A Little Matter of Life and Death....

Saturday 28th January 2017

  🌈 We have our first Airbnb guest baby in The Blue House - A gorgeous 3 week old schnuggley  zen-like Buddha boy with a head of shiny black hair and a wise, knowing expression.  It is a sunny lazy Saturday morning in the kitchen and we are drinking coffee and playing pass the adorable baby…None of us can resist wanting to cuddle this warm, perfect form. This wriggling, stretching gurning delight…..The new, innocent, sweet smelling miracle of a new life….

   ...🍂Then we get the phone call.

The one we have known to expect for so long.

The one that takes us 2 hours on 4 motorways to a different home.

   🍂It is currently a sad, tired place.  The house where 58 years ago the life of the man I love was rather precariously received onto the living room floor.  Today, now,  the gentle kind, sweet Mother who gave him life, breathed her last exhausted breath, from her bed in what was once the dining room of the family home. The new home she entered as a young wife in 1952. 

   🍂I got to say good-bye to the familiar face that rested
as if sleeping….Finally relaxed, at peace and free of pain and confused anxiety, she looked younger. Dare I say it; even peaceful. The deep etched lines on her face have smoothed, her fine white hair, once dark, dark brown feels silky soft as I stroke her head, her skin still warm as I kiss her and tell her I love her one last time. I feel a mixture of sadness, disbelief and, dare I say it... relief.

               ❤Ale-ha Ha Shalom - may she rest in peace.❤

                       🌱A completed circle of life.🍂

   🌱She was an Austrian Jewish child who’s mother made the ultimate sacrifice of putting her daughter alone onto the Kinder-transport - her best chance of survival. 

Of life.

  🌱She found refuge in England as a young Jew and departed this earthly realm as one of John Wesley’s devout Methodists. The Jewish prayer for the dead - The Kaddish may be deemed inappropriate by some, but I/we will recite it anyway, if only to complete another, different circle.  It will be a nod of respect to her early roots and a reminder of the hope that one day we will be able to fill in some of the empty spaces of her early life in Vienna. Then we can speak of her beginnings to future generations with clarity not vagueness.

   🌺 This lady who has breathed her last today was more than a mother-in-law to me; for many years she was a de-facto mother when my own was lost.  She accepted me being brought into her family’s life by her beloved son without question or apparent judgment.  I came with a bundle of messy baggage which she and I spent many, many hours trying to unpack and unravel, bonding over shared stories and confidences along the way. I’m not sure if we ever did complete the unravelling, but having an older, wise, strong woman who I trusted and adored to confide honestly and openly in, was a blessing she seemed too humble to realise the importance or significance of.🌺 

  
   🌳 This woman was also a devoted wife of 63 years, a mother of 3, grandmother of 6, a radiographer, epic gardener, knitter, seamstress, country dancer…in fact a whole raft of talents, many of which she was shyly dismissive of.  Knitting was one of the last creative things her brain lost the ability to transmit to her fingers...I photographed those fingers at work when I first realised something more than the forgetfulness we all experience from time to time was going on and she revealed she was frightened for what lay ahead...I made her promises that I was unable to keep...

  

  🍂I /we will miss you beautiful lady, but truth to tell I did my real mourning for you while you were alive as I watched your consciousness slip away into a twilight zone far, far removed from reality.  I hope though that you could feel the love that surrounded you and that you had a sense of fulfilment in life and all you had achieved.🍂

  

  🍂I thank all the heavens above that you survived and gave birth to Stephen, without whom there would be no Oliver and Amber, no soul mate to complete me, no family of my own to nurture and grow.  I thank you from the bottom of my tender, bruised heart for that gift above all others. It has been a true blessing and privilege to have you in my life sharing the journey to this point. 

  🌳 Chosen family, tribe, roots and love.  The great, unfolding story that we are all a part              of. 

     🌳 The only stuff that matters.
     🌳 The only stuff that keeps us grounded in reality.

                      

                                ♥︎🌳 Shalom 🌳♥︎

Kiss me, demonstrations and free hugs in NYC. Therapy in the sky.

graffiti in the closet

🇺🇸My Man and I happen to find
ourselves in 🍏New York on Inauguration Day 2017.....Friday 20th January 2017 -The day the 45th POTUS, who’s name I cannot bring myself to utter,  officially gets sworn into office in Washington DC. 

☔️The weather is grey and wet.

☁︎Heavy skies.

♥︎Heavy hearts in need of free hugs.

✒︎Police everywhere, response fingers on the triggers of their machine guns. Life and death decisions at their fingertips.

✒︎People demonstrate. In the main peacefully. Democratically. 

Every cab we take, the conversation is one of negativity, dislike, fear, despair. We share our mutual concerns as we see them from across the pond in Blighty.  

✒︎We connect, with wry humour and belief/hope that it will all be ok in the end. 

✒︎We accept that democracy has spoken. 

✒︎For now.

✒︎Homeless people abound on the streets, as they do back home in London, but with no free National Health Service to gather them up when they fall, they beg with a sad intensity and it has to be said- an inventiveness- we don't often get to experience back home.

✒︎This is the uneasy backdrop to our visit.

....Bizarre then you might think, that we are having the most awesome time!  We weave through the real time events and demonstrations taking place in and around Manhattan and DC, steeping ourselves in the cultural, the shopping  (despite the appalling exchange rate), the endless pit stops in iconic delis for coffee and eats and cheesecake - always NY cheesecake....propping up the hotel bar supping Dry Martinis and Old Fashioned's, Madison Square Garden for Kings of Leon gig, viewing great art at 
MoMA....walking, talking, buzzing, looking up and out literally and metaphorically at the history and people of this great vibrant city. 

It has survived and evolved.  Because it has to..

 💠So have we. 
 💠Because we have to. 

The alternative is surrender and acceptance to other people controlling and dictating our lives. Not an option I would consider for me or those of my Tribe.  I think maybe I can be too much of a naive idealist,....but then again, I prefer to have the audacity to Manifest Hope. It was after all the 44th President Obama’s mantra in his original presidential campaign. A very, very different vibe back in 2009 when we witnessed his inauguration in Washington.

🚂 The pleasure bus has to eventually stop at its final destination sadly. So after leaving my man at Penn Station where he is taking the Amtrak train to Washington for work meetings, I walk disconsolately back to Times Square and find myself drawn into  "Smokey Mary’s” - a French Gothic church, a city block deep and 80 feet high, hidden in midtown Manhattan. Statues and images of Mary, Jesus, saints and angels inspire reverence or at least respectful silence. It is a quiet haven for the homeless and dispossessed to nap safely and warmly. A time alone for me to reflect on my life blessings. As I prepare to leave, I notice a pile of coats in the gloom - only a pair of rather beautiful, gnarled yet elegant black hands show there is a human within - a sad woman’s face in  shadow.  I gently touch her arm and slide dollars into those hands, blow her a kiss, say a silent prayer to whoever may be listening, and leave in a big yellow taxi for JFK Airport.

Homeward bound.🇬🇧

Safe haven, for a short while.

✈️… I am blog writing in my wired state (as I so often am after midnight) in the middle of the night somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean en route back to the UK. After an uneventful wait in the departure lounge and despite the threat of storm chaos as wind and rain once again lash the East Coast, I take up my seat on the BA plane next to a seemingly edgy anxious young Trinidadian man.   He is clutching a cabin sized bottle of red wine and requesting permission to start drinking in order to quell his flying nerves…Not exactly my idea of the perfect partner of choice for a long flight, but I decide to try and engage with him in light hearted banter-type distraction during a slightly turbulent take-off and see where it takes us. Half an hour later up above the clouds at cruising speed we are best buds on first name terms!!!!….Strangers on a plane, connected via the human condition - In particular; family, religion and the pursuit of individual contentment and happiness.  

🎯Nothing trivial.

🎯Straight in there.

🎯The BIG ones.

🎯Life, death and everything in between.

🎯Nothing off the menu.

Best. Flight. Ever!!!!!!...

I discover my fellow traveller is a banker turned psychologist…Yay - a 6 1/2 hour therapy session -  me grilling him about his Jehovas Witness upbringing in Trinidad (harsh!)…Fascinating stuff:  the theology, the dogma, the indoctrination an ohh, oh, the eternal judgment.  He forged his escape (as I myself had done) at a young age, to another country in order to create the dialogue of his own life, in his own words and seek a destiny free from the daily crushing criticism and guilt back in Trinidad. The legacy of such a life change is always seeking to find sense and order in the chaos of emotional thoughts and reactions to life events, always seeking peer and parental approval despite knowing it is unlikely and also unrealistic. My new BF  grills me about my relationships, how my responses are informed by my background, how I avoided recidivism….. 

❓How many times in my life have I had these discussions or a variation on the theme of with people❓  

❓Including my own “choose life over a living death” story, the answer is; too many to count.....

  

↪️Continued sometime later, back home in my sweet, sweet island of a bed, pooch, cat and tea to hand:

Writing from the warm safety of my bed!

Our animated chat was broken only once by a short nap taken after supper,  accompanied in the psychologists case by downing half a sleeping tablet with his 3rd cabin bottle of wine...  We found ourselves sharing the kind of intimate confidences it is, for some reason easy to divulge when you know time is limited, there is no escape and you are unlikely to ever see the person you are confiding in again!  Suitably oiled by his consumption of wine and mine of Bloody Mary's from the trolley, we ploughed on through the minefield of life’s adventures until we descended to land through a thick London fog.  

Oddly and I realise probably to both of our relief,  the sheer volume of people impatiently exiting the plane and me stopping to take photos of the crepuscular dawn, meant we did not even get to say goodbye, bonne chance….. 

🔵An enlightening brief encounter.

🔵A reminder that we humans share the same inner doubts and insecurities, but rarely have the opportunity or feel secure enough to express how we feel. 

🔵It feels good to share😉……

🌈Life sure is a glorious gift and the unwrapping doesn't ever have to end. 🌈😘

Donuts-knitted-world needs them

                                                          🌳Shalom🌳

Life laid out on the table.........

Trust me, I'm human...

   A duvet day…..Pills and caffeine consign the head thump and slight temperature into background noise for four hour breaks, which allows a degree of creative thought.  

   Certain sentences come and go in my head:-  

The nature of trust....The need for pain release.....

   How am I making a connection between the two? 

   By putting out ripples and question marks, opening my heart and mind. 

Airing thoughts...

   ….Amongst a variety of other things, I am an Airbnb host at my London home and people often ask how I seem to so comfortably and easily welcome strangers into my home, hand over a set of keys and actively encourage my guests to feel like it is their own for the duration of their stay (sometimes beyond)?

seek it...

   I find the answer is one that relies to a degree on my personal strength of character and self- belief:- It also lies the nature of how we communicate and empower trust in others - in my case, on two major levels; 

show it...

(1)  My personal decision to accept or deny a booking relies initially on instinct when I view the person(s)profile who are making a booking request.  This is backed up by Airbnb's own references/verifications, but after that it is down to the guest understanding my clear, written requirements regarding behaviour and respect whilst in my home. Then me developing a relationship with the individual guest when they arrive, encouraging them from the start of their stay to treat my home and family as they would their own -hopefully with respect. My own life experience has shown me that you are no more likely to be hurt or abused physically or mentally by a stranger as you are by known members of your own family or friends, which leads me on to:

 

Do it!...

(2)  I work hard to maintain my inherent belief in the goodness of the human race, whilst also recognising and being prepared to encounter and deal with the darker side of humanity. Both thrive from attention and having seen both in my life (who hasn’t?) I choose to dwell on the positive and cut off the negative before it becomes a major problem. If it were a guest I would politely remove them (although thus far this has never been an issue - all my guests have been delightful). Family can be more tricky, but as far as I am concerned - same rules apply.  Being blood related does not supply you with an immunity clause.

I gave this trust thing a lot of thought recently whilst having a rather beautiful tattoo on my wrist, designed and drawn for me by my man to mark my 60th birthday -Phoenix angel wings rising from the flame, ….always optimistically rising and regenerating. 

Lordy it hurt!

   I chose to experience that pain, and yet I am not a self-harmer.

   I felt for some reason I welcomed that pain.

   It was a kind of release from the pressure that had built up in me that I wasn’t even aware of on a conscious level.

   A metaphor for wiping the slate clean and starting afresh.

   My body produced wonderful endorphins in response to the pain of the needles, which resulted in me leaving the tattoo parlour with almost a sense of euphoria.

Balance restored from the weird, intimate experience of giving a stranger permission to permanently mark ones body with ink, in the form of art.

   Many, many hurtful, painful and difficult things have been accumulating in my life for quite a while, as I know they do for everybody.  My life in the main is brim full of joy, grace and abundant love, great family, friends and community. But it is also a life that, through being lived in an open, extroverted not introverted, full-on way, has left me exposed to that dark side. I do not choose to shy away from conflict and as a consequence have to deal with some irrational, bad behaviour from people it is impossible to avoid if you are going to engage with and to learn to trust-or not. Indeed I have experienced reason over the years to trust strangers over some of the people who have been closest to me, who have given me little or no reason to invest in trusting or respecting them. And yet I still believe in the goodness, still keeping my heart and door open to the opportunity to connect.

Always hope...

 For now I will work on maintaining my optimism and tolerance levels, ready to welcome and host as I have been doing, for it has enriched my life beyond measure and helped keep any cynical thoughts to a background mumble....Or is that the brain ache returning as the pills wear off???   

To life....

   There you have it.  Transparency and reflection.  Not something I normally have time to do.

Does any of what I wrote make sense?

Will I look at this tomorrow and not even recognise the person who wrote it!?

   Just laying my life out on the table, putting ideas out there that will maybe resonate with a wider audience. 

Maybe be passed on?

wise

Wise words...

We are Stardust, We are Golden.........'

Thinking cap on

💭January. An ideal time to re-boot, re-set the clock of experience and start afresh.💭
🐾Dogs on the bed🐾. One is a huge, warm, in-your-face real and rug like Doodle called Lu-Bear. The other one known as Clemmie the ghost dog, departed in 2016 after 16years snoring quietly away-still there in the shadows. The ghost dog replacement is a character full young Romanian refugee cat - Ozzinobuns.....

Short, grey days provoking introspective thinking over endless cups of coffee. 
❓What are we here for?
❓What is the point in it all❓
Hmm - Big, loaded questions, for which there seems to be an abundance of financially driven self-help and enlightenment industries peddling solutions to the desperate ‘us'- you and me, who sometimes in our darkest and more vulnerable moments seek a deeper answer. Solutions profound, shallow, sometimes downright scandalous and dangerous.

Often the answer seems to require a credit card, bucket loads of trust, blind faith and belief in what is being ‘revealed’ by the superior, already enlightened who are eager to cash in on their knowledge. A humungous online/offline industry driven by commerce,  self-interest and often individual aggrandisement, not philanthropy.  Cynical moi❓  

Do I sound more like my man; old punk rock Stoffles in this outpouring, rather than hippy,peace and love Jeanie❓  Yeah, well I have my moments.  
I am (sort of)human after all.

I know the answer- ask me!

 I personally seek humour and self-deprecation in those whose answers I most often turn to.  Often enlightenment comes to me from art, literature, a film, an overheard conversation, an encounter with a stranger.  Sources that aren’t those that come in a neat, packaged in an Amazon box, black and white ideal. 

Why then am I sharing this internal monologue, this verbal dribbling out loud❓

I have been on this journey called life for 60 years on this green and blue batshit crazy planet.  In that time I have engaged with life to the best of my ability. I have been no saint or shrinking violet and have chosen a pretty gritty- roller-coaster-no apologies-no regrets kind of life as much on my own terms as possible. My experience is glorious technicolour, dancing and stumbling through light and shadow, not black and white. Recently various people who’s opinions I respect, have ventured to suggest that I should consider writing a book about - amongst other things - 'The Sayings of Chairman Jeanie'.  Or Stalin Jeanie as I have been referred to occasionally by my dear offspring. (A tad cruel me thinks given Stalin's particular plan for global domination and control of the masses…..).

 So, here I am giving the idea some thought and trying to think what deep Words of Wisdom I could come up with to share with the world and stretch to a few hundred pages. What on earth do I have to say that has not already been said, re-said, dressed up like a dogs dinner and been exploited to the point of exhaustion? And I need a sexy title to kick me off... (lets be honest here - sexy sells - even the inference of it) and a tag line that taps into the zeitgeist of the moment…

Well, to quote Seth Cohen from The O.C: ‘Heres the thing’- The only thing that has come into my head thus far (apart from the need to fight off a nap) is a comment I have to attribute to Joanna Fellowes (wife of Fred Fellowes who gave birth to The Secret Garden Party and happens to now own my old Dutch sailing Barge…..):- "We are stardust we are golden, we are billion year old carbon and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”

I’ll get back to you on the rest - it’s a work in progress, but one thing I can say for certain: There will always be Dogs on the Bed…Err…....Could that be a working title do we think❓❓❓❓❓

Shalom Global Village.
TTFN😎😘

No good deed goes unpunished

   ...💘My Beloved Main Man, and rock of over twenty eight years is an enigma: A big hearted, hugely intelligent -my very own offline Phd Google, artistic, sharp witted, loving Papa and friend.  He is also a huge cynic, affectionately known by those close to him as 'Stoffles' (honey badger-check it out on youtube), has a touch of the darkness about him and a presence - even though he is not a big man - that can sometimes make people feel uneasy. After all our years together, he still has the ability to totally shock and surprise me by his thoughts and actions, possibly because of these contradictory facets of his character?  Who knows.  It certainly keeps our relationship fizzing!!!!!😊

   I say this because his sometimes negative world-weary view is often a source of disagreement and lively discussion over our morning coffee in bed - one way to wake up before the caffeine kicks in I suppose!  Usually when I am striving to see balance between the good/evil in us as fallible humans and the wider world, he will stoically dunk his ginger nuts (not a euphemism!) and say "I told you before and i'll tell you again: No good deed goes unpunished".  He delivers this epithet often with a wry smile of acceptance and a Gallic shrug, which never fails to irritate me and invite comment. Even though he maintains this harsh view, I have to note that he is always there to offer help and assistance to anyone, be it family, friend, stranger. Never seeking affirmation or thanks, ego firmly taking a back seat. A man of many facets.

   My actions towards our fellow travellers through life are the same, even though my responses are opposite and I am all raw, on the surface emotion driven; laughing, crying, high, low, calm, hysteria!, we seem to ultimately provide balance for each other.  Not an easy ride, always sparks flying, but never dull, never short of stuff to work through.  A short lesson and example of enduring love without sacrificing the individual -  indeed celebrating what is different between us.....It's so worth it - to quote a line in The English Patient; "The heart is an organ of fire"💘
   PS: I am thinking I want this picture below as my day job :-↓