As long as you …

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

Mahatma Gandhi

Or as Angela said to me, “if you don’t love it, don’t buy it”…..

Living along these lines has been intriguing, over the past 14 months. To hold out for something that is beautiful, stunning, quirky, perfect over something ugly, disposable, close enough. It requires a discipline and a determination that can be developed and honed and isn’t one that settled on me naturally.

“Soft furnishings”, interior design, furniture generally had little place in our larger family. We rattled around in our massive Colorado house, three times the size of our previous London one, and we talked about furnishing it and meandered halfheartedly into the right type of stores….and meandered out, either with nothing or with random items that didn’t do what we needed nor were generally sympathetic to what else we had.

And then when JD died, being in that vast empty house only exacerbated the torment. My body was empty, my heart was lost, the house was a cavern. The Santa Monica crew flew across and helped me feather the nest, creating a place of solace and softness and muted fabrics in the house that had been sharp and ragged and hollow……And if it was not loved, LOVED,  it did not get bought….close was not good enough….and loved was fine, even if it didn’t seem to fit. You can always find a place for something you love, after all, can’t you?

And if chocolate and red wine and white wine and whiskey (all together if necessary although that, as yet, has not been the case), writing blogs, and sobbing while running, and hiding away, and daily calls with LittleBro, and not sleeping, and not going to church, and HBO and French TV shows get me through each day, then that is good enough. It can all be kept, like Gandhi said (although granted, alcohol would not have made his list….), until the day I don’t need it anymore….until the day when I can roar on, without even trying…..

Breaking up with Facebook. Still leading Twitter on.

As I chunter along my blogging journey a staging post is to jettison Facebook….I’m working up to it anyway, hoping she might take the hint and make it easy for me to cut the final strings ….

I do have a couple of reservations. And they aren’t powerful enough to override my intention to give it a go…..

My reasons for leaving Facebook:

1. it’s just too powerful. I’m not a “stalker” and I’m aware that every “like”, every post is giving FB info that they are selling to others…..does this matter? Well, it’s not like it’s being done behind my back…..it just feels uncomfortable and none of us know where it might lead (this is a woman who has only embraced loyalty store cards since JD died as she hated the idea that she was helping businesses sell to her and segment her. Now, I just want to get the money off vouchers….)

2. I’m much more interested in points of view, book reviews, learning etc than I am in photos of “Dustin’s 5th birthday” – which, don’t get me wrong, isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy the photos….I get a warm feeling and I’m pleased to see the love and joy of dear friends….

3. …..and its sucking my time when I could be doing something more productive….I find I go onto the site even though I’m not really interested, I don’t really want to…..like eating the extra piece of chocolate…. What is up with that?! My way of dealing with the chocolate is not to buy any. I’m applying the same to FB – if it’s not there, will I really miss it?….

4. there is the issue of stalkers and teenage children and so on. Not a big deal but lurking in the background.

5. it might be liberating….

What will I miss? Ill miss the interaction with a small handful of friends around topics that I’m interested in (largely women, politics, books and food – I get the sport side on Twitter – see below). But I’ve managed to get all of these women to follow me on this blog, so I’m hopeful we can have some interaction on here or maybe off line in relation to posts here…..we shall see, right girls?….I’m intrigued to discover how much impact not seeing “Dustin’s 5th birthday photos” will have…..and also wondering that if I stay in touch with those who are on FB, will I really miss out?……

I have a very different relationship with Twitter and as I reflect on this, while writing, Im wondering if it’s the arms length nature of it that I enjoy – this very issue being perceived as both the strength and weakness of Twitter overall (“hiding behind it” to say things that you would never say if you couldn’t hide). It tickles me to interact with a range of very different people, depending on the issue/cause. I like that I have my “rugby” crew, and CFC crew; the Nordic Noir/HBO crew; writers; autism campaigners….and they are all in one place. I think there are only two “real” friends that I tweet with (Vix and Stevie O) and the rest are total strangers….yet they don’t feel like that way…..

As for the blogging world, I’m beginning to realize just how vast it is…..People “like” my blog posts and I glance at their blogs and they write on the most esoteric and interesting of topics and I’m intrigued….if FB is a time suck, then browsing blogs could take it to the next level. So, need to work out how people manage this and gain tips. Because I can see from a writing point of view that reading other blogs has much to commend it.

I continue to write and explore as part of my way of dealing with JD being gone. I remain shell shocked that this is my life. As the reality of this becomes increasingly sharp, I feel increasingly dull. And writing feels like part of the way to claw at the dullness, to tear at this shroud, to see what, if anything lies beyond it. I don’t hope anymore – for me, there is no hope – but I still have curiosity and it is that which keeps me going and keeps me roaring on.

Hadley Freeman. Marina Hyde. It might be too much…..

Giddy with excitement at meeting two of my favourite columnists…..well, I exaggerate as Im not exactly meeting them…..Im attending a Masterclass on column writing that they are giving…..but still, to be in the same room…..

Of course, I expect them to be as witty in real life as they are on the page (Im sure they dont work at their columns at all right – their wittiness simply trips out of their fingers, onto the screen……)

So this is one of those things I would never have done when JD was alive and so has an excitement to it because of that. Im no “Writer” am I?…..It’s funny because I only more recently describe myself as a “Runner” – when do you move from the uncapitalised to the Capitalised? At what point? Perhaps when I have been blogging for a year? two? six months?

Anyway, Im off to listen to them talk about “finding yourself” and your “tone of voice” and so on and so on.

Look forward to sharing my thoughts with you.

Roaring on .

writing that makes me smile

I’m trying to think about the words to use that accurately reflect how I feel about Tim Dowling’s writing. He makes me feel like I’m in the room, like I know him and I’ve met his wife and children. That we could share a joke through a look. There would be a lot of mutual eye rolling…..and I wouldnt fancy him, one iota.

His writing has an honesty to it that feels genuine. … yet last week’s column talked about how, as he was following one of his children, another one of them warned “watch out, he’s trying to get a column out of this”. I’m not sure I’d want to live with someone who published our home life in a weekly national magazine. But I blog. Is that so different? ? Interestingly I wouldn’t have done this when JD  was alive for exactly that reason.

I love Tim Dowling’s columns because he makes me laugh out loud. There was an occasion 18 months ago when he actually made me cry with laughter…..The Lighthouse Family reference started it but when I got to the BACS joke…..http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/16/tim-dowling-family-supper

I guess I can sum it up by saying I feel like I know him. Even though we’ve never met. And I guess that it what really good writing is. Isn’t it?