Day 454: Playtime

There are worse ways to spend a day than the way I spent mine. I spent it playing, making noises, making shapes (can I say 'throwing'? Not sure, not sure). I was doing the kind of things that would send certain beloved friends into spasms of disgust. Retching, even, I suspect. I loved that one or two of the exercises made no sense to me at all. One. None. It just didn't seem to have any purpose, point or value. I quite liked that. 

I enjoyed playing, in a very child-like, mischievous, playground sense of the word, with strangers. On padded floors. Beat that if you can. You can't! Floors firm enough to feel solid but soft enough to throw yourself onto your knees on without fear of the tiniest bit of discomfort. A bit like drying mud that has been very wet. I'm not sure where I remember this from... possibly Glastonbury 1987, which is (gladly) the second and last time I ever went there. 

These are the actual floors, minus swordy men

Anyway, the room's normally used for Aikido, so everything that could brain someone is padded, and the ground is just right for rolling on and this whole day was spent playing on floors like this.

I stole one lady's glasses. It was easy. She wasn't allowed to move at that point. Oh, I put them back, in the end. It felt like quite an intimate thing to do, to put someone's glasses on for them. She still wasn't allowed to move, so if she chose to stick to the rules of the game, she was likely to let me. It wasn't until I was gently moving hair aside to poke the stalk to sit over her ear that it hit me that it was quite personal. Interesting.

Best hit for 'stealing spectacles'

There were some lovely people. Nobody I found particularly attractive (in that sense). It's often the way with workshops. I found people attractive in other ways. Jenny (let's call her) had very bronzed skin, long wavy hair and a face used to smiling. She beamed and laughed a lot. I found her attractive. Tanya was very playful indeed, kind of coy but ready to laugh. During one exercise, we ended up chasing each other in a tiny circle, absolutely without meaning to. It really made me laugh. 

Kate. Look her up. Do her classes.

Kate Hilder, who taught the class, had a beautiful face with big, soft eyes and absolute presence when listening to people. She had a calm and gentle energy and was vocally very gentle, but when she chose to use it in that way, her voice was quite an instrument. She reminded me of lovely Emily Wilkinson, imagined 20 years down the line. I liked her workshop very much. It's wonderful to spend the day moving. I'm full up with gratitude. 

Nuff said.

And donuts. Not so grateful to myself for putting them into my system. I was going to buy a cake, see, but it was £2 and the donuts were 30p. I thought 'if I'm going to eat shit, I might as well only pay for it physically' so I plumped for the donut bag. I didn't eat them all, but I ate some of each of them and put the rest in the bin. An hour later, I still feel like someone has kicked me in the stomach. 

This is my face after donuts.

When I was about 15, I read a copy of 
2000 AD that had a strip in about a sick version of the Generation Game. Things went past on a conveyor belt and contestants had to remember them. Instead of getting to keep the things they named, they got forced to eat anything they forgot. The one that stuck in my head was four bags of concrete. I remember the image of the man having concrete funnelled down his gullet. I think he got to bag 2. Post-donuts = that.

And I was doing so well. I did so well. Doesn't change that I did it. I slept in this morning and did no yoga at all, so the plan was to do it this evening. The day had been glorious and I'd missed most of that (despite lunch on the stony beach) so I did my yoga in the park. It was very fine, just warm enough to be very comfortable, just quiet enough to be peaceful. I did a full session, with extras. 

Not Millie, but what a great shot

Right at the end, after my final relaxation, I was joined by Millie, an elderly Collie. She put her head near enough to stroke. She was keen, but she always felt the need to look at her owner, so she often broke off to do this. If I stopped, though she raised a paw and long-nailed me into carrying on. 

So I felt good, both physically, having spent the whole day moving, and in a fullofvirtue way. Then I stuffed shite into my face and undid it a bit, but there you go. It's a thing. Perhaps I've learnt.

Thank you, finally, for a fistful of fonts from fontsquirrel. Most of them are a bit like this font, which I like very much. All of them were free. Fonts as a thing are one of the pleasures of the world, so free ones are even better. Free nice ones. Thanks, then. That's ace. 

Day 453: Carrot-nose

It's not the clown you should be scared of.

The day started with a prana-gathering mission in the park. It was a success. If tomorrow's is to be the same, I need to get my shit together and write this quickly so that I can be asleep. The people above me are busy making noise, but I am armed with foamy orange earplugs and I'm not afraid to use them.

I spent an hour or so this morning in a cafe entirely devoid of atmosphere. It was perfect. I was working. There was no music, nobody particularly fascinating to watch, nothing to distract me. It was bland as all fuck and it served my purpose beautifully (I was making a string of calls for work, which I needed to be able to hear. Phone reception was good. Nothing was untoward).

Welcome home. We've been waiting for you.

A much more atmospheric rest of morning spent in the Emporium on London Road, a very pleasing space with a cafe (but shoddy reception, for me). Hanging out with Dave. It's nice to start to get to know someone that a hugely respected mutual friend raves about. Lots of ideas. Very pleasing thinking and talking. During that time, I had a very welcome call from JP, with whom I am about to undertake some work. I'm very pleased that this is the case. As well as being flattered and honoured to be chosen, I'm keen to get my teeth into some ideasy stuff and some practical stuff too. Bring it on (and thank you).

I found a bike helmet for cheap, but not so cheap it's a liability. I've been riding helmetless for over a week and I don't like it. Now I have a new one. It even has a light on the back. Not to replace your bike lights, mind, but it's good just the same. The man in the shop was very helpful indeed, and clear-eyed. 

?

Aah, there are many other things. I was blatantly chatted up by an elderly Iranian man in the Shelter shop (where I serendipitously found a perfect bit of costume for next week's work). Even with my lying about having a boyfriend (I just described my no longer current situation as if it was still on, giving me a taste the warmth that I felt before it all happened) he still persisted. I took it in good spirits. Wow. What a place to be on the lookout for a girlfriend. 

Right... if I go to bed now I'll have a pre-midnight hour to spend asleep. 

Oh... THIS!
http://yasviridov.livejournal.com/97691.html

What are you?

Day 452: Jacks and Krakens

Ha...  I meant to do this so long ago and so much has happened, since, to be grateful for. Too much to fit. Think of this as 'Today at Wimbledon', only over a week or so, and not (necessarily) about tennis.

At the top of my mind this moment is work. I had a few days working on a German-speaking roleplay job. I did the same job in English last week, but this was my first German dose. I loved it. It was quite challenging... playing very high status and needing to come across sharp, knowledgable and decisive about things you just can't know enough about. It was cool.

And the people I get to work with on such jobs! Such lovely people, they are. I can walk into a room full of people I've never met before and know that I'm going to have some great conversations, hear some fantastic stories and that we're all going to laugh a lot, AND we'll do the job to the absolute best of our ability. Yesterday morning's rendition of 'consider yourself' in French accents was a tiny highlight. A Jack (not the Jack) led with the 'consider yourself' and everyone joined in in the response, all with a Clouesau twang. Really made me laugh, especially its nonchalance. Lots of really delicious people there. I feel very lucky to get to play with that crew.

And as it was a Steps job, I get a dose of the Jack, Regal Rebaldi, who never fails to delight me, cheer me, entertain me and make me feel special, valued and glad. I see him make everyone else feel special too. It's a gift and I like it very much. 

Speaking of tennis, I enjoyed a fabulous evening in front of Wimbledon on Monday, with Ruth. Normally unsweary and gentle in her demeanour towards everyone, her railing against Boris Becker made me very happy indeed. Directly to him, comments touched upon things like 'Oh do shut up!' and 'If you haven't got anything interesting to say, don't say anything at all.' About him was slightly more colourful (only slightly - Ruth's not an f-or c-bomb kind of a lady, but a well-placed 'bugger' and genuine exasperation did the trick much more nicely and still managed to shock me). At one point, when I'd gone to make a cup of tea, I came back to her all wide-eyed, saying 'Do you know what he just said? He said "He's hitting another one." Of COURSE he's hitting another one, he's playing TENNIS!" Loved it. Thanks, Ruth, for letting me see a side of you that rarely shows itself, but is very pleasing indeed.

I'm absolutely over the moon that I got my website up and live. I'm very grateful to Fiona Sturrock, a very fine coach, for being the catalyst that finally made it happen on a fixed date and to Rob Grundel, for being ace, encouraging me and getting it hooked up to my domain name (http://www.stateofplay.co/). Ah, the irony of meaning to/trying to/never getting round to finishing this (because of fear, angry perfectionism, procrastination and a desperate need for it to be right when there's just no such thing for three years or so and then doing it in a day, upstairs in Starbucks... less than a day. I typed a lot. I thought a lot, but fast, and I made decisions. It isn't pefect. There are still typos in it, which I have seen. I will fix them, but I'm quite enjoying the discipline of not changing it all the time. I'll update it tomorrow, maybe, and I want to do the same with my personal site by this Sunday, 30th June. Yes, yes yes. That doesn't have to be anything other than what it is, either. I'm very grateful too, by the way, to all the fabulous people who've made comments about the State of Play website, who've done likey things on facebook and/or taken the time to read it. 

Oh, so many other things, be they dog fixes (oh the proper pack in the park opposite my house), wide-eyed baby moments, beautiful views from the balcony of my new place, or shared gentleness in public. This last has been interesting. People on the tube. People holding doors and smiling. People making random eye contact in the street. It's funny... I'm feeling an odd mixture at the moment of quite lonely and coreless and yet easily charmed by things and people. There is work to be done. I can feel that things are happening. This isn't the happiest or most fulfilled moment of my life, by far far far, but it is one that is useful and full of promise, however veiled. So I feel positive, but on satellite delay. Or something.

And I've been dancing again. I decided not to go and then found myself there. Afterwards someone asked if I'd enjoyed it. I said yes, of course, because I had. She said 'you just kept smiling'. Ha... what I love about it (this 5-rhythmsy stuff) is that it's free. You don't have to be 'a good dancer'. You don't have to connect with other people if you really don't want to but you can if you like. You can grin like a loon and do monster dancing if you want to. I'm not saying I did (I so did). Even more 'scary' is moving in a way that could be seen as graceful. It could be seen as TRYING to be graceful, which would be mortifying, in my world, but in fact, it just is, in that context. I'm not trying to be anything, I'm just dancing and moving and being a twattish twat and all kinds of other things, and it's wonderful. Nothing terrible seems to be coming of it. This is good news.

Then there were meetings or chats with Rob (I left inspired) and Kate (warmed, charmed, full of ideas), Lilley and Daniel (so many things) and exchanges with lots of other very good eggs indeed. Jochen's coming to stay. How good is that!?



Finally, the first thing on this site, placed there on the day of the last post... I visited a website with baby names (looking for names for a story). I liked the font and I liked the site very much, and it was possibly even the day that I was writing my site, or the day before. I emailed the contact on the site to ask what the font was and who built/designed the site. A lady came back to me almost immediately with those answers, evidently delighted to be asked. Their own website pleased me very much, so I contacted them too. They didn't respond in any way, but the fun, by that time, had already been had.

http://tedworthandoscar.co.uk/contact/

Oh, and then there's this, the reason for all the pictures. It's called The Kraken Wakes and it's the sweariest blog I think I've ever read. I enjoyed in very much. This one's for you, Lady Birkinshaw. 

www.thekrakenwakes.org/parenting-2/word-up/

Go on, fill your boots.

Day 451: Supermoon

These

Welcomed into my new place with flowers whose name I don't even know and a sweet card. The flowers are some of my favourites. Lots of deep pinks and reds; a smattering of small, similar faces, but not identical; dark green stems and leaves for rich contrast. The card is now adorning the chest of drawers, as its centrepiece.

Cheesy but true

I got out of the house to go and have a Saturday morning sing. Upon arriving, I was told that it wasn't happening because of a private event. The website hadn't said, so I hadn't known. I am glad I didn't know. I'm glad I was up and out when I was. It was worth it. I bumbled down to Red Roaster, where a story turned up. Will I write the fucker? Who knows, but it came all made. The only thing that would stop it would be me trying to Get It Right. That'd get in the way.

Googled 'love and respect' -
this was my favourite hit

A small email exchange made me remember quite how much I respect the person involved, and why. Isn't it funny what your mind can do when you let it run away! And isn't it lovely when you check it out and things get clearer? And we're back to fear. Most of the time, when I was scared of something, especially where that person was involved, diving in was the thing that solved it - whatever the outcome. Even when I dived in only to hear the thing I had feared most that I would hear, it was STILL better. And this time too. Better, better, better.

Goes on numerous dogs today - a 13-year-old mongrel with a peaceful energy and wise eyes, its less dignified friend (Spaniels are never dignified, but they are a delight), a goateed Hungarian Viszla and a wriggling, licky Chihuahua belonging to a camp, drunk Welshman in an off licence. And the day's not over yet. 

Buy now. 

There's going to be a supermoon tonight. That means a big one (close to the Earth, looks bigger) and in addition, it's actually full during the morning tomorrow, so it'll look very full tonight and tomorrow night. Get yourself some supermoon action.



This evening, J, Mike, maybe some small boys and the final of The Voice. Get IN! It may well be that not everything in my life is perfect, but there are always some damned fine bits.  

Day 450: Om on all fours

This is unequivocally real grass

Endless children crawling on fake grass outside Brighton Library; the lady who did my membership threatening to charge me a pound for a replacement card because I lived in Brighton thirteen years ago and was a member at that time, and then 'waiving' that theoretical charge. 

Thank you to Leone, aged 3, for showing me around the Brighton Buddhist Centre. Her innocent presence and helpfulness was very welcoming. The older Buddhists there weren't a patch on her on that front. They gave me leaflets. She gave me everything she had. I felt overwhelmed with emotion in there, for no good reason. Her littleness and sweet openness really helped distract me from that, thus saving face, if that's a good thing. She was very engaging, and I loved how she whispered so gently downstairs where she'd been told someone was meditating, bellowed upstairs where that wasn't the case and was so proud that her daddy taught tai chi.

Om?

Thanks to UKDapper, headphone people. We arranged a plan to pay them for the wrongly complained-about headphones I bought from them. I would order another pair online, then email them to say I'd done this. They would take payment, but not send them, and then we'd be quits (they sent me a replacement pair when the problem was a tiny foreign body in my mac's earphone port, not their earphones). When someone cancelled the order outright, unaware of the deal, I received an email saying not to bother, and thank you for my patience - I could keep the extra pair. Very nice of them. On an hourly rate, it probably will cost them more to sort this out than it will to leave it. I'm grateful.

More dancing toddlers. I suspect that nothing short of bedtime will put a stop to this.

Day 449: Genius!

Planking Genius

Thank you to the very helpful Apple Genius (and his precursor, who couldn't help me, but kept me and my computer busy and entertained until the other guy got here). My mysterious disappearance of computer sound was due to a tiny piece of paper in the headphone socket. Removed with tiny tweezers: a simple but effective solution. 

Thanks to Dilly, who I'm about to move in with, for being lovely. Thanks to Nikki for a little bit of work and to all the people I spoke to on the phone today for being consistently lovely, interesting, open and a pleasure to interact with. Daily thanks to Daniel for encouraging me onto my yoga mat. A second round of thanks for yesterday's dancing. It was just what I needed. 

Pensive Gosling

And: Oh god, I feel bad confessing to spending time on this, but it REALLY made me laugh. Thanks, Dan Fox, for leading the way. It made me laugh ages ago, but it's only just surfaced from the forgotten bowels of blogger. I love the effort this person has gone to do to something very stupid and very funny.



http://tinyurl.com/c27v2w9

In another area altogether, I'm not quite brave enough to ask for what I want on one front, but I'm gearing up to it and grateful in advance. 

Day 448: Buffety-gusty

Thank you, Brighton, for your buffety-gusty welcome on Saturday, your air full of salt, seaweed-smell and promise and your great big waves. The wind was so determined that riding a bike westwards was almost in negative. I could just about advance. Cyclists smiled at each other along the route. Those being flung towards the East smiling sympathy and possibly happy envy at those plodding to make headway. Nice.

Thank you again, Brighton, this time for affording me 5-Rhythms in a church within 15 minutes' cycle of where I'm staying (it'll be closer still when I move). Thank you for a fabulous session today, without which I wouldn't have gone to that class. I danced all kinds of things. It was wonderful. 

5-Rhythms in a church

So much has passed and I've been reticent about blogging. I will deal with the reason why within the next week and then I'll feel freer. Either that or I'll get over myself. Either way, I'm sure I'll feel a pang of gratitude. 

Thanks for the ladies' pond, alive in my memory, if not in my current experience. Thanks for such a lot of astuteness coming at me today, in my actual face. Refreshing like sea-water.

Day 447: Art Too

Mmmmmmmmmmmm, Angela Dierks
www.facebook.com/angelaabstract

Thank you, first of all, for the juicy jpeg and lovely emails that arrived yesterday from Angela Dierks. Sarah Lonton and I met Angela in her own home on the Southgate Arts Trail on Sunday. She was welcoming and lovely and her art was very pleasing indeed. Even though this jpeg is delicious, nothing quite reaches the richness of the original, with colours deeper than your bones and textures that reach out to you. 


She's self-taught and German (no causal link, necessarily) and she inspired me to almost buy oil pastels today. What stopped me? The fact that I'm about to move again. The fact that I've bought oil pastels before and never used them. The fact that to use them would also require paper and right at the moment, saving money is of the essence. Silly, though. They were only £4 for about twenty of them, fat and new in their box. I bet I could have afforded a little bit of paper. Maybe I'll go back. 

Stop it

Speaking of saving money, I wonder how much richer my life would be if I didn't have a cafe habit. No longer a coffee habit, but the cafe habit is still strong. Part of it is the string of places I've been where I can't get internet at home (this is currently the case, and is about to be again in Brighton). Still, there are lots of places where you can get internet without having to buy something, especially in London. Anywhere, if you look hard enough. It's true that I'm lonely and bored sitting at home doing that, but is the café habit really helping? With the money I save on that, I could go to workshops (which I love, of course). Or I could by oil pastels and bobbly paper and sit in the park. If it rains, all the better. We get to see what rain does to pastel. And hair. 

Thank you, yesterday, for a job. I haven't taken it, as such, but I put it out there that I needed a job (and I had a particular sum of money in mind) and one came. This job more than covers that sum. It would sort me RIGHT out. It's for The Challenge, who I worked for last year. I loved it. This year, they're not paying travel expenses, so that sum is drastically cut. They've also upped the commitment (it's residential now, which brings with it a higher level of day-to-day teenager management), but not the pay, overall. All of that in the pie means that the actual rates are down on last year. Add to that the fact that for some reason, I provisionally said yes to Wolverhampton. I made a commitment to spend the summer in Brighton. Hmmm. Brighton vs Wolverhampton. What do you think?

Real people off of The Challenge

And I'm still considering it. If I can work for The Challenge again, I will. They rock. Check them out here: http://www.the-challenge.org/ Maybe the residential thing would be brilliant. I made a commitment to be curious recently. It's still on, that commitment, so perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to put that into practice. Let's see what we can do. And how good is that, to have a job just blossom like that in a day. Brilliant!

I'm grateful too for some very positive feedback from working there last year. When I started, I was actively afraid of teenagers, especially that 16ish age that most of the people there were. Quite quickly, and by making some glorious mistakes, I learnt lots about working with people of that age (in the context I was in). The first, which I ache with gratitude for, is to Show Them Some Fucking Respect. This lesson came as early as my very first group, as I tried to 'show them who's boss'. By being a bit shouty and controlling, basically. The opposite of what I wanted to be. I don't want to be everyone's 'best mate'. At all. Nor do I want that when I do a session with a group of adults. It's not the point. But I do want to treat them with respect and expect good things of them. So they gave me that. 

Would you put this in your mouth?

I like ferns. There's something about them that is like a young animal (a smeem - that's a word for a young animal that I like very much). Ferns and smeems. Pleasing things with similarities. They eat them in Canada, ferns, the little curly tips. EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE KIND OF POISONOUS.Radical!

As I type, Tony Robbins is talking to a Yorkshireman about intimacy in one ear (my new Gumy headphones work in the right ear only - until I send them back, that will do, and they're such a pleasing shade of orange. They are to replace the green ones, whose left ear died too). 

Massive face. Massive hands. Too much clapping

That's making me think about all sorts of things that I'm grateful for, and that my dreams are chewing over night after night, in all kinds of abstract and distant ways. Lots of things to think about and to chew even more before splurging them out. Oh, so much harder when there is (or even was) another person involved. 

Grateful for my dreams and grateful for a reason to rip myself away from them. I got on my yoga mat at six thirty this morning, thanks to Daniel Harvey. Thanks, Daniel. Let's do this yoga thing. 

Day 446: Art

Emily Wilkinson did this

What a treat to spend the afternoon with tasty lady Sarah Lonton. We saw art, met artists, were blown away by German artist Angela... more about her tomorrow when she sends me some of her fabulous art. 

We talked in a tea room. We exchanged in the car. I loved it. I'm often reminded why gratitude for particular friends is so rich... how is it that I get to be part of this layered, complex creature's life? What did I do right to have this woman as my friend? I love her directness, her honesty, her cleverness and her energy. She does stuff. She lives well. She's an excellent parent to a wonderful daughter. She's clear about what she wants. I do like her!


Later, I had the sweetest of goes on Emily Wilkinson, an artist too. I think she was up a hill. I was up a house. Wherever we were, it was a gift to chat with her. Her journeying inspires me and I like her very much. Such gentleness mixed with clarity. Such intelligence and softness together. 

www.facebook.com/emilywilkinsonart

I realise, whenever you miss someone or something, there's an opportunity for gratitude. There was something there worth missing. The feeling was solid enough for the absence of it to be felt in the belly. 

I will miss all sorts of things when I go down to Brighton, but it's very much the right thing. 

Day 445: Extras

Oooh.

You know that feeling, after a long winter, where you get your summer clothes out of the attic or whatever back of drawer they've been languishing in, and you lay them out on the bed and have a good look, probably a bit of a sniff too. They might smell musty, or perfectly laundered, but there they are, and it's time to start wearing them again...  Well, that. 

I have been aching to blog. I'm now back in England and the internet is effectively defying me. At Ruth's, it turns its nose up at my computer. It shuns me like a disgraced daughter. I do everything right, but it says 'no'. Not even in capitals. And I'm about to move into a flat where there's no broadband. Ha! I bet there aren't that many of them left, but I'm about to take one. So I haven't got back into my pleasing evening blogging rhythm yet, and perhaps I shan't. Perhaps it's just not going to happen. Whatever the when, it's time. 

There's little point trying to catch up. I've had some truly massive times between this blog and the previous one. I've left Montreal and a relationship. I was sad to leave it, even though it feels right. I am full of gratitude for the all-out-ness of what we chose to do and how we managed it, and now I'm not there any more. It's a time of huge opportunity, not insignificant discomfort, excitement and hope. 

I have to mention the glory of my leaving. Goodbye was lasting long and feeling painful, like peeling a plaster off sensitive skin all slowly, feeling every stretched cell. A ritual was suggested and that ritual was, aptly, a sun salutation. So, in the middle of Pierre Trudeau, just in front of security, we saluted the sun and the whole of our experience (both sides, of course) and then said a swift goodbye. It was perfect. 

As I sat and allowed myself to cry properly, mourning the experience while feeling moved and thankful too, a uniformed lady approached me and asked, 'Ma'am, are you going to be okay?'. I reassured her that I was. She didn't seem convinced, but she did seem warm and willing to take a punt. She left me to it. I remember hearing somewhere, and I can no longer remember where, someone saying that they loved watching people crying in airports. Not through Schadenfreude or any particular glee at lost baggage situations, but because people hugging and crying, whether they be saying hello or goodbye, is a signal of a huge flow of love. Goodbye isn't tricky when you're not that fussed. Hello doesn't bring a lump to your throat and water springing out of your eyes, if you haven't missed a person. I felt this keenly as I gathered myself, relocated my passport and went about the business of actually leaving Canada.

So much to be grateful for. A spiritual and serendipitous weekend with lovely, loving people helped me chew through all of what had happened. I have come out of it feeling the benefits, feeling the gratitude and the love even more strongly and feeling proud and happy that we did what we did. I feel open to the next adventure and the next offering of love (there are so many - every song, every gift of attention, every breath of concern or delight or compassion - they are all around me). And what I can give is as important, maybe more so, than what I hope, expect, prepare to receive. What can I give? There's a question to keep a person busy for a lifetime. I'm so grateful for experiences I could never have imagined having, but have had. I'm humbled by music and  loveliness. I'm blessed with good people all around.

There's no end to good people. Yesterday, I chatted with a publican for a specific reason. In the process of that, he told me all about his grandchild and the particular flavour of love that she filled him with. He struggled to explain: 'It's just... SO GOOD,' he said. 'There's none of the pressure that there is when you have children. It's just love.' What a gift. The interview itself was short, but this man gave me so much more. Thank you.