Will the real YOU please stand up?

A few weeks ago, I was accosted by one of those annoying promotion agents in a shopping mall. This is usually the case when I am in a hurry and don’t really have time to hang around and listen to the significant beneficial effects Dead Sea Salts can have on your skin.  This particular person was very persistent and I simply could not evade her – tried to avoid eye-contact, raised my hand in protest, tried to side-step her but to no avail.  So, I sighed and listened to the whole promotional spiel for a new photographic studio.  In the end I filled in a little form about what I thought about the new studio and some of the photographs on the walls and finally I was free.  

At last!

Then a few days ago, I got a phone call from the same studio – we had won a free one hour photo shoot and a voucher for some of their products.  My first thought was to feel a bit guilty because I had been so dismissive of the girl who desperately tried to promote the studio while I was in a hurry to get from A to B.   So, we set up an appointment for the photo shoot this Sunday (yesterday that is).  Then came the clincher – the photographer told me to “bring something along that defines YOU.  If you have a dog, bring him too.”    

That shut me up for a couple of seconds and to be honest has been sitting there in the back of my mind for a few days since.  It made me wonder – what makes you YOU?  What defines who you are?  Is it your appearance, talents, relationships, career,  possessions, bank balance, interests  or your personality – What is the “it” that makes you YOU?

Yes, one can go into a long discussion about the ego, ID, etc, etc. etc but that does not answer the question, does it?  If you had to summarise the essence of who you are in 200 words, could you really do it?  That got me thinking and I did a bit of “research”.  I looked at a few local Internet dating sites and I was fascinated by what people write about who they really are and it convinced me that if that is the scope of what is “on the market” out there, then I will definitely remain single.  But I stray from the topic.

What is it that sets you apart as an individual from the person next to you?  If you had to isolate something and take it along to a photo shoot  to define who you are, what would it be?  I tried to think of what I would say if I had to summarise who I am really in 200 words… is it possible to condense the facets of your identity in one paragraph?  Are we really that easy to delineate and classify?  I personally do not like the idea of fitting into a box or category.

  

Something in me riles up and objects to being “classified” or cast into a particular category.

 I wonder if we all operate on basic stereotypes when we meet people – do we have some general “boxes” that we try to fit people into or do we adapt our boxes to fit the people we meet?  Does that determine how we behave towards them and what we think about them? 

Case in point, a few days ago, I was quietly sitting in a café sipping my cappuccino and reading the latest vitriolic nonsense about the Australian election and occasionally looking up and staring into space – at nothing or no-one in particular.  A husband and wife had taken their seats a table or two away from me and were happily chatting away.  I was not paying much attention to them at all – just staring into space shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the Australian political battles which resemble schoolyard tiffs – when the woman got up and walked past me to collect their cappuccino or latte or whatever they had ordered from the counter. 

Here’s the shocker – as she walked past me, she pulled a very unflattering face and gestured at her wedding ring.  I choked on my cappuccino.  Well, that flicked the pissed-off-o-meter into the red.  I was aghast.   What in heavens name was that all about?  Did she think I was staring at her middle aged, balding husband with a paunch and tobacco-stained teeth?  Eeeeww…  I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.  

Suddenly, I realised, I had been stereotyped – a  40-something single woman sitting alone automatically spells trouble for some women.  Does the fact that I am a single 40 something woman mean that I am going to hunt any man that comes along?  Hardly.  Initially I was annoyed at the assumption and the presumptuousness of the situation but eventually, I started laughing.  Uncontrollably.  I had been stereotyped as a predator (or a cougar!  Heaven forbid!!)  – which at this point in time is furthest from my mind!

It made me wonder how people see who you are and what defines your true self.  For a few days, I couldn’t think of something which would define who I am for a particular image.  A frozen image  - a metaphor for the real me…?  I couldn’t think of something which would fit and got distracted in the mayhem and chaos of everyday life until yesterday morning dawned.  I realised, I still hadn’t come up with something.  Aside from having my son, who is one of the two biggest reasons for getting up in the morning, I was a bit stumped.

At the last minute, I told my son to grab my guitar from the bedroom and put it in the car which was met with a look of confusion and consternation.  “Why are you taking a guitar to the mall, mom??”  Good question.  I didn’t know yet.  But looking back on it now, I think it is the most apt thing I could have done.

When I hold my guitar, I can feel the music resound in my body and it convinces me that we humans are capable on transmuting emotion into music. When you actively pluck the strings, you feel the effect of it in your gut – that is what life should be.  It’s passionate, alive and vibrant.

 

Unfortunately, most of us go to our graves with our music still inside of us.  I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music and creativity is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. 

Music, painting and writing are such powerful vehicles of expression.  At times when I am at the point where I am trying to force something, and it just doesn’t happen, I start writing.  It the words don't flow, I can pick up the brushes and start painting.  When the painting doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, I reach for my guitar and sing whatever the day feels like.  That is what comes out of my mouth and my guitar.  My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is the harmonic structure. You will find the real me in my music, my writing and my art.  That is the purest distilled form of who I really am. That happens every time I get behind a guitar, regardless of what I'm saying, because music is freedom and being free is the closest I've ever felt to being spiritual.  As with life, you can adjust your pitch and tone by turning the appropriate keys, there is a beautiful cause and effect in playing a guitar which is not too different from life.  The effect you get depends purely on which string you choose to pluck and which key you choose to play.  I guess we can choose to be discordant or not.


Life must be felt, like the reverberations of the strumming as you hold your guitar in a lover’s embrace.  It is a way of opening your soul to allow others to see glimpses of who you really are in all your nakedness and vulnerability. There is so much more to us than meets the eye - if only we would stop putting people into little boxes and classifying them according to our perceptions.  I think you will find that the real person is very different from the one you have in your mind.  I think that is who I really am – I prefer to compose life by ear, feeling and instinct rather than by rule.

The Fairy Godmother of Serendipity?

Serendipity?

So, it’s Saturday which generally means I get to sleep a bit longer and am able to get back into bed after making early morning coffee.  However, this morning I woke early to the annoying squawk of a cockatoo on the Honeysuckle shrub outside my bedroom window. 

My first instinct was to select a few choice words from my vocabulary to chase it from its perch so that I could go back to my peaceful slumber.  But instead I was silent and I lay there looking at it and it seemed to be watching me too.  In the few minutes that the cockatoo and I were looking at each other, I came to the conclusion that perhaps this is exactly where I should be right now – alone in bed in Australia looking at a cockatoo through my bedroom window.  Perhaps I need to be still and listen and become aware of life that is happening all around me every moment in the NOW.

  

I’m not referring to pre-destination – I don’t buy that since that seems to render morality and freedom of choice redundant – but a phrase from Coehlo’s book The Alchemist came to mind.  I remember reading the book when Handsome was in Mozambique – not too long after we had met a few years ago. There was one line in the book that jumped out at me at the time – “The whole universe conspired for me to meet you.”  I am beginning to think that there is a lot to be said for serendipity in life.

I know that you don’t reach serendipity by plotting a course for it – usually you set out in good faith for an entirely different destination and lose your way – serendipitously.  Come to think of it, serendipity has played a large part in some of the biggest decisions I have made in my life.  I stumbled into a bursary for my tertiary studies – I was just at the right place at the right time; I met my ex-husband by sheer chance in rather interesting circumstances; I got a sought after position at the University by absolute fluke; met Handsome by sheer luck and how I managed to get the job here in Sydney is nothing short of a miracle.  So many things in my life have happened as a result of coincidence. So, I think there is definitely something to be said about serendipity.

While I was watching the cockatoo this morning, a friend from South Africa called checking up on me to see if I am ok. He had stayed up late so that he could call me at a civilized hour due to the 8 hour time difference.  How sweet is that?  Perhaps that is another safety pin blessing – a small miracle – friends.

I still cannot help believing that there is a synchronicity and inter-connectedness to everything in life.  I was flattered to see that Mont Blanc had drafted a blog in response to this one – and in it s/he refers to a fairy godmother as the catalyst for the change and the magic.  I think the fairy godmother’s name must be Serendipity. (I will post a response to Mont Blanc on his/her blog directly.)

So today my thoughts centered around friends and serendipity and the curious interplay between events in life. Switches flicked today:  appreciation, patience, faith and I definitely turned the knob on the perspective dial.   

Friends are such a blessing.   I think sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing.  There is a time for silence, a time for distance and a time to let go and allow people to hurt themselves into their own destiny.  And of course, a time to be there to help them pick up the pieces when it is all over.

Isn’t it bizarre that the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties?  Perhaps hopelessness  is the soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.  Perhaps this is what this time is all about – I will not appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if I did not have to wait in darkness for a while.  

I'm beginning to think that small miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.  Or perhaps Buddha has a point – am I the miracle?

The Safety Pin Blessing

This morning while I was watching the scenery flit by on the train, I wondered if complete and lasting happiness was truly possible.  We all want to be happy but what does that mean exactly and how do you find it?  Is it as Nathaniel Hawthorne described it to be the elusive butterfly that stays just beyond your grasp when you chase it but if you sit still in the grass it may alight upon you?  I wondered today whether we pursue it so arduously that we become so absorbed in the chase that we never really find it – like the eternal bachelor who searches for the elusive perfect girl and never seems to find her and therefore remains the eternal bachelor.

So I resolved to actively refrain from trying to be happy – I decided that I would not actively look for reasons to be happy and wanted to see whether the butterfly of small blessings would visit me today.

 A few hours later a friendly student poked his head around my office door to say goodbye before going back to his home country and gave me a traditional Turkish talisman and said it was a to be a “bereket” or “blessing”.  It was one of those totally random moments but it made me sit up and take note – like my son pricks up his ears when he hears the ice-cream cart three streets down while the neighborhood dogs are still none the wiser.

 It was something really small but given with so much gratitude and kindness for not doing too much at all.  It is a small safety pin (no pun intended) with a glass Mal-de-Ojo and a small bunch of grapes attached to it.  What moved me was the wish that accompanied it – it was a blessing for abundance (hence the grapes – as an image of plenty) and the Mal-de-Ojo (Evil Eye) is intended to ward off harm and danger.  It came from the heart and was given with so much sincerity and I was really touched.

Perhaps there is something there – perhaps we are so focused on being able to proclaim as boldly as Martin Luther King – “I have a dream” that we forget to live in the now.  Perhaps that is what causes the sense of panic and desolation when all the pilot lights on the dashboard suddenly go out and your coach turns into a pumpkin.  We are left wondering – where to now??  What about my dream? 

Perhaps we have to let go of the life we had planned so that we are able to accept the one that is waiting for us.  It’s almost like standing in a corridor where all the doors have slammed shut and you are alone and in the dark.  Which door will open – where do I go next when it is almost impossible to live in the present, feels ridiculous to live in the future (because your dream has just died), and impossible to live in the past.   Nothing is as far away as one minute ago. 

I have come to the conclusion that I am one of many who crucifies myself between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.  Fear can be your best friend or your worst enemy.  If we are able to control it, it can serve you and make you more alert like a deer emerging from the forest.  If not, it will cripple you and destroy you.  In situations like this – I guess it is fear of the unknown, fear of loneliness, fear of failure and just basic uncertainty.  Just feeling lost.

This afternoon I came to the conclusion that everything in life is connected somehow.  You may have to dig a little to find it, but it is there.  There is a synchronicity and an inter-relatedness in the tapestry of life that defies explanation at times.  Everything is the same even though it is different.  Somehow everything connects back with your life and experience.  The faces in some situations may be different but the situations are the same. 

Irony is a hidden factor that lives around us, making its presence felt only after it has left the scene.  If I think back – the situation is slightly different but everything in it still in some way cognate.  In some wonderous way everything is interconnected to form the balance of life and create some divine structure.

I guess change is and always will be constant and inevitable.  That is the only certainty as contradictory as it seems.  But everything is relative and perhaps the moments and times in our lives will come back again but the next time round, we may find ourselves on the other side of the coin. Things are always changing as fast as everything stays the same.

Time is the only fluid dynamic which seems to be the balm for broken hearts and the solution to all the immediate concerns.  We may not know the answers now but in TIME we may.  Time is such a relative notion.  Isn’t it strange how time can fly when you are really happy and having heaps of fun but it can drag when you are unhappy.  Think of children waiting for Christmas morning – time seems to be interminably long.  When we are children we can’t wait for the holidays, our next birthday, summer, growing up.  Perhaps the reason for that is that a child surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day.  Do you – or are you torn between the thieves of regret and fear?

Maybe we shouldn’t aspire to proclaim – “I have a dream” but rather “I have a plan”.  Perhaps we will get further with plans than we do with dreams.  We can plan to find a way to conquer our fear and find courage – since courage is actually only fear that has said its prayers.  So perhaps being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect.  Perhaps it just means looking beyond the imperfections and seeing the blessing in the safety pin given with an open heart and a beaming smile.

A pumpkin, a couple of mice and a handful of splinters?

I wonder what went through Cinderella’s mind when the clock struck midnight and she looked down and suddenly found herself in rags, with a pumpkin and a bunch of mice… and how Gepetto felt when he loved Pinocchio with all he had but when he hugged his little boy, the splinters still stuck in his hands?  Did Little Red Riding Hood ever venture into the woods again – did she look at all wolves with suspicion after the unfortunate incident at her Grandmother’s house?

I am beginning to think that it is all about yesterday, today or tomorrow… like the sweet smelling shrub that flowered outside my late gran’s bedroom window. I think that is one of our greatest weaknesses as women – we tend to get trapped in the wrong filter. 

I guess the secret is to face reality as it is right now – with the pumpkin, mice and tattered dress – not as it was or as we would like it to be.  That is where the difficulty lies.  We tend to associate Cinderella with the glass slipper, the beautiful ball gown and the coach with the footman but we forget that at some point in the story, she lost the magic.  She reverted to a plain Jane with dirt on her tattered dress, tousled hair and old shoes – sitting in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a lousy pumpkin and some mice.

So what do we tend to do when we look down and our ballgown has morphed into a tatty dress? We become like Gepetto – we work even harder – we love Pinocchio even more believing that if we give all our love and all of ourself he may just lose his woody demeanour, stop lying and become magically alive.  We give more and more and more of ourselves in the process.  Suddenly Cinderella finds herself trapped in the tatty dress with the pumkin and mice with no glass slippers in sight – because we focus so much on fixing something we imagine that we did to break the magic spell.  In truth though, Cinderella did nothing to break the spell – it was beyond her control.  But we forget – we tend to try harder and harder and the more we try the more the pumpkin becomes just a miserable pumpkin.

There is much to learn from Cinderella – we all focus on the fairytale outcome – the prince on his white horse bearing the slipper.  We tend to forget that Cinderella had to scrub toilets and take out the trash for some time while the dimwitted prince was looking for the girl with the right shoe size.  Isn’t it interesting too that the one thing that made her different from all the other girls in the land was that she did not desperately try to fit the shoe – she knew it was her shoe and she knew he would find her eventually.  Interestingly enough the prince was not interested in the other girls who all tried to squeeze their feet into the glass slipper… but like a typical male he gave them all a go to see if it would fit! 

I’m beginning to think that most men are like cats with a piece of string. Forgive me if I sound patronizing here… when was the last time you watched a cat play with a piece of string?  If you jiggle the string and move it away from the cat – the cat will pursue it and play…but leave it alone – make it available – just let it lie there -  the cat loses interest and starts licking itself.  It looks down at you with scorn as only a cat can do.  There is a lesson here.

Why is it that women tend to lose ourselves in relationships?  Why is it that we tend to internalize any negativity and search for any flaw or error within ourselves when in most cases it is not ours to bear?  Is it because we tend to define ourselves in terms of the success of our relationships while men define their success in terms of their careers or material wealth?  All too often I think we use the men in our lives as mirrors but all too often the mirrors reflect a warped and distorted image – and as a result – Cinderella looks down and sees only rags and tattered shoes. 

I am beginning to wonder if there is a Cinderella in each of us – when we sit down in the middle of the road in the darkness with a smelly pumpkin  and a couple of mice – do we forget that?  Do we take the time to look inward and see the potential there?  Do we trust that inner sense of knowing – you know when the shoe fits – Cinderella did.  She also knew that although she hated scrubbing toilets – she would wear her glass slipper again once he finally wisened up and found her.  I wonder if the prince didn’t develop a midlife crisis while he was looking for her – he figured he may as well play the field and sow some wild oats while he is about it? 

I think we tend to become so despondent and think that our pumpkin will only be a pumpkin and that the mice will eventually become breakfast for the neighbour’s cat.  When we are feeling rejected and defeated – why do we lose faith in our inherent latent potential for future happiness.  Why does Little Red Riding Hood become a cynic?

Perhaps it is because we develop Gepetto syndrome… He loved Pinocchio beyond all proportion.  The typical Pygmalion effect – did Galathea or Pinocchio appreciate or realize the extent of the love and effort that Pygmalion and Gepetto had invested into bringing them to life?  I think not.  Pinocchio was a spoilt brat with no appreciation or consideration for poor Gepetto.  Do men not do that when we tend to jump through hoops and perform circus tricks to keep them happy and give beyond all reasonable measure? 

It is only when Pinocchio was swallowed by the whale and sitting the smelly abyss of his own doing that he suddenly realized how much Gepetto meant to him.  Appreciation dawned on him and he became human.  I guess it is a cliché – but painfully accurate.  Sometimes you have to hold a cubic zirconia to realize that you discarded the Cullinan diamond.

Yes, I lost my slipper.  Yes, my dress is dirty and tattered and I have a pumpkin and a couple of mice with me in the middle of nowhere right now.  But I still have one glass slipper in my pocket.  He has the other one and some day he will discover that the glass slipper is not a one size fits all.  Hopefully he doesn’t shatter it before it is too late.  

Pinocchio can still become whole and perhaps my torn dress will turn into a ball gown some day.  But that is tomorrow’s filter.  Today’s filter says I must find the switch for today – hope, strength, faith and gratitude for the fact that the pumpkin isn’t broccoli and the mice aren’t rats.  Only when those switches are flicked, will the string move and then the cat will suddenly stop licking itself and look at me with that curious intensity and move into position to pounce.  so for now, I am picking splinters from my fingers while Pinocchio's nose grows.

Because God sees...

A few days ago  I walked past St Andrew’s Cathedral at Town Hall station and I stopped for a while.  I sat there and looked at this structure and thought about all the beautiful cathedrals I have admired, sat in and studied.  I wondered by myself why it is that I am so fascinated by these shrines to a God that I am not always so sure of.  I wondered what it is that draws me to them and why it is that there is something in them that speaks to me directly.

As I sat there and looked at the intricate masonry on the nave, I found myself wondering about the stonemasons who carved the delicate lacework on the Duomo in Florence and the Notre Dame in Paris.  We know who the architects and the sculptors of the monumental  key pieces are but no-one knows who the lowly mason was who sat there and lovingly carved the faces of angels and gargoyles.  Suddenly, a lot made sense to me. 

The blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into a room while I am on the phone and ask me a question.  Inside I am thinking “Can’t you see I am on the phone?” Obviously not.  No one sees if I am on the phone, or cooking, or doing the laundry, doing the ironing or knitting a scarf because sometimes I think no-one can see me at all.  I sometimes feel like the invisible mom and that I am only a pair of hands – nothing more.  Can you fix this?  Can you tie this?  Can you open this?  There are times when I am not a pair of hands, I’m a clock to ask, “What time is it?”; I’m a dictionary to answer “What does ‘ephemeral’ mean?”; I’m a car to order “Okay, please pick me up at 20:30.”  

At times I am certain that these hands once held books and my eyes studied literature and History of Art and graduated cum laude, but that it somehow disappeared into the peanut butter I spread on the kids’ sandwiches never to be seen again.

Sometimes, I sit quietly and watch others who all seem to be put together so well and it is hard not to compare and feel pretty pathetic at times.  But today, while thinking of the cathedrals of Europe, I thought that I should rather consider myself a builder, like one of those masons.   I think I stumbled across four truths in those cathedrals:

·        

       Firstly, no-one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of their names.

·         Secondly, those lowly masons gave their whole lives for a work they would never see completed (especially if you think that structures like the Duomo and Notre Dame took three centuries to complete!)

·         Thirdly, they made great sacrifices and expected no credit for their efforts.   The passion of their building was fuelled by faith that the eyes of God or some higher power saw everything.

I thought of the delicate carvings of birds under the eaves of some of the big cathedrals in Europe and I wondered whether anyone ever asked the mason why he was putting so much work into carving a delicate bird into a beam that no one will ever see.  And I think he would have replied, “Because God sees”.

I did not have a sudden epiphany or religious experience, no.  But it was as if something whispered to me “I see you.  I see the sacrifices you make every day, when no-one else around you does.    No act of kindness you have done, no button you’ve sewn on, no muffin you have baked, is too small to notice and smile over.  You are building a great cathedral but you can’t see right now what it will become.”

Perhaps I should consider myself as a builder, as one of those lowly masons who showed up at a job they would never see finished, to work on something that their name would never be on.  Perhaps I should just believe that I am building something great when nobody sees. Perhaps that is why no cathedrals will ever be built in our lifetime.  Mainly because there are so few people who are willing to sacrifice to that degree.  Perhaps that is what love really is too.

I feel like the mason carving the bird in the beam. I have always believed that love means giving of yourself as much as you have to give.  When I give I feel happiest which is why I have always got so much pleasure out of spoiling him in very way I could think of.  Because when you have something to give to someone, you have a sense of worth and a sense of value.  You are not merely filling a space – you matter.  You are carving a bird into a beam that no-one really sees.  

In the four years we have had, we have built something beautiful.  I could see the cathedral taking shape, I loved the grace of the arches and the cool tranquility of its cloisters.  I cannot just put down my tools because there has been a complication or a change in the architectural design.  I have put my whole heart and soul into this building.   I don't know if I really want to start digging new foundations for a new edifice somewhere else.  It is hard work and frankly I don’t know if  I have the strength to start again and after another four years to find myself faced by being told to start digging all over again. I want to finish building it – even if it takes a long long time.  At least there is progress and I am building something.  Brunneleschi did not give up when faced with the challenge of finding a way to deal with the roof of the Duomo. Instead of scrapping it and starting again, he looked at it again and found a creative and ingenious solution to his problem.   It took him a long time, but he managed to build the most spectacular dome in history. If oysters can create something as magnificent as a pearl from an irritation caused by a grain of sand, imagine what we can do with love.  

Perhaps one day, you will see that an imperfect mason is someone you could have taken  in your backpack when you go to war.  I don’t know.  At this stage though, I have no choice but to walk away from you and hope that the birds on the beams, and the stony faces of the angels I have lovingly carved for you in the cloisters will tell you something of the love I have for you in days to come.  I believe that the spirit of your love for me still wanders through the coolness of the cloisters in your heart at night even if you choose not to express it.  I think you still hear it humming quietly in your soul when you are alone.

At times my invisibility feels like an affliction.  But it is not a disease that is erasing my life.  It is a cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness.  It is possibly an antidote to my strong stubborn pride.  As a mother I am also building a cathedral.  I pray that one day the world will marvel not only at what we have built but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women like me.

We never know what our finished products will turn out to be because of our perseverance.  Please don’t walk away from something that is really beautiful and which can bring a lot of joy, love and happiness in your life because of current difficulties.  Nothing gained easily is ever really worthwhile.  Let this grain of sand grow into a beautiful lustrous pearl in the years to come.