Dear Diary

Dear Diary is the theme of this week's Sunday Scribbling.

I have kept diaries of sorts since I was perhaps 15 years old. I threw out my first ever diary due to its shamefully embarrassing and juvenile content, but I kept my second one, which just so happened to be a school project we had to do as part of our year 12 English curriculum. I doubt any teacher actually had a read of its content; it was written by a dopey 16 year old after all, but had anyone chanced a bit of a skim through, they might have been surprised, for I never said a word in the majority of my classes at school, and the diary content, in hindsight, is both riotously hilarious (though not deliberate) and tragic (perhaps melodramatic is a better word...or angst-riddled maybe).

It did pass my mind to share one of the more laughable moments in that second diary, but I refrained from doing so, instead I thought I would share this little tid bit. In hindsight I think perhaps I might have suffered a little of the old post natal depression in the aftermath of having my babies. I was quite depressed and despairing for quite a while afterward... then we moved to Canada and the isolation, the loneliness, the lack of support was almost unbearable. To make matters worse, I then endured Vancouver's wettest winter ever; a winter that just would not let up. The darkness, the lack of vitamin D and my already questionable mental state saw me plunge into a deep dark hole, one that I could not see my way out of......until I travelled by myself to Australia to attend my friend's wedding. It was the break I needed; the beginning of my turn around. You'll be happy to know that I am in a much better place these days.

This is a diary entry of my landing in Sydney after my "great escape". It is a bit of an emotional rant - I hope you can follow it:

2nd March 2006 – Sydney Australia - 27 degrees Celsius

What a tumultuous thirty-six hours. Talk about stress and serenity; life and death; darkness and light; turmoil and peace; sanity and insanity; warm and cold.

What would a numerologist say of this state of being; highs and lows and opposing thoughts, feelings and experiences?

I love my family, but my soul has been dying and I have felt like one of those ships lost in the Bermuda triangle – having mysteriously disappeared without a trace, with no hope of ever being seen again –soul off the radar.

Actually the red light is still flashing on the navigation screen. It signals that all is well; all is registering. Life and the vessel are following the straight path to its destiny. Perhaps the vessel might encounter a storm or undue turbulence, perhaps the people on board are a bit bored themselves; they might feel a bit uncomfortable for a while, but they know it isn’t for long; they know that there is an end to their suffering – they can generally count down the hours on one or two hands. So for them, it is mostly…. well, bearable. I don't know where I am going or how long it is going to take. It is as though I boarded a ship without an itinerary and have unwittingly boarded one that has simply been set adrift.

My dreams have stagnated and rot due to a lack of reflection. They fade away like the colour of a bright red t-shirt left for weeks to dry on the clothes line during a heatwave. The brilliant red grows duller and duller; the garment stiffens and becomes unshapely with each rain and scorching it gets, hanging there neglected and forgotten.

I really did have dreams once, but I don’t remember what they are now….
Actually I do remember, but the fire of possibility has long been extinguished, the winds that fanned the flames – exhausted. What remains is the ashen remnants of an idea.

Everything starts with an idea – sure, but passion, desire, inspiration, hope and opportunity are needed for an idea to sprout forth. Nourishment enables the idea to gather strength and strive toward its greatest potential. We all need a little visual progress from time to time. Don’t you think?

I often find myself sympathising with the jailbirds – the prisoners. I can’t think of a more debilitating place in which to gather hope for a better life; of believing deep down that one is a worthy human being, with talents and gifts to offer the world, but are prevented from achieving this end. I often feel that my life is as restricted, lonely and confined as a prisoner – but at least I can get into my car and roam. It is not my physicality that is being held prisoner as much as my mind. I am a slow thinker – considered no more clever than an ass, when I were at school. In reality however, I really just needed the time and freedom to think.... I am not at school anymore. I am at home, but I still need that time to collect my thoughts and arrange them on the blank pages of my mind. But today I am not at home. I have managed to escape.

Alone I took a plane to Sydney Australia from Vancouver Canada. I think I spent most of the journey in a state of shock; my mind was numb, confused and unaccustomed to peace. I felt paralysed during that flight, not knowing what to do with myself and this yet unrealised freedom. My mind only seemed to switch back on as I exited my plane - like a child's forgotten toy that had suddenly been gifted a fresh battery.

I have been away from my family for 24 hours now, and I have barely spoken to a soul; customs guy at the airport; train ticket girl and the waiter here, in this glorious cafe that I now find myself.

For the first time in ages...years, my mind is observing its surroundings; it is reflecting, absorbing and watching the energy that is this peripheral life with all its activity. I am enjoying the silence, the stillness, the ability to just be...uninterrupted within myself.

I feel free.

The Dream and the reality

I have travelled before.

It is certainly a desire of mine to be touched by the experiences offered by another country or community and its culture or people. I want to visit many places in this expansive world, both near and far, and I am sure I will. There is only the assurance of time for any one of us, and although the exact quantity of time remaining is ambiguous, it is our choice how we spend it.

When Ashley and I travel we tend to get a little carried away about our trips. We study guides and map out full programs along the most efficient routes, in order to fit it all in. We generally come home satisfied that we got to "see" all that we wanted to see, and more, but seeing is one thing, but what about "being"? Well I guess that is where "the dream" comes in.

I have been told a couple of things about "the dream". Not the dreams we have when we are asleep, but the things we would like to see happening in our experience of life. I have been told that everyone has to have a dream to keep them going - to keep them interested and motivated. A dream or ultimate goal enables us to plug away at the daily grind, endure hardship, and survive. Viktor Frankl discusses this at depth throughout his book Man in Search for Meaning..

Another perspective tells us that a dream is not something we should necessarily strive to achieve. Rather, it is something you simply hope to achieve, and by thinking about our dream often; imagining every detail; seeing ourselves 'there', basking in the moment of its full, untainted-by-reality, glory, the dream itself, rather than its achievement, gives life meaning.

According to these lines of thought, if we were to fulfill our dream, we might find that we no longer had anything to live for, or worse; the reality of the dream could be utterly disappointing, and we would have wasted our life on an unworthy dream - so says the 'crystal merchant/tea house owner' in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist (another recommendation). Well find ANOTHER dream, geez!

So....my dream.

My dream was to live overseas for at least one year. OK, done. Life over. Just joking..... Yes that was a dream of mine. I know it isn't that exotic, people do it all the time. Although I haven't yet returned, so I guess I am still living out my dream. It was a worthy dream, because it wasn't exactly easy to pull off. It took some courage, and I have learnt much from the experience. But now that this dream has been attained, I do need to grab hold of the next rung and reach for something else along these monkey bars of life.

I think perhaps I have had two dreams... maybe more if I really think about it. The living overseas one, which possibly emerged as a teenager - I had a ridiculous number of overseas penfriends and I was simply fascinated to read about their lives.

The faint dream of one day becoming a writer is a secret I have long held under lock and key, and close to my heart. I have enjoyed writing for as long as I can remember; for me it is a release or (until recently) a private act of unburdening.

I started out writing limericks and short poems for Possum Pages (a kids creative purge in the local Sunday newspaper. Quantity rather than quality was the general mainstay of the Possum Pages I am afraid- it had to be said -not sure if it still exists though).

If published in Possum Pages, you were sent a certificate and sometimes a book prize. Some of my "work" was published, along with the lovely drawings my brother always seemed to produce. I can't actually remember any of my fine contributions, so I might provide an example (they were probably awful anyway).

In high school I wrote letters to friends, morbid private poetry full of teenage angst, and silly stories for English class.

As a young adult I continued the poetry, but the creative side got lost for a few years, while I wrestled my mind into the rigidity and discipline of "anything but creative", academia. I did write a thesis, I guess that is something.

Today I write this blog; I email friends; I have attempted to renew my passion for bad poetry writing; I have even entertained writing short stories, and children's books, but the dream of becoming a career writer remains as elusive as ever; and since all other career aspirations appear to have been blocked by a higher power to ensure I never take one step down that shaky and questionable road, I am more strongly noticing the writing theme in my life and am testing its importance to me.

Maybe I will never be a great writer. Perhaps I will never write anything worth publishing, bar my lonely thesis, which sits in some dank and uunfrequented corner of the university library; full of my now trade mark editing paux pas, oops. But it is a dream, a worthy dream, and a dream that keeps me going.

*This post was enter as a contribution to the Sunday Scribblings prompt - Dream journey. If you are interested in the contents of night dreams. I posted such an offering only a couple of days ago. If you are remotely interested, here is the link to Dreaming.

Tight Grip

I have always held my pen or pencil like it might try to escape from my hand.

So hard and firm is my grip that I literally develop a cramp if I write for too long; such as when I am writing a personal letter to a friend.

Not only is my grip firm, but I also tend to press the writing implement really hard into the page, as if I were trying to make certain that I made an impression, like I sub-consciously feared that my thoughts and words might evaporate or fly away if I didn't secure them tightly enough to the page.

I have a callous on the index finger of my right hand. It has been there forever; more evidence of a too firm grip. I have noticed, when I write, that the tip of my finger is usually white - white from the intense pressure I am applying.

I am mindfully trying not to squeeze the life from the pen I hold. Now-days, I attempt to dance across the page with my pen or pencil, considering it a babe in arms, rather than a knife welding intruder that I must overcome in order to protect myself.

It is hard...old habits die hard.

I constantly have to remind myself to release my grip...relax...allow the words to flow and glide.
Consequently, my writing is not neat. It is legible, but a spidery scrawl of words creeping across the page like a twisted vine, when normally my writing has loomed like a line of dark glum soldiers standing to attention; their boots are shiny, gloves starched, each letter erect, disciplined, obedient....but my well formed words lack character and energy, they have had too many stiffling years behind them.

It is a control thing I think, but this strangle hold takes so much energy, and yet it has yielded so few gains.

The Handwritten

Yesterday I received a large envelope in the mail; the type you would attribute to holding a small item - not the norm amongst the usual white envelopes with transparent windows. So you could say I got a little excited.I love getting personal mail - any mail really (except junk mail or mail addressed "to the householder"). Sinks does my heart when the letter box remains uninhabited with the desires of thy soul - (a note from the gas company can have that effect on a girl - NOT!).When at school, I would write letters continuously. I loved reading about my friends lives and what they had been up to. I also loved the stamps.
When I was 10 years old I joined an international group that connected writing enthusiasts from all over. I had no less than 7 pen friends at the peak of my involvement, and they were just the international ones - it was like hands of friendship stretched across the the globe.
Whenever I received a letter I would diligently write back within the week, and while some pen friends would return my letters with equal efficiency, months would pass before I would hear from others. There were two girls in particular, with whom I wrote on a very regular basis; an English girl called Emma and a German girl called Sonja. I started writing to Emma as a ten year old. She was a lot of fun and there was the expected amount of silliness for girls of our age, within our exchanges. I think her enthusiasm for letter writing waned upon entrance of "the boyfriend".
I started writing to Sonja as a 12 year old. She was a year older than I, and we continued to write until I was 18. I had moved out of home at that stage, and she had found work in a bank and was about the start a commerce degree at university when our connection ran dry.
I also wrote to friends who had moved away, and friends from my "old town" - all letters were written in a similar style. There was a familiarity that history created, shaped and carved through the exchange of thoughts and ideas. Old friends were seldom seen again, despite the writing, and there was never any expectation of meeting the pen friends, so in a way, writing to them was sort of like a diary - something I never kept, despite the obsessive adolescent writing frenzy.There was indeed something therapeutic about releasing the thoughts; spilling them onto a fresh sheet of paper and mailing them off to some place far far away.
I wonder if that international organisation exists today. I am sure it does, but with the onset of the Internet, email, blogs, MSN and the countless other pockets of cyber-society, I wonder whether the handwritten word is exchanged as frequently...I guess not. These other outlets do provide the pent up writer similar opportunity. Nevertheless, I sure did appreciate the time and energy put into the long handwritten letter I received yesterday. The exchanging of words on paper - the paper upon which another had poured his or her emotions into; words physically presented..... and the words left unsaid, edited from the physical eye, but thoughts felt through the clutching of paper. Thank you.

The Brave - Anew

So here we are....face to face for the first time. Well, this is awkward...standing here in the spotlight in front of this crowd - lovely crowd too, I might add. I have kept a private blog for a couple of years now and through the gentle encouragement of well-meaning, kind friends and folk, I am now flouncing about on the international stage, well...at least I am making a shaky kneed attempt at flouncing. Regardless, I am taking the giant leap out of my safe, dark and rather confined private cyber-sanctuary, to gather my first impressions of the world beyond, and in the midst of this sea of unfamiliar faces, I can assure you, it sure is roomy out here.
So why the sudden change? Why burden humanity with the burnt offerings of my feeble mind, not to mention blind editting faux pas' (dear me)? I don't know really...I guess I felt it was time....time to take a risk - Fortune does Favour The Brave...as I am sure you are all too well aware.
So what is this blog about? Themes, hmmm.... I don't care too much for themes. People provide me with my greatest inspirations and I love to write about the insights people give me whenever I allow myself to open and observe the surrounding world. I also love nature - I have often found a multitude of metaphorical answers to many a heart pain whenever I have casually placed the burden of my soul on the alter of the observable natural world...if you get my drift!!! No? Oh well. This is my poor attempt at introducing myself. To look deep into the future, or even to simply scour the horizon of next week to suggest some of the things I might favour to write about, is almost impossible, for one never really knows where inspiration might lie. So bear with me - we might both be surprised.