Making a decision and pulling together a strategy is one thing. Executing that strategy is a totally different story. It is the execution that will ultimately determine whether your strategy was worth the paper it was written on. Whether it is in your business life or your personal life, it is no different. My “health strategy” is easy, on paper, just about anyone could design it. Eat well, sleep well, drink water, stay away from too many sugars, salts exercise and keep your attitude positive. Simple. I can eat well (sometimes too well), sleep, is no problem – I am the girl who slept through a bomb blast in the 80’s in South Africa – my attitutde, I can whip that around pretty quickly. But exercise. I loathe it.
I find nothing about going to the gym appealing. I get bored. It does not matter if I have an iPod, a book and television to watch, I am “ho-hum” in about 10 minutes. It all seems so pointless. Yesterday was a classic example. I went spinning. The bikes, don’t go anywhere, the music is similar every time and the routine is pretty much the same every session. So within five minutes, I would have been happy to decleat and go and sit happily in the interior of my head and do something else. Unfortunately, thinking does not make you healthy.
So as I was spinning my legs, bored out of my mind. I asked myself why are you doing this? Do you want to look good? The answer was “Meh.” Are you trying to prove a point? “Meh, again” from my bored interior. I thought as my legs continued to pedal but go nowhere. It dawned on me then, that I liked my spirit, I like my soul, and in order to enjoy them both and be the best that I can be. I need a healthy body to house them in. I pedalled like the wind to the beat of “I will do this, to I love my spirit, it needs a healthy home.” It is amazing how when you get the motivation right, even boring things are do-able.
I had never seen the movie “Love Story” – it was released when I was three years old. I do remember being a “Hello Dolly” fan at about that age, but my parents obviously did not think “Love Story” was a suitable movie for me. This Friday night, as hubby suffered through a sinus infection and the house was in its cone of silence, due to exams, I lay flicking through Foxtel and there was “Love Story.” I had seen that Oprah was running a 40 year reunion for the movie, so thought I should watch the epic movie. My labrador and I struck the movie watching pose and soaked it up.
The movie has a famous line in it where Ali MacGraw tearfully says to Ryan O’Neale that “Love means never having to say you are sorry.” It got me thinking is that true? Does love mean you never have to say you are sorry?
Love is complicated, I think this depends. If you hold it with reverence and treat it with respect, perhaps you never have to say you are sorry. But what if you fail and either by omission or co-mission, you wound love? Do you still not have to say you are sorry? I think saying “sorry” is an act of taking accountability. I have learned to love differently as I have grown and changed. The way I defined love has changed and moved, but fundamentally, can you never have to say sorry? I used to think that love was action, doing, fixing, interacting, taking responsibility for those who perhaps I should have allowed more space. I have learned that love can also be about doing nothing. That sometimes the way love needs to be expressed is about withdrawing in order to let the person do what needs to be done or what is right. That is one of the hardest forms of love when you are required to stop “interfering” and rescuing and allow the person to live their life while you continue to love them.
Perhaps when you are the “wounded”, your response when someone says sorry is to say “Love means never having to say you are sorry” as an act of forgiveness. But as the “wounder”, you should acknowledge your mistakes?
It really has puzzled me, does love mean never having to say you are sorry? Tell me peeps…
I remember the first poem I wrote. I was six and I sat down to write a poem for my grandfather for his birthday. Many years later, when he passed away, I was helping my aunt clean out his cupboards and in amongst his things, I found a battered, old, tin Dutch cigar box with all the poems and letters I had written to him in my childhood. It was like discovering layers of myself. It also gave me a sense of how this stern man loved me, even though he was not demonstrative. His steely blue eyes could flash between cold and warmth in a nano-second if you did something wrong.
In my adolescence I wrote many, many poems that were filled with teenage angst, idealism or extreme optimism. I have a distinct memory of being about 16 years old and my now husband, working on the Mini, he was restoring, while I lay under a tree in my bikini, writing furiously under dappled light. Recently I have read a book called “Saved by a Poem” by Kim Rosen, about the impact of words on our psyche and how the rhythm of words can be extremely healing. I agree with that as a concept, either with songs or poems that I have committed to memory. My favourite poets are read and reread, they never date, they do heal, they hold memories and emotions and help me through things, or just bring me back to a positive place. Attached is a poem on being alone that I love and also my very favourite poet ee cummings who wrote “i carry your heart” which seems apt since I unplugged a well of emotion on all my friends who have emigrated! Sorry!
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
Last week two things happened to me. When I was riding my bicycle, filled with the joy of being alive and able to do something that I never thought I could, my bud said with “that” look on her face “Tan, let’s just get focused for November and ditch these extra kilos, stop being defiant.” This came on the back of me having lunch with my business partner where we had been chewing over how the last few months have felt – settling into a new business, defining the future and going for it. Things are falling into place nicely, so I was suddenly spurred to “just do it.” But not make a production of it, not feel deprived but just push myself with joy and positivity, rather than with punishment and deprivation. I have spoken of this before, but there was a further subtle shift in my head. It’s funny how sometimes to do something you first need a “shift in your head”. It goes back to my “either/or” thinking model vs my “and” thinking model. I can get into the space where I either have fun or I lose weight. The joy is in the sweet spot of “and”. How do I have fun AND lose weight? When we make life binary it gets reduced to boring options. When we take an inclusive approach it becomes filled with creativity, out of the box thinking and motivation. I have always loved a problem that other people say can’t be solved with an “and”. It gives me satisfaction to to hand back the solution. Yes, I am a bit cheeky, like that. So this week I have lost 1.2kgs, I am in the zone. The zone of joy and AND…
It also got me musing on my previous post on the sadness of emigration. Emigration is a big AND moment. How do you stay strong AND vulnerable at the same time? It made me think about how beautiful vulnerability is when you hold it from a position of strength. You could say “I am either vulnerable or I am strong.” But what happens when you are both? When you are vulnerable and strong, I think you learn compassion. And compassion is I think one of the most amazing things we should all aspire to. Compassion gets you to see through a different lens and make a more informed decision. You can have no compassion without vulnerability.
Today, every time I think either/or, I am going to poke myself in the ribs and go “And?” Lovingly of course…happy Friday, my beautiful peeps!
I have a friend who loves to call me, often, twice daily at a minimum, and she tries as much as is possible to do this when I am on a crowded commuter train, into the lovely city we live in. We have the kind of friendship where we don’t even say “Hello” we just launch into whatever is on our minds. She never asks where I am, loves to say outrageous things, which get more outrageous when she realises that I am sitting on the train. She knows this by my responses being reduced to just saying “Uh, huh.” My commute offers her a chance to talk and me to listen, but today was different…
She emigrated about 6 years ago. I emigrated 13 years ago. Emigration is a decision that is both wonderous and deeply sad at the same time. She was sad, as she has a group of close friends and one of them got married on the weekend. As much as she tried to juggle her responsibilities, she could not work a trip into her schedule, so her friend’s wedding continued without her. I was sitting on the train while she wailed and moaned about the fact that it felt like they had an enormous history together, but the longer she was away, the more shared history she missed out on. I could hear how much it hurt her. I could not just do an “Uh, huh.” To those people who heard me on the train, I am not a fruit loop, you only heard half the conversation…
In my view, emigrating is like witnessing your own death. I know that sounds melodramatic, but the space that you took up at home, closes. It cannot remain open, neither for you or for the people you leave behind. Are you remembered fondly? Well, you hope so, but just as your life goes on, so does everyone else’s that you left behind. It is very hard though, to be looking back at the space that you used to occupy and realise that it has closed. People do talk about you, they definitely miss you, but the person you were when you left is no longer there. When you do go back, even though the space you occupied opens up again, it can be an incredible different space to fit into. While you were gone, your experiences and the processes have changed who you are, your perceptions have changed and the “space” that you used to occupy is no longer the same “shape” as you. You have picked up new cultural norms, attitudes and experiences, you no longer have the same context on jokes, politics and sport, your favourite biscuits even taste different! Emigration reminds me of how we speak of the “dearly departed,” my grandmother passed away 10 years ago, she is spoken of fondly when the family gets together, but her history is capped at where she was when she left us. While I am miles away overseas, I imagine my mother and father having similar “remember when…” conversations, but they are no longer steeped in the present, they are stated in the past. To some extent we are frozen in time. There is the “then” but the “now” they cannot see or be part of. It does get tiresome, being a voice on the end of the phone on special days, the email, the letter or the birthday card. It is hard for both parties.
We were musing on whether it gets better with time. My theory on that is that it gets harder. In the beginning, you are in love with your new home, the freedom, the adventure, the newness of your experience, but when the gloss is gone, you do see the loss more. It is an enormously personal choice. When I first left with the wave of emigrants who left the country, I was pretty gung-ho about it. If anyone asked me, “Should I do it?” I think I probably looked at them and would have done a “Duh? Of course!” Now I would be much more circumspect. You need to know what you are leaving behind, you need to know that you and others will be changed by your choice, you need to know that as successful and as happy you will be, you will sometimes yearn for the person you were before you made the choice. Hopefully, as with everything in life, you will look at what you have learnt and how you have grown and be proud that you have accomplished what is a difficult task.
To everyone who grapples with being the leaver or the stayer, lots of love and light…
When Melbourne decides to be kind and decent, she is a beautiful gal. Today was awesome. Sunday bathed herself in sunshine, donned her blue frock and wore her sunny hat. The dog was the first recipient of Sunday joy, with hubby and I strolling through the bushland to have a breakfast on the pavement at a cafe, with pup, sitting at my feet. The creek behind our house, makes it feel like we are out in the country, rather than ten kilometres from the city. I love the fact that I can feel connected to nature and the cockatoos, lorikeets and gallahs seem to like it too. They certainly were screeching and telling the world all about it!
Later in the day, I put on the padded cycling shorts (it is NOT a good look, but it is a necessity) and my bud and I cycled into the city. It struck me how blessed I am living in this wonderful city. The bike path, stretches from our suburb and meanders along the river, is suspended at times under the freeway, and then gets you right into the heart of Federation Square, where it was pumping with people enjoying the weather. Where else in the world can you do these things? It is safe, children playing, mums pushing prams, dogs cavorting, teenagers on skateboards, grannies and grandpas out for a stroll, Melbourne just bursting with the energy of a weekend of sunshine.
The real good news story is this, I managed to really work my cleats! In and out with very little trouble, could it be that the girl with the clumsy feet is getting the hang of these monstrous beasts? I think so! Onwards to conquering something I never thought I could!
He is old now, filled to capacity with memories, some worn from being handled so often, like a child’s favourite soft toy, others still accessible in their original boxes, but not loved as much. He is fat now, filled to capacity with pasta and bread and cheese, especially parmegiano and blue cheese that smells like it grew in old army boots from the Second World War when he was born. He is grey now and bald, but he combs a long strand of hair over the top of his head in a last attempt of vanity and pretence that he has hair. He has cysts under his skin now, he calls them his “sistas” in his Italian accent, and his three grand-daughters screech with laughter and say “Grandpa, they are cysts, sisters are what you would have if you had sisters, but you only have a brother” and he denies he has said that nodding saying “is what I said, sistas” and the argument goes round in circles until everyone is exhausted from laughing hysterically, even him, though he does not know what is so funny. His English grand-daughters’ sense of humour eludes him, but he loves to see them laugh and he feels loved even when it is directed at him.
He is less angry now, he has mellowed with age. Not like when he was younger and his temper would flare and tables were known to crack, when he slammed his fist on them. One right down the middle, in a dining room at a holiday resort run by nuns, where a nun had dared to make a comment that his beloved daughter should finish her dinner or be sent to her room. She was only three, the apple of his eye “whata right does she have-a, she has-a no children, no compassion, hard woman with a barren womb, do you think Christ would say that? Eh? No! He say “suffer the children to come unto me” Basta, I go home!” Fist slammed, table wrecked. A legend in the family, still laughed about over Christmas dinners, with the then three year old, now forty-three, still being lovingly patted, “I protected you, from dat woman, why she want to be cruel to such a beaudiful child, why she no love you, like I do, bah.” And his eyes well up, with tears of pride and love, that his three year old who was so fearful and shy and scared of the world and had clung to his legs and cried when he used to go to choir practice on a Thursday night, has grown into a confident woman in her own right and he knows he was part of that. It is his legacy, his daughter.
He is still irreverent, still flaunts his views about authority and growls that Capitalism will kill the West, that excess and greed will bring whole civilisations down “like-a the Roman Empire”, “Americans, what do they know, eh? Communism will fix them” and then he can’t be stopped, from Mussolini, to Lenin and Stalin, he enters a soliloquy, so familiar that the girls start clearing the dishes and know when to say “yes, Dad “and just leave him to rant and point his finger in the air. Well, half a finger really. He lost half of his right index finger working as a Boilermaker , “I chop him off”, he always says, holding it up for inspection, followed by a throaty laugh, “the Insurance, she pays for my daughter’s degree, I sacrifice for that child”. The family hoots with laughter. It has a wry sense of humour and downplays the fact that he did lose his finger and it did pay for his daughter’s education, even though it was not deliberate. It was what he did, he took care of them, whatever the cost to him personally. Instead they tease him and say “Dad, why is your finger a boy and the Insurance Company a girl?” and they all laugh as he shrugs his shoulders and giggles with them, his big stomach joining in, in waves of mirth. It is what they do, they take serious things and turn them into jokes, it is the family’s coping mechanism. Like her grandmother’s funeral. It was his mother-in-law; she ruled the family, her tiny frame belying her power. She was from Holland, tough but warm and she did not always love her son-in-law, but when she was frail and needed help, he would carry her in his big bear arms and gently put her in the bath, averting his eyes at the once magnificent woman who was now a husk of herself. He did that for two years, never complaining, so that she would not have to live in an old age home. The irony coming at her funeral, after being a pall bearer and carrying her one last time, the hearse failed to start and he had to help push it. He cast his eyes heavenwards and said “one-a last time, I must still push you”. We still laugh until we cry thinking about that and her.
He is deaf now. The years of working next to a furnace and a huge hammer making Powerlines that took electricity to millions of homes, have taken their toll on his ears, but he still loves to sing in his clear, tenor voice, with his Italian accent. His beloved daughter calls him Pava-Rossi, playing with his surname and the great singer Pavarotti’s. He stands in the church choir and sings to his heart’s content, even if he is ahead of the organ and the rest of the congregation. He does not care. He sings because he can, and again his daughters and grand-daughters sit giggling quietly into their sleeves, so they don’t get into trouble for being “bad” in church.
And after church, over coffee, there will be a re-enactment of what he did by the mischievous girls and howling laughter will ensue and he will join in and say “no, you are-a doing it wrong, I do it like this” and he will stand and extend his stomach and belt out a hymn, while the girls wipe their eyes.
He is old now. He is my dad still. And I love him.
I have added a song that always makes me think of him…
I hate going around in circles. Yet we all do quite often. If we analyse the patterns of our arguments they often have the same theme. Year 12 with my daughter has been an intense experience, but definitely one that I think has made us closer. She is not difficult, she is sweet and receptive, still likes hugs, which I believe to be unusual in teenagers and she doesn’t exclude me from her life, as lots of teenagers do. So you would think that it would be fine and 99 percent of the time it is.
But every now and again, we do this intense tango, which has dramatic lights, action and music about a few issues. There are times where despite my better judgement, I cannot contain my opinions, advice or guidance (my positive spin on it). Regardless of how well she is or isn’t doing, my reactions, arguments or anxieties remain the same. This led me over the last few days to ask, how many of these things are my issues rather than hers and should I just dig deeper on what is making me anxious even when everything seems okay?
Often I think it is our own unresolved issues that influence our perceptions and get vocalised in the heat of an argument. Projecting these onto the innocent or not quite so innocent bystander, allowing them to feel a disproportionate amount of emotion on whathever the topic is.
This happens with our husbands, our friends and families, but with our children, it dawned on me that there is another layer of complexity. From the moment my daughter was born, I took my role of protecting her from any negative experience extremely seriously. I haven’t always succeeded at that, but my intentions were always in the right place. This protection, I think is mandatory from a safety and character shaping point of view. It is especially critical when they are small and cannot see the risks or need their values imprinted, but there does come a point where we need to let our children learn and take responsibility for their lives. Some of my own best learnings have come from my worst mistakes and have, in hindsight, been my best character shaping experiences. So why do I fear letting her experience the fullness of being human and all the positive and negative experience that goes with it?
I have had to ask myself often and honestly, are these my issues or are they her issues? Is seeing her go through the same experiences I went through, pushing my own buttons or insecurities or am I genuinely just crazily worried for her? I have always prided myself in trying to work my own achievements for myself and not putting undue pressure on her for me to “succeed through her.” She needs to own her achievements and I need to own mine. Can we share the joy of these together? Absolutely, but can I live through her? Absolutely not! My “aha” moment was that when I was giving birth, it was deep breaths, relax and push, now that she is an adult, for me, it must be deep breaths, relax, don’t push!
So as exams loom, I am going to try to hold her with an open hand. I am there for her, but I cannot hold her too tightly and control her outcomes. I know she will do the best she can. I will feed her, water her, bring her what she needs, be there for the chats, the sighs and the pressure, but deal with my own fears and hope and pray that it all works out the way it is intended. Love you, Bub, good luck!
I have always tried to live my life with intention. In the last few years, my business “intentions” just got busier and busier and I felt like I was flexing only those “muscles” in my life. It left me feeling like the “missing muscles” were atrophying and I did not like the fact that there were so many aspects of my life that perpetually felt neglected. Over the last few months, I have consciously tried to live the life that I am currently intending and giving myself some balance. As a result, I have had some really sweet interactions with my kiddie buddies.
My friends “the Cows” – not my name for them, but a name given to us by a guy who has been in my life since I was twelve – have got much smaller “little calves” than mine. Across our friendships the little people range from eighteen years to sixteen months old. “The Cows” all went to university together and five of us now live in Australia – they really are my family. This week, I had two really sweet moments with the little people in my life.
Firstly, I went to Sydney on business and decided to spend the night with my girlfriend. She did not tell her daughter, who is nine, that I was coming, deciding to make it a surprise. The cab dropped me off as the sun was dipping in the Sydney sky. As I walked into the garden, I could see the back of my god-daughter’s head facing the TV, her mum motioned to me to walk around. As I walked past the window, she saw me, her jaw dropped, in a cartoon like moment, her long, spindly nine year old legs, went spinning through the air, she flung herself into my arms and hugged me with her arms and legs and her head snuggled into my neck. We stood like this for several minutes laughing and making a noise and then I realised she was crying, which of course, set her mum and I off too. We forget that children often have similar emotions to adults and although she was happy to see me, the emotion of the unexpected and the happiness that came with it, was too much for those first moments. We had a fab night, with her playing her guitar, us laughing at her nine year old sense of humour and teaching her sixteen month old brother to “pull a tongue.” Later, when the kids were tucked in bed, my bud and I had a great girlie catch up. It is moments like this that we all cherish and refresh us for the daily grind of modern life.
Back in Melbourne today, another “little calf” who is five, lost her first tooth during the week. She took it to school for show-and-tell and promptly lost the white enamel tooth! It was a disaster of epic Disney Princess proportions – how was the tooth fairy going to come? Luckily, my other Cow friend, knew to put a note in her slipper and voila, gold coin emerged in the morning! On the plane home, I decided I was going to write her a letter from the tooth fairy and surreptitiously pop it in the post box. So this rainy Saturday morning, after Spinning my legs off, I sat down and wrote a letter from the Tooth Fairy, explaining that the tooth had indeed been secured “it was found next to some ants and a lolly wrapper in the playground.” I showed my daughter and she said “Mum, great strategy, bad execution. Fairy’s are tiny, your letter is too big. Let me do it.” She took my letter, made the font tiny, cut it into a little piece of paper and found a necklace that had a locket on it that the letter fitted into. We then sprinkled glitter in the envelope and I popped it into the letterbox and went in for a cup of tea. When I was leaving, we asked the little one to check the letter box, she found the envelope, was delighted and really intrigued with what the tooth fairy had done, making sure she saved all the “fairy dust” in the envelope.
There is nothing nicer than the fresh-faced delight on a little person’s face, I am grateful to have so many special little bubs in my chosen family. I also love how they remind me to relish and believe in the little miracles of life and the magic of an ordinary day!
Getting back to my no dieting philosophy, I have a new phenomena. As I listen to what my body needs, I have suddenly had a craving to go on a detox. How bizarre is that? Anything that is not a piece of fruit, veggie, fish or grilled is just not appealing at the moment. This is entirely new! You can dangle a Lindt or Toblerone in front of me and the lack of interest is so low, it is unrecognisable. It is like Spring has sprung and I need to spring clean with good wholesome, clean foods. So I am listening to my body and just doing what it wants. BUT!
Yes, there is always a but…
I know that detoxing should mean I should give up tea. Not the green, jasmine, herbal varieties, but the black kind that you put milk into. I have loved tea since before my memory began. Allegedly, when I was 18 months old, at a holiday resort run by nuns, in South Africa, called Genazzano, I made a commotion, running up and down the passages at 6:30am, yelling “Tea” at the top of my lungs. Did these women not know about room service? I am still like that! I know where to find a cup and it is part of my thinking, relaxing, unwinding, bonding with friends, talking to my daughter or husband, you name it, tea features in every facet of my life. Sometimes I even take the dog for a walk with a cup of tea! I don’t drink soft drinks, alcohol or fruit juices and I have never had a cup of coffee, instant nausea, happens when I have a sip. Maybe that is why they call it instant coffee! But tea…
It made me think. Could I live without it? Many years ago, I read Caroline Myss’ book “The Anatomy of Spirit” – she is a medical intuitive and takes every facet of every religion, finds the common threads and explains how people function and also why they get ill and how they heal. It is fascinating. One of the things she mentions, that has stuck in my memory is that when faced with healing or giving up an “addiction”, some people have such a strong addiction, that they would rather be sick than give up their beloved object, be that object cigarettes, alcohol or whatever else is causing their ailment. It may not be conscious, but as she picks up their energy, it is overwhelmingly apparent to her, that people would literally die rather than give up their beloved addiction. As I thought about really detoxing, really, really detoxing. I wondered could I give up tea?
It would be so hard for me. I have over time changed the way I drink my lovely cuppa. I used to, like a true South African, have milk and two sugars. I then over time forced myself down to one. Then on New Year’s day 2006, I gave up sugar all together. The first 30 days were hell. But I stuck it out and it is the ONLY New Year’s resolution, I have ever kept. Still today, I drink my tea sugarless. So if my body feels like detoxing, should I give it that extra nudge and cut the tea out? Someone, please tell me “No, that is a very bad idea!”
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