every one of them has helped shape me into who I am today, we're all ripples in each others' ponds.
Giving thanks for the lives of those who have passed on, celebrating who they were to each of us, keeping them alive in our hearts bears out the words of William Penn (1693) 'They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs.'
Thursday, February 05, 2015
parallel universe lives
The sad news came via Facebook, another old f/Friend has died way too young. We hadn't seen each other in over twenty years, possibly as many as twenty five. But somehow those intervening years disappeared with the morning dew as I read the tributes flooding in. Names are popping up in the comments out of what yesterday could be described as the dim and distant past, but today feels like a few weeks ago.
Crispian was an hour older than my brother Jon. A very important hour apparently, well you'd think so the way it was rubbed in over the years! That connection Jon & Crispian shared by being birthday twins overflowed into me thinking of Crispian as 'my other little brother' ('little' becoming increasingly inaccurate in both cases as the years went by, but like that hour, you have to make the most of such tenuous things to keep the upper hand in sibling relationships, even acquired ones!).
When I saw the news I messaged Leo on Facebook to find out what had happened, and asked if he hadn't already if he could let Jon know as I knew Jon had abandoned Facebook (again...) and so wouldn't have seen the messages. As we were chatting Jon rang me on skype having already got Leo's text (which bless him he'd already thought to send), making sure I'd heard.
Both conversations reflected the same sentiment, it might have been years since we'd seen him, but we'd miss him still. Miss knowing he was out there, and that in the way of such things, the usual knowledge that our paths would cross again through happenstance if not intent was now gone. Our everyday lives would remain unchanged, and yet be different, be somewhat less for the loss. And the 24th October, the one day of the year we were all guaranteed to think of Crispian will never quite feel the same again.
Jon described it like being in some weird parallel universe, where everything was the same, yet something was missing. You couldn't see what it was, but you knew it wasn't there.
Living half a world away from the first 35yrs of my life, it is a feeling I'm more familiar with. I know that when I go back next there will be a number of faces I can't see again, not because of time and travel limitations, but because they simply aren't there any more. But on the other hand, there is a whole new generation born since I left who I've yet to meet, but more scarily there are those who have reached the age, or are older than I was when I last saw their parents.... it's that wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing again; on the one hand we're still not much older than 16 surely, yet on the other there are 18yr olds off to uni proving otherwise.
Several names I've spotted today were only a part of my life in my late teens, in fact if you added up the number of days we spent in the same place (Yorkshire Friends Holiday School and reunions) it's often less than a month, yet each of those few precious days counted for years in their own way, in that other parallel universe of life where time twists and stretches and does strange things. But as soon as I've seen the names, the memories have rolled by crystal clear.
Luckily Crispian was one of those I saw at other Quaker events too over the years, but even so those extra weekends probably don't add up to much in real-time. But there are many memories, of an increasingly scruffy and eccentric character, much loved by many, full of banter but also deep thoughts, seldom far from a guitar... Another who is in many of those same memories was also lost to us some years ago, as have been several other Holiday School faces from years past. I never really know quite what to believe about life after death (although I'm rather partial to Terry Pratchett's Discworld theory) but a part of me is really hoping Josh was there with guitars ready for Crispian's arrival, and that there's a wee Holiday School reunion going on somewhere with those from Heidi through to Crispian gathered together, probably with a few others from YFCC joining in too.
Meanwhile no doubt there'll be another reunion of many of those left behind, to mourn, but also celebrate, not just Crispian's life, but the intertwining of his with ours and ours with each others. Those connections that run deep and remain strong regardless of time, place and which layer of the universe we're in.
ps I was looking for photos to share, and the two that jumped out both turned out to have Eddie in too; another one long gone now, but far from forgotten.When I posted the first one on Facebook a while back Crispian's comment was "oh man - was just about to launch in with with 'you bastard....' but was stopped in my tracks by a flood of Eddie memories...." So I'm guessing he'll forgive me for sharing it again.
Crispian was an hour older than my brother Jon. A very important hour apparently, well you'd think so the way it was rubbed in over the years! That connection Jon & Crispian shared by being birthday twins overflowed into me thinking of Crispian as 'my other little brother' ('little' becoming increasingly inaccurate in both cases as the years went by, but like that hour, you have to make the most of such tenuous things to keep the upper hand in sibling relationships, even acquired ones!).
When I saw the news I messaged Leo on Facebook to find out what had happened, and asked if he hadn't already if he could let Jon know as I knew Jon had abandoned Facebook (again...) and so wouldn't have seen the messages. As we were chatting Jon rang me on skype having already got Leo's text (which bless him he'd already thought to send), making sure I'd heard.
Both conversations reflected the same sentiment, it might have been years since we'd seen him, but we'd miss him still. Miss knowing he was out there, and that in the way of such things, the usual knowledge that our paths would cross again through happenstance if not intent was now gone. Our everyday lives would remain unchanged, and yet be different, be somewhat less for the loss. And the 24th October, the one day of the year we were all guaranteed to think of Crispian will never quite feel the same again.
Jon described it like being in some weird parallel universe, where everything was the same, yet something was missing. You couldn't see what it was, but you knew it wasn't there.
Living half a world away from the first 35yrs of my life, it is a feeling I'm more familiar with. I know that when I go back next there will be a number of faces I can't see again, not because of time and travel limitations, but because they simply aren't there any more. But on the other hand, there is a whole new generation born since I left who I've yet to meet, but more scarily there are those who have reached the age, or are older than I was when I last saw their parents.... it's that wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing again; on the one hand we're still not much older than 16 surely, yet on the other there are 18yr olds off to uni proving otherwise.
Several names I've spotted today were only a part of my life in my late teens, in fact if you added up the number of days we spent in the same place (Yorkshire Friends Holiday School and reunions) it's often less than a month, yet each of those few precious days counted for years in their own way, in that other parallel universe of life where time twists and stretches and does strange things. But as soon as I've seen the names, the memories have rolled by crystal clear.
Luckily Crispian was one of those I saw at other Quaker events too over the years, but even so those extra weekends probably don't add up to much in real-time. But there are many memories, of an increasingly scruffy and eccentric character, much loved by many, full of banter but also deep thoughts, seldom far from a guitar... Another who is in many of those same memories was also lost to us some years ago, as have been several other Holiday School faces from years past. I never really know quite what to believe about life after death (although I'm rather partial to Terry Pratchett's Discworld theory) but a part of me is really hoping Josh was there with guitars ready for Crispian's arrival, and that there's a wee Holiday School reunion going on somewhere with those from Heidi through to Crispian gathered together, probably with a few others from YFCC joining in too.
Meanwhile no doubt there'll be another reunion of many of those left behind, to mourn, but also celebrate, not just Crispian's life, but the intertwining of his with ours and ours with each others. Those connections that run deep and remain strong regardless of time, place and which layer of the universe we're in.
ps I was looking for photos to share, and the two that jumped out both turned out to have Eddie in too; another one long gone now, but far from forgotten.When I posted the first one on Facebook a while back Crispian's comment was "oh man - was just about to launch in with with 'you bastard....' but was stopped in my tracks by a flood of Eddie memories...." So I'm guessing he'll forgive me for sharing it again.
Monday, November 10, 2014
procrastination, part II
I almost got this finished last night, but the need for sleep got the better of me. Of course I've now left it until nearly bedtime to try to finish it off, some habits are hard to shake...
Well I'm making a start, however I'm also hungry, and it is lunchtime... I'll be back later, I promise!
Right, so where was I? Ah yes, procrastination. Something I've been an expert at for many years. I could get a degree in procrastination, oh wait, I've already got one of those, well not in it as a subject but as a study method. Well it worked didn't it?!
I arrived in this world about 10 days late and lets face it that is around the time when the word 'induced' starts being bandied around by the medical profession and there's still nothing like a deadline to get me moving! I'm also pretty practiced in being stubborn in the face of authority, or as I like to call it now, speaking truth to power. I managed to arrive just before the end of evening visiting hours, so contrary to the rules of the time my dad was given special dispensation to stay in the maternity hospital and wait in the nurses' rest room so he could see me (and probably more to the point, my mum) before he went home. So I was already aiding and abetting breaking the rules of convention as I took my first breath.
As many of the texts I read as part of my Early Childhood Education training point out, it is the early experiences of life that shape what follows. Well with that start to life I was obviously destined to a life of leaving things to the last minute whilst thumbing my nose (I never did learn to suck my thumb properly...) at the powers that be. Speaking of powers that be, that reminds me I need to sort out my visas again, I'm fine as long as I don't leave the country, so it can wait a bit longer, right?
Soooo, procrastination. See, I can't even get to the point without putting it off, wandering around the houses and going off at odd tangents - a bit like Ronnie Corbett rounding off The Two Ronnies, sitting in that big chair that looked like they'd borrowed it from the Mastermind set. Ooooh, is that the kettle I can hear boiling? Must be time for a cuppa.....
Mmm, that's better, tea and chocolate. You can put the world to rights over tea and chocolate, there obviously isn't enough of it around in places of Government. You know I never did read the article editorialgirl referred to at the beginning of her post, I probably should before I go any further.
Just as well I did, as on the one hand it matches my modus operandi, yet on the other it just so isn't me. I suppose I'm one of the 'predictably irrational' people who knows my own weaknesses. Picking up on the studying research mentioned, for my ECE Grad Dip I found myself several times with three assignments due in within a few days of each other several weeks ahead. Knowing my propensity for procrastination I would set myself self-imposed deadlines of one per week over three weeks.
Week one, I'd usually have the first assignment finished early. But then I'd take a couple of days off before starting the next one, as technically those days were still allocated to Assignment 1 and I felt like I'd earned a break. Assignment 2, well it would be harder to get going again after those two days off, and I knew I should really have got cracking straight off whilst the momentum was there, but.... And I'd end up dragging it out, finishing it some time on the last day of the allocated week.
Assignment 3's turn, and I'm feeling really hōhā about all this and am totally over it. Who on earth thought writing thousands of words in short spaces of time was a good way to train teachers anyway? Didn't the university actually read the stuff they were setting us? It was a dreadful way to learn, it becomes meaningless and boring, students disengage from the subject etc. etc. etc., if I could be bothered I could find the APA referencing for the texts that prove my point! So, yup, Assignment 3 is the one that involves sitting up until at least 2am on the last night going crossed eyed checking the commas and italics in the aforementioned APA referencing and descending into absolute panic mode as the internet decides to throw a hissy fit the moment I'm ready to submit my last assignment with about 5 minutes to spare. Ironically of course that is the assignment I'd get the best grade for. Which is why any attempt to convince myself that there is a better way of studying was always halfhearted and destined to fail.
But on the other hand unlike the other examples given, I have ridiculous amounts of will power (aka stubbornness...). I can budget over a year and live off a very small amount if I have to. I can manage my diet and shopping in such a way that I avoid what is bad for me, although admittedly knowing something will make you sick is a far bigger deterrent than just knowing that 'junk food isn't good for you'. I was totally the kid who can wait 15 mins for the bigger reward. I learned to save at a young age, both pocket money and chocolate. I was the child who made my Easter eggs last for weeks if not months, whereas my brother thought he'd done well if they lasted hours. Yet I'll still leave things I don't want to do until the last minute.
Want.
Therein lies the crux of the matter usually. If I have to do something, I invariably find 101 other things to do first. If it is an essay needing written it is amazing how it is suddenly so important to give the bathroom a really good scrub. Yet if it is the bathroom really needing cleaned, well I could go and do some gardening instead... I can get stuck in a good book for hours and hours, and stay up all night if need be to finish it as I can't bare to put it down. But ask me to concentrate on anything else for the same timeframe and I simply can't do it. I zone out, fall asleep, end up doodling in the margins. No matter how hard I try I just can't focus on one task for that length of time. Even in the garden where I can while away an entire day it won't be solidly on one task no matter how big it is or how long it will take. To be fair to myself though books read like that I usually then reread almost straight away at a slower pace to pick up on all the details I've invariably not taken in in my blinkered dash to find out what happens next/in the end.
What seems to make the difference as to whether I procrastinate most is the element of choice - am I doing something on my terms, on my timescale, to my standards because I want to do it, or am I expected to meet someone elses? As soon as there is anything out of my control I seem to procrastinate. Not out of sheer bloody mindedness, but because if something isn't finished it can still be improved. Once it is finished it is there to be judged, and the perfectionist streak in me doesn't like that. So I'd rather be able to say 'it's not finished yet' which excuses any imperfections, than admit that my best just simply wasn't perfect. It's why I needed Natalie reminding me constantly through our Grad Dip that 'Cs make degrees' and 'good enough' was okay. As a strategy it obviously worked as we were both ended up A grade students! Something I would never have dreamed possible given my previous mediocre academic track record.
The other procrastination tactic is to not even start/attempt something; if I don't start I can't mess it up can I? Which is why so many sewing projects this year have stalled as soon as any maths has come into play as my head hasn't been very reliable at thinking straight. There's something so very final about taking scissors to a piece of fabric... Yet I can happily accept that my sewing will never be perfect and accept the fact that there will always be room for improvement. I know that if I strive for perfection I'll never finish anything so I pass the finished items on with the clear message that 'it isn't perfect, but it is there to be used, not framed, so please use it!'
I know that this year my procrastination has known no bounds. Given I can find some things hard enough to start/finish at the best of times you can imagine how it most definitely not being the best of times has made it far worse. And what is more my confidence has taken a battering to boot. So finding these articles has been timely as I start to feel more able to tackle stuff again, but so far only on my own terms, or with someone else checking it as back-up. My future self would love to be able to look back at the end of the year and see that in the end I did manage to write more blog posts than the previous year, or at least match the 38 posts of the last two! But as soon as more than a week goes by without blogging it becomes harder and harder to start a post or finish one, as I know it is becoming less and less likely that I'll reach 39, let alone 52... a target I set, that no-one else even knew about until they read this! And what is more it doesn't even matter whether I reach it or not, yet still I procrastinate as it is easier to accept that I failed from not trying hard enough than to try my hardest and still not get there.
So I need to stop being so hard on my future self, stop beating myself up for things that haven't even happened yet and might not, especially if I stopped procrastinating and just got on with things! I know I can do it, there are times when Cat's 'think it, do it' attitude kicks in and I just get stuck in and see something through to the end come what may. Like the time when we decided 15 minutes before the end of our shift to re-organize the linen cupboard, a task that usually took at least an hour! As for the day we decided to re-organize the pantries, well lets just say weren't popular with the next shift who had to cook tea in the midst of our chaos, but we stuck at it until it was done and all agreed that in the end it had been worth it. I must admit though it is usually my stubborn streak that over-rules everything else at times like this though, along with to heck with convention....
......
So I'll try to remember each time I procrastinate to consider whether that is fair on future me and aim to 'think it, do it' more often. Sometimes looking after myself has to over-ride any other considerations though, which is why I gave up proof-reading this last night and have returned to it now. I nearly put it off again as I'm tired and I really shouldn't have left it until this late at night, but I knew I'd be more cross with myself for not posting this today than I would be for not including all the things I meant to, but now can't think of as I'm too tired.... I just know there was more! But there's always another post and another day. And who knows, if I make this into three posts rather than one (or the current two) I might make that target of at least 39 posts this year after all!
Well I'm making a start, however I'm also hungry, and it is lunchtime... I'll be back later, I promise!
Right, so where was I? Ah yes, procrastination. Something I've been an expert at for many years. I could get a degree in procrastination, oh wait, I've already got one of those, well not in it as a subject but as a study method. Well it worked didn't it?!
I arrived in this world about 10 days late and lets face it that is around the time when the word 'induced' starts being bandied around by the medical profession and there's still nothing like a deadline to get me moving! I'm also pretty practiced in being stubborn in the face of authority, or as I like to call it now, speaking truth to power. I managed to arrive just before the end of evening visiting hours, so contrary to the rules of the time my dad was given special dispensation to stay in the maternity hospital and wait in the nurses' rest room so he could see me (and probably more to the point, my mum) before he went home. So I was already aiding and abetting breaking the rules of convention as I took my first breath.
As many of the texts I read as part of my Early Childhood Education training point out, it is the early experiences of life that shape what follows. Well with that start to life I was obviously destined to a life of leaving things to the last minute whilst thumbing my nose (I never did learn to suck my thumb properly...) at the powers that be. Speaking of powers that be, that reminds me I need to sort out my visas again, I'm fine as long as I don't leave the country, so it can wait a bit longer, right?
Soooo, procrastination. See, I can't even get to the point without putting it off, wandering around the houses and going off at odd tangents - a bit like Ronnie Corbett rounding off The Two Ronnies, sitting in that big chair that looked like they'd borrowed it from the Mastermind set. Ooooh, is that the kettle I can hear boiling? Must be time for a cuppa.....
Mmm, that's better, tea and chocolate. You can put the world to rights over tea and chocolate, there obviously isn't enough of it around in places of Government. You know I never did read the article editorialgirl referred to at the beginning of her post, I probably should before I go any further.
Just as well I did, as on the one hand it matches my modus operandi, yet on the other it just so isn't me. I suppose I'm one of the 'predictably irrational' people who knows my own weaknesses. Picking up on the studying research mentioned, for my ECE Grad Dip I found myself several times with three assignments due in within a few days of each other several weeks ahead. Knowing my propensity for procrastination I would set myself self-imposed deadlines of one per week over three weeks.
Week one, I'd usually have the first assignment finished early. But then I'd take a couple of days off before starting the next one, as technically those days were still allocated to Assignment 1 and I felt like I'd earned a break. Assignment 2, well it would be harder to get going again after those two days off, and I knew I should really have got cracking straight off whilst the momentum was there, but.... And I'd end up dragging it out, finishing it some time on the last day of the allocated week.
Assignment 3's turn, and I'm feeling really hōhā about all this and am totally over it. Who on earth thought writing thousands of words in short spaces of time was a good way to train teachers anyway? Didn't the university actually read the stuff they were setting us? It was a dreadful way to learn, it becomes meaningless and boring, students disengage from the subject etc. etc. etc., if I could be bothered I could find the APA referencing for the texts that prove my point! So, yup, Assignment 3 is the one that involves sitting up until at least 2am on the last night going crossed eyed checking the commas and italics in the aforementioned APA referencing and descending into absolute panic mode as the internet decides to throw a hissy fit the moment I'm ready to submit my last assignment with about 5 minutes to spare. Ironically of course that is the assignment I'd get the best grade for. Which is why any attempt to convince myself that there is a better way of studying was always halfhearted and destined to fail.
But on the other hand unlike the other examples given, I have ridiculous amounts of will power (aka stubbornness...). I can budget over a year and live off a very small amount if I have to. I can manage my diet and shopping in such a way that I avoid what is bad for me, although admittedly knowing something will make you sick is a far bigger deterrent than just knowing that 'junk food isn't good for you'. I was totally the kid who can wait 15 mins for the bigger reward. I learned to save at a young age, both pocket money and chocolate. I was the child who made my Easter eggs last for weeks if not months, whereas my brother thought he'd done well if they lasted hours. Yet I'll still leave things I don't want to do until the last minute.
Want.
Therein lies the crux of the matter usually. If I have to do something, I invariably find 101 other things to do first. If it is an essay needing written it is amazing how it is suddenly so important to give the bathroom a really good scrub. Yet if it is the bathroom really needing cleaned, well I could go and do some gardening instead... I can get stuck in a good book for hours and hours, and stay up all night if need be to finish it as I can't bare to put it down. But ask me to concentrate on anything else for the same timeframe and I simply can't do it. I zone out, fall asleep, end up doodling in the margins. No matter how hard I try I just can't focus on one task for that length of time. Even in the garden where I can while away an entire day it won't be solidly on one task no matter how big it is or how long it will take. To be fair to myself though books read like that I usually then reread almost straight away at a slower pace to pick up on all the details I've invariably not taken in in my blinkered dash to find out what happens next/in the end.
What seems to make the difference as to whether I procrastinate most is the element of choice - am I doing something on my terms, on my timescale, to my standards because I want to do it, or am I expected to meet someone elses? As soon as there is anything out of my control I seem to procrastinate. Not out of sheer bloody mindedness, but because if something isn't finished it can still be improved. Once it is finished it is there to be judged, and the perfectionist streak in me doesn't like that. So I'd rather be able to say 'it's not finished yet' which excuses any imperfections, than admit that my best just simply wasn't perfect. It's why I needed Natalie reminding me constantly through our Grad Dip that 'Cs make degrees' and 'good enough' was okay. As a strategy it obviously worked as we were both ended up A grade students! Something I would never have dreamed possible given my previous mediocre academic track record.
The other procrastination tactic is to not even start/attempt something; if I don't start I can't mess it up can I? Which is why so many sewing projects this year have stalled as soon as any maths has come into play as my head hasn't been very reliable at thinking straight. There's something so very final about taking scissors to a piece of fabric... Yet I can happily accept that my sewing will never be perfect and accept the fact that there will always be room for improvement. I know that if I strive for perfection I'll never finish anything so I pass the finished items on with the clear message that 'it isn't perfect, but it is there to be used, not framed, so please use it!'
I know that this year my procrastination has known no bounds. Given I can find some things hard enough to start/finish at the best of times you can imagine how it most definitely not being the best of times has made it far worse. And what is more my confidence has taken a battering to boot. So finding these articles has been timely as I start to feel more able to tackle stuff again, but so far only on my own terms, or with someone else checking it as back-up. My future self would love to be able to look back at the end of the year and see that in the end I did manage to write more blog posts than the previous year, or at least match the 38 posts of the last two! But as soon as more than a week goes by without blogging it becomes harder and harder to start a post or finish one, as I know it is becoming less and less likely that I'll reach 39, let alone 52... a target I set, that no-one else even knew about until they read this! And what is more it doesn't even matter whether I reach it or not, yet still I procrastinate as it is easier to accept that I failed from not trying hard enough than to try my hardest and still not get there.
So I need to stop being so hard on my future self, stop beating myself up for things that haven't even happened yet and might not, especially if I stopped procrastinating and just got on with things! I know I can do it, there are times when Cat's 'think it, do it' attitude kicks in and I just get stuck in and see something through to the end come what may. Like the time when we decided 15 minutes before the end of our shift to re-organize the linen cupboard, a task that usually took at least an hour! As for the day we decided to re-organize the pantries, well lets just say weren't popular with the next shift who had to cook tea in the midst of our chaos, but we stuck at it until it was done and all agreed that in the end it had been worth it. I must admit though it is usually my stubborn streak that over-rules everything else at times like this though, along with to heck with convention....
......
So I'll try to remember each time I procrastinate to consider whether that is fair on future me and aim to 'think it, do it' more often. Sometimes looking after myself has to over-ride any other considerations though, which is why I gave up proof-reading this last night and have returned to it now. I nearly put it off again as I'm tired and I really shouldn't have left it until this late at night, but I knew I'd be more cross with myself for not posting this today than I would be for not including all the things I meant to, but now can't think of as I'm too tired.... I just know there was more! But there's always another post and another day. And who knows, if I make this into three posts rather than one (or the current two) I might make that target of at least 39 posts this year after all!
Saturday, November 08, 2014
procrastination
A friend of a f/Friend wrote this blog post which I came across via Facebook. It resonated with me and I really want to write something about it. But not tonight! Believe it or not this is not procrastination (who me?) but genuinely about looking after myself. I need sleep, and I needed it half an hour ago. So instead of procrastinating over actually getting ready for bed any longer, which somehow needs more energy than sitting here reading random things on the internet, I'm going to leave this like this for now and log off. You get to read her blogpost now, and I get some much needed sleep. In theory I'll write what I was going to say tomorrow.... assuming I don't put it off.
Goodnight!
Goodnight!
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