Tuesday 28 September 2010

Frustration

Who would have thought it would be so hard to find a Reading-based Gestalt therapist that doesn't cost the earth? Why is it so hard to do anything without a car outside of London? Why can't I find time to do the things I love doing? I am turning into a blob through lack of exercise and my brain is beginning to transmogrify into a heaving sticky mass of purple blancmange. My fingers are forgetting how to type. I keep dropping (and breaking) things that don't belong to me. My mind is being subjected to stultification. I haven't even been meditating. And I forgot to eat lunch. And I am cold. And there is no milk.

Okay, so I'm feeling very, very sorry for myself. I'll snap out of it shortly. I will. I have to. Things can only go up when they're down, right?

I have now eaten an egg on toast and I am going out to buy milk. And chocolate.

Friday 24 September 2010

Feathers and new applications

As I was sitting meditating this morning, I saw a white feather float past the window. Upon opening my email, my thought for the day was this:

Like a feather, we float blissfully along on the winds of destiny.  When we simply remain light, our landing will be painless.  The lightness of our being allows us to catch hold of even a slight puff of wind to propel us upward on currents of warm air; so that we can follow our destiny.  

I quite liked it. :-)

On another note, I was trying to make my laptop faster when I was Skyping a friend so checked what other applications I had open and it really made me chuckle. Apparently the application 'Julia Danila' is running. She was very pleased to hear this.

Thursday 23 September 2010

Improvements in time management

I've not written for ages. Been too busy to think - with loads of work, calling about placements, counsellors, supervisors, starting college again, back and forth between London and Reading, and oddly, Ruthin, the town of my ancestors. I've been busy, shattered and struggling a little with time management, but today I cracked it.

I've decided not to do more than three days a week work (except in exceptional circumstances); to commit Tues-Thurs evenings in Reading every week, as well as weekends where I can manage this; to book in time for college work and essay writing every week; and to book in time for writing - though 'writing' at the moment means 'reading'. I am researching bipolar and loving it.

I read something somewhere that really struck me, I think it was on the tea bag of a Yogi tea, you know those little messages they have on the paper at the end of the string. It said something like:

"To gain knowledge, you must read; to learn you must write; to understand you must teach."

Monday 13 September 2010

Photos from my cousin Krešo

Mali Lošinj at my Uncle Braco's house looking over the main harbour

(From left) Zrinka, Paolo, Željka, Teta Dubravka, Baka Leska, Mama, Braco, me, Vlatka, Mirijam, Alberto and Branka

Me and Mama looking over Mali Lošinj harbour from the house

Thursday 9 September 2010

To swim or not to swim

I am essentially a sociable person, I tell myself. I dislike intensely exercising on my own. The lido is in front of the house, the only heated 50m outdoor pool in London. It is lovely. I went a couple of days ago...but I am lazy, sorry...sociable. My sister won't wake up. I want her to trek all the way to London Fields so she can come swimming with me! But she won't reply to my texts... How selfish, I know.

Yesterday I started working again. Another week of work. It's great - bit of cash, slight easing up of the stresses of no cash flow (or at least, no incoming cash flow!). My day began when I walked into a huge cobweb, head first. The trauma of pulling a spider out of my fringe is imprinted in my shudder which remains from yesterday. Hideous. Yesterday was a rollercoaster, but a mainly pleasant one. Spider, work, shame, exquisite contentment, pleasure.

The shame was tripping over my own feet while sashaying past a load of builders. All girls know this shame, surely. We don't like being yelled at in the street by builders, or whistled...it can be embarrassing, but at the same time, we most definitely do. It's a sign of your womanliness. If they don't whistle or yell out a compliment, that is shameful, there has to be something wrong with you. Tripping in front of builders is the ultimate shame, mainly because they are likely to be there every single day for ages. I can only thank my lucky stars that I am not working every day, so they are highly unlikely to recognise me next time I walk past.

The exquisite contentment was having little baby Maia (my friend's baby) fall asleep on my chest for about three hours. I fell into that hazy, dozy, spaced out state of blissful contentment that only little babies can throw me into. She was so cute, despite (or perhaps because of) the whole body vibrations of wind, the occasional attempt to suck random bits of flesh on my chest or arm and the incredible gurning faces she pulls.

Finally, an old friend visited me for dinner and I felt, for a moment, as if I have my own home and can accept visitors.

This is my last day in London Fields, and with Pan the Cat. He came to find me this morning and sat next to me as I woke up, mewling at me. I think he knows I am leaving. He allowed me to give him a little cat head massage without hitting me or biting me and is now curled up next to me, sleeping, while I type. I didn't think this would be the case, but I've enjoyed looking after him and I think I shall miss him.

XX for Pan the Cat.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Plant pot

One of my Godfathers reminded me about my plant pot - the one my roots are in and that I take everywhere. Some people root into the ground; I have my roots in my plant pot. :-)

The sun is shining, the clouds have lifted and I am working.

Leave blank

Why am I even writing? I have absolutely nothing to say, but I want to chat.

I love being here, in some ways, having a little space, being on my own blah blah blah, but I am actually missing not being alone. I am a people person. I don't need to speak to them, but I do like having them around. In fact, having them around and not speaking to me is my ideal. I have my space, but I am not on my own. Every so often I can make a joke, or share a cup-of-tea-time. Okay, so I have a cat here and I do understand now how having a cat as a companion stops you feeling like you're on your own, but you know what? My opinion of cat-ownership is confirmed - it's like having a child. The cat, while I do feel very fond of him, is high maintenance. He is needy: he follows me around from room to room, he wakes me up to feed him, he wakes me up in the night when he gets scared, he sulks when I leave the house. Honestly, I'd rather have a baby than a cat. Babies don't moult. Babies don't make my nose itch and my eyes swell up. Babies grow up and learn to feed themselves. Babies leave home one day.

I am aware, as I write this, that a number of my close friends have had babies recently and would probably not sympathise at all with my complaints, being, as they are, in that post birth trippy haze of sleep deprivation, but goodness only knows, I feel like a new mother. He wakes me all the time - I've not had proper sleep since I got here. Every time he does something odd, I worry, not knowing what is wrong with him. The worst was last night when he spent the whole night going schizo and tearing around the place chasing balls at random intervals, just as I'd fallen asleep. He'd then charge into the bedroom and stand there looking at me with his big scared eyes, so I'd stroke his little head and make soothing noises. He wakes me by bringing dead bugs into the bedroom, I wake with his claws tangled in my hair, I wake as his feet land on my body in the middle of the night - this is not peaceful sleep.

But then, it's not really the cat. There is something else that is bothering me and I am not sure what it is. I have some freelance work to do, which is great. I seem to be making progress with finding a placement, which is great. I have been catching up with friends and seeing my lovely boyfriend. I'm staying in a lovely flat in a lovely part of London. All this is great. So what's the problem?

I'm not at home. I miss being in a familiar place which feels safe. I want to find a home. The problem is, I've never been settled. I've lived in over 10 houses in the last 10 years in London. When I was a kid, though I lived in the same house all my life, every summer we would all decamp to Croatia, to a random selection of new homes. Even in Chester, we moved rooms from time to time, as children left and moved out, or came home again after uni. Even there, when I was in the same room for years, I would constantly change my furniture around so it felt like a new space.

Was I born to be a nomad, I wonder? I want to settle, yet I can't settle. I wonder what it will take to make me stop still and just be in one place. I wonder when I'll find my home and it occurs to me as a write, that maybe my home isn't a physical location, but a feeling. Maybe my home is a who, and not a what.

Wednesday 1 September 2010

Free things, like smiles

First he gave me free tomatoes and today he gave me 7p off my total and six free-range eggs. I wonder what he'll give me next. I like Siy's corner shop man. He makes me smile. I think he likes my smile. I think we should all smile more.

:-)

Veli Lošinj

 About time I posted some pics of my favourite place in the world...
Veli Lošinj main harbour

The view over the wall, around the corner of the flat



Mama's homemade tomato soup - beautiful and delicious
Dark skies and sea when the storm hit unexpectedly

Underwater at Javorna beach
Underwater rocks and pink plants
One of the benches that always remind me of Tug

In the water




Leaving the island by ferry