Signs of Semiotic Ghosts

Normally I post a picture of dad on this day, but i am actually in situ for once, among my family, so the memorial pic will folow once i am back in the vicinity of my scanner.
Whoever is around on the anniversary of dad's deathe gathers around the tree und which some of his ashes lie and takes part in the ritual of drinking champagne and tipping a a bit on the stem to be soaked up by the bark before it reaches the ground.
I also spoke to his oldest friend from school, had a few with the neighbours in front of whom dad collapsed and ate more chocolate than atrictly necessary, all out of piety...

I miss him often. I loved him very much. Many of his ways live on in me and I'm glad. Off to ring another dear friend of his now, who loved him for 25 years of m life and is the loneliest of us left behind, quite probably.

Yours somewhat disjointedly ...

I'm writing a letter to my godmother Mutz, who's always been an important person in my life. She used to arrive with laundry baskets full of books for me from the library, where she was the librarian. She let me read disappear into the stacks, arrange three stools in a row and laze around reading all comics available (considered inappropriate literature by my mother, due to the speech bubbles being seen as limiting proper expression - what did they know?). She used to stay that she was eating some extra bread and butter so I could be carried more comfortably on her hip. She was ample, and allowed chocolate, and smelled of patchouli and lived in a city with museums to which we went, joyfully.
When I was visiting with her, I could be whoever I wanted, however I wanted, not feeling I needed to please (story of my life otherwise) and stuff whatever I wanted into the ever-greedy maw of my mind.

Now she's in the hospice, dying of cancer, angry with the world. She has never quite felt understood and wanted, and she suffers the regrets of a life some of which she hasn't had the chance to live. She always made me feel understood and wanted, me and the generations of children and adults who came to her library and left with their lies a bit richer than when they came in.

I'm writing her letter at the moment, saying some of those things, though I hope she knows.

To imagine a world and her not in it is beyond me.

Dear all,

I hope this finds you in good spirits and in enjoyable company!

I’m trying to settle down enough to write the traditional Yule missive with the aid of a compilation of seasonal music put together by a bookcrossing friend now many years ago, when I’d expressed a desire for just such a thing which was shortly followed by a CD in the post. It’s not the night-before-the-last-posting-date, and I won’t drink on a school night, so the wit and wisdom brought on by brinkmanship and a glass of red might be strangely absent.

If this sounds like a person you haven’t previously associated with myself, I’m deeply offended by the besmirching of my virtue you thus imply. I am indulging some of my vices a bit less these days, as I decided to embark on project Body Beautiful in May. I spotted a momentary period of feeling relatively settled with the occasional fleeting glimpse of adequacy at work and joined a weight loss outfit to maintain my ritual self humiliation quota. I’ve since lost 22 kilos (48lbs or 3.5 stone in old money) and decided I might as well try to go all the way to an officially normal weight, but that’ll still be a while. (High time that –something- was officially normal about me). I’ve been going to the gym more and doing that dreaded thing of “building more exercise into my daily routine,” something that’s actually worked out nicely in that, on the way home, I get off the train a couple of stations early, hare along 5 miles of river path on my bicycle and then get on the final leg of my journey. I’m going to the gym more and I’m eating smaller portions of largely whatever I fancy, aiming for the lower-at end of things. I’m not going to turn into a diet bore – I still love food, all of shopping, cooking and eating it, I’m just making some more room.

I’m still noticing the difference after qualifying now two years and a bit ago – I have time for projects, such as going out and creeping all over falling-down former military installations (see the Orford Ness Album on the link in the header). I got my first photo published in a book on found faces and a friend’s and my first learned article in a journal that functions as a forum for clinical psychologists. I also see my friends again, sometimes, but I'm pretty insular these days, in that by evening/weekend, I'm often all talked/listened out. I don’t see many people, I don’t see any often and those friends I've managed to hold on to are those that can put up with me occasionally sticking my nose in a book in social gatherings.
I’m about to finally put in my application for British citizenship – the cost (nearly £1000 by the time fees and passport are paid for) put me off for most of the year, but as I’ve made my home here, I’ve decided to go ahead with it. (I suspect sod’s law will have me called on to interminable jury service for a drawn-out, yet not very interesting trial as soon as I am a subject of her majesty’s ;)).

When I asked for suggestions about what to put in this year’s letter, somebody said how lovely it would be to hear what it was little to feel more settled in professionally. In a way, I am, but things have changed so much in the past year that in many more ways, I’m not. I got a new job recently, much of which is with my existing teams, but also the new opportunity of working two days per week in mental health rehab. I’m looking forward to it, but also somewhat apprehensive – I have a good grounding in rehab from my training days, but I’m definitely going to stay in a state of not-knowing-enough. Having trainees also helps with that, as they keep me on my toes. I’m looking into further therapy trainings, some of them more achievable in the shorter term than others, but interesting, and helpful for my patients, and something to aim for. I suspect one of the pathologies within myself that I’m unlikely to shift any time soon is that of the compulsive acquirer of potentially helpful information […]
A number of others have suggested a pirate-related theme for this year's round robin when I asked about what people wanted to know. So here I am, musing about the importance of pirates in the lives of several dear friends, geeky and non-geeky, bookcrossers or otherwise. I remember my introduction to the concept of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, on the occasion of a magnificent treasure hunt through London, when I met some lovely new friends by joining the Dangermice team (There were T-shirts and everything!), getting spectacularly lost and having a grand time during and after, when we all went to the pub. But for me, it started much earlier - I've remembered at least one carnival where I enthusiastically dressed up as a pirate with a particularly fetching tri-corn hat and drawn-on moustache (credit is herewith given to the two friends who have just raised money by growing one them during “Movember” for testicular cancer awareness). Also, there's a picture of me in an inflatable canoe as a toddler, with the the caption "She -loves- boats. No wonder, considering what her father is like!" The only shared holidays I can remember with dad evolved around being by or on the water - the incident in Denmark, with said inflatable canoe and some shots of me enthusiastically trying to crawl right into a wave, the learning-to-sail holiday on a large lake near Munich and his visit when I was spending a year on the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada. I' never noticed this common thread, but it seems obvious now.
There, I was attempting to write about pirates and have written about dad instead, but in a way, it isn't "instead." So many things I associated with pirates also link to dad - he taught me about knots, and a little bit about boats, he could talk like a pirate (Arrrrrrrrrrrh!) and he'd trained on a tall ship as a young marine officer cadet; he spent much of his retirement translation maritime-related novels and grumbling about how the author had clearly got this or that manoeuvre wrong or had not used the right term for this or that piece of equipment and then carefully putting it right, consequently earning rather less per page and doing rather better translations than anyone relying on this kind of thing for money. That's something else I have inherited - I really enjoy doing translations, doing them as well as I am able, for the fun of it, as well as in the guise of an occasional paid piece. I watched Master and Commander a while ago, and each creak of rope and whistle of wind in a friend's surround sound system made me feel on the ship, in a visceral sense I haven't quite experienced before. I kept thinking of how much dad would have liked it, how much fun it would have been to watch it with him, but in a fond, bittersweet sort of way.

As for the other pirate-related things, the ones that I suspect the mischievous commenters were -really- going on about, I am herewith volunteering to be a beautiful, screaming damsel in a highly impractical dress with several skirts. I offer to be in need of rescue from a multiply-mouthed, tentacled denizen of the deep fathoms below while simultaneously being about to fall of a cliff AND abducted by some dastardly officers hoping to blackmail the captain into giving himself up. Any takers, please send the dress – I’ll try my best about the beautiful and the screaming bits.

I’ll be in Germany for Christmas with my mother and sister, and back in England for Hogmanay with the lovely C. and some of our friends. I’ll be raising a glass to absent or departed friends and thinking of you.

All the best to you and yours!

What I like about travel by boat and train is a sense of the distance covered that somehow eludes me when flying, despite seeing countries zipping past below. The somewhat ponderous chugging of the ferry followed by the zippy passage across a chunk of Europe with long hours of landscape dulating and undulating (why does "dulate" not exist as a word? I think it should) gives me an impression of chilled-out vastness not otherwise easily conveyed by fairly densely populated western countries. Geographical distance is accompanied by its temporal companion, in the sense of separation by time. I think one of the reasons why I am rediscovering this form of travel is due to its gift of time inherent in the distance, time where very little demand is placed on my attention beyond basic politeness when facing those whose lives are momentarily intersecting with mine on our journeys (I know even that could be omitted without lasting consequences, but that's just not me). Still, it's a buffer between the intense interpersonal attention of my working life and the (occasionally loved) necessity of paying a similar kind of attention when I'm with my family this Yule. "Paying" attention is the right word - attention is a limited capital for me, easily spent and not so easily reacquired.
I recently talked with a psychiatrist friend about this lack of attention, theirs and mine, and our coping strategies. On a normal day, I almost meet the criteria for adult ADHD, on a stressful day with too many competing demands, I meet them. I was considering medication, we looked at the evidence and potential consequences and decided against it for now. My brain almost constantly feels as if it's running well below capacity, with major effort required to ramp up to capacity for an instant or two before it shrivels back again like a previously overextended rubber band. People hear this and feel driven to point out that I have two doctorates and thus, to them, can't be all that handicapped by whatever might be going on in terms of limited focus. My feeling is entirely subjective, I can't supply them wih evidence of what it is actually like, the implication is that I am lucky to function as I do, and that's right in many ways. What I am describing is also part of the Human Condition, it's just the extent that feel different, in very specific ways. I can concentrate on a movie, or a conversation, but I have great difficulty concentrating on writing and noticeable difficulty concentrating on writing.
I hear you say that I clearly appear to be concentrating on this blog post, but I've been at this for over an hour and I've had coffee, which definitey works as a short term attentional stimulant, even if this effect were solely based on association. Also, by the time you read this, I am likely to have edited it, while still managing to over-look a lot of typos, as well as pondering whether it says what I need it to say and whether I can post it openly on my blog, which has gradually become associated with my real name thanks to the vagaries of the internet and a bookcrossing friend who gave my online name with my real name in her blog quite a few years ago.

...but I am feeling halfway there at the moment, just too much to do and too little time to think. I know this kind of thing ebbs and flows, but it's been mostly flowing for the past couple of months.

There is of course the dastardly temptation of facebook/google+ with their short updates, where nobody expects more than a few words. I'm a woman of many words rather than few though, so I haven't quite given up on blogging yet.

One of my dad's old friends told me recently that she spent a few hours reading back on this blog (and she would have only been able to see the unlocked posts); I was flattered by her attention and her comments, and reminded of how much I like thinking out loud on here, so Ebba, this goes out to you!

I'm running/ telling a story in a roleplaying campaign at the moment, which absorbs what little creative juices I have remaining after a week at work. I've gone with Mage the Awakening (2nd edition, for the fellow geeks among you) and I'm enjoying it, but also hating it - being the storyteller means I don't get to switch off and just lose myself in a character, but it's lovely to see what I come up and out with nonetheless. (This may also be the case for my everyday life...).

I do these every couple of years or so, to see where things have shifted, and where they haven't. It's a fairly well-validated test these days, or so I hear, but I've never bothered actually chasing it up. I find it an interesting way to look in the mirror, though it is, as always filtered through language in the first place and my self-perception and its biases on top of that!









Do you recognise yourself in the descriptions when you do these?

...for it is truly a lovely thing to do. Let me explain.

The current outside temperature is just over 66 F; the water temperature in the local out-door, olympic size swimming pool is 77 F.
Neither are very appealing when a girl hastens through one to the other clutching a towel-bearing carrier bag; the latter soon to be rolled up under a bench, for the skies have been changing from roiling to tufted blue in ten minute intervals.The outside shower, nominally at pool temperature, is a minor rite of passage, as it is the thought of this which needs to be overcome when one is to swim after a hasty tip-toe from the changing booths. (I assume some of you love swimming in incy lakes and seas, I'm quite fond of my icy seas, one has to be, in her Majesty's United Kingdom, but I will only frolick happily in such if the sun is blazing down, I'm not 'ard enough for anything else, unless it's wading in knee-high iciness like Kneipp http://altmedicine.about.com/od/therapiesfrometol/a/hydrotherapy.htm devotees like to do.)
In any case, once those physical and psychological barriers to bracing exercise are overcome, the pool is lovely, especially with only five other swimmers (for my dad, any more than two was an intolerable crowd, he only used to go on truly awful days).
I started swimming my lengths, not particularly quickly (I manage 1000 meters in half an hour of mixed breastroke and front crawl and know of a least one colleague who manages about three times as much in 45 minutes), stretched out my left shoulder, which has been playing up due some muscular thing or other for weeks now and watched the other hardy perenials, none under sixty, who were engaged in their daily constitutionals. (Does a "constitutional" only ever refer to a walk, or can it be used for any form of regular exercise?).
Then it began to rain, first with significant gaps between the drops and then with admirable vigour. A hissing sussuration accompanied each stroke, more muted in the underwater phase and sharper when I was taking each breath. Whenever my shoulder or shoulders emergend from the water, large, cool drops landed with considerable force. The frequency increased and a fine haze emerged from the surface, obscuring all but the most immediate vision above water, making me feel all alone in the vast expanse until I went under to exhale and was able to recognise another figure in the distance.
A thunderstorm started up just before I was finished, and everybody was drummed out of the water.

I've been thinking about identity and class, partly as a result of a discussion I recently had with a colleague. I realise I seek, adapt and sometimes adopt trappings like a form of protective colouring, but maybe that's the wrong term because I'm not trying to hide, per se. Instead, part of me relishes it, like I used to relish the heavy-duty cardboard box in my family's home, the dress-up box used for stuff during the carnival season and just for fun, old dresses and heavy velvets, bits of fabric and strange accoutrements, all with a not-unpleasant cellar smell. I wonder whether, or, rather, realise that I have dressed up as a therapist in a similar way when I started. I mean, I bought tweed trousers and a Filofax, contemplated a twin-set, if that doesn't count as over the top therapisty-ness, I don't know what does.
I've adopted Radio 4 for other, yet also assimilative reasons probably as much related to my longing to belong to a corner of Middle England as to the indubitably excellent programming. My colleague classified one of my other colleagues as another listener, linking it to being too far removed from the reality we are dealing with every day; I don't agree with him, but I can see where he is coming from, the limited relevance it may have to to the problems and the world as experienced by our patients. What I've realised is that Radio 4, at least some of it, is my break from my everyday life, my indulgence of my longing for a place in the Intelligentsia, another education acquired just by-the-by, while listening to the radio. (I'm not disputing the relevance and realness of the many excellent news programmes and documentaries, but I confess to switching to Radio 2 after Any Questions, because while that involves eloquent, opinionated people, the Any Answers involves inarticulate, opinionated people and I hove no patience for that, even though it is very real.)
What I read, see and listen to becomes part of my identity and, I realise, part of whatever social class I may find myself in. Somebody once told me I was upper class because my parents had inherited (a lot of their) furniture from their parents, but I don't think it can be as easy as that, certainly not if the family includes a live-in maternal grandmother who, understandably, brought her furniture to the jointly-built family home. I wonder what effect education has on perceived class- am I automatically a member if the middle class by virtue of having acquired one? Does it matter that I admire people more if they were the first in their families to go on to higher education, because I believe that's harder? Does that make me patronising, albeit unintentionally? What class are you in, or feel part of, and why?