On that score, at least, we're even

My sister and I need to get back to Moorooka and we need $4 for our bus fares.  Could you give me $4?

This good-looking, well-dressed lady looks directly into my eyes, as if defying me to disbelieve her.  I am feeling terribly uncomfortable.  I don't intend to give her the money for reasons I am not entirely clear about.  At the same time, I don't wish to be disrespectful in any way.  If any thing, I feel a desperate need to assure her that her request for my money has in no way diminished my respect for her as another living creature. 

But my emotions are stirred from their convenient sleep into an unsettling, incongruent, conflicted mess.  Why am I unable to say a straightforward, respectful 'No'?  Why is my mind scrambling clumsily for another way of saying 'No'?  Why is it grasping for some euphemistic alternative disguised as a credible excuse or what I feebly try to convince myself is one?  I know that she is not going to believe it.  Just because she asks a stranger for money doesn't make her insensitive to people's motivations. 

I give her some half-baked excuse amounting to a lie that I don't have any change, hoping that she gets the hint.  Instead, she asks if I've got $5 (a note).  I vacillate between feeling slightly miffed by her cheek and still trying to find a dignifying way out.  No, I say, I don't and this time, it seems I have stopped trying to lessen the blow.  She looks at me with the same expression that she's maintained from the start of our encounter, almost dour faced.  I briefly wonder what she's thinking. But most of my thoughts are already embroiled in a post mortem.

Why do I feel so uncomfortable about being approached for money in this way?  Why don't I give it?  What am I really saying when I don't?  How can I respond in a way that leaves me feeling good and, hopefully, does something useful for the other person? 

I think that most of all, I don't give because I believe it's an inadequate, short term response that at best, would meet an immediate or short term need that's likely to do more harm than good.  It's also because there's a very strong voice inside my head telling me that the money will be spent on grog or cigs or drugs rather than getting this lady and her, thus far, not-to-be-seen sister anywhere near where she says they're hoping to go.

In short, I don't believe her story any more than she believes mine.  So, on that score, at least, we're even.  But beyond that, I'm sure I feel I'm in  a better place than she is.  If all or most of my assumptions about her are right, I am reassured by the fact that I have not acquired an addiction and worse still, one which I am unable to support financially.  Neither am I likely to ask a stranger for money or lie to them about what the money is for. 

I know, I am passing judgment on this lady.  Or am I?  I like to think that I'm making observations about a person and about myself.  If anything, I am more concerned with my response and my reasoning (or lack of) and what beliefs and values underlie them.  One by one, I hope to pick them open and examine them for I sense there is much I shall discover and learn about myself.  Things that will help me regard another human being with true respect and regard, not just for who they are but for their right to their choices in life.

I'd rather be appreciated than rewarded

I work in a retail store anywhere from one to three days a week.  It's a store that operates on the principles of fair trade and sources all its products, almost 95% of which are handmade by women, from  countries such as Thailand, Peru, Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Colombia, Kenya, the Philippines and East Timor.

The handcrafted goods, including the very popular owl shaped shoulder bags, waste paper baskets made from recycled telephone books and spider-weave table runners are each uniquely made and are an absolute delight to our customers.  Sadly, although our store is located in an expensive suburb and on the main drag, because it's not part of a big shopping complex, its clientele are mainly passers-by. Which means, we don't get as many as we need.

Yesterday, what with the rain playing cheeky on and off games with us, we had a total of twenty customers.  Hardly anything to crow about although we did have a fifty percent conversion.  The manager attributed that to me insisting that I have a way with people.  The truth is, I do enjoy engaging with them and I smile a lot and I am known to say some rather strange and unexpected things that seem to  make people smile and often explode with laughter. I don't plan any of this, of course.  It's just a natural reaction to people:)

For instance, I was serving a couple of girlfriends not long ago.  It was a day for girlfriends.  There must've been at least four pairs that day,  Anyways, I was serving this lady whose friend had come in a week or so ago on her own looking for some amethyst earrings for a friend.  Apparently, it was the friend's birthday.  Well, sadly, we didn't have any amethyst earrings although we did have amethyst necklaces which was not quite what this lady wanted to give her friend.

When this lady and a friend turned up at the store I wondered if this might be the friend she'd been wanting to buy the earrings for and when I had a chance, I quietly asked her.  I think she was chaffed by the fact that I remembered her and her thwarted intentions.  So, knowing I was in the good books, I naturally gave myself freedom of speech.

The lady's friend had decided to purchase a shoulder bag and when the two of them came to the counter to pay for it, I asked the friend if this was her first time at our store.  Yes, she replied.  To which I said with deliberately muted excitement and a hint  of gravity, "Ah, a virgin".  Well, you can imagine the uproar that caused.  The friend just could not stop laughing (and laugh she did, all the way out of the store some ten minutes later) while everyone else in the store (it's quite a small one) pricked up their ears hoping to catch more juicy tittle tattle.

Well, the stage was set.  I launched into the story of how I'd come about this particular phrase.  But perhaps I'll leave that story for another post and continue for now with how my 'personality has changed over the years - from someone who used to keep her gaze toward the ground and hope and pray that no one would notice her to someone who is just looking for an opportunity to smile at people.  If you knew me, I mean seriously knew me, you'd know that that has been a change of galactic proportions.

I've noticed that I tend to smile at bus drivers too these days.  The other day, one of them commented on it.  And the day before, on my ride back from my Monday evening Buddhist class, which incidentally is about the nature of reality (yeah, heavy stuff), I noticed a sign on the bus.  Well, actually, I'd noticed the sign several times before but only took the time to read it properly that night.  The last thing it said was: Reward the bus driver with a smile.

It made me wonder of course, as you must know by now, about several things.  Like, do I really believe in rewarding anyone?  Do bus drivers feel 'rewarded' when someone smiles at them or do they just feel nice?  Why do we buy into this concept of 'reward'?  Isn't it rather limiting?  Couldn't we just appreciate?  Couldn't we be encouraged to 'appreciate' rather than 'reward'?

In my mind, appreciation is such a natural response which is based on enjoyment rather than 'e-value-ation.  Reward, on the other hand, connotes a certain amount of evaluation and encourages us to think and respond in terms of 'degrees' of value and other such discriminating and restricting concepts.

What do you think?  I'd love to know :)

Reminiscing on a rainy day

I want to tell you about the rain that's been dripping down on us almost ceaselessly the last few days, and that, according to the weather forecasts, is likely to continue for a good few more.

I want to tell you about the rain because I do love it.  I love its tenderness and the soft sounds it makes as it falls upon leaves and fronds and earth and concrete ground and brollies and window panes and my hair and face and leaves its drops on all of them.  Yes, that sound is continuous as long as it is raining, varying only in intensity.  I love the way the palm fronds quiver and dance as raindrops land on them, so delicately.  And I love how green and nourished and satisfied the grass and trees and plants look, as if they've just had the most sumptuous and satisfying meal :)

Why is it that the rain makes us want to snuggle up in bed or on a comfortable sofa and get lost in a good book?  Is it simply because we can't go out (or should I say prefer not to go out because we don't wish to get wet?).  Or is there something more to it?  Light rain has such a comforting, constant sound/  Well, it makes that sound when it comes into contact with things of and on the earth including roof tops and drainpipes. 

When I was a teenager, I used to be too embarrassed to hold a brolly and walk in the rain.  Actually, as a teenager, I was painfully embarrassed to do a lot of things, including being me.  I'm talking about my late teens here and early twenties.  Oh, the pain!  I cannot say that I've lost all that shyness altogether but I guess you could say I'm much better at concealing it.  Actually, it would be truer to say that I've learned to focus on different things.

I remember I was at a party once and it was decided we each had to tell a story about ourselves (This was in my early twenty's).  We were all sat in a circle, about eight of us, and I spent the entire eternity of those forty or so minutes dying countless deaths inside me.  I was emotionally traumatized and my brain went into lock-down mode.  I simply couldn't think of what to say other than "I can't do this".

Oh my god, it was hell.  When it finally was my turn, I simply put my head down and shook it to indicate that I could not do it.  Of course, this brought on a cascade of encouragement from the rest of the party which only made it worse for me.  I had attracted more attention to myself (which was, for crying out loud, the exact opposite of what I wanted!).  It would have been so much easier if I'd attempted to say something but I simply couldn't.  It was truly a traumatic event.

When I was at university, just before a field trip to Wales, I found a note in my pigeon hole.  It simply said "You are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen".  A part of me felt thrilled but a much larger part of me went into panic mode and I was terrified and guilty at the same time.  Can you believe that???  Guilty???  What on earth for, you must wonder.  Because I had a boyfriend then whom I honestly didn't love but whom I'd pledged myself to (and ended up marrying and eventually divorcing some 15 years later).  Yes, believe it.

I had no business being attractive to others.  I must have believed that on some level.  Actually, I'm certain I did.  During the field trip, a guy came over to me and declared that he was totally attracted to me and wanted me to be his girlfriend.  The 'worst' part was that he was someone I'd noticed at lectures and was soooooooo attracted to as well.  He was good looking alright.  Terribly good looking - Italian and English features and gorgeous skin.  I'd naturally thought to myself that with his looks, he'd never give me a second look.  (Besides, I was this sky, awkward girl who never showed or spoke her true feelings).

For goodness sake, it wasn't as if I was ugly.  Quite the contrary.  People would often pass me compliments from which I would recoil with embarrassment and guilt.,  Yes, the guilt was always there. 

So, I never reciprocated his interest in me although god knows how badly I wanted to.  My life would have certainly turned out differently had I.  I can't say if it would have been better or worse but it would have been different.

Nothing like a bit of reminiscing on a rainy day, is there? :)

PS  In case you're wondering (I very much doubt you are but I thought I'd explain anyway), I often find the title for my post after I've written the post :)

An abstract need

I'm starting this with no idea where I'm going.  No idea where I'm beginning either except that it's here.  Perhaps you could say it's a stream of consciousness thing, but I'd hesitate to call it that, not entirely at any rate.

I'm listening to this powerful piece of music as I write this. It's Joss Stone allowing Jeff Beck to accompany her on There's no other Me. Has that girl got a voice!  The bass guitar is something awesome too.  Yeah, powerful, searing stuff.  No., not the bass but the whole composition.  I've only recently (in the last couple of years) discovered Jeff Beck and I love his style.  He can come play at my party any time :)

But really, before thinking to tell you about the music I was listening to, I wanted to tell you about this simply soft, lush canopy of green that's spread wide across my view from the window where I'm sitting and typing this.  It's the time of early evening, not long before six, when the sky is turning that dusky blue and there's just enough light to show you how green the leaves on the sprawling branches of this tree (whose name I still do not know nor seriously care to know) can be.

So you might ask why might any of this be noteworthy.  Why, furthermore, would I want to share it with you?  Well, for one thing, this is probably the most enchanting time of the day for me.  For another, the green is just so rich and fertile and promising and beguiling.  I don't know why, it just is to me.  And I am filled with this deep sense of beauty and enchantment, as if I were in a world of magic and nothing matters at all.

By the time you read this, the feelings will probably have left me and in all honesty, I rather doubt that you could even begin to get a taste of what I'm on about as I don't think I've been able to express or describe anything terribly well.  But, for some reason, I have a desire to share this and hope, in some vague way, that it might remind you of beautiful, tender moments of being lost in some kind of magic.

I've been reading a book by Neale Donald Walsh called 'Happier than God  I recommend it if you want to understand how things work and how you can be happy.  So simply put although there are profound truths which may require you to pause and read them over and reflect on them.

I went to visit my friend, L, today.  She's going to New Zealand for a holiday tomorrow, for seventeen days.  I helped her get her things together in her suitcase and carry-on bag.  She didn't really need my help.  It was more the reassurance of my being with her before she left that I think mattered.

We exchanged gifts, neither of us knowing that we were going to.  I'd got her a  sea-blue scarf with silver threads through it and a blue, glass-like bracelet to go with it.  I wanted her to have something from me on her trip.  She loved them at once.  And then, she presented me with a couple of gifts - a scarf she'd knitted ages ago and had forgotten about (actually there were four of them) and a desk lamp that I'd been eying to use by my laptop instead of the overhead l light that I currently use.  Of course I was thrilled with both.

I treasure my time with L. She's a cool cucumber. Sharp as a tack and ripe with life.

So, I took the bus home.  Two buses actually.  I no longer have a car.  It needed new brakes and it was going to cost more than I could afford and I was becoming less and less enthusiastic about using a car.  So, finally, I got the wreckers to come and collect her.  It took me several months to come to that decision.  Interesting how the inevitable plays itself out...

Gosh, I don't suppose I've said anything of much substance here.  Nothing for you to chew on, to ponder, to pick a bone with.  But it's satisfied a need in me, an abstract sort of a need.  Have you had any 'abstract' needs of late?  Care to share them?  Or at least, to share how you satisfied them?  I'm all ears. I mean, all eyes :)

If only I knew

I wonder.  Did you ever feel you knew exactly what you were meant to 'do' in this life? 

I've heard and read about people, mainly famous people, who seemed to know from a very early age what they were meant to do with their lives and got to it without wasting too much time.  Sure, there are cases where they may have encountered road blocks and were forced to make detours but that did not change the fact that they seemed to know just what they were meant to do.

I wonder if you also might have known?  I don't think I ever did.  Truth be told, I still don't think I do.  Which strikes me as rather unfortunate.  Why?  Because I feel I could have got on to it sooner and spent more of my life doing what I was meant to do rather than wondering about it.

Of course, all this presumes a number of things.  For instance, it presumes that we each have a certain 'thing' that we are predestined to do and/or be.  It could also imply that the time that we're not doing whatever it is we're meant to be doing is time wasted.  Those seem to be the most obvious implications of my line of questioning, neither of which I believe to be true.  At least, not completely.

I mean, the notion of something predestined seems to suggest that we really have no say in the matter.  I believe we always have a say in the matter.  If that weren't true, well then, we'd all be doing exactly what we're predestined to do, wouldn't we? 

I suppose you could argue that we are doing whatever it is we're predestined to be doing including all the things that we think (or I think) are not as clearly and conveniently defined as say, being a famous rock musician or a spiritual luminary or a brilliant actor or an exceptional scientist or philosopher. 

If so, I have two questions:

1.  Why isn't it as clearly defined?
2.  Why is there a sense of not feeling and knowing that 'this is it'?

As for the 'time-wasting' proposition, well, I don't really believe that anything is ever wasted although I do believe that many benefits in life often go unrecognized. 

So, do you have any thoughts on this?  I'd be most interested to know.  You see, I'd really like to know that I was getting to where I want to be, if only I knew where/what that was!

This unremarkable drift

I was going to write about this child who got lost and how, although he seemed pretty sanguine about it (you know, ignorance is bliss), it was heart-wrenching for me.  I was feeling the anguish of his parents or at least, the anguish that I would have felt had my child gone missing for 5 minutes let alone forty minutes and then some. 

And I couldn't help feeling both grateful that the child (about two and a half to three) was oblivious of his situation as well as how terrified and alone I'd be feeling as a child if I'd had the misfortune to be clued in. Know what I mean?

I waited some forty minutes as I watched one of the girls from the park management team keep this tiny angel company (or was it the other way around?), distract him by talking to him and making up games to play, all of which he took to with the calm and decorum of someone who knew no fear.  Oh, how I wish I could be as calm and unperturbed when unexpected or undesirable things happen to me. 

Okay, it's true, I'm a lot more calm and relaxed about most things and I tend to be more so when others around me get into a bit of flap.  But there are times when the entire world is spinning out of control inside me though you'd never know it on the outside.  Well, perhaps I exaggerate.  Perhaps it's not quite as out of control as I seem to think it is.  Perhaps it's just my fear that it is.  This mind can get pretty conflicted sometimes, you know?

So, despite changing my mind about what I was going to write, I have managed to tell the original story and I find that I've no where else to go with it.  It's been told, it's done and I'm glad I've got it out of my system.

Now, for a not so subtle change of direction, did I ever mention how much I love the blues?  I really, really love the blues, especially blues rock.  I wish I had a scratchy, blues voice or a deep mama voice.  I have neither.  Not that those are the only voices that can sing the blues well, just that I kinda wish I could sing 'em like that :)

Right, am not even sure why I've started talking about the blues.  Could it be because I'm listening to a cool blues program that's on the radio just now? :)  Or the fact that I'm so looking forward to my guitar lesson/session tomorrow with a local muso whose blues style I just love?

Anyhow, I best call it quits here before I drive myself and you insane with this unremarkable drift...apologies if its been irksome.  But if it prompts you to share your thoughts, please do. I always love reading other people's drift :)

 PS  Oh, how could I not write about this part of the story? 

The park girl assured me that a crew was going around looking for the parents.  Still, I really didn't want to leave without the assurance that the child and his parents were reunited.  So I held this intention - I just want to know that it's going to happen soon because there's already been too much suffering (on the part of the parents, at least).

Instead of making my way back towards the bridge which would take me to the city - it was after seven and dark - I started walking back into the park.  Well, I hadn't gone a few meters when I saw two women, their faces filled with an anguish that was not yet ready to go, and a security man who was leading them in the direction of the child. 

My heart just soared way over the clouds that had been lingering around it and I called out to the women, "Your child is safe.  He's right over there!"

I floated along that bridge and home that night :)









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And some time it's been....

Sigh - Yeah, it's like that. I'm beginning this with the weight of guilt and disappointment for not being more consistent with this blog.  I'm also encumbered by the uncertainty of when my next post will be.  Mmm...it makes me wonder...why am I posting now?

Truth? Because for a very brief, nanosecond-like moment, I felt like I wanted to and so here I am.  Which is one way of saying that in all the time since my last post, I've not had that kind of a moment.  Mmm...it makes me wonder...why I haven't...

'Honestly?  I think it's because I've had other things on my mind.  Like a romantic interest (although NOTHING was said or done by me or the object of my desire - was he completely unaware of how I felt?  Or was he just as scared as I was to say or do anything about it?  Or were the feelings simply not mutual?).

And besides that, I've been blissfully engaged with my music, songwriting and recording and songwriting some more.  And I've been writing for money - quite a bit more money than I was getting.  So that's all been good.

But this songwriting journey, yeah, it's taken a bit of a new direction, which is a little scary.  The last lot of songs I wrote and recorded were risk-free - transcendent stuff revolving around the eternal truths of life and love. 

But the songs I'm writing now are different in subject and sound - speaking of vulnerability and uncertainty and longings that may never be realized and that may even be considered unconventional or at least unpopular...but at least they're all true.  There's integrity,  

Not that the previous lot lacked integrity - no, not at all.  Just that they didn't feel as close to the bone as these ones.  Doesn't make the latter more authentic, I don't think, but might make them more accessible, more the sort of thing that more people can relate to.

Funny, I didn't think I'd be writing about my songwriting.  For that matter, I really had no idea what I'd be writing about.  So, forgive me if this isn't quite your cup of tea, assuming you're reading this.  /Well, there's nothing to assume there - if you're reading this, you are.  Sheeze...my brain's gone mushy, I think.  Mushy peas?

Perhaps this might be a good place to stop?  Yep, I think so.  Do stop and say 'hi' if you're reading this - it will put a big smile on me face :)