There are a number of things I “can’t” read, lately.
I can’t read a certain post on the board because Stef congratulates the poster on achieving such a level of self-awareness.
I can’t read an article posted on a friend’s blog because someone commented on it saying it was “amazing and brilliant.”
I can’t read posts on another friend’s blog because I can see – without anyone’s comments – that it contains honesty and depth of feeling about her experiences.
The thought I get when reading the comments on these things is “Why won’t you compliment ME?!”
Well… the thought that follows on that is “What have you done to deserve it?”
Of course, there’s something behind that as well, the thought “I have done nothing to deserve anyone’s high opinion. I’m an idler. Lazy. Almost a failure. No one compliments me because I’ve been stalled.”
Before I write this off as “false-self critic teardown” or what have you… let’s look at that feeling. At that accusation.
(ETA: This turned, altogether unexpectedly, into a MEcosystem convo. Continued below.)
Is officially up and running. You can find it here:
http://www.voevodabolshoia.com
I’m going to post once about every 4 days to start with. It’s a travel blog, so if you’re not interested in travel then, hey, it’s probably not for you. :)
Other things in life… not particularly much going on. Am in the middle of a period of re-evaluation, but also a period of trying to slow down. Both are fairly difficult, but I’ve been receiving quite a bit of help from my friends lately, and also trying to give back where possible – or at least exchange value for value.
I realized earlier today, after reading a post on another friend’s blog, just how tempting it is to compare oneself with other people. With me in the past it was usually “Well, look how far I am compared to them!” but this morning – and this seems to be a recent change… I’ve been both having these comparative thoughts less often, and their content has changed – my thought was “See? Everyone is way out far ahead of me. They must think I’m just sitting here idling. How far ahead they are!”
And I realized… you know, it’s not a game. Not a race. And when I was most keen on telling myself how far ahead I seemed to be, I was actually much further behind. So those who might think I’m sitting and idling are… not talking from a mountaintop. ;)
It was only a brief flash of a thought. But another realization came. You know, I am doing what needs to be done at the current moment. Not in the sort of determinist sense of things… but if I am in fact idling, then ok. I will idle until I don’t want to idle any more. If I’m waiting while the slow, tectonic plate, underground changes occur, then good. I will wait. I won’t try to push. If this is the last phase Stef talks about, where changes come slower than they did before, then excellent. I’m so much healthier and happier and my outlook is so much better and more positive and I’ve made so much progress towards my dreams than this time last year… that that pace can’t keep up, you know? I’ve deFOOed. A change that big is not going to come again. I’ve committed myself to actually following my dreams, wherever those take me. Great! Now that that commitment is solid, the ground is sort of mapped out. It is a large change which will engender many small ones.
I can’t really say that I’ve been idling. I’ve been enjoying the company of my friends – both old and new. Strengthening relationships there, which has brought me joy. I’ve also been working on my relationship to myself. Have read books, begun learning a new language, am preparing to move to a country whose ways are so foreign to those of where I grew up…
And I’ve realized, recently, that that desire I had to “save” people has been weakening. Weakening slowly, imperceptibly… and not entirely gone yet, but the strength has so diminished that… yeah, it’s amazing. I’ve very little desire to respond to manipulative posts on the board. Very little desire to give “reassurance” where it’s practically begged for by people who want my sanction on their poor behavior. The desire is not gone completely, but it is less. I want to fight fewer battles.
I want to fight fewer battles against myself, too. That’s Ayn Rand’s description of John Galt, isn’t it? A man who never begun or lost a battle with himself. In actuality, I don’t want to be that kind of stainless steel puritan. But I also don’t want to write off feelings of doubt or caution that come up as mere “excuses” for my not doing things. That’s happned a few times lately, and is something I want to work on.
In the past, of course, I would make “excuses” so that I didn’t have to do the scary heavy lifting that philosophy requires. No recriminations for that – it was understandable. But that isn’t what these feelings are. More respect for these feelings, then, and for myself for having them. Feelings aren’t invalid. They should be tempered with sober judgment, of course, but they’re not invalid.
What else? Not too much. It’s been a good year. A hard one, but a good one.
…is a title that basically means “supreme commander” in Russian. I registered that tonight as a blog name.
Why?
Well… I want to write a travel blog. Not that this isn’t about journeys… but I’m looking for something a bit more… marketable. Something I can parlay into writing/editing jobs while overseas, and just generally. So that blog will be a bit flashier, a bit more succinct, and just a wee bit less personal – or at least less psychology/self-work oriented.
Why “voevoda bolshoia,” though?
There is, I must confess, a book that has sent me to Russia. A book written by an elegant and well-mannered little Scottish woman who is now dead. A woman whose passing was mourned with such profundity by her readers. The greatest writer, I might say, of this late age of humanity. Yes, my dears, none other than Dorothy Dunnett.
I can’t tell you how much of an emotional impact this book had on me. I was unable to move, unable to breathe… unable to do anything but feel Francis Crawford of Lymond’s emotions as he stripped away his humanity to become the voevoda bolshoia to Ivan the Terrible. So, the blog is named for Francis Crawford, who glitters like ice, or crystal… or damascened steel, and for his creator. The little Scottish woman of impeccable intellect who has sent me to Russia.
None of that, of course, is going on that blog.
I want to document my travels more. I want to document my travels in a way that does not make them take a backseat to other, more important content. I’ll leave that for my friends, and for myself. The others get the voevoda.
I’ve just been to the West End opening of Ivanov, starring Kenneth Branagh.
What an amazing performance by the entire cast. I cannot express just how much I enjoyed the experience. Chekhov has been my favorite Russian writer – the only Russian writer I can say that I truly admire and for whose works I truly care – since I first read his story The Bet. In a way, Ivanov is similar to that. It is a tale of despair. Of self-loathing. Of… self-torture. And how that affects others. It’s a story of misery. But the characters were rendered so pitch-perfectly by author, translater, and actors… that it never becomes heavy. It never becomes gratuitous. Chekhov – and the cast – have too much faith in the audience to overblow the rendering. The playbill detailed how, alas, Chekhov was wrong to share that faith. But for those of us who have the power to empathize with Ivanov, and Sasha… and even Pavel and his horrid wife… such a vista of understanding opens up. I felt, as Aristotle would have it, pity and terror. Such pity for Ivanov, and Sasha, and the rest. And terror – I, who knew how the play ends… I spent the entire time dreading the denouement. Dreading the fact that Ivanov had to die. That he could not draw one more breath of misery and torment in this world after finally, at last, rejecting himself. The last service he could render himself, unfortunately, was death. And no one – not Sasha or anyone – could alter that.
As my theatre companion said… I cannot imagine putting myself in that head space night after torturous night for the play’s 2-month run. I’m glad that we saw it on the first night when these characters are still new and raw and fresh. And I’ll see it again 2 weeks in or so to see how the actors settle into the parts.
Technically, the show was magnificently done. Lighting, sound, music, and costuming all spot on.
I will try most desperately to get tickets to see it again, even if it means standing up for two and a half hours. When I was young, I desperately wanted to go on the stage. I never wanted to do movies or be a movie star, and I didn’t like when mother pushed me into voice-overs and print ads. But acting class… once I got over my embarrassment and became the character… that’s what I wanted to do. And all of the theatre that I’ve been seeing here – pitch-perfect renditions of Lear, Timon, and now Ivanov… it’s made me want to take drama classes again. I shall in all likelihood never go on the stage – I don’t have that sort of need to do it, or that inability to do anything else that acting requires – because I could be happy doing other things… but it’s something, nonetheless, that I want to try my hand at, at least in a classroom setting.
I’m going to try to see if I can make it back to London for the rest of the season – Derek Jacobi is in a production of Twelfth Night, Judi Dench is doing Madame de Sade, and Kenneth Branagh is directing Jude Law in Hamlet. I can’t tell you how much I want to see all of those productions. I really like Jacobi and Dench’s acting, and of course Hamlet is the be-all and end-all of my favorite plays. I’m not sure. If I can catch a cheap flight!
I’ve made plans to go to the theatre again next Friday to see some play or other – I’m not sure what yet. It’s to be a surprise, at least for a little while. But all of the amazing theatre here… god, I could really live in London for a while.
I’m just emotionally tapped out from the play – feeling that pity and terror again. God, what a thrilling night. (The before- and after-play conversation was also, I must say, excellent. What a pleasure it is to go out with a rational, intelligent, emotionally tuned-in person!)
Off now to go and continue to feel.
A camera cannot capture this. Words cannot. Emotions? No… not those of my readers – nor even mine. Nonetheless I will try.
I hardly noticed my surroundings on the way to Regents Park. I half expected the park would be closed so late – and it was, though the gate is easily climbable. The path stretching away from St. Michael’s Gate looked as though it wound into a primeval wood, and there ended – the grey path stretched into the grey gloaming.
I was deep in thought as I travelled – deep into and out of thought. As I came away, though, I put those thoughts away. Retired them utterly. They’ve served their purpose – those stories I told myself when I was small. And now that I know what they were (they reflected MY internal state – and have continued to do so) I can let them go. Now that I realize.
Though sad, I felt also a deep peace as I walked away from the park. And, all of a sudden, I stopped. The night was so beautiful. There are no colors this late at night – but the inference… the royal blue and soft grey of the sky, the deep green of the leaves, the rusty red bricks and sandy capstones of the walls, the black black and optic white of the street lamps, with the twinking of lights from high towers and the steady lights of Euston Station… stopped me. I stood, mouth hanging open. The night breeze wafted the scents of flowers towards me… and there was peace.
I wished for a camera, though no camera would capture either what I saw or felt. I wanted to be one with this night – not to return to sleep, and find the daylight mocking these memories. This feeling – brought on by this particular night – will never return. A different night will bring always a different feeling.
I’ve stopped, lately. Just once, to take in my surroundings. Trafalgar Square in sepia – a rainy day viewed through sunglasses. Cameras cannot capture the beauty of that day either. These moments seem to be… small islands in a sea of trouble – which will be pacified, and recede. Till this is the landscape. These small, perfect, jewel-like moments of awareness. Awareness of self and of world – and of self in world.
I know what brought both of these moments on. I want more. But… no. This is not to be grasped after. I’ll clear a space to let these moments in.
Filed under: job search | Tags: Complaints Department, job search, russia
I did get offered the job in the Czech Republic, but for financial reasons I turned it down, and will thus be going to Moscow instead. The visa manager at the school emailed me this morning, and it’s going to be at least 12 days from when I submit my info (today) until the letter of invitation can be issued, 3 more days for it to get to me, then a whole morning spent at the Russian Consulate, then another morning getting an AIDS test and certificate of health, then another morning queuing at the Consulate and then – 30 days from now! – I might finally have my visa. Ah, Mother Russia.
Anyhow, I’m shopping the mail order sales in the US trying to get some cheap winter clothes. (Clothes are about double the price in London for the exact same thing from the exact same store, and I’m told the prices double again in Russia, so even with the astronomical cost of shipping anything from the US, it’s still cheaper on the whole to mail order clothes from there, especially with the after Labor Day sales.)
I need to run down the road to the school and have the guy there scan my passport for me. I should have done that before I left the US, but hey – coulda, woulda, shoulda.
Almost all of the clothes that I brought with me to London will be replaced, and I’ll be giving the useable ones to Oxfam. I figure I may as well benefit the local charities while I’m here.
Not much else to say, really. I’m comfortably situated in London for the next month, which gives me time to try to learn survival Russian (why oh why must the Russian letter z look so much like the letter e!) and just generally prepare myself for arriving at the beginning of the Russian winter – i.e. very early October. Das vidanya, sunshine!
Filed under: job search, vie quotidienne | Tags: job search, vie quotidienne
So I got an offer for Moscow. It’s a pretty good gig. 9 month contract, 25 days paid leave, a decent monthly salary… but the only problem is, the contract doesn’t start till October 13th. So… I’d be arriving in Moscow in about a month. That’s sub-optimal, because I pretty much need to start making money right away, and hanging out another month in London – while not the end of the world – is not something I really want to do. Obviously the visa is going to take 2 weeks to get, and of course the HIV test and all… meh.
You know, I haven’t been unemployed for this long since I was 16. It’s profoundly disconcerting. What do unemployed people do with themselves? I mean, this obviously means that I can travel a little bit – a few days jaunt to Paris or Amsterdam would not go amiss – but… meh. I’m on a 6-month visa here, so it’s not like I have to leave any time soon. I could stay here till New Year and still be legal. I’d starve, but be legal.
Interview for a job in the Czech Republic tomorrow. Will see what kind of terms they offer, and then decide between the two. (So far all the interviews – ok, 2 interviews – that I’ve been on have resulted in offers.)
Filed under: FDR, self-work | Tags: deFOO, FDR, friends, languages, mother, self-work
That is “my hovercraft is full of eels” in Latin. (See YouTube clip below if you have no freaking clue where that comes from. Hilarious sketch!) Literally translated, it means “my ship that rests on the air abounds with eels.” Beautiful, wonderful language, is Latin.
But… languages. I’ve been not-so-dilligently working on my Russian. Finally tonight I found a website that teaches the Cyrillic alphabet as I learn best – by giving it in immediately-useable words that I can then sound out to figure out the letters, and then requiring me to re-type/write the words to make sure I can use both words and letters. Very helpful indeed!
Am not looking forward to learning Russian grammar. Admittedly it’s a lot like Latin grammar… except with a couple of extra tenses… and the fact that verbs have gender. What kind of a damned language has verbs that have a gender? Nouns having a gender = ok. I can understand that. But verbs?!
Oh well. Needs must. At the very least, I’ve got to learn the alphabet and some survival phrases. It’s not 100% certain that I’m going to Moscow yet, but it’s looking more and more likely. The big 3 contenders are Russia, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. The Cyrillic alphabet will be useful in the first 2 countries anyway.
I actually would most like to go to the Czech Republic… but you never know. The winters are certainly milder in Prague than they are in Lviv or Moscow, and an ex-co-worker’s parents live there… so at least I have an introduction going on to some natives who speak English. I don’t want to spend 100% of my time with expats, even though I just know I’ll completely want to abandon everything and return home for about the first 2 weeks, and I’ll cling like mad to anyone who speaks even a word of English. After I’ve gotten the “ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod WTF have I DONE!!!!!!??????” week out of my system (that happens whenever I move – to Dallas, to NYC, to London, and in wherever I’m going next, no doubt it’ll be worse) I’ll want to make some native friends. And, of course… do things like eat, be able to get around, etc. Hence learning the language.
Mea vida adventuris abundat. (No, that’s not correct Latin.)
What else? Oh… a fellow at a kebab shop (what? I didn’t want to cook tonight) started hitting on me. Asked me for my number, and said he wanted to take me out for a drink. I should have lied and said I had a boyfriend, or – hey! here’s an idea! – just left sans diner and made a sandwich at home. I mean… I’m really not sure how to handle that. I’m totally unused to guys taking any sort of interest in me in that way. (No… really. I’m also horribly insecure about that, which leads me to all sorts of humiliating situations which y’all can no doubt think of an example of right off the bat.)
Thank you, FOO and certain gentlemen that I met in my formative years, for completely fucking me over in that area. Though I’ve thought about it a lot lately – and my thoughts in that area have been doubly renewed after a conversation last night with a friend – it’s hard to know how to proceed. I’m operating on the assumption that I only want what I can’t have (i.e. I want a stable, loving relationship with an upright, moral man – but I tell myself that I am absolutely, 100% in the dark as to how to accomplish that) but is that true? No, not entirely. I myself don’t even realize yet how untrue that is, I think.
I went for a run today. God, that was exhausting, but satisfying. Either running more or rock climbing tomorrow – my climbing soreness has gone away, and thanks to decent stretching I feel no bad effects from the run.
Another friend (I can call him a friend, no? It sounds… weird to my own ears when I term him “a friend”) sent me something to read, which I will start tomorrow. For right now, it’s listening to Jane Eyre in French, and re-reading my favorite parts of it in English. It’s amazing how much of the French I can get without having to re-translate in my head.
However… my sudden desire to re-read JE is a signal. It goes back to a certain period in my life – ca. 8-10 years old, when I felt almost more lonely and miserable than I did while living in mother’s house from 12-18. I’d like to talk to friends about that – not about JE, but what that sign portends. There are certain pieces of literature I go back to in certain moods. At least this one is not dire enough to warrant Hamlet. That’s the nihilism lit – or as close as I ever got to it. Hamlet betokens a really bad headspace. JE is only loneliness and wanting someone to love me. I swear to god, from 8-12 years old I couldn’t conceive of marrying a better man than Mr. Rochester, the Byronic hero of JE. Now I can. But that’s still many years off. I wish I had it all settled. I wish I knew what was going to happen – or not even 100%. I don’t need to know what, when, who… or anything like that. I only want a guarantee that I will be happy – someday. That’s what I wanted then, too. I would have given anything to see in my mind’s eye a possibility of ever being happy, when I was a child. That’s sort of where I am now – and why I sometimes do things like throwing myself after men that I know are bad for me. Just to get something settled. Just to… sigh. But there isn’t any guarantee.
Oh well. I can wait. In the interim, I’m doing (or supposedly doing) things which will bring me as close to a guarantee of happiness as I can get. There is an example before me of what I want – realized, living, reachable – but… I’m not there yet. Only another few years’ trek across the desert.
No… I won’t erase any of the above, but the tone doesn’t reflect what I feel. I feel sad, and sick, and tired. I feel as if I know there is a point to all of this, but I don’t want to see it right now. I feel as though I want to wallow in self-abandonment, lethargy, self-punition, and all of the other crap I saw mother do. “Woe is me, people have screwed me over, I’m hard done-by, it’s not my fault or responsibility…”
Except that’s not quite it. I have the “white knight” syndrome. Waiting for someone to sweep in on a white horse, pick me up, and carry me bodily to felicity – without my lifting a finger. Ain’t nobody coming but me. I do not want the fairy transport from A-Q through the jungle – or… I think I do, but in reality the white knight would do more damage than good, and I know it.
That’s right. Someone is going to lose the weight for me. Someone is going to come and clean my bedroom. Someone is going to learn Russian for me. Someone is going to find me a prince among men for a husband. Someone is going to do the work of repairing the damage I’ve done or contemplated amongst my friends. Someone is going to strengthen my relationships with them. Someone is going to pack up all my stuff and magically transport me abroad. Someone is going to pour money into my bank account if I spend it like water. Someone is going to pick up my financial arrangements where I left off and settle everything. Someone is going to read and comment on this new book my friend sent me. Someone is going to do all the little errands I’ve been neglecting. Someone is going to calculate the monies owed my landlord. Someone is going to find me a cheap ticket to Cancun this Christmas.
Well… no. Nobody is going to do any of these things. And when I sit here, and procrastinate, and begin to resent myself (and others who have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m doing to myself) for not doing anything, and wallow in my resentment rather than figure out what’s behind this… the only person I’m fundamentally hurting is myself. The friends I hold dear – if I wound them – can write me off and go happily live their own lives. There is no lasting negative impact on anyone but myself if I fail to sort out my problems. But I won’t take steps to help myself.
Am I not worthy, mother? Screw you. Am I hard done-by? No. I know the solutions. I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel – that all of this work is for a reason. Do I deserve such wonderful friends as I have? You know what, if I don’t, I can fix that. I can do everything in my power to be the sort of person I want to be, and that will earn me the kind of friends I want in my life. So you know what? I’m sick of these fucking habits that were ingrained in me. That YOU – all three of you – ingrained in me. But this isn’t about you guys any more. All three of you are dead – two in fact, and you, mother, in spirit. This time is about me, and getting out from under all this crap. So get off my back! I am going to get you, finally, off my back.
(reposted from the FDR board)
I went and took a climbing class today. 5 hours of rock climbing. My limbs feel like jelly. I have scrapes and rope burns and all kinds of crazy stuff… but as I was coming home, something hit me. A metaphor, if you will. Let me expound a bit, by your courtesy.
Last week, I booked a spot in this course. Over the weekend I began thinking about it. Questions flooded my mind. “What if I’m too fat?” “What if they tell me to go home?” “You can’t rock climb in glasses, can you? I’m sure they’ll fall off and I’ll be stuck somewhere at the top of the rope completely unable to see.” “I’m not strong enough to do this, am I? I’ll probably be the only one in the group who can’t get up the damned face.” And other somesuch questions. Enough so that I thought about just cancelling my place in the course. I’ve wanted to climb since I was 10 – and that desire has never gone away – and I was thinking of cancelling.
I got to the center and met the other 5 people on the course, and the instructor. The instructor was wearing glasses. While he was fit, he didn’t have a 6-pack at all – in fact, he had a wee belly. Well… that’s two fears down. Learned to tie into the harness. I – having never been good at knots – was the last one to figure out how to do it. We moved to th 4m walls. I belayed (held the rope at the bottom so if my partner fell I would catch him) first. Watched my partner – he having never climbed before – power up the wall no problems. My turn. I got 2m up and started shaking all over. Literally tremors so strong that I fell off the wall. I was the only one who didn’t make it to the top of the wall. Partner went again – no problems. I started again – got to the same place and fell. Did this for about 2 hours – my partner trying all different kinds of routes, and me falling off – invariably – 2 meters up. I began to get really frustrated. I hated when I was actually on the wall, searching desperately for somewhere to put my feet, strength seeping away out of my muscles the longer I held on. I began to hate the damned wall, and myself for being weak.
We then went to do bouldering. Traverses – moving laterally across the wall. After a little instruction, everyone popped on the wall and traversed just fine. I went in about 2ft spurts – falling off every 2 feet. Then vertical bouldering – without any ropes. Everyone else started from a sitting position and hit the top of the wall. Me – 2m, then got really scared, then jumped off. Jumping backwards off a wall when you’re 6 feet off the ground is a little scary. That fear really hit me – no ropes, no protection. People sitting on the sofas behind me shouting encouragement – but stressing me out as they told me where the next hold was. When I made it about me and the wall, it was ok. When I brought others into it… not so much.
We took a break then. Had a coffee and a snack and a chat with the others in the group. No one was elitist. No one was concerned that every time I got up to about 2m I fell off the damned wall. Just a nice friendly chat about travelling – as most of the others had just come back from holidays of various lengths. Brilliant people – I quite liked them all. 5 people who didn’t know each other… just becoming comrades in the space of a couple of hours. The break ended.
Then… the big walls. 13m huge overhanging walls.
This time, I got 6m. Next time, 8m. Not the whole 13, but higher than I’d ever climbed. I began to love the sensation. Even though my muscles had turned completely to jelly by this time, the feeling that I knew what I was doing – I was tied in correctly, my equipment was good, partner was watching what he was doing ready to catch me… that took over. It was about me and the wall again. I realized that I was afraid of falling, not of heights, and that based on current evidence and past experience, even if I fell I would not get hurt. That feeling took over. And I was sad when it was time to go. Even though I never once got to the top of anything I tried – still I had a go at it. And I’m going to go back on Friday after my job interview and do it all over again.
So where does the metaphor come in, after all this rambling?
Think of the process we’re going through – re-thinking our relationships (personal, our own relationship to reality), perhaps deFOOing, and all the other crap that we’re going through – as climbing a wall. The people who have gone before us – Aristotle, Rand, Stef, the people who came on FDR before us and are leading the way in this process – have set protection out ahead of us. The route is laid out. As we clip into each successive piece of protection (i.e. as we go through each particular step of this process) we shorten the height of our fall. The piece of protection saves us – and as we go higher, we have shorter distances to fall. That means… if you’ve deFOOed, what’s the chance you’re going to go back to your family? Fairly slim. You’ve taken a look at all your friendships and tossed out the people who advocate the use of force against you. What’s the likelihood you’re going to make another friend who wants you shot? Not too high. Barring catastrophic failure of all protection, if you fall off the rock for a minute, so what? You’re not going to hit the ground. You’re never going to go back to your old life.
The instructor told us today that if we feel like we’re going to fall, to just fall. No need to cling onto the face for dear life and waste all our energy and make things even worse. Just fall – because you’re not going to fall far. That’s something that’s taken me a hell of a long time to learn at FDR – to not worry so much about blitzing up the wall or blitzing through the process, and to be ok with the inevitable slip-backs, mini-falls, going slightly (or majorly, as was the case in May) off the rails. Because I realize that the more I used to cling onto the face for dear life and try to convince myself everything was ok, the worse the situation got. I know that’s been the same for other people as well – this all-encompassing fear of going off the rails, of falling completely off the face and having to start all over again.
So… my metaphor… just go with it. It’s about you and the rock – not about showing off, or about anyone else, or comparisons. Trust your comrades – you can’t climb alone. And if you fall… well, fall! You haven’t got far to tumble.
(For those of you who have no clue what I mean, see this vid:)
