Yoga

I've just done my Monday yoga; every Monday, following a thinking session straight after work, I head to my yoga class. I love it. Some times I have to drag my mentally refusing brain by the stem, but I know that my body will thank me. Every single time. It's amazing what an hour and a half can do for your well-being. And it's amazing how many times my brain just doesn't feel like going. But I do go.

My teacher is lovely. She has that calm air about her that you'd somehow expect in a yoga teacher, warm, tender almost, and has with gentle adjustments since I started coming to class in January this year taught me a lot about my body.

I've learnt to activate muscles I have never been aware of before. I stretch and twist my spine with an awareness that leaves my muscles sore and used. Tuesdays I really feel my arms from holding them outstretched to the tips of my fingers, shoulders released, or from reaching them straight above my head as high as I ever could. When I bike to work my legs remind me of the mental space and the stretch and use they experienced Monday evening, and I feel a certain satisfaction.

It's a respite, in some ways, from the busy bustle of my daily work, from my hyperactive brain, from my emotional cowardice. It's just me. My body. My breathing, my muscles. It's so incredibly healthy for me.

What do you do for your mental and physical health?

When good things end

When you pass on something good because it's 'for now', rather than 'for longer', are you then grown up? Mature? A sorry sod? A killjoy? Realistic?

One thing that's for sure is that I did.

Distance

Lucky star

I didn't know it could be like this. I had hoped that it didn't have to be a long, weary drudge, that there might be opportunities for a sparkle in there, but I had no idea that work could bring such a feeling of being impressed by others, of having walked a shared journey, and of pride in the people continuing when our involvement in the project came to a close. I just had the last session with a community group and I'm feeling a little teary-eyed. I know they will go on to build an amazing building (probably with their own and the community's bare hands!) and I can't wait to visit them in their shiny new building in a few years. It has been a remarkable journey from a meeting with two people who wanted to have a building, to seeing the involvement of the community and the engagement of tens of people over a period of months. They truly have impressed me with their aspirations and dreams, and with being willing to take the chance and challenge that this project is.

At the end of the workshop today they all chimed in, saying how the process of working with us had given them confidence that they can do this, that it seems manageable now, that they feel empowered, that they have learnt so much, and all just beamed with the knowledge that they are so on the right track.

This is the joy that my job gives me. I feel so extremely blessed and lucky to have the opportunity to work with people and within a field that can give me a feeling like this and such a sense of contentment. Few dare even dream of having it, and even fewer have the luck to live the experience.

I'll be looking at the stars this evening to see if I can suss the lucky alignment I'm living under.

Family matters

It's as though I've reached the cusp of this long dark slog, nearing what seemed to be an airy, bright time. But an ominous dark is spreading throughout, grey and laden with tears.

My grandfather has had a stroke. He lives on the other side of the ocean, overseas and over land. He lives yet. He has taken his numerous sets of pills many times daily for many years now, it's hardly a shock that something more serious has happened. His body is old, and worn out with working long, hard hard hours; some for others under force, others for his family. Life as a labourer takes its toll. Life as a persecuted man, however young and strong he was, has taken its toll. My grandfather is a large man. His body is hard, even where roundness has added to his bulk. His legs carry him still, but every step he takes is so painful he winces. It's been like this for years, but slowly the decline is reaching new lows.

His daughters are there, with each their own burdens to carry, each bringing a bit of misery and a lot of love. They congregate as his broad frame feels frail, distraught, heavy.

And I am far away, finally beginning to realise the importance of roots, the depth of lives lived, and the impact of our history on our lives. And there is nothing I can do.

Autumn dreams

Great big mounds of sand, light and fine. We're underground. I clamber to the cusp of the dunes and see the finest grains start trickling down the other side. My link to history is there. She looks at me from below, near her vehicle. The trickle of sand start to increase in volume, soon the whole surface is moving, sliding slowly, slowly down towards her. I stand there, calling to her, as the sand starts to settle around her and the vehicle - I can't see her any more! The vehicle is engulfed, a deepening of the sand where it is. What's happening - is she ok?

I'm in an underground space, ceiling above me grey and darkening. Lockers like those in a high school, but no, not exactly like that, stand in a corner of the vast space. She is here with me. I open a creaky door by unhooking a basic lock device. Fine sand lays in small dunes along the edges of the space, covering the edges of a big portfolio. I reach in and lift it out, balancing the handwritten notes inside carefully to the table. As I start to leaf through it I hear sounds, it's war out there beyond the walls. I hear something - he's coming, and I am both excited and ashamed to be going through these memories. Suddenly she and I look at each other and I hastily try to replace the portfolio in the locker, shutting the door loudly, engaging the locking device - it's not working now - oh no! He's in the room, large and frail. It's ok. He looks at me with the deepest clarity in his eyes, and I see him for the man he once was. I disengage the lock on the locker again and replace the portfolio on the table.

..Speaking of Danish poets..

... here's a really sweet short animated movie about a Danish poet. It won the Oscar in 2007 for best short subjects animation.



Enjoy!

Story time

**

A couple of years ago I went to an eerie ghost town, somewhere in the winterland of Death Valley in California. It was incredibly foggy when I was there, and the thick, gray fog obscured visibility more than a couple of meters ahead. Crunchy gravel beneath my feet, ramshackle buildings with deteriorating weatherboard cladding, and a few subtle but distinct indications that people had actually lived there set the mood to pensive, heavy, loaded. The sensation of lingering remnants of activity stopped short was multiplied by the way sound failed to travel through the fog, almost as though water in the air hampered the sounds we made, and rendered us alone, singular individuals, in an eerie space of memories, abandon and erronious directions. There was once life in this place - intense, hard, gritty life - and an awareness of yesteryear hung in the damp air. As I intruded this space of the past, tiny pieces of broken glass were pushed deeper into the ground under my feet. Alone in a solitary space, I heard muffled sounds from others, here too to seek the thrill of long past desertion and deterioration. Now and again the muffled cones of headlights appeared as phantasms, just beyond my capacity to see.

**

She walked down the street, wrapped in a haze of thoughts obscuring her to the surroundings. Or at least so she hoped. In fact her eyes, downcast and fleetingly seeking a way, attracted attention. They had a deep expression, intense, begging for acknowledgment, convoluted in a dark openness that hurt her as much as the next. The pale skin of her face accommodated this sharpness. She pulled the brim of her hat down to provide as much cover as possible to her face and breathed in the cold air piercing her lungs. Her presence was at once a meek shadow seeking to repel glances to achieve anonymity, and a strong expression of hope, challenging with dignity and perhaps even self-importance others on her way.

What had happened to the hopes she held? All her dreams? Around her people hurried from one place to the next, in a never ending series of places to go and things to do, whilst she seemed to have stopped in her tracks.

She felt the movement of all around her and floated in nothingness.

**

The time that's mine

So, this new band I've come across is rocking my boat. Here's a little tune, that resonates with me... what's really important. The light at the end of the tunnel, or rather, The time that's mine by The Miserable Rich:



"Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Tuesday, three more days till Friday... that's the way I waste my time, waiting for some time that's mine.."

Imagine if all time could be yours!

2009

It's a new day in a new year, and the sun is flowing into my living room. Around me what seems to be a constant fog in London these days is lifting and I hear children playing from a nearby schoolyard.

I haven't made any resolutions this year ("it's so passee, don't you think?"), but I feel the newness, the freshness of a new number on the calendar, inspiring thoughts of what might be and what I could do.

As I enter the new year things feel brighter and 'on the up'. I hope to continue the upward curve and shall do whatever I can to ensure so. I think it's time to actually do some of those things I always wished I would do, but never did.

First up: Yoga/meditation.
I've considered this many times, but somehow always backed/chickened out. Who knows - it might be great! As I've been working with other aspects of myself lately, this seems a natural extension in a way. I'll let you know how I get on.

Take care all, and the best wishes for an enlightening and wonderful year ahead.

So. 28.

I apologise in advance for the soggyness of this post; however most of you will know that this is what happens to me when left to my own devices. I turn pensive and grateful. And loud about it.

Long gone are the days were I would collect chestnuts in the large pleasure grounds north of Copenhagen with my childhood friend and build a city of chestnuts and matchsticks and animals to roam the streets.
Gone are the painful teenage years where fitting in and achievement seemed so important and was measured primarily in the number of guys you snogged.

And here I am in a (no longer so foreign) country, jobless (of my own accord, granted), and with a fairly uncertain future. And 28.

It's been a bumpy ride so far, with ups and downs, and there are few things I would have been without. One thing I have learned though, is to appreciate the nearness and caring of valued friends (and family members, who in effect are also friends), even when we are not physically near. I am lucky to have many people in my life who care and worry about me when I'm down, and who celebrate with me when things go well.

And for that I am thankful.

M