How much madder would we all be here if we didn't meditate? I didn't meditate at midday or at 6, for no good reason, just wasting time, and felt grumpier and more unhappy / accidie as the day wore on. Of course I ended up desperate for a drink. And I had nothing to eat until a bit of bread and butter round 5. Stupid irriot.
Yesterday was supposed to be liberty, creativity and joy. But it was chaos and frustration and misery. If I had stuck to the programme (meditation, porridge etc) and even treated my treats - e.g. paint the caravan - as jobs to fit in the structure, I think I would have been much happier and less grumpy. And I think Rebecca has the same problem (we're the same, or similar, which is why we react to each other - projection on both sides) - she wants freedom but she needs structure, and authority, which we both hate. I was listening to Peterson and Haidt discussing the disgust spectrum last night, and it's the same thing. I float up and down it. Too much, or too rigid boundaries, structures, being told where to do and what to go, and I start feeling oppressed and imprisoned. Then at the other end I feel lost and chaotic and miserable. And at both extremes, drink was often the answer, as it seemed to be last night. I suppose I'm just unstable, and therefore insecure - never quite sure what or who I am, not moored to anywhere, to anything, or anyone, and not wanting to be, for too long.
I think the answer is, stick to the structure, but don't become OCD about it. Meditation 3 times a day, and porridge, lunch and supper, freedom in between.
Which makes my experience at the CoOp interesting. It was a kind of solution - the structure of my working week, the freedom and chaos of my evenings and two days off, but not so much that I careered out of control and drank myself to near-death. Not surprising I gave up drinking when I did, a month of retirement chaos was killing me. And the two occasions when I blew it (getting drunk at work) were both when my rules had been broken - having to work on a Sunday, stealing my chaos time, which I took anyway by drinking at work. And why I often didn't drink on Sunday / Monday at home - I had my freedom, I didn't need the chaos of drink as well.
I need to keep my balance, between those two poles. It was funny how the day that I had very little structure (my expedition to Chauvigny) was immediately put right by deliberately staying here and sticking to the programme the next day, and I felt so much happier.
The going to bed late and messing about is part of that problem too. Have a proper goodnight routine. Bed made by 10, read, lights out by 11, whatever I feel like. It doesn't matter if I wake up early, I can do a lot in the morning before meditation, but I wouldn't be surprised if I wake up at my normal time (6.30) regardless.
It's like the balance between people and alone time (which Rebecca also has a hard time with). I'm so glad I've got the caravan. And that's perfect too - it's alone, but it's also structure, it has to be, I have to keep it in order, tidy and clean, because it would be horrible if I didn't, but it's small enough that doing that doesn't become a burden. Yet it gives me freedom too, to write, to be alone, to slob around in, to think creatively, within it's limits, about how to improve it. My room in Sweffling was the same - and how I transformed it into a lovely warm, safe, cosy space after I left the CoOp and stopped drinking, where I made things and wrote stuff.
And then there's control. We both want to impose it (I want to make people turn up on time to meditation) but neither of us want to be controlled by others, or even circumstances. In a funny way, Rebecca controls things and others by turning up late.
And all of this is why living here is potentially such a good idea. And possibly why the dream of Naxos isn't - that would, or could be, complete chaos, utter isolation.
Show this to Rebecca. Funny we're both poets, and mostly self-employed. How I hated that about the CoOp, and my brief period of employment at Computership.
Nice sung mass with the monks at Ligugé, with Elba, John and Andrew, then home for meditate and I'm having my cooked breakfast, planned yesterday, for lunch. I've taken all Jean Christophe's mushrooms, don't think anyone will eat them and they'll just go stale and there's a big box of shop bought mushrooms in the larder. I sent the piece above to Rebecca - she'll probably go ape, or think I'm mad, or making a pass. tant pis.
Subject to that, we're going to the Cinema in Poitiers this evening - me Rebecca and Daniel (we're picking him up in Poitiers, he's been staying with Hector at the university) to see either Isle of Dogs at 6pm, or The Rider at 8pm. Their choose - I'd rather the later one, so's we can meditate at 6 as usual.
So I have a free afternoon, to do something or nothing with, after my brunch.
Just typed The End (to Metanoia, and it really is, and I'm pleased with it).
Send Belle the Rebecca bit above and something about emergency emails / calls (like this weekend - Fri and Sat). People were being weird, or I was. Harriet says I can call her when I like.
It's overwhelm: new place, new home, new life, new people, new routines.
Found my pot lid. Brill brunch, nice french ham, lovely omelette and wild champignons.
Nice, perforce brief, chats with Ingrid, Flost and Harriet. Keep getting cut off, and I had to resend texts 3 times to Harriet before they got through. Andrew thinks I should get a smart phone, I wonder if 4g is any better? He says his only costs him 25 euros a month.
Bugs are starting to bite. No-see-ums are biting. 2 in the last hour. Mr and Mrs Wasp are busy building their lovely residence in the skylight. Hope it doesn't get so big I have to destroy it.
Very pleased with my first proper cook in the caravan since leaving Church Farm 3 years ago. Now for a major wash up - boil TWO pans of water.
Just dibbing about doing useful stuff, listening to Belle's podcasts, just for pleasure. She's funny, witty, hits the nail on the head a lot. Just talking about motivation. You don't wait until you run out of fuel before you go to the garage. Or expect the car to stay full, without refuelling it. So why imagine you have a permanent and infinite supply of motivation that never needs topping up.
I was really lucky the last two days (had there been whisky in the house, I think I might have cracked) but in part I was wiser thanks to last time - I recognised the early warnings signs - the pissed offness, the 'boredom', what I called accidie, the negative vibes from others (they probably weren't, or weren't intentional, but that's what I was feeling, and building up to a serious fuck it moment as a result). The fuck it moment still happened, may be it had to, and I'm not sure what I could have done to prevent it - more emails to Belle perhaps, or listen to podcasts as I've just been doing. Really the understanding came this morning, writing this - about overwhelm, lack of structure - my supports - getting fed up with myself, instead of just doing something, anything. Drinking NA beer as if it wasn't (and sort of getting cross because of course it had no effect whatsoever!).
Time for 6pm med. Rebecca texted - we're going to see 'The Rider' at 8pm.
Stefan's pamphlet on Divine Office is really good, and funny. Few typos - I should email him. I should get a copy of Benedict's Rule, and start reading the Cloud or Christian Mysticism, every day. Andrew has asked me to lead meditation some time. Which is nice - I was beginning to wonder if I was too weird. The bell's just rung. Delyth is making a cover for my meditation cushion.
Elba did proper divine Office - 2 psalms, a canticle, a Taizé chant (Irish John has a beautiful voice), a scripture reading and I meditated on the floor and didn't break my leg this time - proper meditation cushion, very comfortable and easy to stay upright and not get a dead leg.
Quite extraordinary film - 'The Rider' - in Poitiers, centre ville, with Rebecca. She'd read my email and didn't diss me, which was good. Quite mad, and possibly deaf. Picked up Daniel in the Place Maréchal Leclerc after the film and home at 11.15. He's spent the day rock climbing at Bourgoi - nice to give that a try some day.
Rang Pol and told her about the film. She's off to the eye doctor tomorrow and feeling a bit miz because she thinks she has rheumatoid arthritis. Taking Chinese herbal medicine and feeling a bit odd.
And so to bed. A lovely day. Proper rain, so I've popped out and put my Barbour over the power station. The Wasp family are warm and dry.
Yesterday was supposed to be liberty, creativity and joy. But it was chaos and frustration and misery. If I had stuck to the programme (meditation, porridge etc) and even treated my treats - e.g. paint the caravan - as jobs to fit in the structure, I think I would have been much happier and less grumpy. And I think Rebecca has the same problem (we're the same, or similar, which is why we react to each other - projection on both sides) - she wants freedom but she needs structure, and authority, which we both hate. I was listening to Peterson and Haidt discussing the disgust spectrum last night, and it's the same thing. I float up and down it. Too much, or too rigid boundaries, structures, being told where to do and what to go, and I start feeling oppressed and imprisoned. Then at the other end I feel lost and chaotic and miserable. And at both extremes, drink was often the answer, as it seemed to be last night. I suppose I'm just unstable, and therefore insecure - never quite sure what or who I am, not moored to anywhere, to anything, or anyone, and not wanting to be, for too long.
I think the answer is, stick to the structure, but don't become OCD about it. Meditation 3 times a day, and porridge, lunch and supper, freedom in between.
Which makes my experience at the CoOp interesting. It was a kind of solution - the structure of my working week, the freedom and chaos of my evenings and two days off, but not so much that I careered out of control and drank myself to near-death. Not surprising I gave up drinking when I did, a month of retirement chaos was killing me. And the two occasions when I blew it (getting drunk at work) were both when my rules had been broken - having to work on a Sunday, stealing my chaos time, which I took anyway by drinking at work. And why I often didn't drink on Sunday / Monday at home - I had my freedom, I didn't need the chaos of drink as well.
I need to keep my balance, between those two poles. It was funny how the day that I had very little structure (my expedition to Chauvigny) was immediately put right by deliberately staying here and sticking to the programme the next day, and I felt so much happier.
The going to bed late and messing about is part of that problem too. Have a proper goodnight routine. Bed made by 10, read, lights out by 11, whatever I feel like. It doesn't matter if I wake up early, I can do a lot in the morning before meditation, but I wouldn't be surprised if I wake up at my normal time (6.30) regardless.
It's like the balance between people and alone time (which Rebecca also has a hard time with). I'm so glad I've got the caravan. And that's perfect too - it's alone, but it's also structure, it has to be, I have to keep it in order, tidy and clean, because it would be horrible if I didn't, but it's small enough that doing that doesn't become a burden. Yet it gives me freedom too, to write, to be alone, to slob around in, to think creatively, within it's limits, about how to improve it. My room in Sweffling was the same - and how I transformed it into a lovely warm, safe, cosy space after I left the CoOp and stopped drinking, where I made things and wrote stuff.
And then there's control. We both want to impose it (I want to make people turn up on time to meditation) but neither of us want to be controlled by others, or even circumstances. In a funny way, Rebecca controls things and others by turning up late.
And all of this is why living here is potentially such a good idea. And possibly why the dream of Naxos isn't - that would, or could be, complete chaos, utter isolation.
Show this to Rebecca. Funny we're both poets, and mostly self-employed. How I hated that about the CoOp, and my brief period of employment at Computership.
Nice sung mass with the monks at Ligugé, with Elba, John and Andrew, then home for meditate and I'm having my cooked breakfast, planned yesterday, for lunch. I've taken all Jean Christophe's mushrooms, don't think anyone will eat them and they'll just go stale and there's a big box of shop bought mushrooms in the larder. I sent the piece above to Rebecca - she'll probably go ape, or think I'm mad, or making a pass. tant pis.
Subject to that, we're going to the Cinema in Poitiers this evening - me Rebecca and Daniel (we're picking him up in Poitiers, he's been staying with Hector at the university) to see either Isle of Dogs at 6pm, or The Rider at 8pm. Their choose - I'd rather the later one, so's we can meditate at 6 as usual.
So I have a free afternoon, to do something or nothing with, after my brunch.
Just typed The End (to Metanoia, and it really is, and I'm pleased with it).
Send Belle the Rebecca bit above and something about emergency emails / calls (like this weekend - Fri and Sat). People were being weird, or I was. Harriet says I can call her when I like.
It's overwhelm: new place, new home, new life, new people, new routines.
Found my pot lid. Brill brunch, nice french ham, lovely omelette and wild champignons.
Nice, perforce brief, chats with Ingrid, Flost and Harriet. Keep getting cut off, and I had to resend texts 3 times to Harriet before they got through. Andrew thinks I should get a smart phone, I wonder if 4g is any better? He says his only costs him 25 euros a month.
Bugs are starting to bite. No-see-ums are biting. 2 in the last hour. Mr and Mrs Wasp are busy building their lovely residence in the skylight. Hope it doesn't get so big I have to destroy it.
Very pleased with my first proper cook in the caravan since leaving Church Farm 3 years ago. Now for a major wash up - boil TWO pans of water.
Just dibbing about doing useful stuff, listening to Belle's podcasts, just for pleasure. She's funny, witty, hits the nail on the head a lot. Just talking about motivation. You don't wait until you run out of fuel before you go to the garage. Or expect the car to stay full, without refuelling it. So why imagine you have a permanent and infinite supply of motivation that never needs topping up.
I was really lucky the last two days (had there been whisky in the house, I think I might have cracked) but in part I was wiser thanks to last time - I recognised the early warnings signs - the pissed offness, the 'boredom', what I called accidie, the negative vibes from others (they probably weren't, or weren't intentional, but that's what I was feeling, and building up to a serious fuck it moment as a result). The fuck it moment still happened, may be it had to, and I'm not sure what I could have done to prevent it - more emails to Belle perhaps, or listen to podcasts as I've just been doing. Really the understanding came this morning, writing this - about overwhelm, lack of structure - my supports - getting fed up with myself, instead of just doing something, anything. Drinking NA beer as if it wasn't (and sort of getting cross because of course it had no effect whatsoever!).
Time for 6pm med. Rebecca texted - we're going to see 'The Rider' at 8pm.
Stefan's pamphlet on Divine Office is really good, and funny. Few typos - I should email him. I should get a copy of Benedict's Rule, and start reading the Cloud or Christian Mysticism, every day. Andrew has asked me to lead meditation some time. Which is nice - I was beginning to wonder if I was too weird. The bell's just rung. Delyth is making a cover for my meditation cushion.
Elba did proper divine Office - 2 psalms, a canticle, a Taizé chant (Irish John has a beautiful voice), a scripture reading and I meditated on the floor and didn't break my leg this time - proper meditation cushion, very comfortable and easy to stay upright and not get a dead leg.
Quite extraordinary film - 'The Rider' - in Poitiers, centre ville, with Rebecca. She'd read my email and didn't diss me, which was good. Quite mad, and possibly deaf. Picked up Daniel in the Place Maréchal Leclerc after the film and home at 11.15. He's spent the day rock climbing at Bourgoi - nice to give that a try some day.
Rang Pol and told her about the film. She's off to the eye doctor tomorrow and feeling a bit miz because she thinks she has rheumatoid arthritis. Taking Chinese herbal medicine and feeling a bit odd.
And so to bed. A lovely day. Proper rain, so I've popped out and put my Barbour over the power station. The Wasp family are warm and dry.
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