Give and Take

I don't know what it is about me at the moment but I seem to be surrounded by young women (and by that I mean younger than me in their late 20's, early 30's) who just want to talk to me. About themselves. Endlessly.

I saw a friend recently whom I have not seen for a very long time. She is a delight but during our catchup, she talked about herself non-stop. I don't think I even needed to be there.

Another friend cornered me the other day to spill her ongoing tale of woe. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I don't think she listened or heard anything I said. I think she just wanted a face to talk to.

My neighbour loves to talk too. At me. By me. To me. But not really with me.

I'm getting a bit fed up with all this. I'm a curious person and I genuinely like to get inside another person's heart and mind so that I can understand where they are coming from. But this pattern is starting to bug me.

Sometimes when I'm in this situation I feel like that other person is trying to suck up all my energy. That I have something that they want.

For god sakes - what on earth could I have that they want!?

So I took a step back from it all and remembered. I remembered when I was like them. Younger, unsure and trying to figure it all out. Continuously on the brink of something but never knowing what that something was and not knowing how to get it. I remembered when I was in the company of an older, sympathetic ear. I remember how I used to blab about myself non stop and never stopped to ask that person:

By the way - how are you? What's going on in your life?

What goes around comes around.

But that's not what I wanted to say.

What I wanted to say was that to those men and women who listened and listened and advised and nurtured and helped guide me through those woolly, wilderness years. Thank You. From the bottom of my woolly, wild heart. Bless you.

G20 - Do I Stay or Do I Go?

The G20 summit kicks off in London tomorrow and I have been debating with myself as to whether I should go. Speaking to friends and colleagues, I have had a range of opinions from:

Oh no - you should stay out of there. It's dangerous. Riot police and troublemakers. People who are not after a solution but who just want a fight

to:

Yes! Let's go! It'll be interesting and it's important to be involved. To participate.

The media have been having their usual field day with their reports anticipating violence and trouble and vandalism. I just don't know what or who to believe. Which makes me think I need to go and see for myself.

The truth is - I really want to go. I am so curious. I have never been to a protest on this scale before. Years and years ago, I was an environmental activist campaigning against logging of old growth forest in Western Australia with the Wilderness Society. It was a heady two years. Through the intensive process of learning how best to manufacture dissent, I picked up skills which I still use to this day. Lobbying, mobilising large groups of people, consensual decision making, efficient meeting structure, facilitation. I also developed values which I still hold like the application of non violent direct action. It was invaluable training and I have experienced little like it since.

I suspect that my avid desire to participate tomorrow is partially a desire to relive the glory days of old. But my problem is this. Everything I have read or seen to date about the protests leaves me cold. These groups that are mobilising to end the war or to stop climate change seem to only be protesting for the sake of it. What are their real solutions or alternatives? It's all very easy to say something sucks but not so easy when you are responsible for fixing the suckiness.

Change is change is change. It's a phrase that is easy to chant when you are walking down the street with thousands of others. But at the end of the day - you can't be pissed off if you pass responsibility for that change onto some unknown figurehead because you just want to shout and scream but have no solutions. Lobbying is important and it is our responsibility as citzens within a democratic society to monitor our governments. But I do not see how "Bashing bankers" and causing civil unrest is of any benefit to our society as a whole. That is not lobbying. It's juvenile.

Where are the thinkers and the real problem solvers? Where can I find them in the summit tommorrow? Or have they stayed at home, pissed off that the event has been taken over again by the media and a bunch of hooligans.

We'll see...

Black Is Back

When I lived in Perth I rarely, if ever dressed in a lot of black. Under the blue skies and sunshine, black just seemed like just a wrong choice to me. I wasn't a fan of neutrals either. Instead I embraced colour. Reds and greens; violet and yellows. Don't get me wrong. I didn't go around looking like a peacock but the Meditteranean climate of my home town meant that I reflected the sunny, warm surrounds in my dress sense. I also had a vague mistrust of people that wore all black (apart from Goths - I like Goths) or all neutrals.

What are they trying to hide?, I would wonder. When there are so many colours to choose from, why would you choose the absence of colour? What's wrong with them?

My oh my - how things have changed.

When I first moved to London, I stubbornly stuck to my love of colour. I was not going to give in. So what if everyone else was in grey or black. Sheep . What's wrong with them? Why are they afraid to stand out?

I must say, this was abit unfair of me at the time and obviously I was only seeing what I wanted to. After all, Londoners are hardly sheep when it comes to dressing. The women have a wonderful unique style of flinging layers and accessories together, usually finished off with a massive, great handbag. The men do the whole Professor thing really well (well cut suit jacket, jeans or trousers, scarf, leather satchel) or embrace the Eurotrash look. I'm generalising of course.

Life was going along swimmingly until one day I woke up and something horrible had happened. I was dressed head-to-toe in BLACK. I looked in the mirror and asked myself,

Why? How could this be?

I blame the long winters. On seeing so much grey, I started to wear it. And black. And neutrals. My theory is that winter makes you want to hibernate. To blend in and not stand out. You don't want to extend your senses to the world around you because you can't even extend your right arm out of your sleeve without getting frostbite. Winter is a season of laying low and hence you present yourself that way to the world.

Hmm. Is that rubbish? Probably. After all Christmas and New Years falls within winter and that is party season with coloured frocks galore and shiny shoes.

Here's my followup theory. London is a dirty place. Who the hell wants to be doing laundry all the time. Wear black and it hides the dirt. Case closed.

That's my excuse anyway.

P.O.H.M.

It's official! I am now a P.O.H.M.

A Prisoner Of Her Majesty. A bona fide British citizen.

What does this mean exactly? To be honest, I'm not too sure.

I know that I can now vote and "sign on" (British for going on the dole). I can go through the faster line now at Heathrow airport and I can live and work anywhere in the EU. I'm pretty happy about all of this (well I hope I won't have to sign on anytime soon) but what does it mean to me? Lavendar Lee.

During the citizenship ceremony today, I looked around me for clues. There was lots to take in. The ceremony was held in a beautiful Georgian country house which was now a heritage property, used by the local council. Stunning though it was from the exterior, the inside had sadly capitulated to some terrible design choices. Dark terracotta walls. Fake white lilies. Cheap Pre-Raephaelite prints framed in gaudy, epoque borders. The room had been decorated to effect a false grandeur which contrasted greatly with the Pat Benatar-esque hairstyle and blue-pink lipstick of the woman hosting the ceremony. She was a hoot. As we lined up to register, she asked us all in quick succession:

"God or No God?"

This was to ascertain who of us Brits-to-Be would be pledging their oath to God and which would be pledging theirs to the Queen. As I was a No God, I got asked to sit with all the other non-believers on the side of the room where a cardboard poster of the Queen smiling benignly down at us. I'm not much of a Royalist or a Monarchist or whatever the hell you call it but it was nice to have the old bird smiling at us as we pledged away. I couldn't help but notice that one of the cheap prints on the wall, placed directly behind the Queen's head was:



It's called La Belle Dame Sans Merci, which translates to
The Beautiful Lady Without Pity!

Is it just me - or were they trying to tell us all something about the Queen?

To further add to the sense of ceremony, the Mayor came along too. His arrival was announced by his, I don't know - footman? This footman then ponced down the aisle swinging some kind of fake golden chalice from side-to-side, followed by the Mayor who was all dressed up in his heavy red robes and golden chains. He was a short man with a curled upper lip so I took an instant dislike to him as I always think people with that lip shape are sneering.

The ceremony then preceeded in its rather predictable kind of way. We all got our certificates, had our photos taken and sang the national anthem.

The national anthem!

I'm about to digress so please excuse me.

When I told my work mates that I was about to become a Brit - there was much laughing and teasing about me having to sing the national anthem at the ceremony. I don't know why the national anthem always brings out such hystericism in people. I can only bring it down to the fact that as children we were all tortured into learning it.

One of my work mates ever so kindly printed out the words of the British national anthem for me. Imagine my shock upon reading it properly.

As an Australian, I had been raised to sing about the joys and beauty of our lovely land:

Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.

It's pretty uplifting. There's not really anything noxious about it. People have said that the use of the word fair is racist but I think those people are reading out of context.

Then we have the British anthem which is:

God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us;
God save the Queen!

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all!

I particularly like the lines "Confound their politics. Frustrate their knavish tricks." The Brits are not as nice as the Australians. After seeing this it became clear to me that, as Dorothy said:

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

Mind you, compared to La Marseille, it sounds like a nursery rhyme:

Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!

Now that I am a Brit, I wonder if I should hate the French. It is tradition after all and if there was one thing that the ceremony indicated to me, it was being a Brit was being part of years and years and years and years and tears.... oh.. and years of tradition. The fake Georgian interiors. The fake picture of the Queen. The fake gold of the swinging chalice.

But you know what? It didn't matter because I was surrounded by a bunch of people that weren't fake. They were real and they were clearly all very happy (apart from one lady) to become British citizens. They were from all over. Sri Lanka, Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique to name a few. To be in their company reminded me how great a place London really is. It has a tolerance and breadth that I have not encountered anywhere else. It's noisy, crowded, polluted and inefficient. But it's also green, patient, honest and current. To be a British citizen means that I can live, work and play in London - to me, the most multicultural city in the world.

And for that - I am truly grateful.

Ever Eventful

It always bemuses me when the events industry is glamourised. Twelve years ago, I accidentally fell into coordinating my first paid event. It was a two day conference for two hundred delegates. The woman who was supposed to be in charge was having nervous breakdown because her husband had just left her. She asked around her friends to see if they knew of anyone that could help her out. Somehow my name came up in the conversation and upon meeting me briefly, she said:

"You'll do,"

and that was that. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was the start of a career path.

It turned out that managing events is something that I could just do. It just came naturally. I didn't go and study an events or production course like many people choose to do these days. In fact, I think these courses are bollocks. You need to learn on the job. Does that make me old school? Maybe. I am in my mid 30's and in the events industry that's veering on ancient.

In all the time I've worked in events, I have failed to see what it is that could be percieved as glamorous. Rubbing shoulders with celebrities? Partaking of the free booze and food? Let me tell you - if you are doing these things when working at an event, you're clearly not doing your job properly

The truth is that there is no glamour. When you are managing an event, you have the following:

Stress - lots of it
Tight, shifting deadlines
Long, unsociable hours
Not enough money
Unwieldy artists/celebrities
Pain-in-the-ass agents
Hardened, drug fucked crew (not always but it's common)
Lots of complaints from everyone
Too much adrenaline
Payment problems
Being told how you could do things better by people who don't know what they're talking about
Typos in the publicity/marketing
Thanklessness

Should I go on?

I am in this frame of mind because (if you couldn't already tell), I am sick of mananaging events. All sorts - tours, performances, festivals, workshops, conferences, talks. Everything. I've learned alot about the industry during my time within it but nothing in that time has really caught my imagination. I don't want to be fuelled by adrenaline anymore. I also feel guilty that I never had to struggle too much for it. Like I said, it all came natural.

Maybe this is not the end but only a bit of a work whinge?

Time, as ever, will tell.

My Mentor

My boss is a fascinating woman. To try and describe her in a few sentences is a grave injustice but nonetheless, its my perogative on this blog of mine. I find her endlessly inspiring and very human. She wears her many flaws on her sleeve yet maintains her dignity. She's annoying, quixotic, funny, charismatic, rebellious, fierce and very very bright. She feels like family although I have only known her for a short while. I'm not alone in my evaluation. She is a public person and everyday I see many, many people flock around her like bees to a honeypot. She is both loved and hated in equal measures but always respected.

At some point in my work life, I figured that I needed a role model. A mentor. A guide. I wanted this because I sensed that it was an important part of my development. I wanted someone who would challenge me and push my buttons. I wanted someone truly brave. I needed this. I craved it.

I had hoped to find someone like this in my years of study. An inspirational lecturer or tutor but everyone came up short. I worked job after job but all my managers and bosses blurred into one another. Some were nice but no-one was special. I held out on a lot of people who were sort-of right. I wasn't interested in sort-of.

It was depressing how long it took me to find an inspirational female role model. Or maybe just one that was right for me.

Now that I have found her, I feel glad and lucky. But I also feel that I deserve it. I worked and waited a long time. But I guess these things in life only happen when it's right.

Can You Hear Me?

I spoke to my goddaughter today over webcam. She is two and a half and I am thirty five so we had a kind of schizophrenic dialogue which went something like this:

Me: Hello Emily. What did you do today?
Emily: (chewing on her teddy bear’s head). Grrr. ...Aiowwwwwwwww. Hellooooooo
Me: Why are you chewing on your bear’s head? Are you hungry?
Emily: Hello Hello Hello Hello Aiirrrrrreooowwwwww. Hahahahahaha. I’m two.

And so on. It’s the first time we’ve ever properly sat down to speak and see each other via webcam and I’m hoping that it becomes a semi regular thing. Even though I am far away from where she is, I still want to be a part of her life somehow. It’s a weird thing to see your own disembodied head dipping into and out of frame as you try and chat normally to a child that you have only ever met in the flesh twice. What strange times we live in now. Emily took it all in her stride, chatting to a veritable stranger on a screen. Someone that’s her Godmother but whom she doesn’t really know. She’s too little for this to matter to her or to understand. But I understand all too well and it makes me sad.

I have written about the tyranny of distance endless times. When the place you live takes you far away from your close friends and family. I have written about the expat life and its joys and downfalls. I thought that writing about it, living it and having time pass would mean that the ache would get better but I fear that it never does. I am sick to death about writing about it but just because you are sick of something doesn’t mean that it goes away. When I go about my day-to-day life, I’m ok. I love the life I live here in London. But on days like this when I am jolted into the life of your nearest and dearest back home, I get to see from their side how life has gone on and that I am not a part of it. Even though I know this to be the case, seeing their smiling faces in their house on the other side of the world provides a quick reality check that even though it is so familiar, it is not. This feeling sucks.

In theory, I get it all. In my head I understand that our lives go on, time passes and things change. It’s all a very logical process in my head. But in my heart, I wish that the vast ocean between us was not. I wish that I could play with my Goddaughter, chat and laugh with her mum and then get on the tube and come home.

As long as they are important to me, I don’t see how I will ever feel any different.

Puff Puff Paree

There comes a time in a woman's life where you realise that you gotta Use it or Lose It. By this I mean that once you hit your early to mid 30's, certain physical realities start to manifest. The onset of aging becomes apparent with clicking joints and funny aches. Things start to sag and bag. Your body is no longer a house of fun but a treacherous course that has to be navigated more carefully. For me, the onset on bodily decay was rather startling. For the past 29 years, I have danced so my body has served me, not the other way around. I did not like this new world order.

Luck would have it that around this time I moved to an area in London which is populated with joggers. When we first moved there, my husband and I would gaze at all the bobbing figures and joke about whether we would eventually succumb.

"Nah, " we'd mutter as we sank back into the depths of our sofa. "It's too cold. What's wrong with those people?"

Three years later and we are now those people. We run in the cold. We run in the rain. We run alone. We run with friends. We run in events and to our continual delight and amazement - our bodies don't fail us. We feel stronger than before and it's a good feeling.

Last weekend we ran in the Paris Half Marathon with a group of friends. It was our first big running event and we were all nervous. It was raining and the event was poorly organised. There were no toilets along the route and no energy drinks either. I have always defended Paris when others tut-tutted about the Parisian attitude of disdain but not this time. I ran the route with a semi full bladder and cursed the organisers the whole route. My tears on sight of the finishing line were not tears of relief and joy, but happiness that a toilet was perhaps close to hand.

Bladder relieved and divested of my sweaty, rain soaked garments, it sunk in that I had completed a test of endurance. Not only completed it but done so in a decent time and with energy to spare. I had trained to do so and had taken back the mastery of my body and mind. Not against time but against apathy and inertia.

Everyone ages, grows old and dies. But some of us are lucky to feel that they have a choice in how this happens. Running is seeing me through this mid 30's phase. It makes me feel like I have a choice and that I can do anything I put my mind to.

Not bad for a free activity in this day and age.

Judgement Call

I like to drink from time to time. I'm not a daily drinker but when I drink, I like a session. I'm not one of these glass of wine at lunch girls. I like to hunker down with good company and work our way through a few bottles. I like to have stimulating conversation and to discuss topics, not people. I like to burst into random song sometimes and if others join me, all so much the better. I like to sit on the floor when I drink. I prefer to drink at night.

I had one such session recently with some work friends. It was one of those lovely, spontaneous sessions where we were all on a level. The company was relaxed, funny, witty and interesting. No-one hogged the conversation. No-one was left out. It was as close to perfect as could be.

Afterwards I wrote on my Facebook status that I had enjoyed a drinking session with my work mates. Why I felt compelled to write it? For the same reason I guess that anyone writes their status on Facbeook. What do I care if Jim is going to bed? Or that Amanda is having a cup of tea? Or that I had a drink with my mates? There's a space for us to type stuff. So we type.

Well someone did care it turns out. One of my friends posted a comment. To quote nonverbatim:

You seem to be drinking far too much these days. Isn't it about time you had a baby?xxxxx

Is it me or is the xxxxx supposed to be ironic? This friend conceived her baby during a lost weekend of cocaine and booze. Surely it has to be ironic.

There are many things I wanted say and ways I wanted to respond. But in the end I just deleted her comment. Comments like that aren't worth bothering with.

There are times when judgement, hypocrisy and ignorance combine to effect comments of great humour and irony.

This was not one of them.

London I Love You

I've been in London just over three years now and there are so many sights that I just have not bothered to go see. The Tower of London. Westminster Abbey. The Houses of Parliament. The list goes on. It's never been a thing of mine to go see stuff just because you should. For me it's about seeing what you're interested in. When I go to a new place for the first time, I love to check out the day-to-day spots. The supermarkets. The pharmacies. The cafes. The bookshops. This might make me a cultural cretin but at least I know what the deals on soap in the local hypermarket are that week.

That all changes when you have overseas visitors. When you are being a host, all local nuance is lost in favour of hauling out the big guns. The big, should-see stuff.

I'm lucky at the moment to have some friends staying with us who are making their way around the world. They are truly a delight. They are the best guests we've had to date. Fun, erudite, stimulating, easy going, appreciative, thoughtful and independent. I want them to stay longer but I cannot compete with the languid shores of Thailand which is their next stop.

But I digress. Since they've been here, I have made up for all my past nonchalance. We have gone to the Tower of London. Westminster Abbey. The Imperial War Museum. I have been with them to spots that I know I would never have gone had they not visited. And it's been great for me. For now I am interested and engaged with some of London's should-sees.

Visiting the Tower made me want learn a lot more about English history for I realised I know practically nothing. The beauty of being outside Westminster Abbey as the bells chimed was a wake up call for me to actually go inside one day. The Imperial War Museum blew my mind; their exhibition of the Holocaust has relentlessly dug into my brain for good I think. The same day we walked past Brian Haw holding his lonely, one man vigil outside the Houses of Parliament. At that moment the quote that thudded like a drumbeat in my head throughout the Holocaust exhibition increased by 100 decibels:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [sic] to do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Sometimes change happens in increments; bit by bit so slowly that you do not notice. But over the last few days the changes in me have been big and swooping. Very noticeable and so very right. Getting on the tourist wagon has made me realise just how much I love London and how much more there is to get to know about her. How much I enjoy showing her off to new visitors and that for me to do this well, I need to know her past better as well as her present.

Oh London. The longer I'm here, the deeper our affair becomes.

Random Quote

This is the true joy in life: the being used up for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish clot of ailments, grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy

Up The Duff

What is that song with those lines: All my friends are getting married? That’s not quite the case these days but I tell you what is. It’s:

All my friends are having babies….

As a woman, get to your mid thirties and what do you know? All the females around you start getting up the duff. It’s like mushrooms in a field. One minute – just grass and overnight – lo behold – mushrooms everywhere.

The past few months have been spectacular for mushrooming. I’ve had to start writing down due dates in my diary just so I don’t forget to send a baby card at that time rather than an invite to a cocktail party.

This burgeoning state of affairs has led me to reflect on my own un-pregnant state. Suddenly it seems that I am in a minority. My frame of reference has changed. Instead of just being; I am now in the reference category of pregnant or non-pregnant.

As a woman, it’s not a nice thing when this happens to you. One day, you’re trundling along –quite happy with yourself and your place in the world. All of a sudden, you’re head over heels in love with the idea of being pregnant. Quite why this happens – who knows? Is it the biological clock? Or the fact that everyone else is doing it so you want a piece of the action too? The reasons are endless but the idea is there, planted within yourself, even though nothing else is.

This sucks because once the idea has taken hold, you become restless. You are acutely aware that you are not pregnant. Some small part of your innocence has gone to be replaced by a yearning for something you’ve never had.

For the longest time, I never considered kids. I was not a maternal type. Even as people around me started becoming parents, I felt good that I was not. I valued my independence, solitude and freedom far too much. I had committed to marriage but that was as far as it went, so I thought.

Well bollocks to that idea. Something happened because I am now fully pro-baby. Disconcerting though it is to find myself in this space, it’s also reassuring. Even if for the simple reason that I now understand all those magazine stories about women who go to all sorts of measures to get themselves pregnant. I get it. As to how I got here, to this strange new space – who knows?

What I do know is that a few weeks ago, it suddenly seemed that the whole word was pregnant. Everyday I would get news of another baby-in-the-making. I was happy for those involved but felt my axis shift slightly each time towards some un-named abyss. I decided to give myself a reality check. I made a list of all the women I knew that were pregnant and all the women I knew that weren’t. The results were about 50/50.

Seeing it down in black and white gave me some sort of solace that breeders were not taking over the world. But I know that hearing about another pregnancy might tip me over the edge into god-knows-what.

Unless it’s mine of course.

Kindred

Say what you like about Facebook but it does have its benefits. The other day I had lunch with an old friend from Perth whom I lost touch with in the late nineties. We had tracked each other on Facebook and discovered that we both were living in London. We decided to meet up and have lunch.

When we knew each other back home, Monica and I weren’t best buddies by any measure. We were friends by default and the only times I saw her were en masse within a group. So this was really the first time we had sat down together to lunch and talk.

And talk we did! For three and a half hours, we stopped yakking only to shovel food and drink into our mouths. As we swapped stories, we found ourselves very much in similar stages of life. We had both recently left jobs due to unpleasant work environments and colleagues. We were both (relatively) newly married. Her feelings about being an expat in London mirrored mine. We discussed the difficulties of settling in London when the longing for family and friends back home is so strong at times that it is tangible. At the end of our lunch I felt that finally, I had met someone who understood. I had met a kindred.

Even though I have lived in London for nearly three years, I have not met anyone that I would define as kindred. Husband aside, most of my new friends here are good for a laugh or a chat but we don’t have the kind of exchange that makes you feel that you have been “got”. Now that I am in my mid 30’s, I find it rare to come across people that “get” you. Age, time, stress – whatever – it’s true that making real friends gets harder as you get older.

Monica and I will stay in touch. We may not see each other regularly but that’s OK. When it comes to kindred’s, a little goes a long, long way.