I have a sense that no one is reading this anymore.
When I first started people were hanging onto every entry. I suppose the drama of whether or not I would recover was compelling. Then, of course, I signed off, not imagining that I might want to get going again so soon – three days later. How does one tell the departed to return?
Also when I started these writings it was not my intention to write for readers. I was writing to explore pure expression. It didn’t stay – clearly can’t stay – purely expression without some attention to the response of others. The response occurs in my own voice even when no other person is writing or speaking to me about these posts. Then again, if I truly intended no response why use a blog as a vehicle?
Gradually I have come to want to write about some things and not others. A desire for privacy? Feeling complete? Fatigue? Less urgency as my health returns and the pain diminishes? All are factors in my growing self edits.
We have passed the Epiphany and are now in Ordinary Time, according to the church calendar. Mundane concerns dominate my calendar, my day. Groceries, money, laundry, debts, housekeeping, scheduling, business plans, amusements, the neighbours. A shorter horizon indeed.
At the same time miracles are still happening. I caught myself NOT thinking that I might be dying today. This, for me, is a genuine break with the past – a breakthrough in Landmark language.
The past several days have been jammed packed with real and imagined commitments and appointments. This has led to insufficient eating and fluid intake, and yesterday the inevitable constipation set in even though I took care to drink more. Consequently, I awoke in pain three times last night, and I was also cold, requiring an extra blanket.
I have been learning from and through Jen how to shift the pain experience and so I was able to go back to sleep all three times and even slept to 7:45am – an hour and a half longer than usual. But more than that, today I realized that I wasn’t thinking all last night and this morning that I was getting sick AGAIN, that possibly I was dying. I was just thinking that my management strategies had broken down – too much bread and not enough water – and that I had better get on track or use stronger measures.
And then the flax oil, juice and vegetables of late yesterday and this morning kicked in, and all systems are go again.
Apparently I am off and running for a full Cycle 3. 120 birthdays.
Yesterday David Fu gave me amazingly different ideas on how to design an organization and on how to get across the ideas that World Peace is actually available through Inclusion. I am hoping that Mike and I can write it up in the next few days. Of course we are about to get into another crunch writing phase to get my autobiography out by May. I am truly hoping that on Monday I can get a Line of Credit on Dad’s GIC. In this way I can work at preparing a real fundraising effort.
Showing posts with label agenda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agenda. Show all posts
Friday, January 14, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
January 11, 2011
Well there are days when the ball just won’t go between the posts! I was running late pretty well all day. Mike and I went to a consignment store this morning and there were some really great things but nothing in quite the right size. I got an email back from someone who had been asking good questions about WPIT but he declined to donate. I called some more people to be guests at the Wisdom Completion Evening this Thursday but just got message machines. Blah blah blah.
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Friday, January 7, 2011
January 7, 2011
Today I awoke to realize, in the barely beginning dawn, that the crane at the railway near the modular concrete boxes had disappeared out of view. I fell asleep again. Perhaps twenty minutes later I opened my eyes again and there was the crane. It had moved back into view. The sun was far from up and peering at the giant thing hurt my eyes. The many street lights, highway lamp posts and security systems on the local warehouses were mostly still on and intensely bright.
Perhaps three hours later the crane was rotating back and forth with such velocity that the hanging chain and clasps were bouncing around. Was it dancing?
Another hour and it was gliding almost imperceptively along and some twenty minutes later hovering above the larger grey boxes. Then I noticed a train of flatbeds, each with two grey cubes neatly placed. I thought for sure that the crane was unloading the flatbeds, but, no, another hour or so later when I visited my window again – this time the crane was harnessed to a cube, but looking like it was loading the train!
Which is it – loading or unloading? Who is playing this glacially slow game?
It was a beautifully sunny day and the new accountant had taken all the blank payroll cheques as well as miswriting one for this payroll. I urgently needed an alternative way to pay Mike. In my mailbox was a notice of a parcel to pick up. I was out of decaf coffee. In all this the invitation to take a walk and take frequent stops in my exceptionally accessible neighbourhood was strong. Helen and I went out.
Well –5 C (or -7 perhaps) is pretty cold, though I was doubly covered up. About a block before we reached the bank Helen was having to intermittently hold down my upper lip so I could make the speed changes necessary to get over bad curb cuts and avoid pedestrians.
I warmed up in the bank and the teller was efficiently helpful. I came away with a money order to fix the payroll problem after having ordered a new batch of cheques. The post office and decaf are only a block from the bank and we reached them without incident.
The package was not my new passport as I expected, but was from Second Story Press.
I longed for a coffee and snack at Yalla Café and to hear Michel’s stories of his New Year’s encounter with his son’s fiancée’s family at their year end party. So, thinking that I was now sufficiently warmed up, we set out to traverse the ten blocks.
Wrong! Not only did my lip get too cold but even the sip and puff pipe started to freeze up. We limped in to the café. Michel wasn’t there but his wife – Helene, warmly greeted us.
I opened my package. It contained three copies of an agenda published by Second Story Press. It features contemporary Canadian women who have made exceptional contributions. I am November!
I showed it to Helene. When she realized it was about me, she started to read it. Her English is weak and she called in another woman from the back – seemingly a cousin or friend.
The women shared one pair of reading glasses, and soon recruited the assistance of a man (the cousin’s husband it turned out) who used an I-Pod or Blackberry with a Lebanese/English translation application.
Both Helen and I, sitting quietly with our coffees, observed my story and words emerged in Lebanese. Inclusion took a leap into yet another culture. I was awe struck!
The cousins departed and Helene struggled to express her thoughts. She apologized and said she was fluent in French but not English. I still have a smattering of school French and I asked her to say it in that language. She said “fier” and I said “proud”. She clapped.
For me the connection was electric.
As we left Helene ducked into the basement and brought up a blanket to wrap me up. I rolled home a happy pink bundle.
Perhaps three hours later the crane was rotating back and forth with such velocity that the hanging chain and clasps were bouncing around. Was it dancing?
Another hour and it was gliding almost imperceptively along and some twenty minutes later hovering above the larger grey boxes. Then I noticed a train of flatbeds, each with two grey cubes neatly placed. I thought for sure that the crane was unloading the flatbeds, but, no, another hour or so later when I visited my window again – this time the crane was harnessed to a cube, but looking like it was loading the train!
Which is it – loading or unloading? Who is playing this glacially slow game?
It was a beautifully sunny day and the new accountant had taken all the blank payroll cheques as well as miswriting one for this payroll. I urgently needed an alternative way to pay Mike. In my mailbox was a notice of a parcel to pick up. I was out of decaf coffee. In all this the invitation to take a walk and take frequent stops in my exceptionally accessible neighbourhood was strong. Helen and I went out.
Well –5 C (or -7 perhaps) is pretty cold, though I was doubly covered up. About a block before we reached the bank Helen was having to intermittently hold down my upper lip so I could make the speed changes necessary to get over bad curb cuts and avoid pedestrians.
I warmed up in the bank and the teller was efficiently helpful. I came away with a money order to fix the payroll problem after having ordered a new batch of cheques. The post office and decaf are only a block from the bank and we reached them without incident.
The package was not my new passport as I expected, but was from Second Story Press.
I longed for a coffee and snack at Yalla Café and to hear Michel’s stories of his New Year’s encounter with his son’s fiancée’s family at their year end party. So, thinking that I was now sufficiently warmed up, we set out to traverse the ten blocks.
Wrong! Not only did my lip get too cold but even the sip and puff pipe started to freeze up. We limped in to the café. Michel wasn’t there but his wife – Helene, warmly greeted us.
I opened my package. It contained three copies of an agenda published by Second Story Press. It features contemporary Canadian women who have made exceptional contributions. I am November!
I showed it to Helene. When she realized it was about me, she started to read it. Her English is weak and she called in another woman from the back – seemingly a cousin or friend.
The women shared one pair of reading glasses, and soon recruited the assistance of a man (the cousin’s husband it turned out) who used an I-Pod or Blackberry with a Lebanese/English translation application.
Both Helen and I, sitting quietly with our coffees, observed my story and words emerged in Lebanese. Inclusion took a leap into yet another culture. I was awe struck!
The cousins departed and Helene struggled to express her thoughts. She apologized and said she was fluent in French but not English. I still have a smattering of school French and I asked her to say it in that language. She said “fier” and I said “proud”. She clapped.
For me the connection was electric.
As we left Helene ducked into the basement and brought up a blanket to wrap me up. I rolled home a happy pink bundle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)