Staying, going, going, staying. I've done it now, I've decided.
It's those principles see; I felt as if being here with all it's horrifically overconsuming ways - £300 Tesco shop every week, manicured, clipped and landscaped garden, print every email twice - was wrong, cos, you know, I'm a hippie and so I should be living in a yurt somewhere, plaiting hair and condemning places like this as a part of Babylon and all its horrors.
The thing that helped to resolve my thoughts was a drunken argument with a cocky 21 year old, one of the outdoor workers who lives here during the week. I've been trying to hold back from voicing my thoughts about the horrible, needless waste of resources that happens here, there's no point in going off at individuals about the small things that happen every day when what I'm actually angry about is the whole thing. But still, there's anger there. The other day, one of the guys in the office changed the inks in the printer before they were empty.....because the computer told him they were running low. I had to go for a ten minute walk in the garden to calm down.
Laughable? Probably. But still, I blurted out this story and others to C, the cocky fella and he got really annoyed with me. Said I was deliberately making myself miserable and if I hated it so much I should just leave.
Why are you here? he said, You're here for the money, just like everyone else and if you deny it then you're a hypocrite.
The conversation continued in this vein, back and forth, until suddenly, out of nowhere, he said 'You think you're better than me don't you'.
And the answer that came bubbling up from within me was Yes.
There's no point in me even describing this person. Why? So you could make up your own mind about whether I'm better than him or not. Pointless. My answer was yes, that's all that matters. My moral, ecological, hippie equality, beautiful world view point? Gone. Swept away. I woke up the next morning with a bad head and the knowledge that he was right. I have been silently holding myself to be some paragon of virtue but I am actually a judgemental hypocrite.
To judge something is to separate yourself from it and that is one of the states I am trying to get rid of on this thing I'm doing. Adventure, journey, whatever the fuck it is.
I can't be here at this place, hating it, waiting for my life to start when I leave. There is no better life, no greener grass, there is only my existence right now and I need to stop separating myself from it.
So it's for this reason that I've decided to stay. I can't just whinge and waltz off because this place doesn't fit my internal image of how my life should be. Should I go and sit smugly encased in my moral walled garden and tell myself I was right all along....never learning anything about myself or changing at all.
I'm signed up here until the beginning of May, I don't like it all the time; some days it's horrible here. Right now (actually 3 days ago now, I am terribly slow at writing blogs), I'm on day 15 in a row of working 12 hours a day, people are shouting at me for no reason, the cat pissed on the carpet and I had to clean it up, I'm stuck inside on a beautiful Spring day printing stuff from the internet about strimmers and polytunnels that will get looked at once then recycled, the list goes on.
But I am here, and I will take what I can out of each moment.
The sun is shining and there are nice people around me, if only I stop to look at them properly.
This post has been slowly coming together for a couple of weeks. I accepted the job ten days ago, it's the reasoning behind it that has taken longer to express.
Carrot Quinn's amazing post on living in the Now tells a way more eloquent story than I ever could.
http://carrotquinn.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/a-fate-worse-than-death/
But the amazing things that have happened today are....last night I opened for the first time, a book that a friend reccommended to me - The Miracle of Mindfulness. I didn't know what the title meant, I'd never heard the word before...and lo and behold. It's about living in the Now! Hurray!
Then, today, I met a lovely woman who has been living in India and Thailand for the last 5 years, she's going to come and work at the farm with me.....and out of the blue she mentioned mindfulness too and we had lunch together outside in the sunshine and talked about synchronicity. Hurray!
Monday 22 March 2010
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Balance
Because all things should be in equilibrium.
What are the good things about being here?
I love finding a connection with people - no matter who they are and how different they are to me. It's as if everyone has a key to their inner selves, the parts that are running them under the surface and if I am patient enough I will find it and understand them.
Every person contains something unseen, every interaction has something to understand - like the cleaner here who is a stone cold bitch to everyone, disliked and ignored by most people....last week, when she shouted at me at 7.30 in the morning and I decided not to get angry but to talk quietly in return, after I waited and negotiated and was quiet for long enough she told me about how she'd just come straight from a night shift at a care home where she'd been cleaning and laying out an old lady who died overnight. I don't like her any more for it, well I do a bit but not much, she can be really mean to people, but I do feel better that I got to the point where she said that to me. There are lots of different people here, a mix of nationalities to learn from, a mix of ages and viewpoints. People who grew up in the tail end of communism in Eastern Europe - if I can get through their anger and sexism, there are things to learn from them. Others, young boys, being kept out of prison by a benevolent employer - I can find common ground. And I do.
The woman at the centre of this craziness is a genuinely lovely person, she's just got some pretty wasteful ways. If she was even a little bit of a bad person I'd have fucked off ages ago but she isn't. She is kind, generous, compassionate and caring. She's just got some fucked up consumption habits that she doesn't know how to stop. In fact, she just doesn't know how to stop doing anything - working, being busy, buying things, having meetings, attending seminars, whatever. I never see her sitting down, she eats standing up. She gets up and starts working at 5 am. If she would only sit down and breathe for a while. But she never does. But that is a sad thing, not a bad thing. I like her, I want to help her.
It feels good to be organised, even on someone else's behalf. I'm pretty scatty in my own life, not really bothered by mess or lateness or schedules of behaviour. However, somewhere in my brain is this really logistical, organised part that I can switch on at will. When I'm given 20 little pieces of paper with notes scrawled on them and I can look at this mess and form it into something organised that is a week in the life of this house...it makes me feel good. It's as if this woman throws out a tangled, complicated web that is her life and I catch all the little strands and help weave them into something comprehensible called a household.
I'm getting some good work on the side as a life model, really well paid and really enjoyable. I'm doing yoga twice a week with a really good teacher, the best I've ever had. Because so little of my time is given to myself, the things that I do for ME are really, really meaningful. I am loving the yoga and how good it feels to be in my body, strectching all the little muscles a bit at a time. Then I can take that over to the life modelling work. On Saturday, while 10 people sat around drawing me, I walked naked around a room for an hour, slowly stretching every muscle in my body....then I stayed completely and utterly still for two hours. After the class I spent another 2 hours with one guy, chatting to him while he painted me. Brilliant! I felt great afterwards, there was a real calm and open space in the centre of my body.
It's safe and warm and I am fed here. I have no needs or worries about survival.
I am saving 90% of my wages - where else could I do that so easily? No rent, no bills, no worries. I just walked into this job and I will walk out again, easily.
I am using my skills here, I am learning about myself and about other people. This time is hard but it is not wasted.
If I take on this task and finish it - I will have succeeded at something really difficult for me to do. I won't have whinged that it wasn't right for me and walked away, I will have gritted my teeth and done it.
Maybe I just need to rant - it's been building for a while. I spoke to my AMAZING sister last night - she always gives me calm balance in return for my overwrought chattering.
The lady doesn't want an answer for a week, maybe I'll just let it percolate and see what answer comes out of my unconscious - I mean that's the part of me I need to listen to. Forget the rabbit brain that will keep talking and reasoning until the end of time, what about my inner tortoise? What does she say?
What are the good things about being here?
I love finding a connection with people - no matter who they are and how different they are to me. It's as if everyone has a key to their inner selves, the parts that are running them under the surface and if I am patient enough I will find it and understand them.
Every person contains something unseen, every interaction has something to understand - like the cleaner here who is a stone cold bitch to everyone, disliked and ignored by most people....last week, when she shouted at me at 7.30 in the morning and I decided not to get angry but to talk quietly in return, after I waited and negotiated and was quiet for long enough she told me about how she'd just come straight from a night shift at a care home where she'd been cleaning and laying out an old lady who died overnight. I don't like her any more for it, well I do a bit but not much, she can be really mean to people, but I do feel better that I got to the point where she said that to me. There are lots of different people here, a mix of nationalities to learn from, a mix of ages and viewpoints. People who grew up in the tail end of communism in Eastern Europe - if I can get through their anger and sexism, there are things to learn from them. Others, young boys, being kept out of prison by a benevolent employer - I can find common ground. And I do.
The woman at the centre of this craziness is a genuinely lovely person, she's just got some pretty wasteful ways. If she was even a little bit of a bad person I'd have fucked off ages ago but she isn't. She is kind, generous, compassionate and caring. She's just got some fucked up consumption habits that she doesn't know how to stop. In fact, she just doesn't know how to stop doing anything - working, being busy, buying things, having meetings, attending seminars, whatever. I never see her sitting down, she eats standing up. She gets up and starts working at 5 am. If she would only sit down and breathe for a while. But she never does. But that is a sad thing, not a bad thing. I like her, I want to help her.
It feels good to be organised, even on someone else's behalf. I'm pretty scatty in my own life, not really bothered by mess or lateness or schedules of behaviour. However, somewhere in my brain is this really logistical, organised part that I can switch on at will. When I'm given 20 little pieces of paper with notes scrawled on them and I can look at this mess and form it into something organised that is a week in the life of this house...it makes me feel good. It's as if this woman throws out a tangled, complicated web that is her life and I catch all the little strands and help weave them into something comprehensible called a household.
I'm getting some good work on the side as a life model, really well paid and really enjoyable. I'm doing yoga twice a week with a really good teacher, the best I've ever had. Because so little of my time is given to myself, the things that I do for ME are really, really meaningful. I am loving the yoga and how good it feels to be in my body, strectching all the little muscles a bit at a time. Then I can take that over to the life modelling work. On Saturday, while 10 people sat around drawing me, I walked naked around a room for an hour, slowly stretching every muscle in my body....then I stayed completely and utterly still for two hours. After the class I spent another 2 hours with one guy, chatting to him while he painted me. Brilliant! I felt great afterwards, there was a real calm and open space in the centre of my body.
It's safe and warm and I am fed here. I have no needs or worries about survival.
I am saving 90% of my wages - where else could I do that so easily? No rent, no bills, no worries. I just walked into this job and I will walk out again, easily.
I am using my skills here, I am learning about myself and about other people. This time is hard but it is not wasted.
If I take on this task and finish it - I will have succeeded at something really difficult for me to do. I won't have whinged that it wasn't right for me and walked away, I will have gritted my teeth and done it.
Maybe I just need to rant - it's been building for a while. I spoke to my AMAZING sister last night - she always gives me calm balance in return for my overwrought chattering.
The lady doesn't want an answer for a week, maybe I'll just let it percolate and see what answer comes out of my unconscious - I mean that's the part of me I need to listen to. Forget the rabbit brain that will keep talking and reasoning until the end of time, what about my inner tortoise? What does she say?
Monday 8 March 2010
Dilemmas
I've been in a very uninspiring position recently - working as a PA to a very rich woman. I've gone from a beautiful caravan on a basic, off-grid farm in Welsh mountains to an over landscaped, overheated, over consuming household near London. This house is bulging at the seams, almost out of control....and every crack is papered over with money. Outgoings of £50,000 Per Month. Per. Fucking. Month.
I'm whirling round inside a hamster wheel that has been created by a person who has enough money to create such a busy and hectic life for herself that it serves to disguise the fact that she has no life at all.
I'm supposed to be here January til end March. Then I was asked to stay a couple of weeks into April until she finds a replacement for me. Every extra week I stay here is a week of the spring missed. A week of good weather where I can sleep outside, where I can find forests to make houses in and lakes to dive into. A week of wandering and wondering. But every week I stay here in Moneyville is worth 2 months of that outdoor existence. So I grit my teeth, and I compromise myself and I carry on.
If I was going to stick to my principles I would have left in the first week.
I should have left when I was asked to install an electronic drinking fountain for the cat - a little pump, plugged into the wall, sucking electricity 24 hours a day so a cat can have running water to drink from. What is wrong with a saucer?
I should have left the first time I was asked to log into Facebook and approve this woman's friends requests for her.
The first time I printed every email in her inbox for her to look at at her leisure - including all the newsletters from executivemanagement.com, microfinancedirect.com, landlordspropertynews.fuckingcom
The first time I did the weekly shop for £300 worth of groceries that I had to try and stuff into cupboards already bulging with uneccessary food.
The first time I realised the fact that this household is an overgrown puff of pointless air, completely useless yet consuming Huge amounts of resources for basically Fuck All.
But I didn't leave, I stayed. I compromised my principles for Money. The thing I thought I hated. It makes me sad that I'm still here, encased in plastic, slowly forgetting what it's like to be outside in bare feet.
My dilemma. I've been asked to stay longer. Until the start of May. Another 3 weeks added to my time here. In exchange for more money and a holiday in this lady's flat in Barcelona. What the fuck? I have family in Barcelona, I could see them, maybe get other people over here. What a great start to my travel, a paid ticket to Spain. But it means staying here for another 3 weeks.....when I'm already counting the days. But 3 weeks work here means 6 months in the forest out there. What's three weeks out of a whole life?
Is it better to stay, take the money and be able to finance over a years worth of life in exchange for this 4 months here. Or should I say No, fuck you and leave because I wasn't able to be bought. And if that's the case, why didn't I do that 2 months ago?
To take part in the system, even cynically, is to keep it alive. I am taking nothing down from within, I am just bending over and taking the money. Voluntarily locking myself into a gilded cage. Fucking, fucking, fuck.
I'm whirling round inside a hamster wheel that has been created by a person who has enough money to create such a busy and hectic life for herself that it serves to disguise the fact that she has no life at all.
I'm supposed to be here January til end March. Then I was asked to stay a couple of weeks into April until she finds a replacement for me. Every extra week I stay here is a week of the spring missed. A week of good weather where I can sleep outside, where I can find forests to make houses in and lakes to dive into. A week of wandering and wondering. But every week I stay here in Moneyville is worth 2 months of that outdoor existence. So I grit my teeth, and I compromise myself and I carry on.
If I was going to stick to my principles I would have left in the first week.
I should have left when I was asked to install an electronic drinking fountain for the cat - a little pump, plugged into the wall, sucking electricity 24 hours a day so a cat can have running water to drink from. What is wrong with a saucer?
I should have left the first time I was asked to log into Facebook and approve this woman's friends requests for her.
The first time I printed every email in her inbox for her to look at at her leisure - including all the newsletters from executivemanagement.com, microfinancedirect.com, landlordspropertynews.fuckingcom
The first time I did the weekly shop for £300 worth of groceries that I had to try and stuff into cupboards already bulging with uneccessary food.
The first time I realised the fact that this household is an overgrown puff of pointless air, completely useless yet consuming Huge amounts of resources for basically Fuck All.
But I didn't leave, I stayed. I compromised my principles for Money. The thing I thought I hated. It makes me sad that I'm still here, encased in plastic, slowly forgetting what it's like to be outside in bare feet.
My dilemma. I've been asked to stay longer. Until the start of May. Another 3 weeks added to my time here. In exchange for more money and a holiday in this lady's flat in Barcelona. What the fuck? I have family in Barcelona, I could see them, maybe get other people over here. What a great start to my travel, a paid ticket to Spain. But it means staying here for another 3 weeks.....when I'm already counting the days. But 3 weeks work here means 6 months in the forest out there. What's three weeks out of a whole life?
Is it better to stay, take the money and be able to finance over a years worth of life in exchange for this 4 months here. Or should I say No, fuck you and leave because I wasn't able to be bought. And if that's the case, why didn't I do that 2 months ago?
To take part in the system, even cynically, is to keep it alive. I am taking nothing down from within, I am just bending over and taking the money. Voluntarily locking myself into a gilded cage. Fucking, fucking, fuck.
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