Happiness is a choice? It's just not that simple!

A couple of months ago a friend I hadn't heard from for eight months (not blaming her for that - I haven't written either) sent me a link to a Ted Talk about Choices That Can Change Your Life - including reference to depression. She just sent the link without comment.  I have watched it about 10 times and although I am pretty sure she sent it with good intentions, I just felt uncomfortable and slightly angry every time I listened to this woman (the Ted speaker, not my friend) who is quite aggressive and dismissive of people who don't just 'chose' to fix their lives. I couldn't quite put it into words, but then this popped up on Facebook and it became clearer.

When it comes to mental illness, there are so many layers. In my own case, there were foods that I have discovered make me feel bad. I discovered decades ago that jasmine flowers pull me down. The shortage of daylight in winter can push me off the edge. There are so many layers that have to be carefully picked at, so many small choices to make, before one can actually reach the point of being able to make a choice to be happy. Habits of thinking that were established in childhood through my treatment by teachers, my mother, and my doctor meant I believed I didn't deserve, hadn't earned, the right to chose happiness.

Happiness is a choice? It's just not that simple!

The True and Authentic Self

I spent most of my childhood confused, and increasingly unhappy. From my teens I suffered confusion, depression and anxiety. At the age of fifty I started seeking help for the first time since my only other (failed) attempt way back when I first had suicidal thoughts at age 16. The next fifteen years were spent trying to understand and recover from the thought patterns established in childhood.

Everywhere I looked I found people talking about the importance of finding your true self, being your authentic self, being your real self – and almost always in terms of rediscovering the person you have always been at your very core. There seemed to be a lot of spiritual thinking happening, which always made me uncomfortable, having been an atheist  since I was sixteen. But part of my mental illness was self-doubt – my belief that my mother, and subsequently almost everyone, knew better than me, had me holding on to the idea that it was my illness that prevented me from discovering my original true self.

During the last year and a half, since the life changing diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, I finally found a counsellor who made sense to me, and thus I have found my own way of being that makes sense to me.

Am I the only one whose self is blurred? 'Authentic' and ‘true self’  and ‘real self’ are concepts that shift beneath me constantly, like the sand that swirls around my feet on Ngurunui Beach in a winter wind. Some aspects of myself / thoughts / feelings I hide from some people / everyone for the sake of other aspects of myself - for example, my mother-self protects my children from knowledge of my deepest fears and worries about them, and from my deepest personal despair. Does that make me unauthentic? Does that make me less than courageous for not exposing those aspects of me, or does it make me more courageous for swallowing those rats, and more authentic as mother-self? We are such complex beings, made of so many years of experiences, changed by them, learning from them - I don't think there is an original Self to be discovered and displayed. I am not a stone sculpture to be chiselled away at until my 'true authentic self’ is discovered. I was a blank canvas of a (different from everyone else) particular size, shape, fabric, quality, and the layers of mixed media have been building up, some scraped off leaving traces, some covered by a fresh layer, never finished until I'm dead and decayed away, and even then, living on, possibly for a while, in memories and apocryphal tales.

Later the same day that a discussion on Facebook started me thinking again about these things, I came across the following poem, which says it all much more eloquently than I have.

The Layers

StanleyKunitz,1905 - 2006

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes. 

Ruru / morepork / owl

Towards the end of the Mindfulness half-day workshop, we were asked to go for a walk in the retreat's gardens: to allow our attention to be drawn to whatever it naturally was drawn to, for just so long as it held our attention; to observe it, and to notice how we felt, and to alternate those noticings between external and internal.

Are the gardens at the retreat particularly special, or is it mostly in the noticing? I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it, but I looking back I think the beauty was, indeed, largely in the noticing.

The trees. The evergreens, robustly alive, some with new tips of lighter green or even yellow. The deciduous trees, some with the last of the autumn yellow and reds, some hanging on to their dry brown leaves, some stripped to bare bones, showing off the beauty of their bark, and the exquisite, abandoned nests.

The seedpods and berries. Orange and red berries.  Karo pods burst open, black berries shining. Seedpods of all shapes and sizes, standing upright om stems, dangling loose in the breeze.

Leaves. So much variation. Serrated edges, smooth edges. Wildly varied vein patterns. So many shades of green that I feel a severe lack of vocabulary.

Lichen on bench seats, moss on the path under the trees and where the bush path met the lawn, a row of bricks mark the line between wild and manicured, and the moss declares its intention to reclaim its space by filling the six neat, round holes in each brick.

The birds. Fantails and sparrows, twittering and wittering. A tui streaking past, some urgent business to attend to. A pair of blackbirds having a domestic dispute. The row of mynahs sitting on top of the old round barn two paddocks away.

And the ruru who got up early to fly down through the trees to sit on a low branch just a couple of metres away from me and tried to stare me down. For ten minutes we stood, eyeballing each other. Each time another bird came near, the ruru's head swiveled around to assess the situation, then back to me. As the moments went by I felt the awe and joy welling up through my chest, my throat, my blood, until I knew with absolute certainty that I am much, much bigger on the inside.

When another human crunched along the gravel path, the ruru gave me one more suspicious glance and flew off  back into the darker place in the garden.

I will hold this memory of bird and joy in my heart. I will strive to live as it does: completely present in the moment, yet alert and aware of endless possibilities.

Of Boobs and Boots

Last week was rather weird and scary, but it did show me how much my mental health has improved.

Last November I talked to my doctor about wanting to be a bit more proactive about my health, now that I have my Type 2 diabetes under reasonable control. He recommended a few things, and as a result, a few weeks ago I had my first ever mammogram at the age of 65. Why had I never had one? In the past, I had rationalised my decision not to have mammograms because of various scientific and not-so-scientific reasons, but in reality I kind of liked the idea of being dead. Once I had children, I knew I could not commit suicide, because of the awful effects such a thing brings to children - I have known such people. But the thought of dying of a disease that would not cause anyone to blame me or themselves appealed.

However, over the last few years my mental health has improved to the point where I no longer wish to die unnecessarily early - I want to live! I wasn't really worried about breast cancer, as I have low risk factors for that particular cancer, but still, do as the doctor suggests, right?

On Monday last week I went out to Karapiro to catch up with my friend Raewyn, who was up with her daughter and the rest of the Nelson College team for the Maardi rowing regatta. Halfway through the afternoon I received a phone call from the breast clinic at the hospital, saying that something had showed up and I needed to make an appointment within the next two weeks for further mammograms and a possible biopsy. Raewyn and her nurse friend, Louise, reassured me that there was a very small chance that it was 'something', as had the nurse who called, but still......

I felt scared and angry. Scared because, as I said, these days I actually want to live, and I haven't had enough time of wanting to live yet. Angry because it seems like it should have happened before. Angry because I feel that I have worked so very hard over the last few years to restore my mental health, and then just over a year ago having to start working incredibly hard to bring diabetes under control. To have the possibility of breast cancer thrown at me now seemed so unfair, and I felt very angry.

But I hung on to the idea that it may be nothing nasty. I hung on to coping strategies I had learned in my search for mental health. Breathe..... focus on what is happening right now..... focus on exactly what I am feeling in my body...... be present in the present.....

I hadn't told anyone, other than Raewyn, who was right next to me when I got the call, but on Wednesday night I ended up telling Mac, when I realised I had to give an explanation for being increasingly irritable... well, okay, bitchy. He wanted to come with me, but I knew that, not only did he have things he needed to be doing at work, but also, that if I had a shoulder to lean on, I'd lean, and I'd end up losing it: I really wanted to hold myself together. On Thursday I talked with my counsellor, which was really grounding - he's great.

On Friday morning I arrived at the hospital and found a bunch of very caring, gentle people. The procedures are not gentle though. This second round of mammograms hurt as they tried to get clearer pictures. Then I waited. And waited. I was told I needed a needle  biopsy: years earlier I'd had a needle biopsy on a lump in my neck, so hadn't been worried about this part until they told me it would involve five needles! And that if they didn't get what they needed, they would try a second round! They gave me preemptive paracetamol, and said I wouldn't be able to lift anything for 48 hours.

So back I went for more picture taking - not quite as painful, but more difficult as they told me not to move at all, as these pictures would be used to guide the needle placement. The doctor came in and the talking went on forever. My leg started to cramp, but I couldn't move it, and lost concentration so couldn't follow what they were saying.

And then..... no, the doctor didn't want to biopsy the area found by the first mammogram which was , apparently, obviously fine. Instead, she was looking at another area that had showed up on the second. However, the third round of mammograms showed the area just too small to biopsy, too small to even pick up on a standard mammogram. Probably just more of the calcification caused by normal aging, that I already have quite a bit of. I was dismissed to be recalled for another look in 6 - 12 months. Until then, I'm not thinking about it. I'm 99.99999% sure I'm okay.

I'm really amazed at how well I managed during that week, although I did stay up late every night until I was too tired to stay awake. It's confirmed for me that I am indeed healing from decades of depression and anxiety. I've learned I'm much tougher than I thought.

And then I spent Friday afternoon with Raewyn again. Watching her amazing daughter row. Drinking coffee. Buying boots........... Life is good.

Mokau: A Place Between Worlds

On Thursday night, on the way to WOMAD, we spent a night at the small seaside village of Mokau.

  It is one of my most beloved places, but I have only just realised why.

When I first went to high school it was to my local country school, but it was small and only catered for students in Forms 3 to 5 (Years 9 - 11), so I had to spend my final two years at boarding school.

Recently I have read several mentions of people who have had a 'gap year' between school and university - what a wonderful example of white privilege, but that's another issue. I have always felt uncomfortable about the idea of taking a year 'out' to have fun between school / childhood and 'settling down'. However, I realised the other day that, for me, my two years at boarding school were, in a way, gap years for me.

I was away from home and family for two years, albeit with long bus trips home for holidays and mid-term breaks. I went from a small country school of 150 co-ed students to a huge (for those times) school of 1100 girls, and a boarding hostel as big as my whole previous school. It was a huge transition time. As well as the challenges inherent in that situation, I was also challenged to read and think far more widely - by circumstances, teachers, and other students. I went through the trauma of losing faith in the religion I had grown up not really questioning more than than details, and became suicidally depressed for the first time. I learned that I wasn't the only person my age to think about philosophical issues, and miracle of miracles, there were even males who thought - well, one at least.

I met my first Jewish friend. I learned of the existence of homosexuality. I learned about living with and adapting to strangers. I learned that there was a wider world than the one I had grown up in.

Every school holiday and mid-term break I traveled home from boarding school and back again. Each journey was broken at Mokau. The buses from both Girls' High and Boys' High would stop for 15 minutes. A gap, a transition, a time to make the adjustments needed to live in the other world.

Those two years, though hard in some ways, were a transition time for me - from childhood on the farm and the small country village nearby, to adulthood.

Decades later we started the annual journey to WOMAD, and every journey includes a break at Mokau. The last three times we have stayed there over night. Once again Mokau has become a transition time: a transition from 'real' life to festival life. WOMAD has become only place other than home that, over the years, I have learned to feel at home - and Mokau is the place where I get that overwhelming sense of heading home - whichever direction I'm traveling.

One day I hope to reach a point where I simply feel at home wherever I am.

Going Places Alone

Recently someone in a group I belong to, asked the question: Do you go many places by yourself? How about concerts?

It hit me like a slap in the face.

Because I go hardly anywhere by myself. I haven't stayed away overnight without someone I know since 1994, when I went to Thames on a five day 'Writing in Primary Schools' workshop. A few weeks ago I went to a movie, Hidden Figures. I went to it by myself, while Mac was away up north visiting his sister. I went by myself. To see a movie. By myself. For the First. Time. Ever.

I miss many musical gigs because I won't - can't? - go by myself, and Mac often doesn't want to go, or is too tired; he works so hard. What would people think of me if I went alone? But what if they didn't notice me at all?

I don't dance because I won't - can't? - dance in front of anyone not even Mac. It's even a rare occasion that I dance home alone. I did do a little bit of ballroom dancing a few years ago, and ceroc, when Jeffrey was learning, and loved it, but although I did persuade Mac to go for a few lessons, he didn't enjoy it, so no more. When I was little, my mother told me I was too clumsy to warrant dancing lessons: her lesson was one I learned well. So no dancing. What would people think of me if I danced alone? But what if they didn't notice me at all?

I sometimes have lunch alone in a café in Hamilton when I'm there for the day. I used to buy something at a bakery and eat in my car, but since becoming both gluten-free and diabetic as well as vegetarian, that doesn't work for me. I hate eating alone. I alternate between feeling like everyone is noticing me and thinking what a pathetic old woman I am, unable to find a friend to lunch with, and feeling like I'm completely invisible to the degree that someone might even come at sit at the table because they can't see me.

I don't swim alone because I it isn't safe. That's what I say. But really, I am so self conscious, it is a struggle to walk down the beach with my husband or a son. Once I was unhealthily skinny, and made very aware of the fact. Then I had four children and grew fat, and was also made aware of that. What would people think of me, alone on the beach? What if they didn't notice me at all?

I don't like looking at books in the library in case I am judged for my choices. Or, they might not see me at all. Clothes shopping is hell: alone I cannot see myself. With someone else, well, someone else is looking at me and judging.

And that is how I have lived my life. In fear of being seen by all, and in fear of not being seen at all: alone either way.

This last year has been a year of change. I'm realizing that I'm the only one who really cares. I'm the only one who's interested. Well, maybe Mac. Everyone else is pretty much involved in their own lives. I've been learning a lot about who I am this past year, and realizing I need to live who I am and forget about what other people may think, or not think.

So, 'Do you go many places by yourself?' In four and a half weeks, I'm heading off for 19 days alone. I'll spend a few nights with family and friends, and visit others, but mostly I'll be alone. I have absolutely no idea how I'll cope. I may come home the same or deeply changed. It's scary, but I'm finally ready to try.

The 1960s: Mine, and Hidden Figures

Last night I went to the movies to see Hidden Figures, the blurb for which reads:

The incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson - brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation's confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.

I was born in 1951. So the 1960s, the time in which the movie is set, covered, in today's terms, my school years from Year 5 to 13 plus my first year at university.

I remember the excitement surrounding the space race, the excitement and fear of the Cold War. I remember lying awake in bed, looking out my window at the stars, wondering if tonight would be the night the atomic bombs came. I remember that fear, nay, terror, which filled me especially strongly after my Standard Six (Year 8) teacher, Mr Thomas, taught us about the Cold War.

I remember the amazement and excitement, but also fear, when the Russians got to space first: Sputnik was a fabulous monster. I remember the excitement and pride when the Americans got there too, and the huge joy that surrounded the moon landing by the 'free world'. We didn't have tv, but were invited to watch it at friends of my parents.

At school, in those days, 'history' meant European history - British history plus, as described by my text book title, 'Europe Since Napoleon'. We learned little about colonialist New Zealand history, even less about Maori history, and what tiny bit I learned about America was mostly in relation to Britain, or to WWII (the Boston Tea Party, the bombing of Pearl Harbour in the Pacific.)

In my mid-teens, my mother bought me a magazine subscription one birthday or Christmas: the american 'Seventeen' magazine. Mostly for the fashions, so that she, and I with her help, could make clothes that were fashionable before other kiwi teens knew they were fashionable. But these also had articles in them that I read with complete bewilderment. Why were people upset about some people catching buses to school? I asked questions, which were mostly shrugged off, with, 'oh things are different there.' I couldn't seem to find out what 'desegregation' meant. I thought America wasn't like South Africa with it's apartheid system, yet there was obviously something weird happening.

You have to remember that back in the 60s in New Zealand only a few people had tv. In our house, we got our news from the NZ Herald, the pink-covered, picture-filled Auckland Weekly News, the NZ Broadcasting Corporation (National Radio), and the once a week, several weeks out of date, News of the World at our Friday movie night, held in the Te Kauwhata Town Hall. (Saturday afternoons in winter, the hall turned into a roller-skating rink.) There was no internet - hell, we still had a phone that hung high on the wall so I couldn't even sit down when talking, and no privacy - even if no one was around home, there was still the other people on the party line - Mrs Kearney for sure - and the exchange operator listening in! The local library was in a room about the size of our laundry, and no non-fiction. Information was hard to come by.

Racism was deeply embedded in our culture, and not recognised as such. Racism, back then, was what South Africa had, and the idea that Blacks there (I cannot use the words used for them back then) were lesser creatures, sub-human even, was only just starting to be questioned among the general population. Maori were regarded proudly as the most advanced of the 'native peoples'.

But gradually the ideas of the American civil rights campaigners, the feminists, the anti-apartheid campaigners, the anti-Vietnem War people, the 'make love not war' hippies started spreading, and in my years at university I absorbed many of those ideas.

Then came travel and children and homeschooling and depression and joy and So. Much. Learning!

When I look back at how much my ideas, and the world, have changed over my life, it astounds me. When I look at how much I am still learning and thinking and changing, it excites me.

But when I went to see Hidden Figures, it overwhelmed me. I re-experienced the excitement, the fear, the joy of those days. I remembered the terrible tears and fear when JFK was assassinated. I rejoiced in the lives of those amazing, brave women who stood up and created a doorway to a new world. And I cried all the way through, realising that all through those cruel and difficult times, I was living a life of white, privileged ignorance. Was? I still am! I am aware of it, but only when I think of it, and I can easily avoid thinking about it if I want. Some days I do just that - retreat into a media-free day and make art or garden or go to the beach. I don't HAVE to feel it all the time. That's a huge privilege.

In the era of Brexit and Trump I am increasingly aware that I need to stay aware, to stay in the world, and to do what small things I can to keep our world from the new Dark Age that seems to be threatening to eclipse our sun.



(ps - those amazing women learned FORTRAN and how to put it onto punch cards! I failed that three times at university! And I'm still clueless about hoe to work a computer properly!)

Weeds and Wood

Today we chopped out some big gorse from beside the driveway. As I walked down, I enjoyed plants that others would have pulled out as soon as they saw them. I leave them: there is so much joy in them, some 'weeds', some 'plants' gone to seed.

 Wild carrot - I love the little speck of red on some of the flowers.

 Silverbeet - isn't it gorgeous?

 Parsley.

 Parsley and dandelion.

 These were my favourites when I was a child.

 A little bit of loveliness between the garage and my bee shed.

And though gorse is indeed a weed, it has its uses: a nursery plant for natives; a food source for bees, and eventually, firewood. The gorse, combined with pine from a pinenut tree destroyed by the winter tornado, filled a trailer with plenty more to come. A good afternoon's work.

The Sun Sets on 2016

After dinner, when I ate more than I should have, we went for a walk to burn off calories, and to see the sun set on 2016. The clouds made it so much more beautiful than a completely clear sky would have been. But I've always been a cloud lover.

 

It's been a hard year for me. There are ups and downs in any year, but starting the year with a tooth infection, followed by waking up one morning to find I had gone near blind overnight, and thus discovering I had Type 2 diabetes, systemic candida and an extremely persistent urinary tract infection, all added up to a difficult and pretty traumatic year. On the plus side, without my awareness of my blood sugar levels, I would have stayed home with my feet up, instead of going for a walk on the best beach in the world.

This morning I weeded the asparagus garden, It has been sadly neglected pretty much always - maybe next year I'll have kept it weeded and we'll get more than a taste. Mind you, I've said that every year!

Simon and Zea headed off to the far north for New Year, and Jeff and Konny went into Hamilton to catch up with friends. It's been lovely having them all visiting, and good to see so many of their friends, and mine, over the holiday season. However, I was feeling shattered today until a visit from my oldest close friend, Eileen, meant a relaxing afternoon with no energy expended because I am so comfortable with her.

Meanwhile, the oldest goat lay down in the sunshine for a sleep today, and didn't wake up again. RIP Auntie, you were the nicest of the goats.

Mac attached the front-end loader to the tractor in order to bury her, and then followed up by filling with dirt, the old boat we acquired months ago from his brother. I dug the weak peppermint roots up from their spot under the pineapple sage and replanted it. Hopefully I won't have to buy any more peppermint tea ever again!

Solstice, Procrastination, and Good intentions

Today it actually feels like summer at last. It is also the solstice, so it's about time it felt like summer!

Yesterday I went and collected 40 kumera tupu from Liz, our local permaculture guru, who lives just a few minutes away. The season is late here: last year I planted them in November. They grew well and now I know how to do it, they stored well too, and we are eating the last of them now.

I have not done well with producing food this year. I have been focused on getting healthier, on what I can and can't eat now I am diabetic, and have been fairly dispirited about growing food as a consequence. I am so disappointed that our fruit trees are not bearing much fruit this year, the ones that I can eat, anyway. I had planned on bottling lots of apples and pears, but we have no pears on our three trees, and not many apples.

I only recently decided to grow kumera again. Potatoes are definitely out for me, so haven't grown any, much to Mac's disappointment. However, I have found that I can take kumera in moderation. Of course, being both an impulse buyer (Hey I think I'll grow kumera again, I'll go get some tupu now,) and a procrastinator (I don't know what to grow in that garden so I won't prepare it for anything,) I got up this morning and knew I had to work hard in the hottest day of 'summer' so far (26C)

Of course, like all procrastinators, I am easily distracred. On the way to the kumera garden, I realised that the basket willows were lost in weeds so stopped to clean that mess up, 'pruning' some with the scythe in the process. I took this before I'd finished just so I could see what a mammoth task it was!

 My vege gardens have been similarly neglected, but the bees are loving it. There are actually young pea plants in there somewhere.

Anyway, I did manage to get the bed dug and weeded, but needed Mac's help after work to hit the warratahs in for the extended windbreak - not just to guard against the wind, but also in the hopes of keeping the pukeko out. I have only about a quarter of the shallots and garlic that I originally planted left, after the wretched birds kept pulling in out. They didn't like it, but had to keep trying, just in case the next one was different!

It was very hot, and hard work. I'm tired and my joints in my hands are throbbing from all the pulling of over-size weeds, but still, I feel incredibly privileged to live and work in this beautiful place.

It's been a funny week. I've spent time thinking about my parents, as my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer 28 years ago yesterday, and died just 11 days later, following on from my father's death 8 months earlier. I've been thinking about my sons who have been through some hard times this year, but also some good times. I've been thinking of my personal difficulties with diabetes and depression this year - I've managed not to succumb to depression, but it's been a struggle nonetheless. But I've also been looking forward to seeing all my sons on the 25th, and to various 'happenings' coming up next year.

From my health problems has arisen a deep gut knowledge that I am going to die. I always knew it intellectually, but now I know it. This coming year I want to tell people if I love them. And what I love about them. Actually tell them, rather than wait and say it at their funerals. In the last week two people have said kind things about me, to me, and it felt so good. But it is also important to express the bad things if it is important to you and if the person is / has been important in your life. I never told my father anything other than I loved him. I tried to talk to my mother about the issues that have taken me the 28 years since her death to almost come to terms with - she refused to discuss or listen. I did tell her that I loved her, and thanked her for some of the positive things she had done - but only as she lay on her death bed. As I finished, she took one last breath and died. I don't remember her ever saying she loved me, or that approving of anything about me. I wish she had been able to talk to me, and to hear me.

I hope that people, my sons, friends, whoever, don't procrastinate, and will talk to me about what they need to say to me before I die, rather than saying the good things at my funeral, and the bad things to their therapists.

Today, in the garden, on this summer solstice day, I worked hard and didn't think much at all, just sat with the present. And it was good.

Relationships: Too Hard Some Days

When you never felt loved as a child, when you grew up thinking that you had to earn every scrap of affection, when you were always told that what you did was not good enough, you end up unable to believe that people care about you, love you. And you don't know how to manage relationships.

There are friends who, as I get a bit healthier, mentally, I realise weren't really friends at all, even though we filled functions for each other.: I was so desperate to be liked, I did whatever was needed to maintain their 'affection', and only realised recently that they didn't really give a fuck about me personally except where I was useful for their purposes. I'm not saying they are worse than me - just that, like me, they have needs.

There are other friends who do care about me, as I do for them. People who ask how I am, and what I've been doing, and listen when I answer, as often I do with them. People who I enjoy, and who seem to enjoy my company too.

I've reached a point where I have been able to let some just drift away. If they come back, and I can see a change in the way we interact, I won't turn my back on them.

The hardest relationships to manage are those with my sons. They are adults, grown and leading their own lives. But my love for them is still every bit as strong as it ever was, as when I fell in love at first sight when each was born. And yet they are drifting further and further away. I don't know most of their friends. I no longer know all the things they like to eat. I know little about their interests or their opinions or about what matters to them anymore. Mostly they don't seem to want me to know, and mostly aren't interested in my opinions or in having conversations about much.

I sometimes know they love me, but not always. I sometimes think they like me, but not always. I sometimes think they trust me, sometimes, some more than others. I miss knowing these people who I love so much, more than anyone or anything else in the world, but I am required to smile and act glad that they are becoming more independent, more their own unique people, leading their own lives. To smile, and be grateful for the morsels they share.

I remember thinking that the reason our memories of childbirth fade so quickly is because otherwise a woman would not give birth a second time - let alone a third and fourth time so it! But what would really kill off the human race, would be foreknowledge of the pain of successfully raising independent children. Some days it's just too fucking hard.

Thoughts Around Food

Since someone was talking to me the other day about becoming vegan as an ethical choice, I've been thinking again about how I make my food choices.

I became a vegetarian in the early 1970s, after I left home and went flatting. I had never liked eating most meat, and, in particular, disliked the texture. I liked pork, ham, bacon, but nothing else. Back in those olden days, vegetarianism was pretty unusual and I frequently faced questions from people who were sure I'd die if I didn't eat it. I started reading about being a vegetarian, and attended a vegetarian cooking / nutrition class run by the Seventh Day Adventists. No Google or internet back then. I quickly realised that if I was worried about health, pig meat was probably the most important one to give up, and a few weeks working at the Huttons factory in Frankton made giving up pig meat an easy decision!

My interest in learning more about staying healthy led me to the Soil And Health Association in Hamilton, and from there developed an interest in organic growing, and so on through wider areas of healthy eating. Obviously I came in contact with the ideas of veganism and animal welfare, but my interest was mainly in factors that related to my health. I bought free range eggs when I could, and continued to eat dairy products and honey from 'wherever'.

In 2000 we moved to a block of land in the country where we try to grow as much food as we can, though I admit I could do a lot more if I was a real yeoman farmer / peasant - I don't work in the cold and rain, nor put in the hours that are needed to be properly productive. I did a permaculture design course, and continue to read widely in these areas. I started understanding the other ethical issues involved in food production

When I buy food, I take into account a variety of things. First and foremost, I no longer buy food that will harm me - as well as being vegetarian, I am wheat-free (doctor's orders) and diabetic.

I buy as little processed food as I can, preferring to make my own from scratch, ensuring ingredients are as fresh as possible, and necessary for the eating rather than for shelf life.

I buy organic as much as I can find and afford, partly because so many fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides have far reaching effects on non-target species. I avoid GM food because it is designed to increase the amount of herbicides and insecticides that can be used, again affecting non-target species. Because of labeling law inadequacies, buying organic is the only way to avoid these. Veganism for reasons of not killing animals, needs, in my opinion, to be organic, and fairtrade, because standard food production thrives only with a huge amount of herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, fungicides - but I guess it depends on your definition of  'animals'.

I buy as local as I can, Raglan first, then Waikato, North Island, South Island, Australia, Pacific Islands and so on. I rarely buy imported fruit and vegetables. The other day I wanted some frozen blueberries and raspberries but couldn't find any that were NZ produce only - so I'm going without until I do my annual pick-your-own in a few weeks time and freeze enough for the coming year.

I buy fairtrade as much as I can find and afford. I don't want to buy food that has been grown using exploitative labour.

I try to avoid plastic where practicable.

All of these things, other than my dislike of the taste and texture of meat, reflect values that are important to me: the importance of keeping healthy, not just myself, but the earth. Of treating people and animals well. The permaculture ethics of earth care, people care and fair share, plus the ideas of the slow food movement and food security are pretty much what guides my thinking. I understand the ethics of people who become vegan, both the land use issues and the issue of killing animals in the process of food production, but not for the first time, I have concluded it is not for me. To eat as a vegan at this point in time, would require me to compromise too many of my other areas of concern.

See Flowers Not Weeds

I love Rachel Macy Stafford's blog, which tells me so much I should know. I bought two of her bracelets and wear them all the time to remind me.

One says, 'see flowers not weeds'. It's a message I need a constant reminder of, as I tend, not just to see the negative things in life, but almost actively seek them out: if you expect the bad in life, you won't be disappointed.

 I have always thought of myself as a pessimist, but I think I must actually be a closet optimist, because I am perpetually disappointed, no matter how much I prepare for the worst.

 Lately I have been trying hard to see the good side of things, and the positive possibilities.

 I'm finding I am disappointed far less often, even though the bad things still happen, because I see the good things in the foreground.

Sixteen years ago, when we moved to our paradise in the country, I fell in love with the 'weeds' - the flowers and grasses that surrounded us, and which I picked and brought inside because I had no garden. I still have no flower gardens, and still love the wild plants, especially the wild carrot. However, there are still a few weeds I remove, even when their flowers are beautiful, such as the thistles.

 I learned to literally 'see flowers not weeds', but it's taken me a lot longer to apply the words as a metaphor to my life.

on the road

driving on the motorway
surrounded by
cars, vans, trucks
campers, buses

who are they?
where are they going?
where have they been?

beside the road
hay paddocks, long grass
iridescent in the sun
stroked by the wind
like crushed velvet
come alive

driving on the motorway
music filling my space
with different times
places people

who am i?
where am i going?
where have i been?

in this glass and metal bubble
the possibilities seem
infinite

i can be anyone
going anywhere

Climate Change and (in)Human Nature

A few people have shared a documentary, Before the Flood, in which Leonardo DiCaprio explores the topic of climate change, and what needs to be done today to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on earth. Because they are people who matter to me, I watched it. To me it was was nothing new. I knew it all - maybe not in exact detail, but certainly there is nothing there to surprise, nothing to make me gasp with sudden insight.

Or perhaps there was. I realised that for someone who knew it all, I have taken shockingly little action.

I remember when I was at university (1969 - 1973) I read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and had that sudden shock reaction which changed my attitude to food and food production. I remember reading Vance Packard's The Waste Makers which told of planned obsolescence in manufacturing, and the sudden shock of that led me to buy the best quality products I could afford. I marched in the streets of Hamilton against French nuclear testing at Mururoa and against the Vietnam War. I was full of ideals and enthusiasm. I read about living differently - communities, communes, hippy back to the land, The Farm but I was always holding back, always scared of going 'too far'.

Then Mac and I headed off for a year and a half of Kiwi OE, to Britain and Europe. It was mainly fun and exploring a different part of the world, but occasionally there were sobering reminders of human destruction and cruelty: mile upon mile of crosses marking war graves in France; the concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich; IRA bomb threats in London; a visit to Scotland where some of my cottage weaver ancestors were made homeless and jobless by the industrial revolution and thus made the move all the way to New Zealand. But the fun times dulled the shocks.

Home in New Zealand I took more interest in healthy food, organic gardening, making my own clothes again. But then we behaved like good little Kiwis, and instead of joining a commune, we bought a house in suburbia and settled down, making concrete paths, including one leading to the Hills Hoist clothesline. We made vegetable gardens, and had babies, and though I did become a little alternative by moving to using various alternative therapies when ordinary medicine failed, and by homebirthing and homeschooling, I somehow drifted into living a pretty ordinary suburban life.

While at university I had also marched against Springbok tours, but in 1981 I did not march. I still believed, more than ever, that South Africa's apartheid was wrong, but could not bring myself to risk being arrested when I had a three month old, breast-fed baby. Or was that just a coward's excuse? I truly don't know still.

And so I leaned further and further into conformity and its comfort. I can say I use as little plastic as possible, grow as much of my own food as possible, make as many of my own clothes as possible, live as simply as possible and so on. But it isn't true.I could do so much more. I don't work in the garden in all weather, as subsistence farmers do. I have way more clothes than I need, most still bought, most still made overseas probably by slave, or near slave, labour.

Our home is huge, our sons grown and gone. Each bedroom is as big or bigger than a refugee camp tent, and there are New Zealanders, Raglan people, homeless, but here we are living, just the two of us, in a four bedroom house, surrounded by unused land that could be producing way more food. The part of me that knows these things is not strong enough. I can't even bring myself to take in WWOOFers to help us on our land. I'm so entrenched in the first world luxury of being able to indulge my introversion, my depression, my difficulties in understanding others, my fear of both attachment and rejection, and my personal comfort. I would be happy to share my home with any of my sons, but even that would be difficult. The local council rules are such that we could build a small 'granny flat' so that one of my sons could take over the big house, but I'm not ready to give up my big kitchen and pantry. I'm a typical selfish baby boomer, one of the ones who have been destroying this world with our burning of fossil fuels, plastic waste, plastic values.

I've been reflecting since I watched that documentary. I have four sons. FOUR sons! When I was at university we talked of zero population growth, and my contribution was going to be having no children. So much for good intentions! I gave in to the base animal instinct to procreate. I am so happy to have my sons in my life, but can't help but wonder when I conveniently 'forgot' my principles. Is it human nature to push to the back the difficult decisions, the painful actions, or is it just me? Or is it most of us, with just the special few leading the way, trying to drag the rest of us along, screaming and shouting and denying? Will my young friends who are aware of the realities of climate change retain their sense of urgency to change the world, or will they too gradually slip into the mediocrity of old age? I hope this new generation is stronger than me and mine.

Fucked in the Head

So what if you spend your life being fucked in the head, fucking with other people's heads, being self-centred and self-obsessed, and trying to peel back the layers of mental illness, and then you discover that there is no centre, that you are empty, that there really is nothing of value in the 'real' you? Yeah, I know, if there's no you, who is the you that is thinking this? And yeah, I know, this will pass and things will get better again. But fuck, it's a dreary existence, and I'm so sad and sorry for all the misery I bring, not just to me, but to everyone else as well. I thought I was reaching a point where I might stop needing a therapist, but he's away for a week, and I've spent so much time this week, just feeling unutterably sad, and crying over everything. But there's the tax returns to file, and the driver's licence to renew, and dog food and toilet paper to buy, so I guess I will have to stuff my misery into my back pocket and get on with it.

The Quiet of the Country

So quiet.

Almost too quiet.

I walk, listening to the silence.

Shoes crunch on gravel.

Dog barks, keen to follow the roar of the farmer's bike.

Down the driveway

the sounds of myna birds

tui

wax eyes

a pheasant whirring up through the undergrowth

piwakawaka joyfully following

collecting insects

stirred up by my steps

Further along, the bird sounds are drowned out by cows:

in the gaps between warning mooing

and anticipatory mooing

the cud chewing is audible

as is the slurping of hooves

in and out of deep mud

and the soft plops

of freshly forming cow pats

the wind whistles past my ears

like breath over a bottle

and stirs the old macrocarpa to gossip

an aeroplane drones overhead

echoed by a white ute purring

past the end of the road

bees hum in golden gorse flowers

The old dog, panting, 

splashes into the gurgling stream

My heart beats in my ears

as I climb the hill

So quiet in the country

 

Work Days

I'm working again. Just two days a week, for a couple of months. I take tiny plants out of seed trays and put them in small pots. Later, I take the grown plants out of the small pots and put them in bigger pots. They are native trees destined for a farm that a wealthy German industrialist is turning back into native bush. I learn so much from my employer, so it is never boring. I only work on dry days, or maybe when there is an occasional shower, but it can be cold on mornings like yesterday, when my hands became very painful handling the frost-chilled potting mix. I love it: what's not to love about spending your work day in a beautiful garden?

And then, on the way home, a walk on my most favourite beach in the world.