Category: Musings

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes…again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free

                                Jim Morrison

 

Actually it is also a new beginning.  I have moved here.  Please come.

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/doors/#share

 Am I the only woman in America who feels that the Bazaar cover spread with Jennifer Aniston as Barbra Streisand goes beyond bizarre? I'd much rather have had the newsstand cover.  I had to cut this one off before I could bear to look inside.

  "We cannot love ourselves unless we felt affirmed by the parent." James Hollis The Middle Passage, p 68.

No, I am not starting a diatribe against parents here.    My parents raised three successful children who shared and carried out their mores and became responsible respectable members of the culture in which they live.  All parents are only people who tackle a job that has been defined for them by a culture in which they are only bit players; most of them hope they are doing the right thing.  As I said, this is post is not about parents. 

But, if you have been reading any of my blogs for a while, it is no secret that I have been struggling with a lot of issues revolving around who I am and my place in the world.  Whether fretting about what to wear, a representation of my place in the world, or what I really want as opposed to what I feel I should want, it has been a rocky couple of years.   And truthfully, during much of this struggle, I have felt pretty stupid.  I felt stupid because I didn't understand how I could do and become everything I was brought up to do and become, well almost everything, and still not know who I was or what I wanted.  I felt stupid because I felt the yearnings of my 6 year old self, the idealism and anger of my 20 year old self, the magic and spiritualism of my pre-teen self, and I wondered if my adult self had anything to do with me, the actual me, or if it was all just an illusion of the self I thought I was supposed to be.

I don't particularly feel stupid anymore, and truthfully, finding Hollis's book has contributed greatly to that acceptance.  I found the book on a lark.  I knew nothing about the author.  I really didn't know anything about the book.  But the title appealed to me.  I expected some frivolous self-help book.  I was surprised.  I have read the book twice now in the last month and feel I need to read it again.  I can't really review the book at this point because every time I read something I start making connections and thinking about things in different ways.  I am still in the middle of this whole process of discovery.

But back to that quote.  It is not necessarily representative of the book.  The book is not about blaming one's parents for all life's ills, quite the opposite, it is more about seeing one's way through the choices one has made, and the choices that have been made for one, accepting responsibility, and moving on. And yet the ease or difficulty with which one embarks on that path begins early, before one even has a choice. 

The quote above struck me the other day when I read it because as I read that line that day I gave myself permission to forgive myself for loosing myself and for working on finding my way back.  I felt like saying: "Well of course it took you this long".  And with that statement came acceptance.  

This line struck me because something else has been on my mind as well in this period of turmoil.  In mid-July, soon after I began reading Hollis I made posted a comment on this post  at La Belette Rouge about a dream I had throughout my childhood and at different stages of my adulthood.  I called the dream my gluttony dream, and although I won't go into it here you can find it at the link above.  My comment garnered the following answer from Belette:

    "What is supposed to be nurturing has holes in it and instead of being a source of nurturing for you has started to eat you up.  Is that how it feels? Did you have that kind of feeling as a child?" 

In reading that comment I suddenly looked at the gluttony dream differently.  Oh it was still about gluttony, but it had a broader context, which well may be true of all dreams.  And I realized that this feeling  that nurturing had holes and was eating me up characterized much of my childhood from an early age.  And of course this feeling has occasionally consumed me lately as well.  It is no one's fault in particular that the child I was felt she was being consumed in the process of trying to be the child she felt the world expected her to be.  It was no one's fault that the adolescent I was felt that there was the true me and the me I presented to the world.  All adolescents feel this way to some extent or another, and probably all children feel consumed during some stage of the passage from childhood to adulthood.  Why it plagued me so much I may never know. 

I don't know that the six year old girl who first had that dream knew anything about being consumed by nurturing.  But that night is permanently imprinted on my memory and I know that that little girl knew that she had to chose between who she was and what was necessary to be a part of that laughing family on the other side of the wall. I only know that that little girl who sat in the dark and cried that night needs to come out now.  That girl cannot escape the woman she has come to be, that woman cannot escape the world in which she came to live, but she must also embrace the girl she was.  It is nice to come home again I think, although sometimes the passage is rough.

 Happy 52nd Birthday to Me!  

G got me a pretty new bauble.  Actually he got it a while ago, and I knew about it, because he doesn't drive and can no longer manage his money without help.  But still, it was his choice and his intention, and I merely acted as both facilitator and recipient….. probably tricky ground that.  But life is what it is and we make the best of it.

I am in the sewing room today.  Not entirely sewing, as we had a rather fraught and frazzled week.  I find myself squeezed for time between the parting of last week's guests and the arrival of the new crop on Wednesday. But there will be progress on creative pursuits, not merely necessary tasks. 

Once upon a time it seemed to be so easy to say something self-centered like "it is my birthday and I want to sew all day".  And it would be so.    But I have only recently come to accept that my life now doesn't work this way.  It isn't that I don't want the time; but by focusing on my want, I set myself up for frustration and it is not a pretty sight.  It isn't that G doesn't want me to pursue my own interests, but that the thought "Mardel sewing" gets stuck in his brain like a broken record, actually causing him to focus more on me than if I just seize those quite moments for myself whenever they occur.  I never asked to be a caregiver, I suppose few of us do, but fighting it only causes more grief.  G's memory and hold on the progression of time is highly variable; sometimes good, sometimes caught in an endless cycle of confusion where he doesn't remember what happened a few minutes ago, a few days ago, or if it has happened at all — the thought is all that exists, in the moment, at that moment, to the exclusion of all else, past, present or future.  

And so my goal for this, my 53rd year, is to learn to better appreciate the small moments and make use of them, to let creativity flow when the moment occurs rather than thinking I must set aside a time and a place.  Already I am seeing progress rather than frustration.  

I made a mistake and now I am paying the price.

When we were in negotiations for the current rearrangement of the house, the biggest arguments were over furniture.  I'm in "less is more" category in terms of furniture; my spouse is in the "never let it go" camp.  When we needed something, or something didn't work, we would buy another something, but the old one would stay behind too, "just in case".  I felt like I was living in a furniture warehouse.  It really wasn't that bad, but it felt that way to me.

So when we were creating our little 'tv nook" and picked our chairs, I had planned two chairs, a his and hers kind of scenario.  G wanted his chair.  But he also wanted his other chair, the one he never sat in to watch tv but sometime sat in.  He wasn't willing to choose even though the springs are shot on the old chair, the arms are falling off, and it is held together by bolts and rubber bands, yes rubber bands.  I wanted my own chair, but I also wanted fewer chairs. And I didn't want to discuss it anymore.  So I caved.

But although I can sit in these chairs for a short time.  I am not comfortable sitting and knitting.  So I haven't been knitting much while we watch television in the evenings.  I get up and down a lot, move around, fiddle.  It is not particularly conducive to knitting.  And during the day I am doing other things, not knitting things.  As you would expect, there has been little knitting progress on my own projects,  We have spent some time on G's project, but at 5 to 10 stitches per hour, it is still slow going.

I recently learned however that I can pad one of the chairs with a few bed pillows and get moderately comfortable.  I can knit this way, so there is hope. I picked up the ruby bubbles cardigan and am working on it again.

G recently commented that the old chair really is uncomfortable, that it is hard and lumpy, and that it falls apart when one tries to move it.   I don't think he is ready to give it up yet, but the idea is germinating.   So now, when I shift the pillows around in my chair to prepare for an evening of knitting, I smile to myself because I know I'll have my own knitting chair yet.

Yesterday I managed to head down to NYC to meet fabulous
blogger Belette Rouge at Café Sabarsky for coffee and conversation.  We had such a lovely time that we were
both reluctant to part when the time came to head our separate ways, and we
walked down Fifth Avenue delaying the inevitable.

 

I noticed that I was merely a block or so from the
Metropolitan Museum and I considered (briefly) going in to see the new exhibit
at the Costume Institute, which I do want to see.

 

But I had more important plans.

 

This was my first trip to the city since my November Sewing
weekend, and it was the first time I had been in the Upper East Side for several
years as it seems my last few trips have been to meet friends in the Garment
district or go directly to Lincoln Center and head home. 

 

I love the Upper East Side.  And I miss shopping. 
I miss shopping with intent to buy, although I did a little of that last
week, I miss shopping as education, also called snoop shopping.  And I miss just plain old
fashioned-window shopping and walking down the street letting impressions
filter in and pile up without stopping to deconstruct ideas and details. 

 

I opted for the latter, and walked down Madison avenue at a
leisurely pace, making my way down from 86^th street to Grand
Central, taking in the windows and my fellow pedestrians.  I saw many things that gave me ideas
for sewing, knitting, or just dressing in general.  I did not take any photos because once I started looking at
details I would start to focus on them to the exclusion of all else and I would
lose the haze of creativity I was seeking.

 

I almost broke down and started actual detail-oriented
observation.  But I managed to
extricate myself from the maw of temptation.

 

It happened like this: 
By the time I got to Barney’s I was getting rather desperate for a
bathroom break.  My intention was
to go the lower level ladies room so as to avoid temptation as much as
possible.  But I faltered.  I looked at the jewelry display cases
and took a quick tour of the ground floor.  I was underwhelmed. 
In fact I noted how some pieces, which look stunning when photographed
on the website, looked somehow LESS in person.  This was a good reminder, and something I had begun to
forget as I had been shut away in virtual-shopping-land.

 

Then, after taking care of business, reapplying my lipstick
and generally fretting over my hair and how much I looked like a suburban
matron compared to the chic women sharing the mirror, I decided that it could
not hurt to go upstairs and take a quick turn around the floor.

 

It was on the designer floors that I remembered why I love
shopping, and particularly why I love designer boutiques and stores.  Granted some (many) things are
overpriced for what you get, but not everything.  I looked at gorgeous clothes made of exquisite fabrics, or
employing meticulous construction with interesting techniques.  At times fabulous construction met
fabulous fabric and I was ready to swoon.    I learned a few things, although I will not
mention specific brands except to say that I studied my first actual Dries Van
Noten garments and they are gorgeous and far more luxurious than they appear on
line.  They are also colorful but
controlled.  I like that.

 

But on to my observations, such as they are.  I reaffirmed that yes, I am a
snob.  But I am not a snob about
labels.  And I am not a snob about
expensive things just for their own sake. 
And I am not really a snob about the choices other people make with
their lives. But I do love beautiful fabric and fabulous design and exquisite
construction and details.  There
were plenty of examples of all these things on the Barneys floor (there were
also plenty of examples of over-priced crap, but that is another story).  As I was looking at garments, and
studying construction details, turning clothes inside out, that old demon
started to rear his ugly head – you know the one (although I hope you are not
prey to his wily ways) – the “I want” demon.  I don’t mean just I want as in I want to buy, although I’d
love to be able to do that, but as in I want to learn, to make, to create, to
be able to master something like this….

 

I started to obsess.

 

And that is when I knew I had to leave.  I was starting to regret my J Crew tee
shirt, which is perfect for my everyday life.  I was thinking about how the denim in my Gap jeans is not as
nice quality wise as the denim in my Current/Elliot or Joe’s Jeans, even though
they were a fraction of the price. 
I was thinking that the new coat I bought the day before wasn’t so hot
after all, even though I love it and knew perfectly well it was not the
pinnacle of quality.  I bought it
because for the “look” because I could use it and wear it, it fit my life, and
it was great quality for the price. I wanted to run down to B&J and buy new
fabric even though I have more than enough.

 

I had to leave because I knew that buying (or making) the
most beautiful garments will not change the life I lead. Yes, my expedition to
Barneys’ reminded me that there really is a difference between $150.00 a yard
wool crepe and the $20.00 a yard variety. 
My trip reminded me that mastery of cut is important, that there is a
reason that some apparently simple things look gorgeous on, and others look
like a sack.  If I stayed in
Barney’s I would be consumed by obsession.   I felt like I was eating myself alive; this side of me
that can pursue the beautiful to the exclusion of all else, this part of me
that I do not want to be dominant in my life, was overwhelming.  I have made choices in my life, choices
to contain this particular aspect of my personality, and I felt it slipping
out, worming its way through the chinks in my personal armor.

 

This was not my goal. It was time to leave.

 

I exited the premises, stopped and caught a few deep breaths
and continued on my way.  I stopped
in no other stores, not even Walter Steiger, designer of my favorite shoes
(next to Manolos), although I did cut over to Park Avenue to peer into his
windows and also to stop and look in the windows of Cellini as well.  By the time I got to Grand Central my
brain was aflutter with ideas and inspirations and I was myself again.

 

You know, at times I am envious of people who are not so
affected by the lure of the beautiful, who can see without wanting to possess
and control.  It is a
weakness.  And yet I also know that
this struggle within me is an integral part of the creative process.  Whether we create art, or merely try to
dress ourselves neatly, the act of creation is a process of control, of
suppressing the parts of life we don’t wish to acknowledge and replacing them
with the image we desire.

Where have I been?

Nowhere.  Here.

What have I been doing?

Everything.  Nothing.

Or at least that is how it seems to me.  I've been busy doing many things that all seem to be the perfect things to be doing at the time I am doing them, and yet I have nothing in particular to show for these things.  Not that having something to show is necessarily what life is about.  But still there are blogs, mine to write, others to read:  so much to say and see and do, and still life sits there either being lived or waiting to be lived.  I'm all for the living.

And so I am living it.  And for me that means I am doing a lot of things.  Planning various things that need done, I like schedules and charts and research.  I like lists.  I've been reading and knitting and cooking.  I've been cooking up a storm, making stock and cheese and just cooking the three meals a day that we seem to need to have on the table.  I suppose we always eat, and I always manage to get meals on the table but sometimes I cook more, experiment more, sometimes I just get meals on the table.  I have fun with this.  I can't imagine not doing it, just as I can't imagine not sewing.

Sewing.  That is what this blog is supposed to be about isn't it? Well yes.  And the distractions from sewing, the things sewing distracts me from.  

I've been working with my muslins, working on them a little here and there.  Don't think I have tons of muslins lined up and garments will just roll out, they will, but I'm not there quite yet.  I've been working a little bit but mostly I've just ben absorbing the process, working on things and wrapping my head around what they really mean.  And I have not been subjecting you to the small variations and details that I play with, but the results will eventually be apparent, or at least I hope they will.  They are already starting to show up in my knitting. 

I seem to have needed

 a long time to just flounder about, wondering what I wanted, wondering which shelf or box I had placed put my true "self" in when I got busy taking care of other things that were more important.  When those other things settled themselves down again, I found that I wasn't quite ready to put myself back together, or I was but I didn't remember how to do it.  And somehow I opened the right box and there I was.

Hello self.

I'm comfortable in my skin again.  It is not weight, although I am losing weight and am back at a weight where I feel more  comfortable with myself.  I'm growing my hair out again. I am exercising every day and that takes a big chunk of time. Somehow, amidst all this, I've rediscovered my old sense of style, rediscovered that I do have a sense of style, discovered that I don't have to look for it, struggle over it, fret and ponder.  It is just there.  Where did I lose that knowlede?  

I'm glad to have it back.  It is very calming. 

What I want now is a plan.  

I remember now:  I do love clothes.  But I want the clothes I want to wear.  And I want to sew the things I want to wear, not sew something just to sew something.  Some of the things I want to wear and sew are simple, some are not.  Some of the things I want to wear I will not sew.  That is OK too.  

And the days are just all too short.

I've been rather quiet and away from the computer the last couple of weeks, just enjoying the lovely summer weather, the pool, time with my sweetie, and doing odd things about the house.  I've even been letting the emails pile up in my inbox, so if I haven't gotten back to you in response to your comments, know that I will, in time.  

There is so much to do in our chaotic lives, and of course, I tend to add things to that already demanding list, always wanting to do more, more, more.  But in the end, I increasingly think that the constant push toward more ends up making our lives less.  I think this is why I am so attracted to clean modern lines which offer a peaceful oasis from the craziness of life, even as I appreciate the tension between my striving for simplicity and quiet with my often overriding urge to DO.

It is not that there is nothing to write about, nothing to share, but at the moment I am more content to just savor the days.  I don't want to take the time to step outside the moment and record it.  I think that is the same reason that, for many years, I did not take picture on our travels, because I found that if I was playing photographer, I was focused on stepping outside the experience and recording it, and obsessed about how best to record it.  Without a camera I could just absorb and enjoy, and oddly, those vacations which are least photographed are the ones most permanently etched in my memory.

Today I am just enjoying the day.  I am sure I will eventually reach some happy medium where there is some balance between absorbing the moment and commenting.  That could just be because I keep adding new variables into the routine and I need time to let everything settle into its given track.

I had plans for a different kind of post today.  But those plans were waylaid.  I thought I would write last night, but last night's attempts at writing yielded nothing but a bunch of incoherent and self-indulgent twaddle.  I had plans for today and already the plans have fallen apart and I want nothing more than to crawl into a hole (or perhaps my shoe closet) and hide from the world. And yet, I need to sort out the raging turmoil in my head. Self-indulgent I may be, but the words go on.

I had thought that I was finally growing up, that I was getting a grip on the world and who I was in that world.  I thought I was finally accepting who I am, what I think, what I like, and why I like the things I like and think the thoughts I think.  After a couple of really hard years I had decided that I made too many decisions in my life based on what other people wanted me to be, or what I perceived other people wanted me to be.  In the midst of all the madness and upset and unhappiness that was the last few years I found that I didn’t know who I was, and I suspected that everything I thought was me was actually a mask, my trying to be something other than my full self to please someone else whom I wanted to please, to make peace, to bridge the differences, to avoid conflict.

Eventually I realized that I couldn’t be that person anymore, whoever that person was, and in that realization I started, just started mind you, realizing what I actually liked.  I also realized that this “I” had always been there, but I hadn’t always let her out, keeping her locked up deep inside, protected from the world, so protected in fact, that there were times when I forgot where I put her.  And I wondered why, as I approached 50, I was still coming to terms with adolescent angst and self-doubt.  I guess I have always been a late bloomer.

So I have been rediscovering myself, and feeling stronger and more certain in that discovery.  But there was something I forgot to take into consideration and that was how the people I love would react to my newfound strength and certainty.  I assumed, obviously naively, that if I figured out who I was everything would be easier and happier.  I did not consider fully.  It is one of my faults, my avoidance of conflict, my wish to apologize or forgive bad behavior, my steadfast belief that if everyone tries we can all get along.  Deep in my heart I continue to believe this even as I also feel that the world is a chaotic unpredictable place and that people are not all nice and you cannot predict how anyone will react to anything.  I want the place called home to be a bubble of peace in a chaotic world. And this is where things fall apart. 

What happens if that home is built on the shifting sands of doubt rather than the rock of conviction? If I spent so much of my life modifying my feelings and thoughts to please others, why did I think they would be happy with who or what I  really am?  And did I believe that being myself would avoid conflict, when for years I avoided conflict by modifying my own thoughts to fit in with those around me?  For years I would never say if I really liked or disliked something because I was afraid someone would disagree.  Well that was silly of me, and I recognize that it was silly.  So I started writing about things I like or dislike here, starting with concerts, in a place cut-off from my physical life.  But what I failed to consider is that once I became comfortable with having opinions, I might actually express these same opinions in my real life, not just here in the disconnected part of my life that is cyberspace.

Apparently, like everything else in my life, I jumped right in without considering the consequences and now the dye has been cast.  I can’t go back to being the person I was (or wasn’t fully) but I am not sure I like all the consequences of being myself either.  And so it appears I have backed myself into a corner. I want my opinions but I hate discord.  It seems I can’t have one without the other.

My newfound independence of mind has come at a time of great personal turmoil.  My partner found himself ill, retired, and unprepared for either. Before, his world was a simple place; there was Right and there was Wrong with precious little in between.  He saw himself firmly on the side of Right: right beliefs, right thoughts, and right taste. He always thought I would grow up to join him in the wisdom of the Right, and he forgave my differences of opinion as youthful frivolities; and I, I continued to let him believe this, as I constantly readjusted my thoughts and feelings to better fit his expectations.

Where once I modified my opinions in the interest of peace, I found that I could no longer do so if so doing meant I had to sublimate who I am. I have always seen the world as mostly gray, and I am learning to accept that just because the world is gray does not mean that I am not allowed to have opinions about that world.  Whether these opinions are right or wrong is not as important as the fact that they are mine.

And so occasionally we have a meeting of the waters of sorts, like the waters of the Amazon dumping into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, swirling around each other, but not always coming together into one.  I suppose I have to accept that a gray world sometimes has its share of thunderstorms. I love to sit out and watch a thunderstorm roll across the sky.  I wonder why I abhor them in my personal life?

But after the thunder and the lightning comes the rain.