Truly living

Camping Balmweid, Meiringen, Switzerland June 26th 2010
A shared camping breakfast, one knife and a big jar of Nutella, smothered messily on dry crackers. A promisingly heavy grapefruit of perfect peachy complexion, slowly and deliberately peeled, then de-pithed, then each segment meticulously unwrapped at a huge stone table that harks of Aslan. All eaten in blinking bright sun surrounded by morning chatter of unfamiliar birds and the unseen splash clap and rush of glacial meltwater. Pop and squirt of sun cream. Turning a page of a long anticipated magazine. Nothing to rush for.


So I wrote this on a lovely day last month, planning to submit that and nothing more but now I want to add some of the wrestlings that I had with the theme of 'truly living'. Mostly I felt guilty and a bit defensive, because how can anyone truly live all the time? I know I don't. For the most part, people give a shit about what you do, and not what you don't do and so I should judge myself on the same basis. Some scritichings on the meaning 'truly living' (some drunken) from my notebook:

• taking chances, going outside comfort zone
• loving fully and freely
• doing it anyway
• is it that feeling of pining for the fjords?
• how much can I miss before I don't exist? (this is about me being here when you are there)
• make decisions in life instead of pottering through it
• yawping (see Dead Poet's Society)
• being active and engaged
• evidence of living isn't living
• more expression? more interaction? more listening? more hearing? more purpose? ......NOT more purpose! .......less purpose? ......more meaning?
• an essence, joi de vivre at every undertaking?
• using five senses at once
• 'if you want to sing out, sing out! If you want to be free, be free...'
• eating alfresco
• seething surging van gogh
• let it rumble let it roll. Let it flow, let it come out let it go. Let's go let's don't go let go let go.
• dancing with complete inhibition

After some contemplation I reached the happy conclusion that my aspirations for truly living are; loving freely, using what I've been given, enjoying simple pleasures, engaging with the world, breaking habits/taking chances and indulging curiosities.

TTFN
xx

Real Living..

Ok so I am sliding in by the skin of my teeth for this post....

The last few weeks have been really really tough. A month after leaving Elands we are still living out of suitcases and out of one bedroom, waiting for our place to be ready to move into. I could write a laundry list of things I am finding really difficult (by far the worst is that the baby doesn't sleep well) - but I think I will give myself a break from freaking out and instead write a list, and count my blessings (you will have to endure the American style cheesiness of such a list).

Really living, in no particular order:

Is a healthy family. Celebrating four years of Eyal is remission from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a healthy pregnancy, birth and awesome cute baby, and despite lack of sleep a healthy (able-to-breastfeed-no-worries) mama.

Is having helping hands around (thanks Eyal's mum!) so that I can get a couple of hours sleep here and there knowing the baby is in good hands.

Is watching Shiloh laugh and smile, watching Shiloh learn to shuffle herself around the place, watching Shiloh.

Is Eyal's older sister not only giving her old car car, but making an awesome mp3 mix so that everytime I drive somewhere I get a new theme (David Bowie/Madonna/Hip Hop/folk). And for giving me a little book with a list of cool people she knows (her friends) that live near where we will live and their phone number's.

Is good food, fresh fruit in the roadside stalls, fresh breads and cheeses everywhere in the supermarket and delis on every corner. The awesome Arab restaurant just metres from our house. That pickles come with every meal :).

Is having Calypso and all the awesome mums and friends in Australia that I can talk to.

Is being given a pram (thanks Jon and Jen!) and then on arrival in Israel friends giving us a baby car seat that fits into the pram!

Is Nicholas coming to visit in a matter of weeks, and all yous others might come visit sometime soon.

Is knowing that real soon Ru will be a dad.

Is having enough money, such that when I freak out my sweet heart can go out and buy me the entire series of West Wing to cheer me up.

Is airconditioning, because without it life would suck.


xxx peace out.

everyone is failing at posting stuff

what do you guys have lives or something. sheesh :):)

xx

Truly living... ho humm.

Its difficult because all i do is go to school, play soccer and sleep and that doesn't sound like truly living.

but then again i don't think i am missing out on a lot. Truly living for me is-

getting through double math on a monday morning by sticking text book pages together with vaseline.

Going to sleep at 12 and getting up at 5 in the morning to play soccer in tamworth

knowing that, even though i live in elands, i'll get to see my friends at school

watching hours and hours of friends. yeh it is truly living!

having shiloh's smile to think about when i am sad

still being a child enough for people to understand that I only smile and talk to my mums drunk/baked friends when i have to.

Facebook stalking

Travelling.

Being trusted by my parents way more then any of my friends trust them.

Having the major giggles with Sophie about absolutely nothing

excitment! squealing! jumping up and down. hugging.

Getting dressed up to go out to dinner with the girls, just cos we can

Laughing til my stomach hurts and a little bit of wee comes out.

Finding a new song or band that just makes you want to go wild. e.g killing in the name of

Having moments where i don't get annoyed or frustrated with my mum long enough to tell and ask her about our days.

That feeeling when you find out the person you like likes you back

trying new things.

i wanted to put photos for this post so i didnt think too much about what to write. but then i saw the next topic and i think photos would go down nicely for that:):)

i miss you sophie! and eyal.

xx

The theme for 1 August 2010 is: hittin' the dance floor

And your next theme is coming from Country Squire

Sorry to be late, but i thought that clypo started a great tradition!

country squire let us know what the theme is for this month.

thanks
jailo

The Dream and The Pact

What is the one resource that a General can never get back?

Time. Weapons, men, cities can all be taken back or regained, but time is gone forever. I'd like to say that's a quote from Art of War, but I think it's actually from Narnia or something crap like that.

Then we have "Time is money". I disagree with this one, it implies Money is the important resource, I prefer "Money is time". And this is where we start. Money is important because it buys you time.

So for me, really living is using my time how I want to and in ways that make me feel good, happy, content. This is almost always spending time with friends and family eating and enjoying ourselves. Unforunately we recently received a cease and desist from Greenpeace, ordering us not to have any more friends as the rapid northern migration of said friends is causing a tilt in the earth's axis.

(btw I sneakily backdated this post so it appears before the next topic)

And this is the problem. We are all living such different lives, leading in such different directions. But is there a convergence? Is it possible to have a convergence? Is it possible to have a time down the timeline where we can work out how to live such a similar life that we can cross paths more than twice a year if we're lucky?

From my perspective, and I think I'm lucky, the grass is always greener on My side of the fence. I'm comfortable where I'm at (this is also know as Lazy). When I'm in Elands I think what a great life I could have there, when I'm in Sydney I'm content and happy and can imagine having a great life here too. But I can see that Sydney is not so easy for anyone who doesn't have the great fortune to have a subsidised living arrangment.

I'm going to put my priorities out there in the hope that when you others read it you might see where we can meet on common ground.
1. Family - I think this is pretty obvious. I'm not going anywhere my family isn't.
2. Time - I'm not going to waste my life doing something I hate. I have to enjoy what I'm doing and use all my daily life well. I also want to be able to do what I want with my time, with as little restriction as possible. I suppose this is entirely selfishness.. but surely the point of living, as an individual, is to enjoy yourself?
3. Food - Yeah sure, you're all laughing now. But really ask yourself, could you put this list in any other order? Actually maybe some of you could... but by food I say good, healthy, enjoyable food. Could you take a job that pays stacks of money, but you have to eat McDonalds everyday, and be away from your family.. and you hate it there? Hmmm... Maybe I'm alone here.. but that's how I roll (and I probably will if I keep it this high in my priorities)
4. Money - As much as I hate to put this higher than the next priority, I'm trying to be as honest as possible. It's not about materialism, it's about investing in Future-time, when I'm unable to or not wanting to work. It's also about takes away restriction on time, as above. This does, however, have limits, and has to work in conjuction with all the other points.
5. Friends - It's horrible that this is below point 4 and perhaps this is where the problem is, but I'm trying to be realistic. If it were not below 4 I would have quit my job a long time ago, moved to Elands when everyone else was there, spent our savings on visiting those of you who are trying to topple the planet. Unfortunately we really do need money to enjoy our lives. As romantic as it sounds I don't know if I've got the self sustaining farmer life in me.
6. Travel - I just dig that shit.

Ok. So looking at the above, I look pretty bleak. I'm a family man, that's OK.. but then I'm a selfish, greedy, money hungry person who puts their friends (second) last. If I look at this list though, I think I'm pretty sorted. I don't think my family is going anywhere without me. I'm generally happy with what I'm doing, if I don't like it, I stop. Luckily, in Australia, we can have great food wherever we are, and the same is the case in most countries we're likely to go to. I've got a job that I enjoy and that pays reasonably well. It's the next two point where we start to hit the blockages.

I have to somehow work out how to make money (doesn't have to be a lot, but I have to be able to save, while living comfortably and enjoying what I do, and hopefully pay for overseas adventures) and get you bitches to be in the same fricken postcode, at
least the same first two digits.

This is where the Dream comes in. In and ideal world for ME, we'd all live within walking distance, maybe a pushbike ride or short drive, be earning plenty of money (doing something we enjoy, but with time to do all the other things we want), and be spend the rest of our time eating and preparing to eat, with the occassional (or not so occasional) trip overseas. Preferably with the rest of you.

Is this possible? Unfortunately I don't have zombie friends and I have to ask, persuade, cojole. So I'm going to ask some questions, if you have time, perhaps you could answer and maybe we can seek convergence.

1. Do you share this dream?
2. Do you believe it is possible?
3. Is Australia the place for this to happen? (other suggestions welcome)
4. Is Elands the place for this to happen? (other suggestions welcome)
5. How important is location to you? Do you need aspects of the city/country/ocean/mountain?
6. Would we get shit bored in Elands, if not how many of us would have to go back for us not to get shit bored?
7. WTF can we do for money?

So. If we are even close to any sort of convergence, I'd like to propose a pact, maybe a soft pact, like a goal really. Let's just say Elands is the place. We could propose to try it, all at the same time for 6 months in, say, 2 years, or something similar.

Thoughts? Pipe dreams?

truly living is

Truly living is talking to my dad about Juliet’s SnowMan, telling me how he is thinking about buying a computer, hearing about my sister’s second pregnancy and feeling the cold of the mountain, when it is 34c in Colombo.

Truly living is when a dream that held my head in a soup of expectation is so close I can taste it on the tip of my tongue, as a word that you know but can’t speak. Since before I could know the reality of it, this dream has been with me, some would say a scar of inappropriate parenting.

While, those that are truly live would call it planting seeds. Growing inside me and sometimes filling my throat like watermelon so I cant help but gulp, gulp at smell of mountain air, feel the scrabbly ground under my feet, the feeling of a sore neck from looking up in awe all day.

This dream has ebbed and flooded the mud flats of my life, leaving me wanting and bare, desolate but fragile, usually while living in a city where I tend to forget the nuance of green and learn obscene things like bus timetables. But then when I could sneak away to a glen or get drunk and lay in gutters I would lookup at the skyscrapers and mistaken them for mountain peaks, shrouded in clouds of the monsoon or take the broom of the street sweeper for a Yak. But then snapped back, rather rudely, reality would flood in, and I would be sitting at my computer on Monday morning, yawning and wondering what happened to the 72 hours that were all mine but just got left behind.

Finally I escape from my own self importance and uncertainties and find I’m here sitting at my little portal to the unreal world, plugged in and pounding away at the shining keyboard where my fingers have etched my expression, my education and brought me back to the people that love me for the last 4 years. The beats of the dubbed freak brothers cat got me wiggling in my seat, head boppin and face sopping with tears for the expectation of joy.

For what I’ve been given brought up in the boughs of life’s tree, fed on the love of community and had my heart synced to the musicians beat with a little bit of marvel with the magicians feats. From radio fed stories about the world, to impromptu camping trips and nights where we couldn’t sit down for fear of falling asleep. Here in on this emerald island, abounding in dreams of its own, about to bounce.

Almost 29 years after leaving in my mothers whom I am set to return home to Nepal. Kind of like that song “my island home” but “my mountain home” (yes that cheesy). Stories past from a mother to a son are few and far between, a keen mind will take them and get tangled up in their blanket to keep warm from the cold sparsity of limited common ground. This is how I came to hear that I was found in the mountains, my little soul came along at just the right time (or actually at that time, it was the wrong time for my parents). I often wonder how it happened, or how it happens millions of times a day, and even after evolutionary biology I am nothing but furtherer away from understanding, but maybe its more about accepting.

Did my soul just come wandering along a winding path that night, looking for a tea house with a light on? Had it been following my parents, could it tell that they were ready to bear fruit, did it know, as Dad says, that; it would just take one good root!

Anyways, that’s history now, the hour is nigh, the plane will fly and I will land back in the hands of the mountain gods, and the knowing can’t keep the smile of my weathered face. Ragged and wild with the flood of dream filled nights, rationality is gone as cool mountain air already blown by the fan to quench the heat of the tropics, makes me shiver.

A sliver of light, only two more sleeps, and a few more weeks and I will be there, deep in the valley, standing outside that tea house, hoping to find where that little soul strolled from, and if there isn’t but a cup of tea waiting there for me.
Cause I beguest to believe that truly living is understanding where I come from and being able to able to

Drip like honey from the honey bee
Walk from the river down to the sea
Fly through the face of a thunder cloud
Rain down, down on the people who will allow

The missing is hurting like a broken bone, being so far from home. This is knowing that dreams don’t come without having to put out some lights of opportunity.
Truly living is, choosing. From dad telling me that he knows he is to old and doesn’t have enough time left to build a boat but just thinking about it is enough to keep him afloat.

Truly living is knowing that I can and am going to build my own boat, as the dreams are passed from generation to generation like the stories of old.

Camel Dreaming of Self

Last night I rode the river of a million years back to now.
It was a crashing aquamarine crystal and white water wake up . Before it happened I was drowsing in a warm bed beside my friend who suddenly had woken restlessness and told us all that this was the only way. We had to leave immediately everything behind in the future including our clothes. We had risk it all and jump into the raging current of eternity.
So I woke up back here, a million years ago, naked. I'd landed on a quartz and ochre rock bed with a pleading song pouring down on my head in a future-airfall (like a waterfall but full of only air from the future that is full of future songs).
The song filled my lungs and I was belting it out unselfconciously. I was naked, unawares and singing on the rocks! Then a delicious familiar smell brought to my senses, it was warm, milky camel calf's breath.
"Ahhh, back here again", I thought, as the baby camel nudged at my shoulder, licked my ear and bit my hair to see if it was edible. So I pulled myself together, gathered all my etherial bodies in. Me and the camels made a nice cooking fire for brewing warm beverages for me and the other refugees from the future who'd made a camp together. We cooked some chapatis and ate them with butter and honey to help us cope with the shock.
You'll be seeing more and more of this kind of thing, we could tell you, but that would be getting ahead of ourselves.

Truely living..

Everybody dies but only some people truly live.. What is truly living for you?

Hmmmm. Thats a tough question – and one that is understandably inspired by one living in India at the moment!
It is instantly interesting in considering this question to notice what the answer is for other people. Not just in the neighbourly sense but internationally – culturally (hence the Indian influence). It is possibly one of the most fundamental of human queries – what makes a life 'worth' living – what is truly living? I reckon that your culture certainly has an influence – like if you are a poor African you perhaps consider 'truly' living simply surviving – or if you are in a war zone, or a woman in a fundamental Muslim culture or a gay man in religious family etc etc. Your day to day circumstances certainly influence what you value – like the personal evolutionary version of the dawn of agriculture allowing culture and the arts, philosophy et al to flourish.
I am quick to assume that dissection of the intricacies of being alive are a wealthy privileged indulgence – although a quick thought back to seeing babbas on the shores on the Ganga Ma (Ganges River) in Varansai remind me that its not at all about wealth but a state of mind.
But I ramble.
What is truly living?
I highly highly value freedom. But what/how do I define freedom? I suppose its about being free to do with my life as I choose on a day to day, week to week basis. I react strongly to the fear of being confined – by work, by politics, by fear...
My path for myself – which I am not necessarily successful at – is to follow passion and inspiration regardless of challenge.
If I am faced with choices in the forks in life's path my default is to 'follow the butterflies”
If I am confused (which I find pretty well a given!) I believe in considering the options and trying to take the path that gives me butterflies of excitement in my tummy..
This can be a challenge as the butterflies rarely hang about with the easiest or most sensible option – but we know for sure only of this life and I am keen to try and not waste it in idleness, laziness or fear of the unknown.
Sooo.... ramble ramble.
A life truly lived for me (in today's opinion anyway!) is a life lived with butterflies. :)
Ps. Oh! And I think to plant a lovely heritage of trees in your wake is very cool too.

Truly Living

Kickin it with Maia Mei. 4 weeks and 6 days old. Doyles River.