Snow, rock gods and smoke

Dear Reader,

It's snowing again. After a bout of mild weather, I felt the temperature drop as I came out of a gig on Thursday. I had gone to see the producer friend of mine's rock band play, as I'd never had a chance to see them before. It was at the Prague Rock Cafe, which happens to be just under Cafe Louvre, but in the basement instead. So it was easy to get to and, surprisingly resembled any rock venue in London with the whole dingy, drab atmosphere and furnishings, cheap but awful drinks and very loud music. However, there is one difference with London now that I had forgotten about: the smoke. Ironically, the place occasionally referred to as the 'big smoke' doesn't actually have much smoke, at least not in its restaurants and bars, anymore. And I have to say, I miss that smoking ban here in Prague. 

It's kind of annoying to have got ready to go out (usually involving washing my hair) and put on some nice 'going out' clothes, only to know that I will come back with every part reeking of smoke when I return so that the clothes will have to go straight into the washing basket and my hair will need washing again in the morning. It's almost a disincentive to go out in the first place. The other irony, was that the lead singer/producer guy had given up smoking for the new year and was really kind of cranky (though he did say so himself) as a result. It didn't help that (possibly) his lack of Czech didn't endear him to the sound engineer and they had several problems with low, rumbling or screechy feedback during the gig. Still, it was good to experience the kind of music they do. It was a typically West Coast kind of road trip rock most of the time, with some grunge elements thrown in and a performance from the female keyboardist that was reminiscent of San Francisco-like hippie sensibilities. Quite a mixture all in all, rounded off with a strange version of 'Sweet Home Alabama' changed rather unimaginatively, and not exactly poetically, to 'Sweet Home Czech Republic'.

The name of the country itself causes huge problems. Saying, "the Czech Republic" all the time becomes quite tedious, and the Czechs themselves have solved this problem by referring to it as ,Česko', as in the first part of the name of the country as was in the past when they were still one country with Slovakia, i.e. ,Československo'. But it just doesn't seem to have caught on into an English version.

Anyway dear reader, in the meantime, I'm busy today writing meaningless romance advice articles (yes, they're paying me for it!) and battling with various health issues too tedious to go into detail over and hoping that it won't be snowing quite so much tomorrow when I have to leave the house at 7.15am. The pathways here are better in snow than in ice though, so maybe it won't be too bad even if it is still snowing....

May the rock gods be with you,

Ms. Plaform Edge.

Autumnal grumblings and a nasty cold

Autumn has set in with a cloudy, mist-filled vengeance and gloom and darkness now seem to be the order of the day. Even here in Prague. Consequently, in my over-enthusiasm to workout harder in my aerobics sessions to develop strength and avoid colds, I miscalculated the difference in temperature in this flat and exercised without a jacket to begin with, and got a cold. Or was it just the stress of never knowing when I'll have time to myself these days and a lack of soothing candles and lights and things that make me go mmmm...?

This cold has been particularly nasty and I'm only just getting better, but in my slowness to recover, I've bought myself some time to do some much needed ground work in trying to build up meet-ee numbers again as well as get better paid writing work and improve my website to be more of a showcase of all my areas of work. So I guess I've been working hard without realising it. As usual. I even got out to a networking event. God forbid. Actually, I surprised myself and actually followed-up a couple of acting related contacts. Joining one more casting agency can't do any harm I suppose.

In the last few weeks, the cowboy and I have managed to get out for another couple of mushroom-picking trips, which has made me an above average foreigner when it comes to recognising edible varieties.  This, for example, is edible:

These, on the other hand, are not.

See, expert, right?

Well, not exactly. But at least I'm occasionally capable of picking the right ones so that not everything I gather has to be discarded. Although sometimes, the ensuing mushroom soup with potatoes that the cowboy has made, has given me the worst tummy ache ever. And you do not want to know the side effects of that. I shall not go in to such matters. Ugh. 

The gorgeous autumnal trees and colours of the leaves have been cheering me up though. 

And having a nasty cold has given me a good excuse to curl up in bed more and catch up on some old David Attenborough documentaries. Which is soothing, fascinating and in the case of the mole-rat things that live underground and gnaw away at soil to make their burrows, disgusting all at the same time. The platypus was just amazing though.

Incompatibility, fantasy and time travel - (two days for the price of one!)

There was a hint of autumn in the air on Friday.  Not in the temperature, like the chill in the air that came about a couple of weekends ago, but in the appearance of the landscape.  The sky was cloudy but it was still warm.  Hot infact, despite Thursday night's storm.  

As I walked back up the hill from Václavske náměstí I noticed the yellow leaves all across the path of the little park by the museum and they were still being blown off the tree as a gust of wind pushed them right towards me.  

It was strange to see that without the accompanying cold feeling.

There's something about the onset of autumn that kind of scares me even though I am a winter baby and I have better winter and autumn clothes than summer ones.   I think it must be to do with both the sense of horror of that 'back to school' feeling that has somehow never left me and also that dread of the dark mornings that are worse here because everyone starts work at 8am and getting up at 6am is distinctly worse than getting up at 7am.  Particularly when the nature of my type of work usually dictates working evenings too, so there is no corresponding end of the working day at 4pm to compensate for the early starts.  Which I hate.  I really don't do well on 6 hours' sleep.

Maybe it's also the reality of the fact that September, October and November don't bring anything to look forward to.  Funds are so low that I can't plan a really sumptuous evening meal out somewhere I can dress up for.  Maybe it's partly because the cowboy doesn't know how to savour anything.  When I do make an effort to buy a nice bottle of wine for us and a good film to watch, for example, he gulps down the wine in a bid to finish it because it's Saturday night and the next evening we'd be driving back to Prague.  (And on Friday nights we're just too tired from all that 'only 6 hours' sleep a night' problem.)   He somehow doesn't think it's safe to put the cork back in and bring the rest of the bottle back with us.  So he always wants to finish it off, whereas I'd rather savour it and enjoy sitting on the sofa with him, relishing a quiet moment of peace and a bit of a romantic atmosphere.

But maybe it's been my fault that I haven't managed to find good enough films to watch that suit his taste.  Or maybe it's because the flat is missing the black shiny piano and soft woollen throw for the sofa that would make me feel truly welcome.  Maybe I just want too much.  Or we're just too different.  For example, he never listens to music except in the car, is always (almost constantly in fact) watching TV and he likes to wear super-casual clothes for walking in, while I like dressing up a bit.  Except, even when I do have an opportunity where he would want me to dress up, he always finds something that's not posh enough about me.  Like my shoes are a bit too scuffed or I haven't had my hair cut in over 6 months because I can't afford it.  Or the posh dress I'm in is the same one he's seen me in before because I never have enough money to spend on clothes and certainly never on a really good dress.

I think it's really the lack of piano that makes all the difference.  Then I'd put on a posh dress and heels and drink red wine and play my heart out all night.  Until the cowboy realises that the heels are damaging the wood floor as I'm pedalling at the piano and orders me to take them off.

----

Saturday:

The thing about the homogenisation of shopping areas, cafe chains and department stores is that you now can't tell where you are at first glance.  Everywhere looks the same.  I could be in London, Prague or even Chicago.  (But for the missing American flags that would be the one main difference in the latter.) And in some cases, you can't tell when  you are.  In the Czech Republic, for example, the clothes store C&A never went bankrupt, so I can sit in a generic coffee chain cafe and look across at the C&A shop front in this shopping mall and this could even be London, circa 1998.  Somehow there are things my brain is willing to take on as true, when logically they cannot be.  This cannot be 1998.  And no matter how many times my brain half-sees it, ex-partner cannot be the next older guy coming around the corner.  He's not here.  He doesn't even live in Prague.  He doesn't love me anymore.  He doesn't even look like him anymore.  Not the him I knew.  That version of him has gone and been replaced by a body double with a few more years behind him, an earring and a bunch of tattoos I'm not convinced make him look edgy and rock 'n' roll, but rather more 'sailor dude'.

So why does my mind trick me like this and imagine him being about to pop in and find me after he's just been to get something in another shop? It's as though my brain is capable of erasing the last 4 or so years and can just take me back to the beginning of 2008 when things still had a chance for improvement.  A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.  I must confess, I still try to buy bottles of wine from 2008, as though doing that might supplant me into a better, more optimistic time and space.  And yet I know, deep down, that our relationship could never be absolutely right.  Even one that caused me to feel, as Alina Reyes puts it in her book, 'When You Love, You Must Depart', "I know that I love him because with him I have fun.  A simple walk in town becomes a real party, the world is a universe overflowing with dreams to be realised, with people and places that are either extraordinary or infamous, but never unimportant, with him everything is funnier and larger than life, with him, everything, everything is better", wasn't enough.  It was a relationship that cut me off from some quite important things.  And towards the end, it did not make me feel the above scenario at all.

But neither does being with the cowboy.  I don't normally feel that places are transformed when I am with him.  They are simply the same.  Sometimes they even feel more restricted because of him.  Sometimes however, on a rare special occasion that no-one planned, we find in the midst of a totally uninspiring location, that we can have a good laugh about something within our experience that takes us away from the drudgery, that transports us from the mundane world surrounding us and reminds us that we are not trapped here.  That we can go home and have a laugh or get on a plane and hire a car and drive across a foreign country and muddle through together pretty well and at least still be alive by the end of it.  He and I haven't had a lot of laughs lately, that's true, and I have been having a prolonged bout of homesickness for London as well as, strangely, for New York and Chicago, but there was that one redeeming moment last night when I felt like the place we were in was better and less damning because of our being together and I would never have wanted to be there alone.  And that's got to count for something.

Homeless...

I have finally attended the most Czech of events, namely the village rock concert/beer festival and now that I feel like a Czech, I find I might have to leave.  The sweet irony.  The weekend before last I was in Slany, watching 'Support Lesbiens' do their thing at an outdoor concert and I sang the Czech words to a song they decided to sing the English version of under my breath while holding (and occasionally sipping) a beer.  How more Czech could I have been?  They were entertaining enough, though the fireworks afterwards nearly perforated my eardrums, which is saying something after an hour of watching a rock band. Nonetheless, somehow I didn't really fit in.

Apart from the fact that I don't like beer, I am not keen on being out at a festival kind of deal anyway.  I'm always too concerned about where the nearest toilets are.  Mind you, I did survive, and having period pain got me off the hook of having to sit on someone's shoulders just to do as the Czechs do to all short-arsed people like me.  (Usually known as kids.)

But this weekend, by contrast, I have been informed that my landlady wants me to vacate the property and leave in two months' time.  Which is a crushing blow because a) I love this flat and think it's the best thing about living in Prague and b) I have absolutely no money at the moment.  And a whole flat full of stuff I cherish and will be forced to throw the majority of away.

Having had such terrible luck since getting back from the US trip and earning so little I am very inclined to give up and just leave this country altogether.  If I had a viable alternative that is.  I want to move to California.  Preferably southern California. There I said it.  That is what I want.  It is 'out there'.  But that is my dream.  The reality is, I don't have enough money to pack up my things and ship them off to London, nor buy the overpriced flights for this time of year in order to be able to leave.  And why the hell would I want to go back to London weather anyway?  Can you think of a place with a more depressing climate?  No, me neither.

So I'm sweltering in the heat here, unable to sleep and feeling utterly distraught.  The option of moving in with the cowboy has been discussed but this is a lousy reason to move in with someone and I don't have any other reason to than that because I really do thrive by living on my own and I think two weeks of living together with my stuff and the things I like to do would be enough to kill us both.  But that's where we stand right now.  Up sh*t creek without a paddle.

Street-watching

I've been having a tough day of inner-battles today.  But happiness is 'an inside job' so if I'm struggling, it's all up to me to fix it.  I haven't been feeling very well all day but hate it when I don't foresee this and have to slow down, just when I was hoping to get a lot done.  Sometimes I'm forced to obey my body rather than the other way around and I'm not very good at it.  I'm so impatient!

I have had an opportunity to notice some of the things I'd been missing out on in the midst of all my 'battling' to get things done.  One of which is just looking out of the window and watching what goes on around here.  It's funny being an ex-pat.  After a year or so your perception of a place changes and you find yourself becoming quite blasé about what's around you and almost bored with the surroundings you once found appealing.  But this evening I stopped to watch the comings and goings of my street, which are noisy and eventful at times, due to it being a very busy road that takes you out to the motorway directly from the central train station. 

It was mid-evening, that time when it's too late to try to continue without switching the lights on but there is still some light in the sky, and I watched people walking down the road.  Some were in a hurry, some dawdling, one pregnant woman was  trying to walk at the same pace as her two friends, then there were a group of tourists, one of whom took photos of the other two while they walked back to their hotel.  I watched him take that picture and I expected to see a brief flash of movement, but I was too far away to see it anyway, and it made me think of my old camera that used film and how it used to make such a shunting, sliding, snapping sound as the shutter was released.  It was reassuringly clunky, which made it seem like I'd done a good job just for taking a photo.  Kind of like a minute sound of applause per shot.

Of course, it's obsolete now.  Goodness knows where I'd have to go if I wanted a film developed these days.  Though if it were to still be possible commercially, you'd think Prague would be a good place to find such an old-fashioned service.  I have got used to some of that old-fashionedness about this city but I still appreciate enormously being able to afford to live somewhere busy.  My disdain for residential areas seems only to be getting more ingrained in me.  I love the noise of the cars when it's so constant.  It almost sounds like tides coming and going.

On the other hand, the view across the road is hardly a beautiful sight.  It's a run-down looking road with a hotel that seems to be well and truly shut down and some little dodgy looking corner shops and a block of flats.  Some of the flats look more modern inside than others.  One flat seems to have marble statues in it with their backs turned to me but surrounded by paper and cardboard, as though an artist used to work there but has since abandoned the place.  One flat on the corner looks totally open-plan and modernised, whereas most of the others look shabby and cluttered.  

Earlier on, one of the regular 'street watchers' in a flat opposite me came to the window to smoke a fag.  He's always doing this with no top on and he's very overweight, so it's kind of off-putting to look outside when he's doing his neighbourhood watch thing.  I sometimes wonder if he watches me pottering about in my kitchen, doing the washing up while the kettle boils.  He probably thinks my quirky clothes are weird and off-putting just like I think his half-nakedness is unpleasant.  Each to their own, I suppose.

It's nice to be able to enjoy standing and looking out of the window with a gentle breeze coming through instead of the guaranteed cold and rain that I would feel if I were in London.  It's that continental summer experience.  Leaving windows open all night because it's so warm, and it's only June.  It gets pretty stifling in August.  That's when you start praying it'll rain.  But I do miss the palm trees of San Francisco and the fun of being able to get stupidly big ice creams and walk along a foggy beach.  Prague is limited on food and drink choices.  It's not a place that 'grew up with' a lot of choice.  Prague-ers have only just started to consider the idea and still seem unsure as to whether 'choice' is worth the hassle.

I was only in San Francisco for four days but I miss it!  And I miss California in general because it was so beautifully varied.  And because I would love to see more of the coast.  This land-locked country is beginning to get to me!   I didn't think I was the 'beach girl' type, but when you get a glimpse of what a beach is supposed to be like (i.e. sandy, clean and warm) it wins you over.   Or maybe I just like what is the polar opposite of what I'm most used to.  In England, it was living in residential areas, miles away from the city centre, here, now that I have that proximity to vibrant city life, I miss the coast.  I didn't appreciate the coast enough in England but then that's probably because the seaside resorts in England are primarily a) cold and b) super-tacky and full of amusement park things and 50s decor.  Take away those two things and you've got yourself a nice beach experience.

I knew I shouldn't have watched that old 'On the beach' episode of ER....

November tears and autumn colours

"I think pessimism is completely out of date.  I think that's a romantic indulgence. I don't think anybody can afford to be pessimistic anymore.  I mean, there's so much that can go wrong, optimism is the only thing possible[...] I've always thought that an optimist was a person who knew exactly how sad a place the world could be and a pessimist is a man who finds out anew every morning. That's the real difference.  I'm obviously optimistic because you simply have to be.  It's an obligation to be optimistic."  Peter Ustinov

I'm sitting at my desk, in a black dress and black cardigan and I'm on a second glass of champagne and my fourth chocolate, surrounded by three fashion magazines.  This scene pretty much sums up my state of mind, if you are discerning enough to read between the lines.  (Yes, I'm hormonal too.  Why must it be that obvious?)

I ruined a friend's birthday this morning by bursting into tears almost the minute she walked through the door.  It was ex-partner's birthday yesterday (a very significant one) and I somehow failed to mention this in my explanation of why I was in floods of tears.  It's all a mess of various different feelings and situations anyway.  (As it always is.)  It got worse because of not being able to buy my friend a better birthday present.  I really wanted to make an effort for her, because I would want the same if it were me, but she seemed genuinely happy with what I'd already got her and didn't mind that I'd run out of time to wrap it up.

[Czechs appear to have low expectations and even lower hope of any surprises that prove their low expectations to be a little pessimistic.  This is one of the things currently bothering me.  Most of all because when I purposely try to exceed their expectations, just to surprise and delight them, my efforts are met with a look of bewilderment or, worse still, disdain that this is wholly unnecessary and over the top.  Since when has being extraordinary been such a bore? And, for heaven's sake, WHY?]

I suppose my desperate mood all stemmed from the difficult weekend I'd had of feeling snuffly and panicking about losing money for being ill (thankfully, my cold hasn't so far gone beyond headaches, the occasional sniffle and a sore throat) but my Tuesday was a 'task-and-a-half' and nearly wiped me out.  Not least because I had to get through so many meetings, so many questions, so little appreciation and all of it on ex-partner's birthday.  Needless to say, I couldn't face calling him.  I just couldn't.  I knew I'd only burst into tears.

I should have had a lovely weekend.  A list of delightful things were in place:

1) Thanks to IKEA's genius in economical flat-packing, the huge bed and even the sofa (yes!) made it through the door. (And thankfully, we made it through the night of assembling both bed and sofa, still a couple.  Which is some sort of miracle, surely?)

2) There was indeed some sunshine over the weekend, despite a few gloomy, or misty hours

3) The autumnal colours of the trees were stunning

4) The IKEA "Hemnes" bed was even more stunning.  It's HUGE!

5) The flat-screen TV that got delivered on Saturday was pretty damned sizeable too

But there were thoughts in my head that gnawed away at me.  And there were things in the architect's mind that were gnawing away at him too.  He needs to feel proud of having achieved something so urgently, that even the tiniest detail of whether the furniture ordered fitted the size of the room absolutely proportionally, or if the colours worked together, or if the flat-screen TV was at the right height from the floor were huge setbacks if deemed 'not quite right'.  I tried to tell him what a great achievement it was to have this flat in the first place, to have put up with a job that doesn't appreciate him enough and treats him like dirt at times, in order to be able to afford this stuff, but he was hell-bent on focussing on all the possible ways of looking at things negatively and of seeing himself as a loser.  Somehow nothing I said or did was enough to override that for him.

And he sensed that my thoughts were elsewhere too.  The funny thing is, they wouldn't have been, if he could have trusted, believed and appreciated my words of encouragement.  If he hadn't teased me when we went for a walk that I'm so spoilt for mentioning there not being any hot water by the afternoon because the boiler, which only heats up water overnight to save on energy costs, had run out of it, or hadn't teased me about how long a walk it would be if I carried on walking so slowly as it was getting dark, and instead had at least equalled the teasing with a proportionate amount of affection or words of support, I might have been more focussed on him and not on my sense of loss.

But there's something funny about how your perception changes when you don't have someone backing you up and supporting you as much as you support them.  When you've lost someone who used to, once upon a time, a long, long time ago, think the world of you and appreciated your efforts both in your work and within the relationship, that sense of loss is reflected in your surroundings.  In those days, I used to go for walks in the woods with this someone and feel 100% safe and cared for.  I would look at the beautiful colours of autumn leaves and see the trees as friendly beings, just flaring up a last bit of colour before settling down for their winter nap.  Now, in the light of losing ex-partner to someone who fits his life better than he could ever have imagined (and I stupidly believed that no-one, but no-one finds this, but I realise now that good fortune breeds good fortune ad infinitum just as the reverse, sadly, also appears to be the rule of thumb), all I see is the pain of the loss of the trees' leaves and the sadness that they emit in a 'last shout' of colour before they are robbed of their strength and have to 'shut down' for winter. 

I did try to tell myself, that this is my perception, my choice, so I can change it.  But it is remarkably hard.  It's sort of like asking myself to retain the kindly notion of a rickety old bus, in the way that it is portrayed in Mr. Men books, when regularly having to get on the real thing, all damp, leaky and full of miserable commuters at 8am, on your way to school.  It somehow isn't possible.

And I don't feel safe and cared for.  I feel like the isolated foreigner I am.  (Though isolation is not a concept limited to my time abroad, by any means.)  And that foreign-ness was never more acute than today.  I never thought, in a million years, that I could go somewhere and become the optimist of the crowd.  In London I was the pessimist.  In New York, I was the downright suicidal [not to mention far too socialist] pessimist.  In Prague I am the optimist who is living in cloud-cuckoo land.

Last call for summery shoes and acts of selflessness

I ended up going out this evening, for what I suspect is the last evening until spring next year, that I'll be able to walk the streets of Prague in summery shoes like these:

It was a sad evening for other reasons too.  I'm sorry that this time it's someone else who's suffering huge bouts of self-doubt and feels that the future's bleak, as that's normally my state of mind, not his.  Have I infected him?  I hope not.  I also wish I could do more.  Preferably magic-wand like so that he never has to feel like this again, because it's been an ongoing battle for him.  

In some cases, I could do a fraction more, (e.g. send more texts/emails, give up more of my limited free time and energy) but I've already gone at least 60% above and beyond the support I get in return and I must pull back, lest I end up the one who's in tatters.  In my position, I think avoiding personal nuclear fall-out needs to be a priority, as I'm not far from that at any one time anyway.  (Though it was this thought above all - that I'm not doing the absolute maximum I could - that made me burst into tears out of sheer anguish at being utterly torn by differing areas of rationale.)  In light of the emotional support give/receive imbalance, I have to reign myself in and stay on the edge of the platform (for now) instead of throwing myself onto the tracks.

Prague and provinciality

I don't know why it is that I keep hitting my head against the same brick wall, but there's no doubt about it:  I'm stuck.  Counsellors call this habit of constantly pondering the same thing (willingly or by way of a kind of "mean-thoughts-invasion") 'ruminating'.  Which is suitably evil-sounding, enough to make you feel ashamed and humiliated, which makes their job easier - more stuff to do for them!  Maybe it's my own fault for watching SATC re-runs.  Maybe it's just that I cannot accept that life will always have to be this dull and meaningless (though I know, Francis Bacon did try to warn me) and I am desperate and determined to fight that inevitability until I get it in some kind of 'lock-down' on the floor, begging for mercy.  Maybe it's just that I need a lobotomy because humans weren't meant to get clever enough to realise the futility of their own lives and the trap of poverty they are most likely to get caught in, because it only leads to self-destruction.  

I was thinking about erasing that last line, but this is something I was discussing today, how women are not allowed to accept and acknowledge a strong quality in themselves because it comes across as aggressive.  It is not acceptable for me as a woman to say, "I'm clever."  However, I feel it's all gone too far, when you've suffered the bullying, the ostracism, the perpetual 'not fitting in' of being intelligent, that you aren't allowed to say, "damn, I'm clever and I know I am".  It's outrageously boastful and uncouth.  Is this just a British trait, or do we all suffer from this necessity for self-deprecation and is it only women who are subjected to it?

I feel compelled to explain that I'm not suggesting I'm extra clever, or remarkably intelligent, just clever enough to notice and analyse the injustices in life, as well as know I've screwed things up and blown all my chances (what few I have had) due to bad timing, ill-health and a lack of awareness equalled only by my lack of support, about how to go about pursuing the kind of career I wanted.  And now, it's too late.  I've got myself caught so far in the pit of failure, there really does appear to be no way out.  I didn't adapt fast enough, I didn't recognise the possibilities that were really there soon enough and I didn't have enough money after moving my piano (which I'd wanted all my life but only got when I was 21, so it was hard to part with) from house to house to be able to afford to do frequent recording or gigs as well.

So, I shall always envy the fictional world of SATC, where even in the bad old early days, when no-one had so much as a decent pair of earrings, let alone shoes, they had their high paying jobs, one of which allowed her to write her opinions in a creative way for a living, and their apartments in Manhattan and their highlighted hair and copies of Vogue and The New Yorker.  I read the New Yorker online today, or at least a couple of articles from it, and looked at the lovely and inspiring illustrations, but I can't afford a regular copy, or subscription.  And I can't afford their delightful desk diaries or book of paintings or drawings of New York which have graced their front covers over the years.  And I don't live anywhere near such a vibrant city.  I know Prague is a regional-seeming little place.  It's not rough around the edges, just dog-earred with neglect (in places).  

What I fear the most, right now, is that Prague and I are almost the same and always will be:  A good idea with lots of potential for inspiration, but too beaten down by the past and a prolonged case of underfunding to ever escape its provincial roots.

Scenes from September

It's been a tough month.  No doubt about it.  And it all started with the end of August being a tough time to go through, what with returning to London and the anniversary of my moving to the Czech Republic.  Somehow everything decided to come back at me and haunt me over and over and expose me to all my flaws and all my failures in stark contrast to the successes and happiness of others.  It's an atrociously cruel world when you're alone and unsupported and all around you are people being given support and care and attention, even love.

I can look at things two ways, of course.  I could lament the fact that I'm still doing the same job a year on, one that demands my time and energy and attention to support other people but barely pays me enough to support myself.  And all the while I'm in a relationship where hearing the words, "I love you" are a scarcity, and match the rarity of those words during the very endgame of my previous relationship.  And that's, sadly, no exaggeration.  It feels as though no-one will ever say, "I'm proud of you", or, "you've done really well" in the same way I so readily say it to others, including friends, and even meet-ees.  I have no such rallying words to accompany my walk through life.  But I suppose that is par for the course if you are a non-conformist of some kind.

The other way of looking at it, is that I have left employment, now work only for myself and can dictate (as finances allow) when I want to take time off, as well as decide my asking fee (within reason) and that's a whole lot better than the pittance I started on, being at people's beck and call right across town at 7.30 in the morning.  And I do have someone who cares enough about me to want me to accompany him to his new holiday home flat to help with the painting and cleaning of it.  And when he felt low, it was me he turned to for support.  And when I had period pain, it was him who drove, while I had a much needed nap on the back seat.  So we have worked as a team, to some degree, and that feels comforting.  But I know it's nothing in comparison to what I had, nor what I am capable of giving and there should be an equality there, but there isn't.

So here are a few snippets of my life over the last month or so, as an apology for my absence and an indication of the ups and downs I've been going through, if it matters at all to anyone.  And if it doesn't matter, then maybe we should all be sitting snuggled up in bed with a cup of cocoa and a good book instead, and I want to be first in line for that queue.

Pre-September:

In a cafe in Notting Hill, on sampling their gazpacho:

"...rather disappointing to say the least, though the waitress has tried her best to be as helpful as possible. Which is probably more effort than you would ever get out of a Czech equivalent.  It still doesn't justify not getting much change from a £10 note though.  And I can't stay long.  Apart from anything else, the downside of "dining" alone is that once you have to get up to go to the loo, you have to leave...."

The delights of reading German newspapers:

"...in ,,Die Zeit" there is a very interesting article by Wolfgang Tillmans about how he views London, now his home, compared to other major cities.  He makes the point that London is such a multicultural society, which is far more integrated than most.  "Even New York is more segregated", he says.  He goes on to say that, as such, London is a success story and he interestingly uses a mixed language word - "Erfolgsstory".  So it's not just us British who feel steal from other languages right, left and centre then..."

My last full day in London, when it was cold and drizzly 

and I spent all day 'out-and-about', meeting up with friends and comparing their lives to mine:

Friday 26th August:

Pet Shop Boys' 'King's Cross':  "[...] I've been hurt and we've been had.  You leave home and you don't go back [...]  So I went looking out today for the one who got away.  But I'm walking round the block, ending up in King's Cross.  Good luck, bad luck, waiting in a line.  It takes more than a matter of time.  Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday, wait until tomorrow and there's still no way.  Read it in a book. or write it in a letter, wait until the morning and there's still no guarantee. [...] Only last night I found myself lost at the station called King's Cross..."

I have managed to survive a last full day here, catching up with a couple of old friends and one relatively new friend.  I nonetheless feel bereft.  I don't live here.  This is not my home.  Nor am I staying somewhere on my own.  And as such, I feel homeless.  I'm sitting in an old 'thinking spot' in King's Cross, with my back to an electronic notice board of train times to places near where ex-partner used to live and it all just hurts.  It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

How did things 'work out in the end' for other people?  Was it because they never lost absolutely everything (home, job, relationship) at the same time?  Or lost the remaining good things (relationship) when the other things weren't even in place anyway?  Is there no rescue, no hope for a future for those who got knocked right off the edge?  Will I ever fully recover or will I always be stuck on the edge of the platform, knowing there is no 'home' destination awaiting me?  Will London always taunt me by reminding me I failed to make a viable, bearable, non-painful life for myself there?  Is Neil Tennant right when he sings, "it takes more than a matter of time"?  And if he is, what exactly DOES it take for this searing sadness and desperate sense of being a perpetual 'outsider' to go away?

September:

"...Early mornings are a killer and today wasn't even that early a start!  I just didn't sleep well due to the noise (that's what you get for living on a main road leading to a motorway) and the heat."

"Every meet-ee has come to my flat and said, "you live here?" Or, "do you like living here?" because of the traffic noise outside.  Most Czechs think somewhere so lacking in "nature" as they put it, must be a kind of hell.  To me however, this flat was close to a dream scenario: "Hurrah!  Somewhere vibrant!  Not residential!"  After the posh and polite suburbs of Harrow and Balham respectively, both of which I kind of hated, especially Harrow, this was a godsend."

On the finer details of my life:

"...the delicately positioned, up-turned spoon perched on my table, left over from this morning's meet-ee..."

And back to today, sitting in my old haunt, the bookshop cafe, having perused a couple of magazines and some art and fashion books I can't afford:

Thursday 29th September:

I hope I'm coming out of the torture period now.  I feel haunted by what happened over a year ago and I'm still not sure if I'm free of all the teasing and mocking dreams I've been having.  I feel bereft, but slowly regaining some strength since having a week-long break from the day job.  I don't know if I'll be able to sustain it, but I want to try to cut down on the meet-ees and planning and all the academic stuff I do.  I'm so tired of supporting other people and having no support myself.

I've been soothed and wooed into wanting to do music again by listening to "Support Lesbiens" (listen to one of their best tracks, though the lyrics are slightly dodgy, as in, non-native English, HERE) even though they often make me laugh.  Hats off to them for being brave enough to write lyrics in English.  I am quite enamoured with their little misuses of English (check out the pronunciation of 'oasis') and how their lead singer seems to oscillate between fine English pronunciation and standard American 'rock god' fare...  Their music is so good and, across their albums so varied, that I must admit I've been won over.  (And the lead singer's voice is so seductive though I can't for the life of me pinpoint why...)  And yet, at the same time, they feel a little bit provincial, as does Prague, really.

Prague is strangely cocooned from the harsh realities of civilised living, though the cynicism and pessimism out-do even my own, and it's been a revelation to find myself having to put forward the optimist's view.  Who would have predicted that?  So as I stare down the bleak outlook and taunting thoughts of the past that have plagued me over the last month, I can only find a way forward in the frivolity of dressing strangely and using colours and patterns that don't go together to help me be more ME somehow.  It makes me stand out more as a foreigner, but then, that happens wherever I go.  Sex and the City's Carrie sometimes used to inspire me or reflect the kind of nonsensical array of clothes I would wear to feel more at home, but the films have taken everything to a kind of 'grown up' otherworldliness that is so far removed from the original characters and their first intentions, that I feel saddened that everyone seems to lose their principles in the end.  Or people move on to the next logical stage of life and I somehow cannot find a place for myself there.  

I don't belong in the grown-up world of dressing sensibly or looking like I've finally 'made it', so much so that I can afford a stylist (god forbid) and a family.  I never wanted that stuff, I always knew I'd be contented with the creative work and flat of my own in a capital city (I'd be on cloud nine if it were in Manhattan, but we all know only movie stars can afford to live there these days) and that would thrill me.  To have three great friends who backed me up would be the icing on the cake.  To have a relationship as well?  An unnecessary extra, but wonderful bonus nonetheless.  But I am the prime example of what happens when you don't have any of those.  Friends have moved on, achieved at least some degree of success (i.e. don't have to do the shitty day job anymore), are having or contemplating having a family and therefore cannot imagine what it feels like to have ticked none of the boxes they had hoped to tick by their mid-thirties.  Though music still feels like where I belong, at the same time, I feel like I was never allowed more than a visitor's pass into the 'house of music' and I still don't quite know why.  I must find a way back in.  Or maybe a way in, that I never had.  Perhaps there simply is no way forward, except the 'road less travelled' and that's a lovely road, I'm sure, but it's a deserted and painfully lonely one.  The only way to carry on is to try to enjoy the beautiful sunsets and the gorgeous autumnal coloured leaves on the trees and survey the mountainous area and breathe in the beauty on this perpetually difficult, painful and deserted road that no-one else I know has ever seen, because they all made it to the end and could come home.  I suppose I just have to get used to (and better at) being a nomad.

Airports and the British Sense of Humour

When the plane touched down in Heathrow with a gentle bounce, I was flooded with thoughts about what home really is and, more importantly, where it is.   And I suddenly had tears in my eyes.  It was mostly me questioning whether I could really think of London as any more of a home than Prague, and seeing as I had to leave London because my existence there was almost certainly killing me slowly but surely, I had to admit, that London felt more like a familiar yet sometimes hostile friend.  And I then thought of the town I was born in, and how I don't have time to go there while in the UK this time, so I won't be able to see my sister or any other relatives/family friends there and I felt like, yes, I'd feel a huge familiarity there and of course I'd feel really happy to see my sister, if it were possible, but it's not home.  

Of all things, I ultimately had an imagined conversation in my head with my Mum, whereby I was trying to justify what things I'd done and not managed to do.  I was saying to her in my head, that yes, I have reached my mid-thirties and I failed to make London work for me, but I have come a long way from the background she grew up in.  And I may not have made a great success of it, but at least I've fought time and time again to avoid the safe option, the default option, and I've pushed to do something more challenging instead.  I may not have succeeded in proving that it's worth doing that, but I have at least tried it, with the spirit of a pioneer and the bravery that comes from years of doing things on my own and knowing that being an outsider is painful but there is a kind of freedom that comes from already having been ostracised, so there's no loss in leaving people behind.

I was very tired indeed when I got into Heathrow, so I have to put some of my over-emotional state down to that, but it was such a strange feeling.  Just setting foot in the UK again caused a monumental re-assessment of what I've achieved and what price I've paid for what I've endeavoured to do.  In the queue at Border control, I was reminded of one of the few endearing qualities about the British:  a sense of humour in the face of sheer incompetence, tedium and difficulty.  The electronic passport system was a note of confusion for some, and the queue for those still without one (that would include me) seemed both long and slow-moving, but the family behind me, who sounded like they were from up north somewhere, just made light-hearted jokes about it all and it made me smile.  

Even the Border control officer made me smile as he announced that families could come forward in a group, only to realise, as I alone approached the desk, that I was not a part of a family.  Indeed, if he'd have asked, I could have told him that trying to get our family together all in one country would take quite some doing these days.  But he just 'welcomed me back to the UK' by name (a smart move on the 'final check for note of recognition' illegal passport holder detection front) and I felt sort of at home, but also partly in some kind of surreal world of luggage and passports.  When it came to baggage reclaim, a dimly-lit twilight zone that gave me a feeling of deja-vu because I could swear I'd dreamt of being in a baggage area just like it, though in fact I had never set foot in Terminal 5 before, I really did feel like I was mid-transfer between the recent familiar world and the old known.

So, the tiredness of 4.5 hours' sleep last night and not much more than 5 or 6 the previous few nights, took their toll and I still felt half in the Czech Republic, at least in my head, when I had a strong urge to tell a shop assistant in Boots later, ,,na schledanou" as I left.  (Woe betide you if you don't do this in the Czech Republic.)  I suppose I'll adjust better tomorrow.  In the meantime, I have some absolutely beautiful flowers to greet me when I wake up:

Apocalypse, floods and hippos

The weather here in Prague seems to have taken a leaf out of London's book and has decided to skip summer, other than a tropical humid hell of a summer, when it remembers it's supposed to be hot, and has this morning decided to do it's best 'apocalyptic rain' impression.  And as the rain is bucketing down and the skies are grey and misty, so my mood is matching up perfectly.  I feel like the rain has drowned my hope as surely as it has washed the pavements and made the roads into small streams.

I am dreading the difficulty of pleasing and fitting in with everyone for my forthcoming trip to Blighty and I'm dreading even more the onset of September's full-on relentlessness to follow.  Once I'm a fully paid-up self-employed member of the Czech Republic, I'll be back to where I started here in terms of salary.  I worked hard over the last year to slowly work up through the ranks to a viable income, but soon the waterfall of health insurance, taxes and probably some other fee I hadn't bargained for will bring me back to my knees forthwith, and my recent cutting down to minimal amounts of food at breakfast and lunch will become a regular financial necessity.  

It never rains but it pours, and soon there'll be a bone fide flood.  And quite frankly, I'd rather be swept away and killed than left to cling on for dear life like the poor hippo Slavek did in the floods of 2002.  He survived, but Lentilka, the female hippo, didn't.

Trips, toil and traffic jams

I found out that the Czech expression for 'traffic jam' involves the use of the word 'constipation'.  So Czechs say ,,dopravní zácpa" [transport constipation].  How delightful.

I went on a rather marvellous little trip at the weekend, to a ruined castle of sorts.  The kind of small-scale place I used to have pointless fantasies about owning one day.  I would of course have to put a piano in it.  I figured it would look good in this 'room' with the view to die for out of the windows, as well as a view in on where the piano should be:

The view:

I went with the architect of course, knowing that next weekend, all semblance of normal life would have changed, due to a visitor.  In the meantime, I have unfortunately been caught up in a skewed, work-filled time-space continuum whereby no matter how much extra work I do instead of sleep, I still have about three more hours of work to do than I think when I start again the next day. 

Hence the absence over the last few days.  Still, I might actually get to wander around Prague and remind myself I'm here and not in some factory workhouse, riding the conveyor belt of tedium and toil, for once, now that I have to show someone else around the place.

A Saturday night in Prague

A few people milling about.  A few drunks.  A few English speakers I tried to avoid (whilst speaking embarrassingly unsophisticated Czech with my friend) most of whom were fitting the 'stupid drunkards' stereotype really rather well.  

It occurs to me that this scene on ,,Václavák" is not unlike your average Saturday night in a small, touristy town, such as Bath in South West England.  And I find that thought really rather depressing.  (Ach jo...)

Umbrellas, fate and nationality

It occurs to me that I should find the fact that it rained today and that I'm feeling like I'm teetering on the brink of having a horrible cold really rather funny, in light of yesterday's post.  But I seem to have had a sense of humour bypass.  I've been feeling utterly miserable. I've even taken a picture of my umbrella (now that it's had a chance to dry off) in an attempt to cheer myself up that at least I do have a nice umbrella and it's good thing that it had the opportunity to serve its purpose today.

I suppose it's fair enough.  I was almost hinting that it was a shame the umbrella hadn't been used.  And it's probably a good thing that my local area gets a reminder that there is an 'angličanka' among them.  (Who else would be as eccentric?)  After all, we are a rare bunch in this architecturally stunning city.  

We had a conversation in my Czech lesson today about how unique it is in our class to have an English girl, i.e. me.  No other English people have set foot in this language school.  Indeed, I have to report that, somewhat predictably, I've been here six months and still not come across one other Brit.  Not one.  Americans, yes, but a Brit?  Absolutely not.  And the only other Brit my teacher knew of (a friend of a friend) had not set foot in a language school either.  Am I ashamed of my nationality and its apparent inability to seriously try to learn a foreign language of any description, let alone a rather difficult language such as Czech? Well, yes, actually.  

It must be in our genes.  Americans mostly came from other places and settled in America.  Brits just grew up and assumed no-where was worth learning a foreign language for.  So they stayed put.  (Mind you, I've met a few Americans here but not one has said they've made an effort to go to Czech classes.)

So the only English girl in Prague with her red, frilly, polka dot umbrella, stands out a mile.  In more ways than one.  But I suppose that's the way I like it. 

The metaphor remains the same

There was a distinct change in the air today.  The weather is hinting at what summer might bring, even before we've fully seen spring.  The scent of warmth greeted me as I walked in my flat.  That faint reminder of what the air is like when you don't need seven layers of clothing.  

I'm tracing my footsteps that brought me back from the brink.  How did I get as far as this?  The shift that occurred, and is still evolving between my old life and the one I now live, lies somewhere between the edge of the platform and the bookshop cafe back on Václavské Námĕstí.  I know I cannot take up residence in the bookshop cafe (hell, I haven't had the luxury of time to even go and have a coffee there) but the metaphor remains the same.  I was practically holding my head out over the tracks before, in the depths of winter that took hold so early in December and didn't stop till the beginning of February, but I seem to be on a tea-break now. 

Back in December I was listening incessantly to MC Solaar tracks, full of orchestral swells set against distorted guitar, followed by soaring but heart-wrenching BVs: "je veux partir d'ici, cette fois je te le dis, je ne veux plus de cette vie..emmenes-moi"  (roughly translated: "I want to leave, this time I'm telling you, I don't want anymore of this life, take me away")  And I remember trudging through slushy snow and being cold to the tip of my heart as much as my toes and barely being able to see somehow, it was all just too bleak.  I remember the fight against that grief, that searing cold front of emptiness and loss; the anguish, the sense of abandonment.  It was all there in the dark skies, the bitter cold, the barren surroundings and lifeless outlook.

And yet, in the days that followed the Bolero concert, there were moments of distraction, if not exactly hope.  And a few good conversations and even..laughter.  The day I walked back from my meet-ee's office, caught the metro and walked home, I listened to another track full of strings and guitars, but the line in it was "I just jumped out in the open, without knowing my parachute'll save me.  It's quiet and peaceful in this emotional nirvana blue."  And somehow I ended up at that Čajovna, a week or two later, hitting my principles against a brick wall because there was no escaping the fact that I knew I felt something and I also knew I couldn't go on without saying so.

But as we walked back, hand in hand through the late evening foggy streets of Prague I wondered what precise change had occurred? What did having someone's hand to hold really mean?  How was it that I had not had the conviction to hold his hand on the way there but on the way back, suddenly, I was walking with a fellow-traveller?  No longer an interested party, a new friend and flickering hope of an ally, but a companion.  A real and tangible one, walking with me.

As spring begins to grace us with her presence, or perhaps is merely hinting at her arrival in the fullness of time, I daren't hope for too much.  Perhaps, inspite of myself though, I shall savour the way it feels to be able to at least envisage the possibility of pleasure.  I shall trace the outline of the spectre of a future and delight in the comfort of being able to imagine if not the best, certainly the 'not-too-bad', whilst simultaneously preparing, as always and as every good English person should, for the worst.