Reflection and brunch at Paul's Bakery

"I believe sometimes we aren't always in charge of everything that we do creatively.  We submit to things as we're going on our own journey."  Madonna

I have continued to have a somewhat 'up, down, up, down' existence lately, trying to change my attitudes to things, trying to alter my perspective and, above all, stay in the present.  But there's something about the human brain and the way it perceives time that can mean you can't out-run your personal history.  You can try to focus on the present, but what do you do when an old song comes on on the radio in a cafe or shop?  Music is that powerful that the things you associated with a song from the past can come flooding back at you.  

If music is the industry you're involved in, your work is continually informed by the past.  Songs that refused to let themselves be finished sometimes come back and ask to be looked at again.  Ideas started with no funding to finish get overlooked for other things you can afford to complete and the result is thread after thread of notes and pictures, vocal melody lines and chord sequences pulling you back, just when you hoped you were finally moving forwards.

Thankfully, by escaping to Paul's bakery for brunch this morning, I'm only being reminded of quirky French singers and they haven't started playing Maxime le Forestier yet, so I'm safe.  I needed to get out of the house.  As a writer/self-employed person working from home, you soon realise that getting out of the house from time to time is an absolute necessity and one that cannot be avoided purely on a "but I need to save money!" basis.  It doesn't work.  The extra productivity that comes from getting out and eating elsewhere so you don't have to deal with the washing up afterwards saves untold time and energy.

   

They've spruced up the place too, which is lovely (though my photo came out blurred) and they've now got nice chairs that remind me of the antique ones my ex-Swedish teacher has in her converted barn in the middle of nowhere in northern France. So I feel more at home now.

And what's really ridiculous is, the architect has had some good news on the job front, so I really am going to be going on a US road trip and I really will get to stay in San Francisco and see the Golden Gate bridge and see the sea and be free of Europe for almost a month, starting in Chicago in a month's time!  It is really happening.  And it really is my life in which this miraculous stuff will be taking place....I need to pinch myself!

Maybe the songs will come back, unhampered by debilitating emotional attachments.  Maybe they'll call me back in a new way.  Maybe I'll even write some interesting stories about my encounters with people there.  I'll certainly take some pictures to have proof.  

Things are looking up.  For now.

August, money and Madonna

August has set in as a mean and nasty month determined to eliminate my savings by disrupting my timetable and encouraging everyone to stop work and suspend meetings so I don't get paid.  I knew this might happen but July lulled me into a false sense of security that nothing too bad would really occur.  Now I'm haemorrhaging meet-ees at a rate of knots and I'm getting little warning of it, so my timetable lies in tatters and my sleep pattern is screwed and I end up being exhausted as a result, even when I've had a little bit more sleep than usual.  

I even mistakenly finished a meeting almost half an hour early today and sent my meet-ee on her way ahead of time due to this lapse in brain function.  But she's not coming back till September now (or never) so I'll have time to get over my embarrassment.  I really am losing the plot due to all these re-arrangements.  I can't be trusted to know what day of the week it is, let alone what time I'm due to finish a meeting.

And to cap it all, I am in that stage of longing for things to get a bit easier because I've been so careful all month not to spend too much money and to keep accepting new meet-ees even at inconvenient times.  A month of doing this has ensured I can pay the rent, but little else.  This is just at a time when I am being reminded one way or another how normal people with disposable incomes live.  Those kinds of people could treat themselves to a flamboyant glass vase and some flowers to put in it, or some new underwear, shoes and bags.  Those kinds of people do not have to re-sew a gaping hole in the bag they've had for about three years, use old wine bottles as either candlesticks or vases (or both) and scrounge paper from their boyfriend's office from time to time because notebooks are getting rather pricey these days.  The same kinds of people do not need to worry about whether they've got enough money to take the metro a second time this week or if they've been hasty in thinking they could afford to try that pilates class with a friend on Thursday.

What a weight must be taken from your shoulders when none of those things are any great concern.  What great levity is theirs to be able to afford clothes from high street shops and not just charity shops (or 'boutiques', as the Swedish fairy godmother creatively calls them) and be able to go for a coffee and slice of cake afterwards.  Why is the fact that I am not one of those people and that I have no hope of ever being one of those people, unless I can radically change my career (and we all know how well that's been going over the last twelve years or so, don't we?) such a hauntingly troublesome, and indeed traumatic, thought for me?

In light of all of this, I did what I always do:  I did my aerobics to Madonna songs and pranced around like a teenager who's convinced she is Madonna (with a certain amount of flair, I might add...) and proved to myself that even if I'm a total failure, I can still do high kicks and fast turns and salsa dancing moves like a pro.  Don't say I'm not at least trying to stay fit as long as possible to, if nothing else, give myself a few extra years to pretend that there's still hope for me and my career aspirations yet.

A fool and his money may well soon be parted, but a fool and her pipe-dreams are, on the other hand, rarely prised apart.  At least not for long enough to prevent her from ever dancing to Madonna's very own divorce song, 'Til Death Do Us Part' (featuring expertly mimed reaction to being hit in the face [or 'contemporary dance interpretation' of] to coincide with the breaking glass sound-effect) again.