Day 320: Intouchable?

See that? That's this morning, that is.

Ha. Not the most productive of days. Late up, dreamlike in waking for a while. All a little bit surreal, this morning was. Yesterday could have been an entertaining dream. Entertaining is playing it safe. Bits of it were pleasing, surreal, laughable, exciting. 

This morning ate itself. This afternoon, I met lovely Laura Furones and The Boy That Smiled All The Time (her son, Marco) in Clissold Park. That was lovely, inspiring, refreshing. She's a really impressive woman, that one. She really is. And that boy! I'm surprised people let me near their children (or dogs). I have to fight so hard not to just gobble them up. With everything that happened, Marco looked like the most fantastic, unbelievable, magical event had just occurred, especially for him, and he wasn't holding off with the glee. A delight. 

Oddly sexual?

Now - I need a really good coach/business coach/mentor. There are lots of really good ones out there. I want a really good one that I click with, who I respect and who will challenge me. REALLY challenge me. Someone who's not in the same boat as me (thanks, Esther Lilley). 

Beautiful eyes.

It needs to be someone I aspire to be like. I want to chat with a few before deciding who to go with. Oh, and I want to become one, officially. I'm trained in some aspects of coaching, and I love it with my soul - I love playing with people and experimenting with ways to help them be  happy. AND there's lots more to learn, more structure to absorb - possibly then to be discarded, with only its bony ghost influence remaining. I was going to say that's what happened with massage, but I stick to the structure much more than I thought I would with that. It's made my practice so much better. 

Just beautiful.

Went to see Intouchables with Ruth. I loved it. It was all the more delightful for being in French and because the two leads were so very pleasing to watch. I read an ungenerous review in some paper or other, but I'd recommend it. Francois Cluzy (who did Tell No One too - and was fabulous) has such warmth and gentleness in his eyes. And Omar Sy actually makes me hungry, he's so good to look at. And warm and sparkling. And... mmmmm. 

Oh, hello, Jamie Catto.

And here's another person to have a bit of a crush on (thanks for putting THAT in my head, Emily Moon). Jamie Catto. Yes. http://positivenews.org.uk/2012/community/positive_people/7992/its-ecstatic-thing-yourself/

Day 319: Big Owl

Finally did some doing rather than some considering. Good move. Very funny. In a good way, I think. 

AND I blatantly went for a run in the morning. It was fun. I do find breakbeat very smile-inducing. I had a bit of a dance during my run (it was in the foresty bits on the heath). I waved my arms about and did occasional bit s of air-punching. Can you call that dancing?And then I had a cold swim. There was an owl, all big and calm just sitting there. It was light. What was it doing up? I asked it, but it didn't say. A thing like that galvanises the pond women into talking. We all exchanged owl talk. We warmed to each other through an owl. 

After that, coffee on the heath and chats with good people on the phone. And a mountain of laundry. And a load of other things. Not much work. But it was Saturday.

Day 318: You Should Be Writing

Internet’s off. Again. Blessing in disguise? Cut out at a ‘crucial’ moment. Ha. Nobody died. May be for the best. I noticed, in a long conversation with an interesting stranger, how much I end up not doing. Interesting. [one of those long breaths, the good kind].

Thanks for a transcendental session of doing what I love and loving it. Thanks for a chance faceful of über-talented Sam Strickland. He’s a rock. And for the Emily/Rob hook-up. Very happy that these two have now met. It was good beans with good eggs. Pleasing people, both.

In the afternoon, the gift of a Michael (and there was another one later). He came to visit The Hub, this one. He had a sun-worn face and surfer hair. In his fifties? Not sure. Great face. So pleasing that I took him from the hosts and showed him around the space myself. Just because I liked his face.

I’m also grateful for the insight that the next bit of the day provided. A not-uncommon crash after doing something useful for someone else. Very interesting. Another reason to get more training, and some supervision. I remember the last big thing I organised for someone else. I was so happy that it went well, so touched by the whole affair and destitute by the evening. Partly same today. So – what does that tell me? To stop doing it? No. This is good. This is spot on. To get in touch with that need. To delve in. Microscopes, massage, skewers – whatever image works… find out.

This is old stuff that’s rearing up. This is outdated. Obsolete? Soon to be. Whatever it is, it has a message and a good intention. Oi. You. I’m listening.

Day 317: Dancing in the Dark

This made me smile, early in the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpUNA2nutbk

Honestly, I’m blown away. I did Five Rhythms today in St Peter’s Church in Vauxhall, with the delicious Emily Moon and equally tasty Karen Smithson. It was amazing. I’ve only done it a few times, at Esalen, and my memory of it was of something where the leader was quite controlling of the kind of movements that were right for each thing, all while encouraging self-expression. I remember doing ‘Dance Your Prayers’ and liking that more – that was our hour and a half of dancing in the morning before work. Beautiful. Amazing. Such a good start to the day.

This session tonight was more like that. Since I stopped drinking alcohol, dancing in clubs has always been a challenge for me. I want to be free, but I feel uptight (verklemmt sums it up so much more aptly). This was amazing. I didn’t mind at all being ungainly and I didn’t mind at all being graceful. There were a few moments where I felt self-conscious, but they were massively in the minority. I LOVED it. Just so good. There’s no question – I’m definitely going back. And there must have been fifty or so people – possibly even more. It was amazing. Such a pleasure. I danced with lots of people and touched a few, even. It was fabulous.

Hello Pillow?

Thanks for a lovely email exchange with Simone Tani. Very pleased about that. I’ve been meaning to write to him for a month, maybe even more, and today I finally did it. He emailed back and we’re in conversation, which is great. I haven’t had internet to write back easily since getting his email today, but I will.

Best clowning people?

On the W7 on the way up to Muswell Hill, one man joined a whole army of people in joy by singing along with his iPod. So brilliant. He was making sounds like a small boy, all high and whiny. There was no WAY you could work out what he was listening to. He was really going for it, evidently not knowing that he was doing it audibly. I was watching him in the reflection through the window. The girl on the other front seat was doing it too. We caught each other’s eye in the window and sniggered, and then in actual  real time too.

There were points where I was full on snorting and she and the man who’d sat next to her too. When I checked, everyone else was quietly pissing themselves without making contact. Very British. Then he stopped… regaled us again by starting up again and then stopped for good. God, he made that trip good, though. I was sorry that the girl didn’t make eye contact as she got off the bus, but the guy did and we grinned. Thank you, Whiny iPod Man. You were wonderful.

Oh, and I spent the day in Brighton after staying with J in Hove. That was lovely. Very lovely. And I might move there. I’ll sleep on it tonight, but I think it’s pretty likely. It won’t be forever. Maybe just until Christmas. I really don’t know. But rent is affordable. Winters by the sea please me more than summers. There’s good light down there. There’s good air. I can cycle to anywhere. Fuck, it’s this or Yorkshire. London is so expensive. I haven’t heard back from the Muswell Hill lot and it’s tomorrow they might want me to go back and visit if I’ve passed the test. Even then, not the best room ever, and it’s expensive. I could just pop down there and get somewhere to live this weekend. That’d be cool. Well cool. Wouldn’t it, though? Amazing. I’d no doubt spend a fair amount of time up here – and at some point I’ll do the ride up to Clapham. I’d get a Boris Bike membership if I did, for definite. We’ll see. It’s absolutely to be slept on, so here I go. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Decide. 

Day 316: The Elephant In The Room

Oh... I'm full of all kinds of emotion today. I think I've upset someone and I'm a little bit sad about the situation, but at the same time I know that it's just... to be accepted. You know when you think you have a bit of currency with someone that allows you to be familiar and perhaps playful. Then you realise that possibly you blatantly haven't got that right at all. I'm sorry. I may be wrong. Or I may just have been much more tactless than I think. My intentions were good, though.

I'm always going to warm to a man who's comfortable acting like a twat, especially if he's intelligent and funny too. However, I also understand that you can't force it. Other people have their own shit going on and that's more important. Until it's not. And then, well, there's a different outcome. Maybe. 

It's not long ago that I'd have spent a really long time kicking the shit out of myself for 'saying the wrong thing', for being tactless, an utter idiot, and for being stupid enough to even think... (etc.) I'm grateful to say that I'm not doing that to any great extent. I'm obviously bothered, but not cruelly so. 

Ha - I really want to be 'right', thus making the other 'wrong'. Only I don't want that really. It's just a way of protecting myself from something there's no need to be protected from. I was interested, and he was (at one stage) but in a different way. It's just the way things are. It's nice to be becoming a bit more open and tiny bit by tiny bit, a little bit more vulnerable - even though I still feel the pull in a few different directions on that front. I could be a LOT braver. Next step. Next step...

And oh, that water - cold and clement. Dancing with rain. I got there as the rush was leaving. The changing room was packed. The pond itself was empty, apart from me. The mandarin ducks were out in force, all ornate, the boys, and the girls all delicate. Mel, the pleasing South African woman, offered to help me with a place to live and texted with news. I like her. I'm pleased we've swapped numbers. Perhaps we'll keen each other along to swim when the going gets tougher. 

The Dalek train announcement - how could I have forgotten? I took probably the slowest train in London from St Pancras to East Croyden. It's announcement at St Pancras was so Dalek-like that I wondered if there was some Doctor Who event on and it was an original voiceover clip. I loved it. I shared a smile with an elderly man on the platform. I was about to rave about it, but he'd gone back into formal mode. Great, though. 

Oh, and thank you SO much for three new jobs today, to be done at different times. If they all come off, I've just quadrupled my income for the two days of work I cancelled, in the same amount of time. That's good, isn't it? And The Challenge have invited me to come and do some more work with them. I'm delighted, flattered, honoured and it's all enjoyable work with good people. That's what work is about. This is where I want to go.

I love that I'm surrounded by fucking amazing people who are very positive and solvey. Resourceful. I've loved my day today. I got to visit lovely J and her boys again. I loved the differences between them and how open they are. Little people. F (not yet 4) picked up my phone for me announced that he'd put it in my bag for me (so it wouldn't get damaged/lost). I liked how playful they are, how sand can keep them happy for a significant length of time (extended by puddles/any form of water). I also love that J (not yet 2?) jumps up and down pretty much most of the time, often quite simply out of glee. They both have very big eyes and long lashes, like the prettiest cows, only prettier boys. Both Mike and J have told me to fuck off this evening. Makes me feel at home. 

So, fuck off, the lot of you. I love you. Night night. 

Day 315: Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Thees

A spoonful of mental

Oooh, now. The flat I just saw could be good. There's lime green and orange in the kitchen. It's a start! And there's a lot of space, which is nice. It's not top floor and there's no dog yet, but it could be good. And it's in Muswell Hill, so I'll keep my thighs and my pond chops over the winter if I take it, and I'll be just around the corner from Ruth (very practical - it will be nice to be able to drop by). It's not cheap, but it's affordable. I can do it if the bill estimates are pretty close to those promised. Nice person I met so far. Others still to meet. And you never know - Newbould Guardians might hit me with an offer pretty soon too. Who knows? And if neither works out, then there'll be something else (a loft with a mezzanine, studio space to make masks, rehearsal space, dogs, lovely people, wifi flowing like water, a washing machine, ALL KINDS OF BRILLIANT THINGS). All at a price I can really easily afford. That's good, isn't it? It is.

Maybe I/we need to hire work-only warehouse space in town, for classes, rehearsals, studioness. That could work. 

Grateful for an email sent after 10pm to offer me a day's work that I really need. A day's work that covers three days I just cancelled for a set of reasons, including a clash of dates for something I'm feel like I can't afford to pass up and the feeling in my belly, which clearly gave me the answer. I like very much that this job has come and replaced it. There are also clashes, but this time I need to change what I had planned to do and say yes to this. My belly says so and I'm listening to my belly. 

Grateful for the mutual check-out call with a potential new coach. Whether or not we decide to work together, I SHALL go to capoeira, I SHALL do life drawing and life drawing modelling and I SHALL start a new blog. I talked to Our Face today. She made some great suggestions for the new blog. One is that as well as one-off pieces, I can do stories that carry on. For example, if I were to do a 7-day cycle of creative writing, with one post every night, I could do a poem on a Saturday and a Wednesday, for example (form tbc), a short piece with a particular prose focus on a Friday. On Mondays, I could do story 1, Tuesdays story 2 and Thursdays story 3. I can do installments. And what about a cartoon strip on Sundays. 

Pretend you never saw the last box, and draw/write 5 options

There was an exercise that Keith Johnstone suggested where you take a 4-box newspaper comic strip and cut the final box off without ever looking at it. Then you create 5 different final boxes, including captions. I could do that. I'd stay interested. The stories could go on until they're finished. If I wanted to do form, Mondays could be a three-part series, Tuesdays a 7-stage story and Thursdays unlimited - it ends when it's finished and a new one starts. The thing is, they don't have to be good. That's absolutely the point. They don't have to be good. They just have to be done. Like this blog. There's no pressure to make it funny or insightful or poetic or meaningful in any way. It's just what comes and I'm grateful for it (oh, how very meta). 

Puns are okay if there's a song

Been having pretty strange dreams since I started reading a book about the language/symbols of dreams, myths and fairytales. They've been extreme. I like them. Here's to more. Bring on the stilton. Bring on the stories. 

Day 314: Aaaaand Breathe!

Wet

A long sleep in the morning is a thing to be thankful for. And my first hot water bottle of the autumn, which kept me warm now that the attic is cold and I was soaked from cycling in the rain. I loved riding in the rain. It's always good when you're on your way home. I find it very pleasing to get properly drenched. 

My day was pretty gentle. I got some stuff done and some not. I haven't quite found my place to live yet. I'm imagining some beautiful warehouse space with a mezzanine area and very few people living there. I'm kind of beginning to wonder whether I should have gone with Bermondsey, but no. I know that wasn't the way forward. 

Emily?

Pretty

I enjoyed tonight's drop-in. Grateful to Anna Levy for playing along for the start - made all the difference, that did. Also grateful for an email from someone I know here who has also done DWD. I'm pleased about that. I'd like to find a way to share the experience a bit. 

Thank you also to Emily Moon, whose wisdom and softness made all the difference.

Day 313: Big Old Days

Good times.

Good times. They really are. I feel very lucky that I got to do a workshop with an absolute legend (in so many ways), for less than free and I got to have a really delightful time with him and with one of the easiest groups I've ever been part of. Lots of really very nice people who were happy to be there, hungry to try things and lots of fun to play with. I'm humbledly grateful and very happy. And I LOVED my hosting role. It was exactly the distraction I needed to let me relax. I'll remember that. It's worked for me before. It's a goer. 

Not much of what we did was stuff I'd never done before, or at least read, but it was delivered with such layers. And simplicity. A bit of a masterclass, really, above all in status (learnt more from observing how he was teaching the class than I did even from straightforward listening). And with such warm good humour. Yes. Lovely.

We did some wonderful scenes that make me really want to go back to mask and clowning more and more. I love the stupidity of clown. I love its playfulness. I love the simplicity and the nakedness. And I like acting like a twat. I got to really play and I loved it. I wonder if i could be the straight 'man' woman. It'd be very entertaining meat to try. 

I've learnt a number of things that I'd like to work on - letting the action happen rather than running at it like a drug squad with a battering ram. I've also learnt a number of things that people have liked. I'm inspired to try more stuff now. I'm running a session tomorrow, which is fabulous. I also want to play more generally. I'm inspired. And I'm going to write. New blog idea. Not sure yet if it'll replace this or accompany it for a while. It's definitely going to happen though. And the cartoons.

I liked the French. Ian (pronounced Yan) and Emanuel. And Bruno - an actual space agent, builder of lunar probes. And Maina. Eugenio (Italian) had a beautiful face and was great to watch on stage. Lots of very pretty women. Francesca and her wonderful cheekbones and eyes. Maina. Amy. Agnes (who reminds me, oddly, of a girl I had a tiny fling with at Yoooniversity, until I found out that she was only 18 and it all felt a bit odd). Handsome men, one or two. Very pleasing, many. I think the two that I liked the most - one I fancied, one I loved - may have been a couple. Not sure though. Maybe just very bonded. 

Right there.

I feel at once excitable and lacky. I have a little ache in my belly. Solar plexus area, really. It's nagging. Yes, I want adventure and I also want to get the sense that I'm really moving forward, in work, in life, in all sorts. I want to travel. I want to be genuinely afraid and not sure what the next thing to do is AND I want some stability. I want a home, a place to live that's mine. I realise I'd really like a studio - perhaps one that's NOT in my home. I love the feeling of going somewhere else. I really do need a home of my own, though, if I'm sticking around for a bit. And yes, it's back, that nag. I want to get the feeling I'm going somewhere.

Right - now for an accountant and a business coach. I'm having one session on Tuesday morning. It's with someone whose slogan has given me pain in my belly. Hmmm. Interesting choice. So here's the slogan:  A better world. Powered by women. Why does that bother me so much? I can't deny, AT ALL that there are significant gender differences. I've been trying to for years and it just doesn't wash. That doesn't make it exclusive or sweeping, but there are a lot of differences in ways of behaving, whether natural or learnt. There's something about the inference of that slogan, though, that twists me a bit. 

When I was little, I always joined the boys in the 'Boys are fantastic, girls are elastic' chant. Elastic was an insult, in my head. Or just a convenient rhyme used as a slur. I've never felt good saying 'women are better'. It's not that I think they're not the same as men. I think it's that I don't like the dichotomy it reinforces to make a thing out of being female. It's uncomfortable enough to be worth exploring. The last coach I had specialised in working with women too. In some ways, that was a very successful enterprise; in others not as much. Interesting, though, and definitely worthwhile.

Why waste the time?
Just walk the fuck forward.

I think what I shall do is contact a number of coaches and get a 'quote' from each. I'm not going to decide until I've spoken to at least three. And I'm not going to commit to a relationship with one until I'm really sure that I've found someone I'm really excited about working with, and congruent in my belly too. And someone I can play with and allow myself to be driven and inspired by. Yes... feeling better about THAT already.

Seriously, though.

I've noticed a failure to follow through on a few things - workshops I want to run, connections I want to make, books I want to write - and I want to change that. What did Rob say (he's good, that Rob, isn't he)? He said 'Don't write a practice play, write the thing you want to write. Stop doing exercises and do the real thing.' It doesn't have to be good, does it? But it does have to be done. 


Fuck, I could really go on and on and on tonight, but I have to get some rest. Free yoga tomorrow. That's good, isn't it? I think it is. 

Day 312: All One

So many things to think about. Perhaps this bloody internet has failed at a crucial moment AGAIN to kick me up the arse and get me on out of here. I know it’s not everything. I’m looking forward to being able to being able to get online at any time without disturbing anyone else and without having it crash for no particular reason, as it repeatedly does.

I am being gently challenged with some mindfulness things, which I’m really grateful for. Like this: I’ve been noticing myself judging people in my head. Quite a stream. Not quite constant, but pretty often, and it creates a tightness in my stomach that's just under the surface of my awareness most of the time. ‘Don’t speak to your child like that.’, ‘Don’t eat with your mouth wide open.’, ‘Why are you driving so close to me?’, ‘Why the fuck do you think the top of the escalator is a good place to hang out?’. And what is it doing? Making me separate. Letting me drift back to believing stories that separate is something that I am and could be.

As a person I'm interested in is not currently getting in touch, I have noticed myself seeing couples with eyes of ‘not for me’ and attractive men with a bellyful of ‘he probably fancies her, not me, how stupid of me to think...’. Ha! Old shit. I’ve also noticed myself slipping back into a comfortably masculine way of dealing with things, all strident and forward, disdain for 'pretty' rising up, fear of the skirt and practicality taking over.  Thing is, just because I’ve fallen into that comfortable place again somewhat (comfortable in that it's old, same old, and complacent, not that it feels good), it doesn’t’ mean those things are any more true than they’ve ever been. 

I’m not separate. There’s nothing special about me to make me unsuitable for a brilliant, playful, wonderful relationship with another person. Other people aren’t wrong. In fact, they’re just being, like I am. And what I want to feel, every day, is the deep and sunny warmth I felt when realising that we are all the same. What am I made of? The same stuff as you. Exactly the same. I want to remember that. And have, as the book I've just finished calls it, my 'one in particular' - someone who loves me and is delighted that I love them, someone who is genuinely into me and with whom I feel my best.

'Oneness'. That's its actual name. Love it.

I laughed a lot today. I learnt a lot. I felt light. I felt playful. Then I watched a grim-as-fuck play called 4.48 Psychosis (the clue is in the title – I’d highly recommend doing something more constructive with your time than ever seeing it). I did know it was unlikely to be my cup of tea. I went because I was having a nice time with some nice people. I wish I’d stuck to my original plan of early home and an evening in bed with a book. Well, I’ll just up and do that now.

Workshop was great. Pond was  a misty blessing. And I love my bike. The world’s good, though. Oh, and what about the 8 or so coooool black teenage boys on the tube singing Michael Jackson and putting on lip balm. They must have been 16. They must have been going to get into a club. Then when they got off at Piccadilly Circus, one of them said (twice) ‘Last one to the end of the platform stinks.’ Seriously. If that didn’t make my day, what on earth could?