My Soul is Scottish

For those who are interested in the esoteric side of life, you’ll know that there was a lot of hoopla about this month’s full moon in Scorpio. The significance was that it opens a pathway to your truest nature and deepest passions. Energy is all over the grid; things ending; things beginning.

It’s felt ‘jagged’ for me. I don’t have a better word to describe it. It rained last night so meditating was in the general direction of the moon but no visual. This evening it’s a bit cloudy and the moon was a tad low on the horizon so the only place to see it was sitting under a tree next to the sidewalk along a busy road. Not ideal but gotta do what needs to be done. So I hauled my picnic blankie out and sat outside for a bit, feet on the wet grass. While a tad on a cold side, it felt good having grass between my toes.

it wasn’t an overly long meditation, or contemplation if you will. Sitting outside in the dark, under a tree on the sidewalk made me realize how unnoticed I was. I mean, how often do you see someone meditating on a sidewalk facing a full moon yet passing motorists had no focus other than on what they were doing. Good for the motorists, because you know, safety first, but it made me realize how unnatural life is in some ways. We don’t see what’s in front of us because we’re seeing what’s put in front of us.

There’s routine: You wake up, feed the kids/dogs/spouse, go to work, work, talk shit to people, commute home, cook, clean, shower, TV, naps, etc. and it plays out in similar sequences most days.

Then there’s rhythm: Sunrise, sunset, seasons, daylight, darkness, settling, waking up, cycles in nature and the body. We don’t live by those things most of the time. Our surroundings artificially provide light beyond the dark, we wake up at ungodly hours; there’s constant noise. It never ends. Traffic all the time in varying quantities because the stores are open 24/7 in case you need to buy a lawnmower. People work shifts so that the profit machine never needs to shut down. We eat beyond what we need because it’s there and we can. Burger and all the trimmings at 3am? You betcha! We don’t listen to our inner nature anymore. We aren’t in tune with nature because we’ve all but obliterated it in our daily lives. We’ve lost balance and turn to entertainment and medication in an attempt to fill the void where balance used to be.

The seasons are just mere weather; our lives don’t alter to match it. Foods are available all year round and if it’s not in season, then we’ll just have that shit shipped in from wherever it is in season. There’s no work and rest. We’re entertained and connected all the hours God sends so there’s no slow descent into restfulness at the end of the day. It’s lights on, lights off. Outside, the street lights are on or the sun is up. There’s never just total darkness, so we get blackout blinds to create darkness to sleep, while simultaneously working to make sure it’s never dark outside.

Where is the silence? Unless you live in the boonies, it’s never quiet. There’s a car honking, traffic, alarms or sirens. Always something. There aren’t many places to experience deafening silence, or just enough silence to sleep restfully. We don’t wake up naturally. I personally wake up to blaring bagpipes as my alarm tone so it feels like I’m ready to invade a small country within 5 minutes of waking up. Yes, I could pick something gentle, but given that I sleep with earplugs in to drown out the traffic noise so I can sleep, I need a loud alarm to get through the earplugs. See the conundrum??

Our routines seldom deviate and our rhythms are out of whack. The tragedy is that it isn’t set to change. The world won’t suddenly embrace no street lights or stores that close at 5pm. The traffic won’t go away while there are places for those people to go, or jobs to be done servicing the people who need to shop at 2am. Shift work won’t vanish while there’s money to be made.

How do we get the rhythm back? While I think the notion of having paraffin lamps would be romantic and old fashioned, I’d probably burn the block down and cannot be trusted to operate something that doesn’t have a switch. How do we tune into the natural rhythms when we’ve spent years eliminating the need for them? We don’t have to sleep when the sun goes down because lightbulbs y’all! We’ve gotten very efficient at living; packing a pile of stuff into every day. But do we actually have balance?

As fluffy as it sounds to any left-brained person, I need to find ways to embrace the natural rhythms in my life again; whether it’s the biorhythms of the body, phases of the moon or seasons of the year. Instead of routine, I need ritual; rituals that respect the rhythms of nature and of my nature. Maybe that’s the road to balance.

Last week my best friend’s daughter did her final surgical exam for her veterinarian’s degree. This woman has been a vegan since she was in kindergarten. As soon as she found out where meat came from, that was it. No more meat. 3 decades she has stuck to her guns and never wavered. Not a single day. I’ve never met another person so passionate about protecting animals to the degree that they have lived their entire life to that end since the age of 5. No compromise. Even as a small kid, she stood her ground and wouldn’t budge an inch on eating meat or animal products.

She was probably the last one to figure out she was meant to be a vet. She completed 2 degrees before the light finally went on. The rest of us have known her whole life. On the day her dream should have come true, her Prof decided to fail her because she thought she ‘didn’t handle the post-surgical conversation the way she would have done it.’ A Professor who has spent the past few months telling her that she’d never be any good, despite her results stating the exact opposite. So much for having professors who support and mentor their students for the exorbitant fees they charge… Well Prof, you don’t know her at all so we’ll see you at the appeal.

It has made me question how anyone could be so spiteful as to destroy someone’s dream, just because they have the power to do it. If it had been a failed surgical procedure, then absolutely. That’s a safety issue so fail away! But for no other reason than that their personalities didn’t gel?? How do you sleep at night knowing you have deliberately derailed someone’s life? Or do you have a good chuckle at your Machiavellian plan over a glass of wine?

How many small ways do we undermine people around us every day? Sometimes deliberately, other times unintentionally. When your kids, family, or friends tell you about their deepest dreams and hopes, do you give them encouragement, or laugh it off as ridiculous? Do you tell them to dream smaller or stop being so ambitious? Or worse, tell them to shut up? Small kids don’t have that veil of cynicism where everything is impossible. They still believe in positive outcomes so don’t be the dick who takes that away from them.

How many times have I done that? We say things for the sake of speaking without fully appreciating the impact it could have. Not everything is damaging to the degree above, but that doesn’t make it less significant. Instead, we create people who are too afraid to chase their dreams because they’re ‘not really that important.’ When you laugh off someone’s ‘pathetic little dream’, you break their spirit. Maybe permanently. Maybe they’ll never dream again because of you. To use a cliche, if you can’t say something nice, then say nothing at all. Constructive criticism is one thing if it’s to help someone improve, but picking away at someone to make them feel stupid for fun is a whole other ball of wax.

The world can be a pretty shit place; we’re hardly inundated in good news. That there are still souls out there who dream at all is a frikking miracle, considering the cesspool of bad news we inhabit. People who chase their dreams are doing something positive and constructive, and the world needs a lot more of that! Maybe their dream will make our lives a little better in the long run, who knows?

I’ve put mine in a safe box where my family can’t pick at it anymore. I’m tired of being told to suck it up and forget about going home. I’m tired of being told to ‘let it go.’ My dream is to go back to Scotland and I’ll get there. Someday. Not sure how just yet, but I’ll find a way and when I do, they’ll be the last to know.

Not everyone will support your vision but please, don’t stop chasing it. Don’t let someone with no imagination or hope diminish you. And if you don’t have a dream, don’t interrupt the people who do. If you’re not helping, you’re getting in the way and ain’t nobody got time for that.

Not sure how a month has flown by since I last wrote. April was a busy month; hosted friends and family which was great! It’s been ages since I’ve played hostess and forgotten how much I’ve missed it. Having a house full of family and friends was brilliant. This house finally got to do what it was built to do – making memories with people who matter.

The change of seasons is always an odd time; things end, things come back. Seeing the blandness turn back to green is restorative. At the same time I seem to have lost my ‘voice.’ I can’t order my thoughts or settle into my routine. I haven’t written in a month. The words just aren’t there and I’m not sure when they’ll be back.

Instead I finally got around to starting a herb garden, which has been on my list of things to do for years. My kitchen has been like an indoor garden with pots of seedlings all over the place. Tomatoes, thyme, rosemary, coriander, chamomile, lemon balm, basil, bok choy. Tossed in a few hot peppers & chives too. I planted them out this afternoon and the poor things look like they’ve fainted. I’m hoping they’ll perk up. They’re in pots so I’ve brought them indoors overnight because there’s a late frost on the menu this evening. Hopefully I haven’t killed them by planting them too soon.

I’m rambling so I’ll clock out and go in search of some sense.

A few weeks back I started doing restorative yoga and in that short span of time, what a difference. I’m not talking about suddenly having the perfect body after 3 weeks, but my view of it has changed.

The biggest difference has been to how I handle stress. I can go from zero to defcon 1 in milliseconds when I’m stressed and that kind of stress is not good. The simple act of conscious breathing has put a space between the trigger and the response. That space makes a difference between instantly reacting to someone grating my carrot and taking a minute to slow down and respond rationally. By working slower, more things got done with a lot less effort. It turns out that the things that stress me out are completely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

One yoga session focused on hip openers. Apparently we carry a lot of stress and emotional baggage in the hip and pelvic area so opening up your hips and the connective tissue in that area releases a lot of built up baggage. The class wasn’t particularly intense but the emotional and physical release after class was cathartic. I sobbed uncontrollably all the way home but couldn’t put my finger on the reason. By the time I got home I was fine again. That class made me look at my body differently.

Every single day our bodies keep us alive; functioning in the background, taking care of business while we bombard it with excess, toxins and negativity. Every cell in my body works for me and only me. In exchange for that, I pick away at every little imperfect detail berating every way it fails to live up to my warped expectation of perfection. Meanwhile it just chugs away, breathing, pumping blood, removing waste, protecting me from illness and a whole bunch of other stuff I don’t think about.

An impossible and perfect design, housing my soul, asking for very little in return. I’ve never appreciated how much my body does, yet I’ve been very quick to find all the things it can’t do. It can’t bend all the way down to put my head on my knees, it can’t fit into my skinny jeans. It has also healed every time I’ve damaged it; broken bones, shredded skin, all fixed. It has processed every piece of junk I’ve fed it and kept running when it should probably have called a time-out ages ago. It replaces all the bits that I keep snapping off. It’s a perfect system working to the best of its ability despite the constant negativity, neglect, stress and self-loathing that gets piled on.

It’s easy to focus on the flabby belly and wiggly arms but that serves no purpose. Shifting the focus to all the things it does and how much it has withstood over the years makes me want to treat it better; feed it better; love it better. My life will end when my body decides that it’s had enough of my shit so it’s probably wise to suck up to it and be nice.

Yoga has become a way of saying thank-you. Taking a slice of time each day to gently release the built up tension and stress has been the best decision I’ve made in years. Anything worth doing takes time but whether we make the effort, or whether we don’t, the time will pass anyway.

The reconstruction is almost complete; only a few small bits to finish up in the kitchen. My broken woodpile is a home again! It feels like the sun has come up for the first time in months and the stress has moved out.

 

Everything has an energy, even inanimate things. Before I bought this house, it was renovated, supposedly. In hindsight, it wasn’t completely renovated; it was the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a severed limb. The neglect was painted over and made to look better, but the damage within the bones was ignored. This house was NOT happy.

In all fairness, if I’d been neglected for years and not taken care of, I’d be pretty pissed too. There are certain things that need to be serviced and replaced periodically in houses; it’s all part of the ‘joy’ of home-ownership; you get to take care of these things. Or in the case of the previous sets of owners, NOT take care of them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it will eventually give out and break. Which is what it did. Instead of having a small wound, this place had a full-on breakdown. I’ve decided to view it as the inanimate-equivalent of a full blown tantrum.

Instead of viewing the chaos as a home in need of care and repair, I hated it and funneled my anger into it for all the disappointment it had caused me and for all the ways it had let me down. Obviously, I thought I’d signed on for something different; a renovated home, not a money pit. About a week ago I decided that this house and I need to get onto the same page. So I did the only crazy thing I know; I had a frank discussion with this house, in the same way you’d have a chat to a friend. Out loud. Yes, I know, they probably make pills for this.

After getting the apologies out of the way, for all the anger I’d brought to the party since the snafu in January, I acknowledged all the ways this house has been neglected. Looking at some of the scars left, this house was in pretty bad disrepair before it was ‘renovated.’ Then the renovation just glossed it up and dumped it on the first person to fall for it. Whether the previous sets of owners just didn’t give a shit, or whether they financially couldn’t handle it, this house was left to break and there was never a level of love and care put into it to make it whole again. It’s a bit like breaking up with your partner because they got sick; they just walked away and left it.

This place was built to be someone’s home and there are no visible signs that it ever was. The people I bought it from, never lived here. They owned it for 2 years and it stood empty while they renovated it. It’s been a long time since any kind of love lived within these walls, then I moved in and my anger moved in 5 weeks later.

It’s time this place was a home. My home. There are still things to be fixed, and I will fix them one at a time. I’ve promised to take care of the things that need fixing, in exchange for my house showing me what those things are. If there’s a leak, show me where it is gently; don’t collapse the ceiling around me to get my attention. I can only fix them slowly, so if this house collapses around my ears, I can’t fix that. But I can turn this home into the Belle of the Block, one project at a time.

Acknowledging the neglect has really shifted the energy. This isn’t a fight anymore. We are 2 things in need of care and pampering; my house and me.

 

Thanks to the amazing crew at Chicago Water and Fire, my house feels like a home. I have floors again. The broken kitchen is functional and better than it was before. There’s extra storage, the paint is fresh, the walls are no longer gaping holes oozing insulation, the floors are gorgeous and smooth underfoot. Everything is back in its place and the energy has changed completely. It’s gone from feeling angry and negative to a sanctuary; even my body feels lighter.

By recognizing how deep the neglect has run into the core of this house, something has shifted mentally. Restoration is going to take time and it needs to go right down to the bones. You can only fix something if you’re willing to admit that it’s broken and I am broken. So after 20 years of having it on every single list of things I want to do with my life, I took myself to yoga. By myself. Restorative yoga isn’t what was on the list, but it’s what is necessary right now. I cannot restore this house down to the bones, if I’m too chicken-shit to do the same thing for myself.

To Henley, for taking me a restorative class in Canada 3 years ago; to Kara for constantly nudging me to try it; to Tia for researching the studio to make sure it would be the right place for me and for encouraging me to go, THANK YOU! Love you ladies to the moon and back.

A while back I wrote about the weird quirks South Africans and English people have. Next stop: America!

Each place has its own unique quirks; things that make perfect sense to everyone who lives there, but to strangers, not so much. A standard American greeting is ‘Hi, how are ya?’ This is absolutely NOT a question. It is a statement. If you answer that with anything resembling how you are, you get the oddest looks. 6 years I’ve been answering that damn question…

The word ‘fetch’. I told a colleague I was going to fetch a friend at the airport and got ‘Say what now?’ You know, she’s at the airport, then I will fetch her, then she’ll be with me. ‘Oh…. you mean grab?’ No. This isn’t a staged kidnapping. 100% of the time, the word ‘fetch’ in relation to anything other than a dog, causes confusion. You can grab or pick up, never fetch.

The word herb. It’s pronounced ‘erb here, and it breaks my brain every time. What happens when the guy’s name is Herb? I had a colleague who interviewed with a guy named Herb and she said she had to actually concentrate not to call him ‘erb. Oh boy….. She got the job by the way.

Trolleys (shopping carts) have cup holders. An actual place to put your beverage. Personally, I have no clue why anyone would attempt to steer a renegade trolley one-handed while attempting to consume a hot coffee. It’s like a legal version of drinking and driving. It takes an epic level of skill, which I haven’t yet mastered. Score 1 to Murica!

Frequently you’ll see people going to school, walking around the station or out shopping in their fleecy pajama pants. Yep, fleecy snowman pants, on teenage boys, in public. WHY? Last winter I was stopped behind a school bus waiting for the little darlings to get off and virtually every person on that bus was in PJ pants. No, it wasn’t ‘wear your jammies to school’ day, it is a legit thing. Not just kids, grownups too. And believe me, it’s not just in Walmart either. I checked with my nephew & he doesn’t understand either. He’s 15 going on 50, so he’s equally disturbed by this oddity. Is this a fashion trend? Sweat pants sure, but pajamas?? Really? God, I sound like my grandmother.

Rigorously defending their Constitutional right to freedom of speech on one hand, and also being utterly offended at what someone said to the point of considering legal action to remedy their hurt feelings. Best not go to South Africa then, because Saffas are notorious for having no brain-mouth filters at all. It’s likely that my cause of death will be being sarcastic at the wrong time. Oh well, ho hum. I am personally too lazy to be offended by someone else’s opinion of anything. For me to be offended, I’d have to care, and the chances are I probably don’t.

In South Africa, people often refer to themselves as stupid when they do something dumb. Do NOT attempt to call yourself stupid here, it really upsets the locals. There’s something about that word that deeply offends them, even if you’re using it in reference to yourself. Saffas also say ‘don’t be ugly’, meaning something along the lines of ‘don’t be mean/rude/whatever’. Say that in Murica and sweet baby Jesus and all the saints, people lose their shit. I can see why, but always figured the context would speak for itself. Assumption really is the mother of all fuck ups.

So to all Americans, please take this as a blanket apology in advance for all the unintentional offence I will undoubtedly cause during my lifetime and I really will try to use the correct verbiage based on geographical location. The chances of success are slim to none but I’ll give it a go.

 

 

 

 

At some point we’ve all scratched our heads in confusion wondering what the point of it all is. The point of life. The point of struggle. The point of anything at all.

The Enlightened among us figure it out early; the rest of us careen through life like out-of-control bumper cars. The assumption is that we’ll eventually figure it out, right? That’s the eternal unanswered question, isn’t it? It’s a safe assumption that we’re all winging it.

After another few setbacks this week, it feels like life is hanging off a very short rope and secretly I hope the rope snaps, bringing an abrupt end to the chaos. As I’ve mentioned before, tying myself to one place was never been on the list of things to do, and for 40 years it’s been mission accomplished. Since abruptly changing direction and doing the one thing I said I’d never do, life has been total mayhem. It’s been chaos, wrapped in mayhem, sprinkled with carnage.

The socially accepted standardized map for living is find a partner, get hitched, buy a house with a picket fence (or a McMansion, whatever floats your boat) and sprout out a few kids. Maybe throw in a dog/cat/goldfish/parrot. That’s the map I’ve measured myself against since I’ve been old enough to vote and have fallen short in every single category. I haven’t done a single thing on that map and have judged myself a failure as a woman because of it. I’ve never measured up to the ‘successful’ siblings in the family.

So I spontaneously went against every instinct and let me tell ya, life has kneed me in the bollocks constantly since I did. It made me realize something on the train home today. No-one knows you better than you do. If your life path deviates from the standardized map that society uses to judge your worth, THEN LET IT. You don’t need to justify your life choices and your version of happiness to anyone. Stop trying to live up to someone else’s picture of what being a well-adjusted adult should look like. If your gut instinct is screaming NO, then for the love of God, LISTEN!

I had more than one moment of wanting to walk away from the purchase of this house; instead I went through with it, putting the feeling down to the stress involved in buying a house. Life has always been about having freedom; the freedom to travel; the freedom to move at a moment’s notice; the freedom of having no-one to answer to by myself. I spent too long feeling caged by life and from the minute I tasted freedom, I’ve never let it go. Until now.

The cage door has closed and regret is the lock on the door. There’s no inspiration to write; no urge to create; no joy in hobbies because every iota of energy is being sapped by stress. Fleeting moments of contentment in the garden are paid for with a pound of stress brought on by the responsibility of a mortgage.

It’s been a lot of years since I’ve wanted to run up the white flag on my life and just call it a day. Ignoring the one thing I know about myself and flying in the opposite direction will go down as my biggest regret. Every setback makes the dream of going home seem impossible. In a stupid attempt to have a place to call home, I have a house, while home is an ocean and 3,700 miles away.

Anyone have any useful tips on how to just close the door and walk off the grid? Just a backpack & a destination and let the world deal with what’s left. Just an occasional postcard, with an obscure postmark, letting them know I’m still alive.

Maybe that’s my road to Enlightenment. Maybe mental suffering is more closely linked to the physical things we tie ourselves to, rather than the physical things we can live without. More stuff = less freedom and in the end, the only thing that will leave this world with you is your soul, with all of its memories. The stuff won’t matter. It never did. Lesson learned and now the tedious process of divesting myself of the anchor I’ve tied to myself. There has to be a way to flip the switch from bad to good, because if I don’t, the spiral into chaos will not end. God…… this might take a while & a significant amount of scotch.

May the odds be ever in our favour.

The weather was amazing this weekend, so I spent it outside, in the garden, hacking down the last of the bush I started cleaning up in January. The last time I was in the garden was January. The day after an amazing day, it all went to shit when my house flooded.

I spent most of this weekend in the garden, enjoying the hell out of it. It’s not often you get 4 days in a row of spring weather in Feb! 1 day later: e-mail from the supplier saying the floors they said they had, are no longer in stock. Of course, the only available stock is more expensive and blows the budget. Unless I’d like to wait 2 months for more stock to come in. I’m starting to think my garden may be cursed or located on a burial ground belonging to an angry dead guy.

FML…. I’m on vacation this week, so spent the morning looking for new flooring, bollox to the budget, God bless Master card and there’s now a beef shank braising in the oven. Bottle of wine chilling and in about an hour, I’m going to have a bowl of the most sublime beef shank braised in tarragon and marsala wine, with garlic roasted potatoes. My kitchen may be stripped to the concrete but I’m damn well going to eat something delicious.

So instead of reconstruction starting next week, it’s now starting in 3 weeks and between now and then, there is a fully stocked wine rack with my name on it. It’s supposedly snowing this weekend, which means I won’t be digging up the angry dead guy in my garden so we can assume life will go on uninterrupted until spring.

Time to binge-watch cooking programs on Netflix.  Once my kitchen is fixed, I’ll put up some nommy Scottish recipes for you to test, should the urge grab you.

After dinner, work will continue on the 18,000 piece puzzle. Maybe it will be done by Christmas.