Saturday to Tuesday

Currently trying to check in online and infuriatingly, it's not letting me. Technology? Pah! Give me a village with no post office anytime.


The duck and the cat – Saturday

[I found this in an online book by Paulo Coelho and really liked it so I thought I’d share it with you all. If only I’d come across this years ago. Hope you like it too.]

“How did you enter the spiritual life?” asked a disciple of the Sufi master Shams Tabrizi.

“My mother said that I wasn’t mad enough for the madhouse or holy enough for the monastery,” replied Tabrizi, “So I decided to devote myself to Sufism, in which we learn through free meditation.”

“And how did you explain that to your mother?”

“By telling her the following fable:

Someone placed a duckling in the care of a female cat. He followed his adoptive mother everywhere; then, one day, they came to the edge of a lake.

The duck immediately plunged into the water, while the cat called out from the shore, “Come out of there at once, you’ll drown!”

And the duckling replied, “No, I won’t, Mama, I’ve discovered what is good for me and I know that I’m in my element. And I’m going to stay here even though you don’t understand what a lake is for.””


Paulo Coelho: Stories for Parents, Children and Grandchildren – Volume 1 (http://paulocoelhoblog.com/internet-books/)

Transgenerational trauma – Sunday

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept waking, afraid in case there was someone in my room. I felt anxious in the blackness of the night. It doesn’t happen often these days, but it was common when I was a child. I have always liked to have my back to the wall (whether I was sleeping or sitting in a room) and to have all entry points to the room covered with my eyes. I’ve never liked sitting with my back to a door, because I’ve always been aware that someone could come in and stab me in the back without me seeing.

I remember an exercise we did in my counselling course a few years back. I can’t remember if it was the first or second year. We were told to stand in the room where we felt safest. We were given 10 minutes, I think, to do this, because of course your perception of safety is not only influenced by the physical space you’re in, but is also relational to where people are in your space. By the end, we were all standing where we felt safest. The door was on the opposite wall to the windows. The windows covered the entire length of the wall they were on, but only the top half. I was diagonally opposite the door, squatting under the level of the windows. When asked why, I replied, “Well, it’s so I can see if someone comes in, there is no chance for anyone to be behind me, and no-one can shoot me through the window because they can’t see me when I’m this low.” I didn’t know where these thoughts came from, but they’ve always been with me, ever since I was little. They weren’t always there, just from time to time.

Another episode, and it may have even been the same day, one woman was discussing atrocities done during WW2 to Jews – her family are Jewish – and I started to shake uncontrollably and I felt intense anger. Another woman, and I shall never forget this, came to stand behind me and she just put her hands on my shoulders to calm me, which it did and I am not sure what else would have done at that point. It was the strangest thing I had experienced and I couldn’t explain it.

I explained to my tutor how I’d felt and my confusion about what had happened and she spoke to us of transgenerational trauma. This is where children pick up fears and anxieties from an older relative, usually a parent, someone from another generation who suffered an extreme trauma. This is often the case with war experiences, for example. This made sense for me, with my family, but I never checked it out. Today I did and I think I now know where some of my irrational fears come from. Once they were not irrational, but absolutely essential to survival and so they were passed on to me subconsciously to ensure my survival too. I hope I never need to verify their use.

Incidentally, now it’s bright and sunny again I am cheery and relaxed, ready for another day on this beautiful and completely unthreatening island!

Mali Lošinj – Monday

Well today we decided to leave the village of Veli Lošinj and we went on a little adventure to Mali Lošinj. Not that it started off being an adventure – I was merely intending to accompany Mama to the police station to renew her passport.

We got up (hideously) early to catch the 8am bus, which, it turned out, had changed to the 8.15am bus. Mama had not been certain of the times, it turns out, just hopeful! No matter, except maybe I’d been able to have breakfast first (very important, as anyone knows who has spent breakfast time with me). This little minibus it turns out is a free pensioner’s bus, but thankfully they accepted people under the age of 60 for just 10 kuna…or 12 kuna if you want a ticket. ‘Entrepreneurial’ man. I was happy not having a ticket.

When we arrived at the police station, Mama was told that she had to fill in a form, go to the post office to pay and then return to submit the form and receive her passport. Easy. So off we ambled into the centre to find a post office. On the way, we stopped for strudel (me, apple; Mama, poppy seed) and a very excited man decided to tell us all about a car that had been driven by a drunk person into the water of the harbour and was in the process of being lifted from the harbour – presumably the car rather than the man, who I assume could swim. All very exciting for 9am in a sleepy town at the end of a very long island.

We headed for a café to get some tea and toast before continuing our journey. Most essential. After this I began to feel moderately human. Hurrah.

Mama headed back to the police station with her paid-for form and I wandered around for a while, purchasing minor items such as superglue, tweezers and a token gift for a good friend who’s birthday I have missed through being here. [Side note to lovely boyfriend – I have been looking for pressies for you too, but there is nothing here that would not come under the category of ‘house clutter’ so currently your only present shall be my return.]

When we met up again after my short successful shopping expedition, we headed back to the bus stop. Again, the timetable made no sense whatsoever and my Mama had a vague feeling (as she often does – vague that is) that maybe the bus didn’t stop at the stop, but somewhere half way up the road at a random point along the verge. We walked a little and it was unbearably hot. It was at this point that my Mama decided hitchhiking might be a good idea – not an idea that she has ever promoted to me, incidentally, in fact, one she has positively discouraged. She was not being overly assertive with her little hand waves, so I took over and stuck my thumb out purposefully. After being ignored by maybe two cars and a truck, one suddenly stopped. Lo and behold it was my cousin with her son. What chance and luck is that? Nothing could have been better, except perhaps a rich old man who decided I was the most amazing person in the world and the daughter he never had, who then died and left all his money and belongings to me. Slightly less likely, however, so my cousin, on reflection, was probably the next best option.

Of course, I am now home, ready to start writing again, with a huge pot of tea (in the absence of my father I am able to use this one!) and I am prevaricating by sharing my eventful day…and it’s only 11am. J

One last thing – my sun allergy seems to have returned after an absence of about 20 years (and oddly, it has returned this year to my cousin too) and rather than taking vile fizzy horse-sized calcium tablets (which used to take me hours to drink while I sat there miserably with a peg on my nose), I am attempting to soothe my skin with cold chamomile tea, which I have also decided is an excellent liquid with which to wash my face in the morning. If there are any other thoughts or suggestions, please do let me know. It’s a little itchy. Thanks! J

Oh, really one last thing. I have superglue on my fingers. It appears to be a fabulous way to stop fingertips hurting for novice guitarists. Why did no-one tell me this before??

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It wasn’t the last thing at all – Monday evening we went to my uncle’s house in Mali Lošinj, so the story of Mali continues.

It was lovely and I felt part of this wonderful family of slightly crazy people. He was there, busy cooking, his mother-in-law, his wife and their three daughters with their husbands and children. Incidentally, I discovered that mother-in-law is ‘svekrva’ in Croatian, rather close to ‘sve kriva’ which means everything wrong. Any Croatian speakers, please feel free to correct me if I’ve made a mistake.

My other two cousins from Zagreb, who stay around the corner from our flat in Veli Lošinj were also there, one with her own son too. Finally, me and my mother. There was mainly Croatian spoken around the table, but also much Italian as my uncle is the head of the Italian contingent; and English, for those Italians (brought into the family by marriage) not able to speak Croatian to those not able to speak Italian. The children, in the main, were fluently bilingual, switching between Italian and Croatian with ease and a smattering of English. All except one, the adopted child from Colombia who spoke Spanish and Italian, but not Croatian or English. Apparently he understands a little Croatian, but won’t speak it – entirely comprehensible to me, as I remember having exactly the same reaction to Croatian as a child too.

We started, of course, with rakija, followed by the first course of pasta with meat, followed by wine, followed by meat, many veggies and more wine. This was polished off with second and third helpings of meat and then biscuits and meringues, as many as you could shovel into your mouth without others seeing, followed, if you felt sick and full, by more rakija – for medicinal purposes only, of course.

Yes, this is most definitely one of my many homes. :-)

Two days left (including this one, now almost half over) on this precious island and I intend to enjoy them with fullness.