Near enough is God enough

If God is in the detail then I have absolutely no chance of meeting him or her.  I am a big picture person, always have been since I was a child.     What does this mean?   Well I have good ideas it's just the execution of them that can be very dodgy.   Recently, my dog bit a hole in a boot from a pair that I'd left out of my bedroom cupboard.  I was heartbroken as I'd only just mentioned to my sister that they were the best pair of boots I'd ever bought.  One morning I had a brilliant idea.  The boots were an elastic suede type so I cut them down with a pair of scissors to be ankle boots.  When I took them to the boot maker to be sewn around the scissor cut he was surprisingly impressed.  He complimented me on my lateral thinking but he did have two suggestions for next time.  First of all he recommended that it would be easier for him to sew them before they were cut and then he suggested I use sharp scissors.  Okay, so in my excitement I used the only scissors I had which were blunt. Also I didn't measure where I made the cuts so one is slightly higher than the other but who would notice? I don't.  For me the enjoyment is the idea and the overall look of the boots, I absolutely love them and wear them at every opportunity. 
Unfortunately, it's this sort of attitude which has made me a bad employee. I once worked for a man who was a perfectionist in every sense of the word but the day he went ballistic screaming and shouting because there were three types of white flowers in the vase instead of one I knew it was time to leave.   I can't get that worked up over a display.  When I walk into a store I want the shelves to be clean and the product to be fresh I don't care that each jar is exactly half an inch apart. In my last job I  sometimes helped organize dinner events.  Once  I was given the job of doing the name tags for the table.  Unknowingly I printed the name tags on the wrong type of paper so when I arrived at the dinner that night the boss was screaming blue murder at me  saying that the tags were tearing instead of separating.   I thought she was going to have a coronary.  While she glared at me waiting for an answer or deeply felt apology all I could think about was where has the sense of priority gone in our lives?  Are these details really important?   In a moment of madness I told her to use a pair of scissors, it made sense to me at the time. 
We are all now working longer and longer hours but how much of our time is taken up with incidental details, ones that serve our vanity and not humanity.  I'm still looking for a job  but in the meantime I've started doing some volunteer work.  I feel as though it's the jolt of reality I was looking for.  Real people with real needs and real work.  Not a single vase of mismatched flowers to be seen.

Listen up or meet the "Inner Warrior"

Let's not mention the job today because I have a cold.  Being sick has given me time to think about what  happened at Tai Chi last week.  It concerns the art of  listening. Only this week I read that the sexiest most popular person at a party was rated the one that listened intently and asked questions.  I wish this research had been around when I was younger  because listening and asking questions was my 'shyness tool' at parties.  My approach was to walk in to a party, grab the first amiable looking person and start asking them lots of questions.

Last week at Tai Chi  my "Inner Warrior" was outed.  In a nutshell, the group wanted to go to park to train but one of us didn't.  This person said she was happy to come back next week because she didn't like to exercise in the park.  It seemed a clear and simple explanation. Suddenly she was being pressured to explain: was it too cold, too windy or too far to walk to the park?  She was put on the spot and started to apologise for being disagreeable.  I didn't think she was being  disagreeable she just didn't want to go to the park. Next moment I could hear a voice above the others say "she doesn't want to go to the park - that's it". It was my inner warrior voice coming out to help and support her.

Our Inner Warrior is that primeval mover and shaker that surfaces in times of trouble and danger.  It's selfless and instinctive and is represented in all measures not just in extreme circumstances which we usually call heroism. I was first aware of my Inner Warrior when I was sixteen. A teacher was questioning a fellow student in class about why she had failed a test.  The girl in question was quietly crying and unable to answer.  I pointed this out to the teacher and suggested he see her after class in private. It made him stop but I have to confess I had trouble with that teacher for my last two years of school. I never regretted doing it as it gave me a feeling of real strength in my life.  That amazing feeling was the risk I took of fronting up to a foe that was bigger than me with the real possibility that I may lose out in some way. The Inner Warrior doesn't think, it acts and in extreme circumstances it will take you to the brink of death to give help to those in need.  

So, the next time you see a dog locked in a hot car, or somebody being belittled or bullied you'll know what that creeping feeling is, it's the Inner Warrior preparing to do battle.

The beauty of decaying fruit or just plain wrinkly....

I still haven't heard about the job I applied for recently.   I'm starting to think that I won't even get an interview.  It's finally official, I'm old!   Fifty is the new forty we're told and I absolutely agree but if you're competing for a receptionist's job with a bunch of twenty and thirty year olds then fifty is old.

Ageing is something I've thought about a lot in my life and even more lately.  At fifty, my mother looked really old.  She had given birth to five children, suffered  two miscarriages and, added to that, she hated my father.  How did I know this?  Well she told me every day that if she was given her life over again she would never marry.  Oh - and she also use to scream at my father  "die you bugger, die!"

One of the quotes on ageing that I've always found comforting comes from the book of Meditations by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121 - 180).  Let's not forget that he wrote his meditations during respite from warfare with the northern european barbarians so it's highly likely he was delirious or depressed.  In book 3 he writes "the very imminence of decay adds its peculiar beauty to fruit". Is ageing peculiarly beautiful? He goes on to qualify this statement by saying that not all may think so.   "...the mature charm that belongs to men and women in old age......will not appeal to everyone; he alone who has cultivated a real intimacy with nature and her works will be struck by them...." Most ageing women today would feel that they are viewed more as decomposing wrinkly fruit rather than as peculiarly beautiful.

I have to confess that I'm really torn because I like to colour my hair and probably will do for a while yet.   Also, I would like to see fewer wrinkles on my face (and body).  Nevertheless  I am drawn to the fact  that my gently lined face is the  ultimate reminder to constantly revisit my to do list before it's too late. Cosmetic surgery doesn't turn the clock back it just gives us a false sense of our mortality.

I  think  the last word on ageing belongs to Chrissy Hynde,  the lead singer with the Prentenders in the eighties. When asked what she thought of  cosmetic surgery Chrissy replied " why have a thirty year old face when you have a fifty year old arse".....

Giving the very cold shoulder.........

Finally, after much searching I found an advertised job which is 2 minutes away across the road from where i live.   The hours are 12.30 to 6 pm Monday to Friday, which is great because I've developed a passion for Tai Chi at the local neighbourhood centre.

The neighbourhood centre is in the old town hall, a neo classical building from the victorian era.  Monday is knitting and crocheting, Tuesday is tai chi, Wednesday is Karate for seniors and Thursday is sewing day. Having knitted many scarves and a beanie I decided on Tai Chi.  On the first day,  the instructor Joe welcomed me with open arms. He looks grandfatherly but is very spritely and performs Tai Chi every morning for an hour except on Sundays. He doesn't speak very much english and from our limited conversation I found out that he's on his way to Beijing soon for a three month holiday.

I did make one very big mistake ..........in an attempt to make conversation with Joe, before the other participant arrived, i mentioned that i had a sore shoulder. Anyone who has ever suffered from a frozen shoulder knows that there's not much you can do until it miraculously fixes itself after about 12 months.  I have a frozen right shoulder that i keep moving with a series of "gentle"exercises and stretches.

As soon as i mentioned the sore shoulder Joe moved towards me at ninja speed and took hold of my arm. He then took my right hand and started shaking it in a wave-like motion to try and get my whole arm moving.  Excruciating! As i politely moved my arm away he jumped around to my back and started a karate chop massage over my neck and shoulder. I kept praying he would finish but  in the end i had to stop him and hope that I hadn't insulted him and his offer of help. Luckily, 80 year old Jane arrived and we finally started the class.

I was thinking that maybe next wednesday I'll try the Karate - self defence for seniors class.  This time i won't mention the shoulder. In the meantime I'm still job hunting, wish me luck.

A Walk on the Quiet side.........

I'm looking for a job and I've set myself a task to try and find a local one.  I want to work within walking distance of where I live because since I left my job 5 months ago I've re-discovered my local community.   It's like the slow food movement except it's about life in a 3 kilometre radius.  It's a gentler, quieter, smaller existence but nonetheless exciting.

 I've always been partial to a little bit of slowness.  When I was a child growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney, summer months meant daydreaming.   I lived in a hot fibro house on a quarter acre block that had no trees.  My father had cut down all vegetation that couldn't be eaten, so the only thing to do on a burning hot day was to take to my bed and daydream.   Later, when I went to University and then to work, I always had to counteract my busy life by having a time of quiet.  During this time there was no music, no noise, no socialising.  The act of just being; observing, listening and smelling seemed to make sense of all the doing.

Years later I read Milan Kundera's book "Slowness" in which he laments the lack of slowness in life.  "Gazing at God's windows" is a Czech proverb that describes the easy indolence of daydreaming. He says that a person gazing at God's windows is not bored, they are happy. Now, he says, a person with nothing to do is frustrated, bored and constantly searching for the activity he lacks.

I've been gazing at God's windows a  lot lately and in between times I've taken to the streets to walk the dog, meet new people and discover new interests.  Of course no one can live on daydreaming alone so it's time to get a job.  I would really love to get a local job, to cut down commuting time and to enhance my community experience.  The challenge begins.