Gambling is dangerous. It's frowned upon. It causes family breakdown and ruins lives, right? But when you REALLY think about it, we gamble with[in] our lives all the time.
The way I see it, life seems to be a series of choices, made on the spur of the moment, with little or no information upon which to base that choice....a succession of dice throws, with you, the gambler, hoping to roll a six.
I'm not a gambler though, and I prefer to have more options than "Let the dice fall where they may". Although Life does seem to be some completely random game of cosmic marbles, I, like the stubborn cow I am, will continue to pull against "fate" until The Big Guy/Girl comes down and tells me otherwise. Or until I roll a six.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Writing Groups
As much as I enjoy meeting with like minded people and doing that which I love - writing - the concept of writer's groups is scary to me. I find it far too easy to imagine bad writers, blindly determined to hang onto the belief in their own genius, despite never having had anyone say anything other than "You're very brave....." after reading their work, seated, scowling at me and awaiting my awed response to their verse novel about their messy divorce. Scary. And arguments. There WILL be arguments. About topics, or critiques, or venues, or who is 'in charge'.
But I want a group. I NEED a group. Surely it will all turn out? God. What if it doesn't and it breaks my spirit?
Or worse.....What if I am the 'bad writer'?
But I want a group. I NEED a group. Surely it will all turn out? God. What if it doesn't and it breaks my spirit?
Or worse.....What if I am the 'bad writer'?
Childhood and So-Forth
Despite having much of what I wanted as a child, there was such a sense of lack in my life, and this is what I think I have been trying to make up for ever since. I love expensive things, and beautiful aspirational things. I have always tried to get approval from others by either being beautiful, smelling beautiful or behaving beautifully. I am seen as ‘together’, but could I possibly be?
I was a beautiful baby. Photographers would stop my mother and ask her if they could photograph me for their displays. I had huge chocolate eyes with long eyelashes, rosebud lips and black curls. I was one of those “Oh! She’s SO beautiful!” children. And I was shy. So I would curl myself up in my mum’s arms trying to become invisible. Of course this made people want to be the one to get a smile out of me.
Worse was the impression that I should never be unhappy, or ungrateful because I was triply blessed. I had been chosen. I was pretty. My family was well off and I wanted for nothing. As I grew it became clear that I was also an intelligent child. But shy and insecure. So despite having it all...I became the brunt of other children’s taunts. This persisted throughout primary school, and this, along with my own general sense of being a piece of flotsam, helped to make my life miserable. Yet I loved school. I just didn’t like the children I had to share it with. If school had been me, the teachers, stationery and the library I would have been in utter bliss!
This impression of “it should be so easy for you” has been passed onto me and I now feel guilty if I’m not bouncing around in solid gold happiness. But I’m a person. I have stuff happening to me. Aging for example. I’ve been so focused on my physical appearance that the reality of getting older and finding grey hair and wrinkles is appalling. Who am I if I’m not beautiful anymore? If I’m not being clever all over the place? If I’m not rich like my parents? Actually I’ve found that my money personality is so far from what I grew up with. I long for simplicity. I like simple homes, rustic homes, shabby homes. I buy all my designer clothing from op shops...love the chase. I’m not against money, it can get you a sense of freedom, however, when it becomes the backbone of your life it gets more credence in life than it deserves. I think that having money conscious parents with lots of stuff made me want to be the opposite of that. Maybe. I just enjoy simplicity. I like homes that feel like homes not showpieces. I remember Danny’s parents had a room that housed a piano and an antique armoire with precious pieces of crystal and bibs and bobs like that.....no one even used that room. It was there purely for awe value. And it was sort of crap anyway. Why have something so pointless? His mother also had a pearl ring worth as much as someone’s home which never saw the light of day. Why? At least wear it. Pearls need body oil to keep their luster anyway so the poor ring wasn’t fulfilling it’s real purpose in life. Maybe that’s why I’m happy to have very little. It makes the few things I do have all that more precious.
I was a beautiful baby. Photographers would stop my mother and ask her if they could photograph me for their displays. I had huge chocolate eyes with long eyelashes, rosebud lips and black curls. I was one of those “Oh! She’s SO beautiful!” children. And I was shy. So I would curl myself up in my mum’s arms trying to become invisible. Of course this made people want to be the one to get a smile out of me.
Worse was the impression that I should never be unhappy, or ungrateful because I was triply blessed. I had been chosen. I was pretty. My family was well off and I wanted for nothing. As I grew it became clear that I was also an intelligent child. But shy and insecure. So despite having it all...I became the brunt of other children’s taunts. This persisted throughout primary school, and this, along with my own general sense of being a piece of flotsam, helped to make my life miserable. Yet I loved school. I just didn’t like the children I had to share it with. If school had been me, the teachers, stationery and the library I would have been in utter bliss!
This impression of “it should be so easy for you” has been passed onto me and I now feel guilty if I’m not bouncing around in solid gold happiness. But I’m a person. I have stuff happening to me. Aging for example. I’ve been so focused on my physical appearance that the reality of getting older and finding grey hair and wrinkles is appalling. Who am I if I’m not beautiful anymore? If I’m not being clever all over the place? If I’m not rich like my parents? Actually I’ve found that my money personality is so far from what I grew up with. I long for simplicity. I like simple homes, rustic homes, shabby homes. I buy all my designer clothing from op shops...love the chase. I’m not against money, it can get you a sense of freedom, however, when it becomes the backbone of your life it gets more credence in life than it deserves. I think that having money conscious parents with lots of stuff made me want to be the opposite of that. Maybe. I just enjoy simplicity. I like homes that feel like homes not showpieces. I remember Danny’s parents had a room that housed a piano and an antique armoire with precious pieces of crystal and bibs and bobs like that.....no one even used that room. It was there purely for awe value. And it was sort of crap anyway. Why have something so pointless? His mother also had a pearl ring worth as much as someone’s home which never saw the light of day. Why? At least wear it. Pearls need body oil to keep their luster anyway so the poor ring wasn’t fulfilling it’s real purpose in life. Maybe that’s why I’m happy to have very little. It makes the few things I do have all that more precious.
Philosophy-esue
The eternal search for meaning in an existence you have had very little, if any, choice in being involved in is seeming just a little bit silly to me at the moment. I mean, really...no one said “Hello. I’m God. I’ve got a proposition for you. I built this place, you see and I was wondering if you’d like to come down and spend about 87 years – approximately - hanging out there?” That would have been nice. Just to be asked, you know, if it was what you thought would be a good use of your time.
Well, the place is nice on the whole. It’s got trees, well there’s still a few left at least, and there are all these pretty birds that hang out in them. And cats. I love cats. I quite like rivers too and the beach rocks! Mountains are awesome and there are great things like wolves and the moon and boys. But there’s also questions. And difference. Not the interesting kind as in “that’s different....I should try to find out more about that” but the “That’s different...let’s eat it/destroy it/drive it off” kind. And then of course there’s the whole concept of God in the first place. Doesn’t THAT one cause some issues? So in that climate of confusion one is supposed to be searching for one’s own purpose in life.
Well, the place is nice on the whole. It’s got trees, well there’s still a few left at least, and there are all these pretty birds that hang out in them. And cats. I love cats. I quite like rivers too and the beach rocks! Mountains are awesome and there are great things like wolves and the moon and boys. But there’s also questions. And difference. Not the interesting kind as in “that’s different....I should try to find out more about that” but the “That’s different...let’s eat it/destroy it/drive it off” kind. And then of course there’s the whole concept of God in the first place. Doesn’t THAT one cause some issues? So in that climate of confusion one is supposed to be searching for one’s own purpose in life.
On Fashion
I don’t know exactly what it is about fashion, but there’s something magical for a woman to have ‘the’ bag, or ‘the’ coat. Fashion, despite all the wrongs committed in its name, has a genuine beauty and wonder attached to it. Although most of us aren’t able to afford the latest in designer ‘must haves’, knock offs are available freely to give the illusion of the ‘real thing’, but for those of us searching for the unmistakable high of having something truly beautiful, that ‘real thing’ is our holy grail. This desire, and that is what it genuinely is, is what makes the high end designer filled magazines sell. Until we do find that Hermes scarf or Chanel jacket we make do with their gorgeous photos of “lust have” designer pieces and ads with iconic labels that fill their pages.
My designer desire has made me happiest in op shops and markets. My wardrobe is filled with clothes that other women envy, all designer labels, and all beautifully second hand. I still can’t really afford to indulge my passion as much as I would like to but at every opportunity I forage and fossick and almost every time I find a treasure. I once found the most perfect Max Mara pants for four dollars in my local trash and treasure market. They fit like they were designed particularly for me and are made in the finest dove grey wool. Timeless! And the piece I will never sell is the black vintage Chloe tunic in purest cotton which I found in the oddest place. I couldn’t believe that a messy shed filled with acres of saggy track pants and huntsman spiders held this indescribable treasure. For three dollars! So, I indulge my passion frustratingly slowly but at minimal cost to the family budget.
I have just finished watching a show where a woman’s desire for designer clothes and shoes, particularly shoes, helped her choose a career that was probably not one her mother would have wished she had chosen. She spent two years in prison for solicitation and what was the first thing she did when released? Ripped open all her storage boxes and went straight for the Bally and Cartier. Oh, and go shopping - for Chanel fragrance, Chanel cosmetics and Charles Jourdan sandals. If it wasn’t for the prostitution and jail thing, she could have been any woman!
We women truly LOVE fashion. We’re particularly obsessed by shoes. Look in my eyes and tell me it’s not true! Oh, if only shoes grew on trees and they sold the seeds at Bunnings! Designer shoes are jewels for your feet. And we want them so bad. We can all afford the fragrance and the occasional lipstick but shoes are another story. For a mother several hundred dollars is just a silly amount to spend on her feet. But we do want them so bad.
This is why the woman I spoke of before became a high class prostitute. She wanted purple suede Bally pumps. And she wanted them bad! And she mustn’t have had the patience to trawl through the salvage stores in her Parisian home town. I, on the other hand, would almost be tempted to kill for the opportunity to trawl through Parisian salvage stores! If you were there at the same time as me you would see a crazy haired woman with darting eyes pulling clothing from boxes with a look of insane determination on her grimy face. Nothing is too buried for me. I can sniff out labels and know the best fabrics by running my hands along a rack. I love the chase almost as much as I love the treasure.
This obsession for the mythical designer find ensures that credit cards are always maxed out and husbands are always sweating on the end of the month. It means that we are always chasing that promotion or that big account with a steely determination a dictator would covet. It means that an otherwise sane and intelligent woman can be found head down in a musty box squeaking about what’s inside it. It means that a young woman will move to France and find herself selling her own and other people’s bodies for that designer fix. Our methods of getting those designer classics may be varied, but the madness behind the chase is always the same. Absolute desire.
So that eternal question of what it is that women really want has less to do with what a man can offer than popularly thought. They’re simply a distraction. They can smell interesting. They have shoulders which, for some reason, we go funny over. They have hands that ours look tiny resting inside. We want them to understand us and we love them completely; but they’re not perfect tangerine suede ballet flats. They’re nothing like a soft buttery camel tote bag with toggle ties. They don’t match your fabulous new LBD like Jimmy Choos do. Because what women REALLY want is this. We really want yummy designer pieces to keep, to wear and impress all other women with, and then to pass down to worthy younger women. And it’s better if we get them ourselves – not with his Gold Card. A treasure found is a pleasure for life. No matter how we do it.
My designer desire has made me happiest in op shops and markets. My wardrobe is filled with clothes that other women envy, all designer labels, and all beautifully second hand. I still can’t really afford to indulge my passion as much as I would like to but at every opportunity I forage and fossick and almost every time I find a treasure. I once found the most perfect Max Mara pants for four dollars in my local trash and treasure market. They fit like they were designed particularly for me and are made in the finest dove grey wool. Timeless! And the piece I will never sell is the black vintage Chloe tunic in purest cotton which I found in the oddest place. I couldn’t believe that a messy shed filled with acres of saggy track pants and huntsman spiders held this indescribable treasure. For three dollars! So, I indulge my passion frustratingly slowly but at minimal cost to the family budget.
I have just finished watching a show where a woman’s desire for designer clothes and shoes, particularly shoes, helped her choose a career that was probably not one her mother would have wished she had chosen. She spent two years in prison for solicitation and what was the first thing she did when released? Ripped open all her storage boxes and went straight for the Bally and Cartier. Oh, and go shopping - for Chanel fragrance, Chanel cosmetics and Charles Jourdan sandals. If it wasn’t for the prostitution and jail thing, she could have been any woman!
We women truly LOVE fashion. We’re particularly obsessed by shoes. Look in my eyes and tell me it’s not true! Oh, if only shoes grew on trees and they sold the seeds at Bunnings! Designer shoes are jewels for your feet. And we want them so bad. We can all afford the fragrance and the occasional lipstick but shoes are another story. For a mother several hundred dollars is just a silly amount to spend on her feet. But we do want them so bad.
This is why the woman I spoke of before became a high class prostitute. She wanted purple suede Bally pumps. And she wanted them bad! And she mustn’t have had the patience to trawl through the salvage stores in her Parisian home town. I, on the other hand, would almost be tempted to kill for the opportunity to trawl through Parisian salvage stores! If you were there at the same time as me you would see a crazy haired woman with darting eyes pulling clothing from boxes with a look of insane determination on her grimy face. Nothing is too buried for me. I can sniff out labels and know the best fabrics by running my hands along a rack. I love the chase almost as much as I love the treasure.
This obsession for the mythical designer find ensures that credit cards are always maxed out and husbands are always sweating on the end of the month. It means that we are always chasing that promotion or that big account with a steely determination a dictator would covet. It means that an otherwise sane and intelligent woman can be found head down in a musty box squeaking about what’s inside it. It means that a young woman will move to France and find herself selling her own and other people’s bodies for that designer fix. Our methods of getting those designer classics may be varied, but the madness behind the chase is always the same. Absolute desire.
So that eternal question of what it is that women really want has less to do with what a man can offer than popularly thought. They’re simply a distraction. They can smell interesting. They have shoulders which, for some reason, we go funny over. They have hands that ours look tiny resting inside. We want them to understand us and we love them completely; but they’re not perfect tangerine suede ballet flats. They’re nothing like a soft buttery camel tote bag with toggle ties. They don’t match your fabulous new LBD like Jimmy Choos do. Because what women REALLY want is this. We really want yummy designer pieces to keep, to wear and impress all other women with, and then to pass down to worthy younger women. And it’s better if we get them ourselves – not with his Gold Card. A treasure found is a pleasure for life. No matter how we do it.
On Writing
Ever since I was young I have wanted to use words to explain my world and the way I feel in it. I, like many others, had thought the world of the writer to be a sacred place, filled with mists and coffee, situated high up in the mountains away from the concerns of ‘ordinary’ people. And naïve as it may seem, that’s how I thought I had to be living in order to have that life which I so long for. I have moved several times since I left my husband. I have searched for the most beautiful of places. High up in the mountains with coffee shops and mists and valleys and hippies and wonderful vistas...but still I only wrote in my journals; disjointed bits of my life, hopes and dreams for the future; the future I didn’t realize I had to build with what I had to hand.
I moved once again, to South Australia. I immediately started working for a large retail firm as a manager, which was the job I had been doing, unhappily, in Queensland. And this is where this tale begins...
I have started to stop telling myself lovely arty stories of what a writer’s life looks like and I have started to just write. Sometimes what I write is really bad. And sometimes I say something utterly beautiful. I left my job. Oh, the fear! Now I’m poor. Yet I have become rich in other ways. I listen to music. I watch TV. I have a laptop now which is a so much better writing tool for me than to write longhand. My brain moves too fast for pen and paper. My journal, in contrast, demands a beautiful pen and a gorgeous book. I sit in the living room on the couch next to our huge picture windows and look outside at this new world I find myself in. Not mountainous, no mists; it’s dry and arid and the only vista is of the stolidly working class, tattooed men toiling on their cars or motorbikes in the front yard across the road. Yet I write and write. I have waited so long to do this and now this is my chance to do it. I must take this opportunity to do what my heart cries for.
Now that I have made the decision to simply write and not wait for the stage to be set as ‘writer’s garret in the mountains complete with steaming mug of rainforest blend coffee’ I need to start thinking about what it is I actually want to say. What is my voice? If I was to use my journals as a guide, I think my voice would be complaining about something. Not exactly what I want to present to the world. I know I have something to say. I know I have a lot to offer but I don’t know where to start. “Start where you are” is the advice in a lot of the books I have read and that’s what I’m doing here. However, the road feels as though it has run out. From this point on I might simply be ambling about waffling on about nothing in particular.
This is where Writer’s Groups are so useful. Having a group as a ‘destination’ once a month and an exercise to complete can help you to write. But is that even something you can build on? Not in my experience, at least not thus far.
So I have to continue along alone. I hope eventually I get something good out of all the writing I am doing. I keep going though because it has been my desire for so long. I’ll keep reading all of the helpful books I can find, I’ll keep reading what I think is similar stuff to what I write and see where they do things well...I’ll keep dreaming so that the dreams are always fresh. I enjoy coming to the laptop every day to see what I put down in writing. It’s often as much a surprise to me as anything could be. I try not to have anything firm in my mind when I start and I try to just let the words flow out. And I then come back, often days later, to revise or even add to what I have said. It’s such a relaxing thing to do. Such a pleasure. Such a relief. I’m still very uncertain about my talents but through having this outlet maybe, just maybe, I will step closer to my dream.
I moved once again, to South Australia. I immediately started working for a large retail firm as a manager, which was the job I had been doing, unhappily, in Queensland. And this is where this tale begins...
I have started to stop telling myself lovely arty stories of what a writer’s life looks like and I have started to just write. Sometimes what I write is really bad. And sometimes I say something utterly beautiful. I left my job. Oh, the fear! Now I’m poor. Yet I have become rich in other ways. I listen to music. I watch TV. I have a laptop now which is a so much better writing tool for me than to write longhand. My brain moves too fast for pen and paper. My journal, in contrast, demands a beautiful pen and a gorgeous book. I sit in the living room on the couch next to our huge picture windows and look outside at this new world I find myself in. Not mountainous, no mists; it’s dry and arid and the only vista is of the stolidly working class, tattooed men toiling on their cars or motorbikes in the front yard across the road. Yet I write and write. I have waited so long to do this and now this is my chance to do it. I must take this opportunity to do what my heart cries for.
Now that I have made the decision to simply write and not wait for the stage to be set as ‘writer’s garret in the mountains complete with steaming mug of rainforest blend coffee’ I need to start thinking about what it is I actually want to say. What is my voice? If I was to use my journals as a guide, I think my voice would be complaining about something. Not exactly what I want to present to the world. I know I have something to say. I know I have a lot to offer but I don’t know where to start. “Start where you are” is the advice in a lot of the books I have read and that’s what I’m doing here. However, the road feels as though it has run out. From this point on I might simply be ambling about waffling on about nothing in particular.
This is where Writer’s Groups are so useful. Having a group as a ‘destination’ once a month and an exercise to complete can help you to write. But is that even something you can build on? Not in my experience, at least not thus far.
So I have to continue along alone. I hope eventually I get something good out of all the writing I am doing. I keep going though because it has been my desire for so long. I’ll keep reading all of the helpful books I can find, I’ll keep reading what I think is similar stuff to what I write and see where they do things well...I’ll keep dreaming so that the dreams are always fresh. I enjoy coming to the laptop every day to see what I put down in writing. It’s often as much a surprise to me as anything could be. I try not to have anything firm in my mind when I start and I try to just let the words flow out. And I then come back, often days later, to revise or even add to what I have said. It’s such a relaxing thing to do. Such a pleasure. Such a relief. I’m still very uncertain about my talents but through having this outlet maybe, just maybe, I will step closer to my dream.
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