I am tired from lack of sleep because of fear. I'm tired tonight because I finally took a nap today. I'm exhausted from grieving and fear and being angry at politicians like Cameron in UK for being pinheads and refering to all the rioting as 'mindless' in order to demonize them and I'm tired of politicians like Mitt Romney in the US defending corporations as people.
I don't even have the energy to give you the links to this stuff.
I'm tired of poor people constantly getting the short end of it. I'm sickened that a teenager has received a 4-month jail sentence here in UK for 'swearing and ranting' at police during riots in Manchester.
I'm tired of writing about this and I'm tired of crying when I'm not angry or scared.
I'm tired of trying to think of 'more positive things' and having to believe that 'this too shall pass' and believing that 'good things will come of this.'
That may all be true but I'm tired, too damn tired to think that way.
So, I will stop writing this tonight and go to sleep soon.
Oh, but before that a few good things:
Started reading Carson McCullers' 'Reflection in a Golden Eye,' which is spectacular. Her writing is the most lucid I have read in many years.
I had a good talk with my friend Emily who assured me attempting to make myself work when I'm crying out of grief is like yelling at a baby who is crying, as the grief I am working through is that ancient. Yes, there are immediate adult circumstances, but it reaches back, way back to ancient loss.
I am tired of doing all this emotional work as well, I might add. I continue to pine for the dissociative days of my life when I could produce in spite of pain. Damn this integration, damn it I say...
Yes, that was a repeat, I know. Too tired to edit it out.
And another good thing was listening to a fellow who has been down a similar path and getting assurances that this is my path...this longer, slower, tortoise thing...
And the fact, even as fucking exhausted as I am, that I do not know what I'm here for really, and in the end my life is none of my business.
That's the cliff notes version of Bhagavad Gita....Super abridged.
Next right thing: more sleep.
I imagine we can all be spared more political analysis from the uneasy calm-ish-ness of London. Just please, as the song says: don't believe the hype.
Corporations aren't people. We are. Including the 'mindless thugs.' Remember that the prime minister of Norway after the gunman killed all those people appealed for peace and a continuation of a free and open society. There are other responses to violence than demonization.
Please practice non-violence however you can, even when tired, even when afraid, even when angry. As John Lennon said, he aspired to non-violence because he was the most violent person he knew.
Peace out. [she falls asleep in chair somehow miraculously typing...]
Welcome to my blog..
"We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces." Maurice Merleau-Ponty
I am now transitioning into being married again with a new surname (Barclay-Morton). John is transitioning from Canada to NYC and as of June 2014 has a green card. So transition continues, but now from sad to happy, from loss to love...from a sense of alienation to a sense of being at home in the world.
As of September 2013 I started teaching writing as an adjunct professor at Fordham University, which I have discovered I love with an almost irrational passion. While was blessed for the opportunity, after four years of being an adjunct, the lack of pay combined with heavy work load stopped working, so have transferred this teaching passion to private workshops in NYC and working with writers one on one, which I adore. I will die a happy person if I never have to grade an assignment ever again. As of 2018, I also started leading writing retreats to my beloved Orkney Islands. If you ever want two weeks that will restore your soul and give you time and space to write, get in touch. I am leading two retreats this year in July and September.
I worked full time on the book thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign in May 2014 and completed it at two residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Wisdom House in summer 2015. I have done some revisions and am shopping it around to agents and publishers now, along with a new book recently completed.
I now work full-time as a freelance writer, writing workshop leader, coach, editor and writing retreat leader. Contact me if you are interested in any of these services.
Not sure when transition ends, if it ever does. As the saying goes, the only difference between a sad ending and a happy ending is where you stop rolling the film.
For professional information, publications, etc., go to my linked in profile and website for Barclay Morton Editorial & Design. My Twitter account is @wilhelminapitfa. You can find me on Facebook under my full name Julia Lee Barclay-Morton. More about my grandmothers' book: The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani
In 2017, I launched a website Our Grandmothers, Our Selves, which has stories about many people's grandmothers. Please check it out. You can also contact me through that site.
In May, I directed my newest play, On the edge of/a cure, and have finally updated my publications list, which now includes an award-winning chapbook of my short-story White shoe lady, which you can find on the sidebar. I also have become a certified yoga instructor in the Kripalu lineage. What a year!
And FINALLY, I have created a website, which I hope you will visit, The Unadapted Ones. I will keep this blog site up, since it is a record of over 8 years of my life, but will eventually be blogging more at the website, so if you want to know what I am up to with my writing, teaching, retreats and so on, the site is the place to check (and to subscribe for updates). After eight years I realized, no, I'm never turning into One Thing. So The Unadapted Ones embraces the multiplicity that comprises whomever I am, which seems to always be shifting. That may in fact be reality for everyone, but will speak for myself here. So, do visit there and thanks for coming here, too. Glad to meet you on the journey...
Lots of hugs, Julia. I'm feeling sad and afraid too. (A long and involved story, as all stories are. I'll tell you some day when you are carrying less yourself.)
ReplyDeleteAgree completely about political response. Pinhead indeed ! someone with 30 million pounds in the bank cannot possibly, however hard they try, understand the meaning of poverty and disempowerment. By saying "These people are mindless" and even "These people are sick" he merely illustrates (unwittingly) how un-listening he and his minions are. And how dangerous they are.
Panther
Thanks Panther...you can share your story with me whenever you want and I am sorry you are also going through sadness and fear.
ReplyDeleteBut to the easy part: yes Cameron is a pinhead...they all are...I cannot believe how frighteningly stupid they all are, and I mean stupid...because someone intelligent would at least have the humility to know what they do Not understand. Their ignorance of the desperation out here in the real world with the rest of us sub-millionaires is dangerous. And will only make it worse.
The riots will continue, the draconian sanctions will continue and I'm glad I'll be in NYC for a month soon, so I can at least miss some of the 'fun' fallout. Wait until the likely police complaints commission report that Duggan was shot for no reason. That should be a laugh riot (pardon the pun).
Excuse me while I foment class warfare. As if the war hadn't be started ages ago by the wealthy...Oh, it's such a sick joke. I'll stop ranting now.
They ARE stupid, yes. Even someone with 30 million pounds in the bank could say something valuable, and do something valuable, if s/he had the humility to listen. To listen genuinely, in order to learn. There were politicians in the past in Britain, Anthony Eden, the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain, who came from wealthy families but who had a very strong ethos of responsibility towards the less fortunate. This was impressed on them in childhood. During the First World War, when these men were officers, they showed a very genuine and PRACTICAL concern towards the (largely working-class) men in their charge. Nowadays that would be concerned paternalistic but at least they did show it, instead of kicking those people to the kerb and then having the temerity to tell them how mindless and sick they are for being angry.
ReplyDeleteSomeone was pointing out that people only cry "Class warfare!" when they think the underlings are criticising the overlings. So true. What Cameron and his merry crew are doing to lots of people in Britain right now really is class warfare. . .but it's not pointed out.
Panther
Are you still at the same address in London, Julia ? Please email me.