Reisefieber

I have forced myself to take a "time-out" (oh yes, a 'PB' trip again!) because I've been quietly worrying for some time now and I can't seem to shake the underlying anxiety off.  I'm making lists, ticking off what I can as soon as I can, but some things are simply out of my hands.  And I can't quite discern where all this worry is coming from but I sense it's probably just ,,Reisefieber" - that pre-travel anxiety you get when you realise you've got to get a tonne of things done before you leave for a long journey.  (Or it could just be my Mum's genes and her terrible propensity for worry gone into overdrive due to my coming off the pill for the seven days off, which causes hormonal free-fall.)

I'm pretty sure the journey itself is going to leave me feeling almost dead and I'm only talking about getting from here to Chicago.  The horrendous 4am wake-up call and 5am check-in added to the four-hour wait in Amsterdam before actually getting on a plane bound for Chicago is what might be the end of me.  That coupled with general, 'did I meet all the necessary international flight requirements this time?' stress, is bound to send my cortisol levels through the roof. 

The thing about travelling from Europe to the States is that the jet-lag isn't too bad to get over on the way there, because the time change takes you back, so when you arrive, you can just try to kid yourself that it was a shorter journey than you thought, make it through till evening and then crash and wake up the next day on US time.  Except, on this occasion, we won't be arriving anywhere near evening and will have to survive a whole afternoon without collapsing to make it through to the evening before we can go to bed.  So it'll be a bit of a challenge.

But that's just the beginning of the trip.  The rest could involve similar challenges in staying awake / dealing with anxiety, being that we're driving across to California, aiming to end up in San Francisco for the final 5-6 days of our trip.  Ironically enough, as I sat down to have my coffee and pain au chocolat in P's bakery again, the first song that came on was the one with the line, "if you're going to San Francisco..." to which I smiled to myself and thought, "yes I am!'  

I have since checked this song on You Tube and found that it's a really hippy 'Mamas and the Papas' song all about flowers and love-ins and I feel a bit nauseous now.  I have a sneaking suspicion, that despite my excitement, there'll be a little part of me that will miss Prague while I'm away and I could find myself longing for a bit of European dress sense, or culture, or even a bit of the resigned pessimism and expert moaning that you just can't get in the US without being a hardened New Yorker.

There's a line in the film "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (which happens to be one of my favourite films) where the Polish guy Titus, says, "A man should never drink, he remembers only his country, his mother, his lovers".  In my state today, I think I need to re-phrase that to, "A woman should never come off the pill, she remembers only her worries, her insecurities and while watching 'Outnumbered' later, her daytrips to 'Rabbit World' with her ex-partner..."  It's tragic what a loss of progesterone and estrogen or whatever the damned contraceptive pill consists of, does to you.  I am most definitely calling it a day now and packing myself off to an early bed with girlie videos and cups of tea, and a small ration of chocolate, because I need to lose weight before I go to America so that its sweetened food doesn't entirely annihilate my body with unavoidable fat and carbohydrates.  Hmm.  Chocolate rationing at a time like this.  Tough-going...

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.

A dull, damp day

It's one of those gloomy, damp days today in Prague and I seem to have developed a similarly glum, dull ache that would come from being left out in the damp.  Except I haven't even been out.  (Too much to do.)  I'm not managing to get anything done today though, partly due to persistent tummy ache, partly due to perpetual brain ache.  The brain ache is down to trying to do too much in one go.  Things like my accounts (major brain ache contributor) and organising my plans for a website and co-ordinating social network use to present my work with in the meantime take up too much head space.  I think I've had enough of business webinars and online tutorials.  

So I'm pulling back for a little while and getting some rest.  I might even read a book.  Eye-soreness permitting.   I have a list of books I'd like to get, but at the moment, things like travel insurance for our planned road trip and website investment have to come first.  I can't quite believe that either will become a reality, but I suppose they must somehow.  Flights are booked, the front page of my website is designed and a tender has been put out to recent new contacts in the Prague arts world to get me a suitable web designer to work with.  So it's all 'in the offing' as they say.  (Whoever 'they' are.)

There's just a pervasive sense of dullness on a day like today.  The sounds of the road are suddenly dreary and irritating.  The car horns actually offend my ears.  The  gentle shuffling sound of car wheels going over damp roads in sequences of short shifts allowed by the traffic lights infiltrate my softly throbbing head and I have to contemplate taking an aspirin.  I hate days like this.  I don't even know where it comes from, but I find myself having gone from an optimistic, "getting things done" kind of energy in recent days to a possibly hormonal sense of self-loathing and sheer boredom with who I am.  

I'm tired of being complicated.  I'm tired of never having a holiday in the sun.  I'm tired of struggling to afford things to enjoy and above all I'm tired of my repetitive thoughts and apparent shortcomings.  I wonder if everyone has this, or if this is a self-indulgent phase only ex-musicians and artists go through?

The only answer, I have concluded, is to listen to my inner child, pick up the spare duvet, wrap myself up in it and curl up to watch House re-runs with a sugary yoghurt and dark chocolate.  It might be nicer to snuggle up with someone else, but I am alone here, and the architect might not be feeling much love towards me today, because he doesn't always, and I might be better off enjoying the non-judgment that comes with doing this on my own.  And I'm not in the mood for sharing the chocolate anyhow.

Flowers and a farewell to February

Prague was miserable-looking today and I had to get out of the house, so I bought these to cheer myself up:

Oh February, you odd little month.  How we should have been closer friends...  (I was meant to have been born in February, but somehow I was too eager to see the world so I came early.)  I have never quite got used to grey, cloudy days and find them rather hard to embrace but I really tried hard today to think of the advantages of cloud-filled skies.  Maybe there's extra protection from the sun on days like this. (Although beauty pages in magazines always warn that you still need sunscreen if you're out on a beach in Spain somewhere and it's overcast, but that's Spain, not ,,Mitteleuropa".)  There is a sense of being a little bit cocooned on dull grey days.  And maybe that's what I needed.  So it's good.

I even got to sleep until a reasonable hour this morning, which was delightful.  This helped to make up for the fact that I was up at 5.30am yesterday and that there was drilling going on until 11pm that resumed this morning at 8.40am.  I don't know who here is enough of a masochist that they think it's a great idea to fill this building yet again with the screech and squeal, growl and grunt of a drill going into several different parts of a wall after the hell we went through during the renovation work (that only recently - in the last two weeks - stopped) but I wish they'd just STOP.  I think I've heard enough drilling to acquit me of murder, on the basis of insanity-through-noise, so if I were you, drilling enthusiast, I'd watch my back.  Just sayin'...

Up, down, Up, down....

Ah writing...how I have missed you.  The soft and soothing attempts of scrolling through my brain for just the right match of word for my mood.  The hot coffee to help me wake up in order to land on that word landing strip.  The sense of wistful wallowing in a field of language.  Sumptuous, luxurious, WRITING.

Why is my life filled instead with sleep deprivation, planning and organising and generally STRUGGLING to get from one day to the next?  I have at least kept to the important things, namely doing aerobics, singing from time to time and earning MONEY.  But it's been up and down on the emotional front.  One day I'm feeling positive because new possibilities have opened up, the next there's some mini-crisis and all that hope is suddenly rendered very precariously positioned on a cliff-edge.  In those moments, the previous kick-ass attitude, endless energy, achievements and belief in a future I can look forward to, dissolve into an unfathomable grief, fear for the future, self-hatred and disgust.

One such illustrative example of which would be when the architect and I booked flights for a fabulous road trip from Chicago to San Francisco.  The spanner in the works came the day after booking them, that the architect's prospective new job, provisionally to start in May, fell through due to a Mafia-like stroke of corruption that I'm finding out is more than possible within government departments here in the Czech Republic.  He's now scared that if he gets an offer somewhere else, they won't let him put off starting until he gets back from the States and we'll have to cancel the trip altogether.  (Or even worse, he'll remain unemployed and have to start selling his possessions to be able to live...)I am resolutely ignoring this possible scenario and have fixed my mind on a picture I've got on my wall of the Golden Gate bridge.  I am going to stand on a beach overlooking that famous structure if it's the last thing I do!  The flights are booked, we are GOING!  I may even start my own Armistead Maupin type novel while there.  Y'know, why not?

[There've been lots of capitals so far - why is that?  I think I'm getting back my demanding inner child who wants what she wants and she won't take no for an answer.  (Waydda go inner child.  You are the future.) Fake it till you make it, right?]

What do I really want?  Hey people, it's LIST TIME AGAIN:

1) Paid writing work - come on, it IS possible

2) To travel, extensively and often so I can WRITE about it and meet curious new people who can inspire me

3) To be able to buy myself some new make-up and clothes, so I can try that thing of 'enjoying being in my own skin'.  Not least because I've got to do a photoshoot on Sunday to get new acting headshots and shots for my website that is in the early developing stages.  I'm currently scared that the photos will reveal how much the Czech Republic has aged me, like it does so cruelly to everyone here.  (I'm hoping it's down to their mindset and poor diet and am determined to overcome both.  Greek salad again today.  And salmon.  Yep, smoked salmon.  Living the high-life, eh?)

4) To earn enough to make progress with the language of this country.  I even forgot the past tense of 'write' earlier.  That either means I'm REALLY tired or REALLY stupid.  Not sure which.  Czech has the capacity to remind me of my stupidity on a regular basis and it bothers me.  Because if I really am stupid, why have I spent most of my life being ostracised for being too clever, too complex, too 'high maintenance'?!

5) Salmon - grilled salmon - once a week!

6) To go to NYC for Christmas.  I KNOW I could do it.  I know someone who usually goes back to the UK then and sublets her flat.  I just need the MONIES...

7) To be able to afford to get my hair done somewhere good and to have a soothing, relaxing massage. And to be able to afford to buy face masks and body scrubs to use to pamper myself with at home after doing aerobics.

8) Decent red wine.  Czech Republic, you know not the likes of this.  Nor would you appreciate that it's worth paying the extra money to have it instead of the cheap rubbish you sell instead.

9) A piano.  Just thought I'd throw that in there, nothing's impossible, right?

10) A holiday in Hawaii staying in a hotel room with a piano and being able to write songs and blog posts and poems all day long.  Peppered with walks on the beach and swimming in the sea in my 50s style swimsuit, of course.  [Now I'm really pushing it, right?]

So there we are, the ups and downs of a hopeless, hapless individual with delusions of grandeur.  But it's surely better to be in the gutter, looking up at the stars, than standing on the street looking long and hard into the gutter and wondering how long it'll be before the gutter is in fact your home.

Day in the life

(Feb 6th)

16.30  Seeing off meet-ee.  Miserable meeting.  Both of us were tired.  

16.40 Grab my things to get on down to the post office to pick up a parcel that had been waiting for me for ages as well as do some supermarket shopping on the way back.

17.30 Long wait at post office.  Woman behind counter says something I don't understand and I feel huge wave of shame at still not speaking the language of the country I now call home.  Despite huge efforts and financial investment, I'm still on the 'basic language only, don't give me anything trade-specific now!' level.

18.00 Walking into Tesco.  So glad to get out of the cold that was biting into my face and chilling my nose to so close to freezing that I expected an icicle to come out the next time I blew my nose.

18.15 No bin liners in Tesco for the sixth visit running.  How am I supposed to clear-out anything in my flat?!  They've finally got Earl Grey tea though.  Bonus.

18.25 Popped into Paul's bakery.  Current level of misery dictates I MUST have a chocolate-coffee combo dessert thing.  Stand in line, reading the damned thing in Czech, trying to work out how to say it: 'Čokoladový-Kavovaný rolada'.  Or something.  Waitress/Shop assistant scuppers my plan of standing and reading it off the label by asking me to walk over to the other till.  Manage to get the thing out in understandable pronunciation and from memory.  Congratulate myself for this.  In Czech.  (So can't be that f***ing useless at it afterall, eh?)

18.45 Home and things in fridge/cupboard.  Make tea.  Urgently.

18.55 Sit down to tea and dessert thing.

18.56 Remember that package from ex-partner and his new partner I picked up from post office.  Feel sick at thought of 'joint' birthday present.  Immediately inwardly reprimand myself for being so childish.  The mature thing to do is be grateful for something from two lovely people.  

19.00 Presents opened.  DVD of a Czech band I don't really like that much because I can't understand their lyrics.  Strange bird-like pottery thing.  Wing broken off.  Don't know what to do with this.  Book with weird but nice illustrations.  Search for any extra note slipped in that hasn't been seen by ex-partner's new partner.  Remember that she's too clever to get that kind of thing by her and he wouldn't want to do that kind of thing anymore anyway.  Or at least, not enough to go out of his way to do it.  Card is a watered-down version of the cards he used to send.  None of the usual words.  Nothing in English infact.  His stars are drawn without the little appendages that made them unique and pertinent to me.  I know what's missing.  He knew what was missing.  She probably didn't.  It just looks wrong.

19.05 Cry uncontrollably.  Try to put the things away somewhere I won't see them for a while.

19.15 Listen to latest obsession song.  "We Found Love".  (Rihanna)  Video of which is hedonistically depressing-and-euphoric all in one.  With a few anomalies for someone supposed to be living in a British council estate thrown in.  (Sanex bubble bath for one thing.)  

19.23  Decide to watch an episode of CSI NY while eating dessert thing with another cup of tea.  Dessert thing bit of a disappointment, due to consistency of chocolate mousse element.  It's too rich.

20.00 Have given up on CSI NY as can't concentrate.  Crying again.  Reach out for more dance tunes and rock/hip-hop tunes to blast in my ears in an attempt to get the sadness out.  It doesn't work, but it helps to feel like there's something to hold on to.  Decide to make a new playlist on iTunes.  Imagine driving along at speed to the tracks I add in, by way of distracting myself from my currently hopeless seeming reality.

21.30 Decide that if I'm to get up early tomorrow, I'd better get ready for bed now, as period pain, painkillers and crying have all made me feel extra tired already.

21.35 Try calling current boyfriend, but no answer.  Email him instead, saying how low I feel.

22.35 Finished watching CSI NY episode.  Hasn't made me feel better but I'm ready for sleep.

22.36 Boyfriend calls.  I'm too sad and too sleepy to answer but the ring is so loud, it's waking me up.  Decide to make new hot water bottle and then go to bed.

22.45 Check email to see if 'the boy' has written an email instead, seeing as he couldn't get through on phone.  He has.  He says he's sorry I'm feeling low.  Feel tiny bit better.

22.57 Finally attempt sleep.  But can't.  Toss and turn for a while.  

23.20 Get up to go to the loo.  This has to be the most pathetic attempt at getting an early night.

(Feb 7th)

05.00 Alarm goes off.  Yes, I did decide that having an extra half an hour to try to wake myself up would be better today.

05.09 Get up. Switch off alarm before it goes off again.

05.10 Fill kettle for tea, but decide I'm going straight to coffee this morning.  Turn on heating in bathroom so that it'll be bearable to have a shower in there later.

05.20 Sit up in bed and check emails.

05.50 Get in shower.

06.20 Getting ready to go, putting on make-up feeling like no amount will hide the tiredness.  It's a lost cause.

06.32 Leaving house.  Stupid hallway light switch provides illumination for whole 5 seconds before going out again, leaving me to have to feel around for how many more steps are left till the next light switch.  Repeat process at every half flight of stairs. 

06.34 Notice snow on ground as I get to courtyard.  Dammit, now I really am going to be late this morning, because it's going to be a nightmare walking downhill on Václavské náměstí.  Nothing I can do about that now.

06.45 Offload bag of paper and cardboard into recycling bank before continuing on to Václavské náměstí.  (Don't know why I chose this morning to finally catch up on that task, but oh well.)

06.55 Walking at barely one mile an hour, like an old lady, because every step is slippery and I'm convinced I'm going to fall over and look like an idiot.  

06.56 Realise I already look like an idiot for walking as slowly as this.

07.05 Already late for meeting, receptionist won't let me through without checking my name off on a list.  (Wish he would make my day by saying, "if yer name's not down, yer not comin' in", but of course he doesn't.)  I take a look at list, knowing my meet-ee won't have put my name on it.  As I read through, I realise it looks like the list hasn't been used since 1993 anyway, probably the last time they had a security upgrade involving actually asking visitors' names instead of just buzzing them through.  I relay that my name's not on the list and am asked for ID.  Show receptionist my passport, which he takes in hand as though it's a most tedious and cumbersome piece of documentation, but seems to be enjoying pointing out to whoever might be watching his attempts to 'beef up security' that this is how long it takes and - see! - he's doing it right!

07.07 Finally let through.  Already feel jet-lagged.

07.10 Start meeting

07.40 'Can I go yet?' starts to repeatedly run through my head.

08.10  Seriously. Want. To. Go. Back. To. Bed. Now.

08.35 I can finally leave.  Looking forward to the 'joy' of dealing with the receptionist again to let me out...

08.45 I'm free.  I'm cold.  I need a coffee.  I want to treat myself to that Snoopy book about feeling sad that I hoped ex-partner might have thought-read and got me for my birthday, but hasn't so I'll have to get it myself.  Appropriate cartoon found therein almost immediately about waiting till the next day and everything being all right.  Only to find out the next day that everything's the same.  Suggestion being, wait until the afternoon to get up.  Hmm.  Should have thought of that myself.

08.51 Can't face going straight home.  Who knows how noisy the building work is today.  Stop in at Starbucks to get a mocha.  My bit of Czech needed comes out fine, if a little tired-sounding.  Get nice seat.  Check emails and try to read the Guardian online but it's no use, jet-lagged feeling persists.  Looking outside window at people gingerly walking downhill, I feel a sense of dread at having to find the energy to get home after this.

09.35 Get up and start lengthy process of putting on all the layers necessary to deal with the cold I'll soon have to face.  This is the tiring bit about winter.  I'm fed up of it already.  What an utter grumbleweed I am.

09.50 Finally get home to find scaffolding up in the building downstairs (yes, indoors!) and I have to duck to get under it to be able to go up the stairs.  What next?  Seriously, I'm so fed up of this.

10.00 Another check of emails and then bed.  I've had enough and I need a break.  Sleep.  Ah...thank god.

10.15 Banging from builders will NOT prevent me from sleep.  I have my headphones in and I'm listening to music more loudly than they are banging.  Result.  

12.30 Wake up.  Still feel a bit jet-lagged but what the hell.

12.45 Decide that a second breakfast is the only way forward.  Have tea instead of coffee this time.  So glad for the Earl Grey tea that Tesco finally had yesterday.

13.00 Contemplate the idea of having a restful day instead of doing things I hate.  It makes such a big difference.  I can breathe!  I can live!  I could even do some writing...

13.05  Back to Rihanna (this time 'Umbrella') loudly in my ears to help me really wake up.

14.00 Another hot water bottle necessary.  As well as tea.  I've still got tummy ache.  It won't go away.

14.05 Writing:  Getting.  It.  All.  Out.

15.55 Back to crying.  Listening to this old Plan B track.   Hello depression, my old friend...

16.21 Marie Forleo video break.  God bless that woman.

Make it so!

My brain won't let me escape the things that are lacking in my life.  It either forces me to dream of things I wish I had or things I have already lost for good.  Last night it was more of a rubbing in my face of the things that maybe 50% of my friends/people I know have, but I haven't got anywhere near.  I know it's probably partly hormones kicking in at this point, trying to purposely make me feel worse, but nonetheless, it's there in the back of my mind like an old photograph sitting on a shelf depicting a prosperous time, while the photo frame itself resides in a messy, financially deprived kind of place.  

I'm building up a list of things that I not only want, but need and it's getting longer all the time, for the lack of funding to be able to re-buy things that wear out.  My main handbag has been falling apart at the seams for years now, though I have sewn up the bits that were sewable.  My wallet is doing the same thing.  I have of course seen delightful examples of wallets and bags (well just two in particular actually) that I very much wish I could afford to replace my old ones with, but I can't stretch to getting them at the moment.  And perhaps the bigger problem is it's me that's worn out.

I'm tired of burning the candle at both ends for work I neither enjoy nor provides me with enough money to truly live.  I am tired of having to have people come into my flat to have meetings that involve so much preparation.  I'm tired of not being able to have decent food available to sustain me from the local supermarket, because it's too small to stock the right things and because it's the Czech Republic and they DON'T DO 'healthy food'.  I'm tired of knowing I have to curtail my efforts in a relationship that will not give me back as much as I am capable of giving.  I'm tired of struggling and not enjoying my day-to-day existence.  I'm tired of having lots of things I can do, but not being able to do them because I don't get paid for them.

I read something on the lovely Belgian Waffling blog the other day that described how her children deal with these dark, miserable, tiring winter days and I wish I could be more like them.  Apparently, they:

"get home, put their pyjamas on, make themselves a selection of snacks and sit under a duvet on the sofa, refusing to do anything".

Hmm.  What a fantastic idea.  I want a day to do that.  A whole day.  When I don't have to do ANYTHING.  Not doing a pile of washing (a typical 'day off' cheat), not going to Tesco to get food, not accounting, not meeting anyone, not emailing anyone, not answering the phone, not dealing with admin issues, not trying to sort out internet banking nonsense, not plugging in to anything except my computer to watch DVDs on.  And not being woken up at 8.15am by builders drilling into the wall behind my head on a day when I unexpectedly had the opportunity for a lie-in.  

That last one would really help enormously.

I need to become Patrick Stewart and declare: "Make it so!" in a suitably convincing and authoritative way that makes things obey me.

Make it so!