Tread softly

I am done with the American dream for a while. It was Dom's dream anyway - and a beautiful one for what that is worth. But it is exhausting trying to make dreams reality, when everything conspires against us. I have put work and study on hold in order to focus my energy and money on this one thing, but I should have realised that if it was meant to be it would have come easier than this, would not have required such sacrifices.

But when you love someone you try and give everything you have to realise their dreams. Now I sit and type and watch my beloved wolf who is flaked out on the bed, drained of energy and hope. It is easier for me, I don't have children who miss me and I am used to this rootless gypsy existence. But he will learn or I will learn to let him go.

After a pause to let the windblown leaf of my imagination settle, I can go back to the British Council jobs board and consider my options in a concrete way - the Middle East, Sri Lanka, or back to Bangkok. Or possibly I should do that PGCE that I have been promising myself for years. The world is ours, as long as it is not (currently) America.

Thus the clarity of my new header. I am focusing on Northern Thailand right now.

I am so sorry Dom, I trod on your dreams.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats

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Persistence

At last I am back. There is a story behind my absence... and I don't just mean a steady stream of excuses. If you cast your cursor back to my very first post you will recall that the whole reason I started this blog was because I bough a sexy new phone that could publish directly to blogger. I had previously been a wordpress fan, but that little bit of functionality persuaded me to switch and I am glad I did for many reasons.

However it turned out that the set up of the phone / blog connection was dependent on my SIM card. A SIM card I lost in England this Christmas (Dom's fault).

Of course I could have got a new SIM card with my old number, it is a relatively simple process, except it isn't if your old package is registered in your ex-husband's name and requires you to contact your ex-husband and ask him to send you a signed photocopy of his ID card.

So I bought a new SIM card. Which, it turns out after I had bought it, didn't have automatic internet access. Or MMS for that matter. So I got the leaflet on how to register for these 'economical value-added services' and attempted to register. Of course I was connected to an automatic selection system that was all in Thai, and although I thought I had hit all the right buttons, I couldn't be sure and the outcome was a resounding FAIL when I attempted to publish to my blog.

But I didn't give up. Today I took my phone to dtac and asked them to set me up with MMS and email. I felt vindicated when it took them 20 minutes, as there was some issue connecting my phone to the internet even when I was registered. They were great by the way... they persisted too, even when I am sure they were tempted to throw my phone at me and give me the happy smile, along with the explanation free "sorry cannot" that I begin to dread when dealing with Thai services.

I then had to set up a NEW blog before transferring the connection to this blog. But I got there with persistence.

Glorious persistence... maybe I will get to America in 2010 after all.

And, yes that's my bra in the photo - isn't it a wonderful colour?

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test

This is a test, I hope I pass.

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Sunday morning 9am

Well Brandy thinks this one doesn't need text, but I am gonna give it some anyway.

I wanted this to be my 'I'm okay' picture. I didn't announce that I was pregnant because I knew, being 39 and this being my first baby, I was a high risk for miscarriage. And it happened this week - just two months into my pregnancy. But life goes on... I took this picture on my first morning back at work. The lovely morning sunlight, a cat lazing on the roof behind the British Council. I have Wolf and a wonderful life.

And I'm okay.

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Advent

Every year mum sends me an advent calendar.

Correction: Previously, every year mum and dad sent me an advent calendar, AND THIS YEAR mum sent me an advent calendar.

That sounds like a grammatical exercise, but it is in fact an exercise in restrained emotion. I will try very hard to have a good Christmas without dad, as it is what he would want. But it will be hard as even as I type this I have tears in my eyes.

Funny though eh? 39 years old and still opening those little windows.

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Taa Very Much

Ok this was an experimental post. Taa was showing me how I could actually send better quality images to my blog by taking a higher res picture. As lovely as Taa obviously is, I am not sure if those extra pixels are making a difference or not. I will keep experimenting.

Taa is incidentally our technology guy (not sure what his actual job title is). Being our technology guy is a thankless task, because he bears the brunt of all our complaints about slow net, faulty speakers and spastic IWB pens. He never takes it personally and always comes to work smiling (even when hungover), which is an amazing feat.

If I were in his shoes I would almost certainly burn down the building and stand in the smoldering ashes screaming "How is your bandwidth now, motherfuckers?!?"

So, thank you Taa. We love ya.

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Loy krathong

Doesn't our house look lovely? We are not big Loy Krathong fans. At its heart it is a lovely festival, held on the full moon of the 12th month of the Thai lunar Calendar people float little floral rafts (usually banana leaves, orchids and jasmine with incense and a candle) on to the river to symbolise the releasing of all the bad luck and negativity from the previous year. In Chiang Mai they also set aloft hundred and thousands of Khom Fai (floating paper lanterns) which fill the sky every night for a week. However to our sensitive western ears the festival is ruined by an endless barrage of fireworks and firecrackers, and the raucous music of the riverside parties - and as we live by the river we really get the worst of it.

But the lovely part for us is that every year Fon brings us a bag of tiny candles to set around the perimeter of our house. We can handle the romantic flicker of candles.

Looks just like a house filled with love doesn't it?

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Happy campers

At 10 a.m. today Lauren, Sarah & Jip (l2r) got in the office car laden down with spendy games, name tags, future board, twister, story books, a large yellow elephant and assortment of other items essential for a positive camping experience. If you are planning to go camping with 20, er 18 little kids bent on creating havoc and learning English in Northern Thailand that is. I wish them luck and hope they have fun.

Almost exactly 5 years ago my first mission for the British Council was accompany two other extraordinary teachers (Tash & Mark) and one other enthusiastic teaching assistant (Ju) on a similar camp but this time on Thailand's eastern seaboard.

So much has changed in that 5 years - mostly for the better (I have Wolf in real life now), but not completely. I was very sure of myself professionally then, now I am not. Although this uncertainty feels pretty scary I believe it is a necessary phase which will enable to me to move on to something new. People keep asking me what, but I have no idea - and I don't want to have any idea. I need to break free of this before I can envisage that, otherwise my that will be this in another form.

Anyway, today is my last day as Academic Manager at the British Council and here I am balanced between two camps. Balanced between the past and the future. A beginning and an end.

Poised.

Maybe that means I am ready to start the 'now', the 'being in the moment-ness' that Dom manages to do with effortless grace and I battle with continually. I have long suspected that my moment is smaller and more slippery than Dom's - but maybe his 'moment shoes' have better treads. More traction.

Yes, I need this time to work on my soul soles.

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Dance in the pain

For the last month or so, when not dragging my gimpy sciatica stressed left leg around the British Council, I have been mainly resting in bed. Me in bed makes Roso happy and here she is snuggling into my hair and telling me everything is gonna be okay. Hers isn't the only positive message I have been receiving. A few days ago a friend posted the following on the northlands:

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to dance in the rain".

Simple bordering on trite yet it struck a chord. I have been waiting for the storm to pass for a while now and instead the clouds seem to get darker, and more full of rain. As much as I have loved it in the past 13 years I am ready to leave Thailand. Yet emigration to the US is as elusive as it was 3 months ago and will remain so until we find a co-sponsor. In the meantime friends are starting new lives of the kind I desire - Ian (who will one day I am sure be Yorkshire Ian) in England and Richard in his poetic Portuguese farmhouse, and I look at my grey skies and sigh.

What exactly do I want? (It helps I believe to be specific when wishing, whether on stars or rainclouds). I want to own a house with Wolf. I want to live in a place without needing a visa. I want to belong to somewhere - and not feel like an interloper or a tourist. I want to work but have nothing to do with TEFL teachers (sorry guys). I want to be able to ride a bike and walk without being drenched in sweat. I want large skies, fresh air, nature, fours seasons and peaches and raspberries in the summer. I want to feel well and full of inspiration.

I also want to stop wanting. Waiting isn't the problem, wanting the waiting to end is.

In the meantime I need to get past the debilitating stress that is filling my body with pain and my soul with anxiety. I need to believe that finishing work in October and facing an uncertain future won't kill me. I need to dance in the rain.

So the first small step to dancing is to tell myself our wishes will come true. We will get to Minnesota and the second North (the first being Northern Thailand) of my imagining will become real. Just bear with me, okay?

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Hey lady, can I have my balls back please?

When we got Spike we always intended to neuter him. With the cats it had been a quick and simple decision having watched them endure several apparently agonizing 'seasons' with the attendant weight loss and yowling we had them both spayed quite young. However Spike got to the snipable age, and yet we delayed. Why?

Well he seemed to enjoy his balls, hours were dedicated to licking them - and apart from a tendency to mark his territory unless watched closely his sexuality was never troublesome. He didn't hump legs or furniture and was happy with an occasional romantic evening with Twist, his love puppy. Additionally one of the things we treasure about him is his attitude - if we cut off his balls, might he be a bit less, well - ballsy?

Then our vet, Chotana Pet Hospital, announced a half price neutering deal for the month of September, and obviously it was too good to miss. I had Spike booked in within hours of the announcement and 1st September was his big day.

Last night, after spending the evening with a sad and sore post-op babydog, I went to bed in tears having decided I had done a terrible thing. Okay so it is almost certainly healthier, and yes it is more convenient (for us at least); but the sense that my decision had been predominantly economic, and in making such a decision I had taken something that was not mine to take, was unbearably heavy. Why do I soul search so? Why didn't I feel this guilt with the cats? Has society taught me to value masculinity so much more than femininity? Am I more comfortable making decisions based on wombs as they are my territory while Spike's testicles are from a mysterious world whose land I trespassed into?

Anyway. It is done now, and I will have to learn to live with my decision - as will Spike. I am sure I will find my conscience soothed when his empty pouch looks less like an angry swollen blackberry and his eyes look less woeful and accusing. In the meantime, in remembrance of things past I leave you with... Spike (August 2009). Babydog.

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