Last hurrah!

My dear colleague and I are off to Chios to give a two-day workshop. It is the last global event that I will facilitate for the company and my career. Over 40 years of working in various fields of industry and in a diverse number of jobs. This trip is going to be the last hurrah.

I will continue to work eight days a month but will no longer be involved in the day-to-day. Instead, I can focus on project work. What a luxury to be able to do this. May my health and spirits continue to shine. 

  

Photo by Vasiliki Mastropetrou on Unsplash

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Wednesday writing gals

There are five of us in this writing coven
We wandered the earth to meet online:
One from Slovakia, now living in Denmark
One once in Denmark, now living in Switzerland
One from Lithuania, now living in Norway
One from the States, now living in Germany
One from "wherever", now living in Germany

We meet every Wednesday morning,

When we can, and let our imaginations wander

We write stories that we so delight in and 

Share our pasts and our love of writing

And laughter, and occasionally... tears

Pure delight, deep curiosity, and above all, 

We are always filled with joy by the end. 

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Back from weeks of travel

 

Finally, summer
Now back from Copenhagen
Changing to sandals.

Photo by Nina Steffens on Unsplash

Upcycling

 A few months ago, we did some sorting out in our apartment. We gathered nearly three full moving cartons of books, DVDs and CDs. Usually, I would have brought these things to our local Oxfam.

Since we were dorting throughout the weekend when stores were closed,  I decided to see whether there was any space in the community book closet down the street from where we live. I went there with one bag full and was delighted to see there was enough space, but not a lot. Enough though, to put in what was in my bag. 

The next day I passed by the book closet, I noticed again, there was quite a bit of empty space. I came back with two bags of books this time. These also disappeared over night. Then I stepped it up a bit, and put some of the DVDs and CDs there. They also disappeared. 

I began to suspect that it wasn't the avid readers in our neighbourhood who were taking the stuff but perhaps someone who was selling them to supplement their income. It cheered me to think of this new upcycling scheme. Since that time, I have brought a bag or two more of stuff and placed it there. 

Today as my partner and I were walking through the pedestrian zone, we passed a houseless person sitting at "their" corner. Instead of an empty cup placed next to the sign asking for money, they had set up an area where they could display a selection of books, DVDs and CDs beside their empty cup. And voila, they were our stuff. The sign now says, "Please pay whatever you want!" I was so chuffed that I could help someone without having to go to Oxfam.

What I wonder is if they are getting more money selling stuff to passer-byes than they were before. I hope so.

Strange occurrences

Last weekend...

I am staying in a lovely hotel in London. I go down early every morning at 7 am to drink ginger and lemon tea and work on my Talkshow Rivals project. Then around 10 am, my colleague comes down, and we eat breakfast together. 

Yesterday's early morning work session was accompanied by an American couple eating breakfast and then getting into a furious fight. They thought they were whispering, but I could hear everything they said. Ultimately, their argument ended in a declaration of divorce and the wife stamping out of the room, and the red-faced husband loitering a time in the restaurant, presumably to give his wife enough time to pack her bags. Since I was the only one in the restaurant with them, I felt like a witness to a crime. Really weird experience. 

This morning, there was a British couple right behind where I was sitting, obviously very much in lust with each other. They spent a good hour or more finding everything the other person says hysterically, giddily funny. They giggled and laughed their way through a large breakfast meal. I wanted to turn to them and say, "Get a hotel room" to them, but hey, that is precisely what they were doing. I had forgotten the lightheadedness they were experiencing at the first flush of passion. At my age, I just find it highly irritating.

Can't wait to see what strange occurrence happens tomorrow morning.  

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)  

Back from London

(from my travel diary)

Work has gotten busy again. Amongst other things, I am travelling quite a bit. I'll still try to write a post or two.

Spring has come, and I am happy. The greens are healing salves to my soul. 

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)  

The stubbornness of youth

Cold morning today

Teenagers still wear T-shirts

Since spring has started. 

Lost in space

I am lost in space
Possessed with ideas
Fever to create.

Yarn

She held the multi-hued strand in her hand. It was so beautiful. The combination of colors swirled around each other, seamlessly blending, intertwined in a pulsating rainbow.

Though it pained her, she took the strand and tenderly, lovingly began unravelling it. She wanted to contemplate its essence one last time. Once slim and nimble, her fingers no longer had much strength or coordination. But the yarn’s warmth soothed her inflamed joints. Slowly and painstakingly, she teased out the individual filaments. Each glowed reassuringly as she arranged them side by side in front of her.

She had spun this yarn herself. Every vibrant thread contained her life’s energy, which was now gently ebbing away. As she regarded her life’s story, the single elements joined and stretched, forming a path. She smiled with relief, filled with joy at her final journey.

(My friend, Caroline, wrote this piece during our writers' workshop a while ago. I asked her if I could post it because it reminded me so much of Karen.)

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)  

Losing the precious flow of deep work

Artistic broadband
Explodes, erasing all thoughts
The moment I sneeze.

Silly thought while emptying dishwasher

Cleaning out a drawer
Big spoon spoons a little spoon
It made a baby?

Glad to be safe at home

Black clouds like bullies
Birds fly low in the sky
The next storm rolls near.

Only one up early this morning

Dawn slides back along
The invisible steal line
Daylight savings time.

It snowed last night

Field of crocuses
Spots of purple and orange 
Shine through white blanket.

Promise to myself

Time to think slowly
Stop all distracting actions
River of thoughts flows.

Wonder when it happened. It took time. And there were never any nefarious intentions, for sure. Yet, somewhere in the last years, I have stopped spending quiet time with myself. Instead, I always need to be doing some sort of action or having conversations... chugging away all day long. 

I never just gaze off into the distance and get lost in my thoughts. Nor am I comfortable with that squeamish sensation of boredom. Even going for a walk seems a waste of time unless I listen to a podcast or audiobook. Crazy. Maybe Julien is right. I should stop watching K-dramas for a while. Turn off the moving pictures, and close down the screens.

I could move slower and have sustained moments of no activity. Take time to listen to music. Really listen to the music instead of using it to fill in the background of the movie that is my day-to-day life.

Promise to self: acquire a daily practice of letting the river of thoughts flow.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Bodlakova Jakobsen yoga school for babies

(dedicated to Anna, my dear friend and new mother)

Today, at Boodlakova Jakobsen's School for Yoga, Pinot, a cat, is doing a private baby yoga session with Theo, 4 weeks old.

Pinot: Take a deep breath in. Now breathe out. Lie down with your legs stretched out and your back straight.

Theo: Check. And Check.

P: Relax your shoulders. Stretch your arms up and over your head.

T: Woah, why are they wobbling around?

P: Stretch your legs out, and move them and your arms to the right in the banana pose.

T: Where's right? And what's a banana?

P: Now, move your arms and legs to the left. Feel how the right side of your body is stretching.

T: Hey, where's left?

P: Roll onto your stomach.

T: I need help here!

P: Lift up your head and gaze into the distance.

T: Got it! Wait a second... I can't do this any longer.

P: Lower your head and face to the right and glace over your shoulder.

T: Check.

P: Now turn your head to the left and glace over your shoulder.

T: This is easy peasy.

P: Turn back onto your back.

T: Again, I need help here!

P: Now we will do śavāsana. Close your eyes.

T: Oh yes!

P: Relax the point in the middle of your forehead.

T: Hmmmm.

P: Relax your body. Let a sense of inner peace flow throughout.

T: Oh, I just peed.

P: Breathe deeply and slowly and enjoy letting the river of thoughts come and go.

There are only snoozing sounds coming from Theo.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)   

Travelling back in time

I wrote this piece recently in memory of that time of grief after Dave died. We had a writing prompt in a writing club let me travel back in time...

No one told me that grief is animalistic. It is so painful that I only trust myself to breathe from the top of my chest. If I breathe into my belly, I will undoubtedly melt away somewhere dark, damp, and scary. Who knows if I will find my way back.

Friends and colleagues mean well. Some send books on grief. Why are there so many? What makes the authors experts on the topic? Reading their titles stun and bores me at the same time. I do not have the strength to open their covers.

The only true consolation I have found is a thought that a dear friend shared. She said, "Imagine standing in a circle with 100 people holding hands. Each of us is asked to gently lift off the suffering, pain, and burden on our shoulders and place it in the middle of the circle. We do this one by one, humbly acknowledging the growing mountain of woes. Then we are asked to go back to the center and choose a fair measure of burden. Most of us would choose to take back what we laid down."

Whenever I am at risk of melting away into this abyss called morning your death, I say to myself, "fair measure," and I am comforted to know at least here and now, you are still with me. 

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)  

Down memory lane and into a blackhole of blissful escapism

Friend Auksė kindly agreed to let me post her writing from today's Wednesday Writing Club. The piece so clearly delights in the memory of that first-time experience of becoming a lifelong reader. 

(Auksė 15-03-2023)

I remember that day so vividly, although it all disappeared in a huge sweeping motion as if the minutes and hours were blown away by the wind of somebody else’s imagination. I had waited for the Lithuanian translation of the third or the fourth book for some months, I think. I was a Harry Potter fan since the very first book, though I read it after my mom – I guess I was too young to see its potential right away, the prospect of showing me what a few hundred sheets of paper with monotonous rows of signs could do for my young head.

I’ve heard somewhere that reading is like hallucinating. You stare at an unmoving surface for hours, turning sheet after sheet of processed, pressed trees, and the most colourful and fabulous images appear in your brain. You hear voices, and you feel feelings; your own and those of the people, creatures, plants and objects in the story.

That day I curled up in bed in the morning – I don’t think I even got out of my pyjamas, since it was a school holiday – and I started reading. My nanny, whom I still call my third grandmother or simply grandma, would occasionally enter the room and ask if I was hungry. I was not hungry but accepted a glass of sweet quince juice. I didn’t have time for food, as I was flying on my broom at a quidditch match, learning new charms, or making potions. 

After such intense mornings and afternoons of reading, I would continue in my sleep. Turning pages in the middle of the night, eyes closed, body relaxed, my brain making up new magic stories – but now with me as a student in the School of Wizardry.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Krazy kismet or sensational serendipity?

I tripped over an article in this month's German Vogue. The two founders of Fein Games are interviewed about their goal of feminizing the gaming market. Their target groups are feminists and non-binary persons. I love it! This is exactly the market that I was writing gaming scripts for in the early 2000s. How sensational is that?

A few months ago, after a conversation with my daughter, who mentioned the 90s and early 2000s are back in mode, I decided to revisit those scripts. I had not read them for good 10-15 years. I wondered whether they were still interesting or not.
 
I read them with much trepidation but was heart-warmingly surprised that the characters and storylines hold. And what was most surprising was the target group that I was writing for at that time was a feminist/diverse/non-binary group. Who knew? There wasn't even any awareness that such a target group existed back then.
 
So, I've decided to try again to find a game developer to produce one of the scripts. This is something I have tried to do twice before. 

The first time, I managed to pitch Sydney Soap and Talkshow Rivals to the Japanese publisher's (think S**y) marketing department at their London office. The PS2 was just out, and they were looking at gaming ideas that would appeal to women (who were thought of as a niche market back then). 

They invited me to meet with their R&D department to see if they were interested in producing Talkshow Rivals. The only thing I remember about that experience was that it was exciting to meet people who shared my vision of smart, fun gaming for women.
 
Alas, they might have shared my vision, but they ultimately turned down to project because they said it would be too expensive to produce.

The second time I pitched, I ended up meeting someone who was more into television than games. We worked on a treatment and script for an interactive murder mystery called "Doubting Alice" (English working title) or "Ein Toter und zwei Mörder" (German working title). He pitched the show to one of the German public television channels. They said, once again, "good idea, but too expensive to produce".

My hope is now there are so many easy ways to produce games that do not need a huge budget; my time has finally come around. The third time's the charm, right?

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Wanderlust

Peek out the window
the full moon sits on rooftop
Where are you, my friend?