If I ever got a tattoo this is what it would say

Ten poems I have had on my pinboard

TWO SIDES OF SILENCE

LINTON KWESI JOHNSON

to us

who were

of necessary birth

for the earth’s hard

and thankless toil

silence has no meaning

there is never a feeling

of tranquillity

or mere quietness

never a moment

of soundless calm

from within or without

our troubled selves

how can the clamour

of sounds be stilled?

there is no void where

noises can collect

and be made mute

how indeed

can there be silence

when our hearts beat out

a sonorous beat

meeting the beating drums

of an African past

when our eyes shed

solid tears of iron blood

that falls on concrete ground

how can there be calm

when the storm is yet to come? This unending silence

taut, impervious, unbending

not lending an ear

to the most delicate of sounds

awaits the blast of bombs

which man will explode

to break this silent bond

to use to create

hills of soft obedience

where sweet-clothed sounds

can rebound

and their echoes glide

like a carefree bird

in rhythmic calm

to a mellow

pure, silent space

These are ten poems I have had on my pin-board (and if I didn't have them on my pinboard, I should have)


I'd love to know the poems that you have needed at one time or another.

A text, a post-it, a painting and a play

My daughter sent me a text when I started a new assignment. She said I love you. Remember you have blue eyes.

Blue eyes is code between us. It means your gift is nothing personal.

That thing you do that makes you feel alive and in the flow is entirely neutral.

We’ve taken to calling it blue eyes because my eyes happen to be blue and that's a fact. And just like everyone has different abilities, everyone has eyes of some colour or another. It's not like I'm going to go to work and all of a sudden I won't have blue eyes. I can count on it, every time.

It only gets confusing when I make it mean something like proof that I’m worthy, special, employable. It's only when I focus on the outcome, that I get lost.

So I wrote this on a post-It and stuck it to my phone:

Hew wood. Draw water.

It’s a reminder that it doesn’t really matter what it is.  Just do what is in front of you.

If it’s bringing out the best in a person, or telling a story, or conveying a new idea, or bringing order to chaos, or making connections, or solving a problem, or joining the dots, or dancing, or writing, or creating, or finding consensus, or leading a team or making things look pretty, or growing things, or baking bread, or making shoes, or making movies, just do it.

It doesn’t matter what the outcome is. There is no meaning in your ability to do it.

Being rich or happy or successful or making a difference is not the point of your blue eyes. There is no point. There is only do.  

This is how Barbara Kruger says it:

This is how Yoda says it:

YODA: Use the Force. Yes...
Now...the stone. Feel it.
Concentrate!
So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you
nothing that I say?

LUKE: Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally
different.

YODA: No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn
what you have learned.

LUKE: (focusing, quietly) All right, I'll give it a try.

YODA: No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.

LUKE: (panting heavily) I can't. It's too big.

YODA: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hm?
Mmmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force. And a
powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. It's energy
surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we...(Yoda pinches
Luke's shoulder)...not this crude matter. (a sweeping gesture) You must
feel the Force around you. (gesturing) Here, between you...me...the
tree...the rock...everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that
ship!

LUKE: (discouraged) You want the impossible.

Quietly Yoda turns toward the X-wing fighter. With his eyes
closed and his head bowed, he raises his arm and points at the
ship.
Soon, the fighter rises above the water and moves forward
as Artoo beeps in terror and scoots away.

LUKE: I don't...I don't believe it.

YODA: That is why you fail.

The man who came fourth

Last night, I watched a slight man in a team GB t-shirt reach a finish line before any of the 29 men that had started with him less than half an hour beforehand.

It was beyond exciting to see Mo Farrah win the Gold Medal in the 10 000m in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

I liked it even more when he said after the race: “It’s never going to get any better than this. It’s something I’ve worked so hard for, training 120 miles a week, week in and week out. Long distance is a lonely event. I just got to enjoy this moment I guess”

Apparently two best friends came first and second and two brothers came third and fourth.  
Until yesterday, I didn’t know much more than that about athletics, so I didn’t really notice the guy that came fourth.

This morning I was talking to Anton, who knows a lot about athletics. He told me what he knew about the guy who came fourth.  The rest I found on YouTube.

Kenenisa Bekele is an athlete from Ethiopia who knows a lot of things. He knows what it’s like to reach a finish line before anyone else. He knows what it’s like to win two gold Olympic medals for the 10 000 meters and one gold medal for the 5000 meters. He knows what it’s like to set and hold the world record for both events.

He knows what it’s like to fall in love and have your fiancé die in your arms on a training run.
He knows what it’s like to dominate a sport for over ten years and then rupture a muscle and see your career grind to a slow halt.

He’s a shy, quiet person with incredible focus and peace of mind. In an interview before the race he was asked if he was worried about Mo Farrah. He said:” I don’t worry. I enjoy it lots. I will try to do my best”

That’s all we can ever do.

Yesterday it was in the power of Mo Farrah to run 27 minutes and 30 seconds.
And it was in the power of Kenenisa Bekele to run 27 minutes and 32 seconds.

It’s just two seconds of a life of moments that are strung together like a rope. If you focus on the end of the rope, you’ll miss the point.

The only way to approach it is to keep your head down and do what is in your power to do. Don’t think about winning gold, about crossing finishing lines or about what it all means.

Our lives change all the time.

Only two things don't change: the connected, intact and infinite spirit inside us. And that moment by moment, we only have this time now.

How to tell where the real story is

Once upon a time long ago my people rejected the polytheistic view of the surrounding tribes and became attached to the belief in a single God.

They passed down this belief from generation to generation, more or less understanding what it meant, until today about 3, 000 years later. This is where I become part of the story, because this tradition was impressed upon me too in turn. Not just when I stayed home and when I went out, but also when I lay down and when I got up.

I went to Weitzman Primary School where I learned the stories of the Torah.  I matriculated from Herzlia High School, where I learned to read and write Hebrew.

I got drunk on four cups of wine and sang with my cousins on Seder night. I wore a blue shirt and a red toggle and had the time of my life at Habonim Machaneh in Onrust, in the sun and the dust.

I ate Friday night supper with my parents, my grandparents and my brother and sisters.  There were always prayers and three courses including dessert and Coke.  We sometimes sang Grace after meals.

I sat upstairs in Marais Road Shul and looked at the clothes of the other girls, and tried to catch the eyes of the boys downstairs. 

No one told me to, but I believed in a Jewish God in the sky. I believed He had a special relationship with his Chosen people. I believed that the whole Torah was written by God and given at Sinai. I believed Hebrew was the language God spoke in. I believed the land of Israel was Holy.  I believed good Jews keep more mitzvoth.

And then and then and then…

Then this year I read Viktor Frankel, Richard Elliot Friedman, Rumi, Sidney Banks, Menachem Kellner and Arthur Green.  And I listened to Jonathan Wittenberg, Terry Rubinstein, and Simon Cooper.

And a lot of what I believed fell away.

This is what was left:  that there is one, undivided God. That God is so undivided he can’t be in some places and not in others.   I don’t believe his name is God or anything else either.

I like this belief. When I see it (and I don’t always truly see it) I feel connected to a force in me that is also in everything and everyone else.  It all follows from there.



Apparently, in this case, a recipe for pizza dough follows:

1 packet instant dry yeast
600gm flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
450 ml warm water from the tap ie not too hot
Mix and knead. Cover and leave to rise. Then roll out,
add toppings and cook on high till done.

How to put your best foot forward

A head-hunter called me this week.  They wanted to meet me before agreeing to represent me.

As I am very keen to be offered more freelance work, I was thrilled.

The more I thought about how important it was that I make a good impression, the more the inside of my head looked like a fight scene in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

These were some of my Tom and Jerry thoughts:

I need this interview to go well.  I was very anxious at the last interview. I am a failure. I don’t want to be doing this anyway. Advertising has an unfair age-ceiling. I don’t deserve a lovely job. My expectations are too high. I’m beating a dead-horse. If only I was brave enough to make cold-calls. If only I had better self-esteem.  The only thing standing in the way of getting a new job is my inability to control my anxiety. My career is over. Etcetera.  Etcetera.

But for some unknown reason, on the morning of the interview, I had a wild and crazy thought.

This is what it was:

This interview is just another interview out of the thousands I’ve had in the business. Probably nothing will happen as a result of it. Let’s see how it feels as I go in, while I’m in it and how I feel after it. Let’s just be curious about what I experience moment to moment.

I became more interested in the experience of the journey than the purpose of the journey.

I let go of trying to control the outcome.

This is what happened on the day of the interview

On the way there, I watched myself on the train getting a little anxious about leaving behind my portfolio which was next to my feet. I picked it up and put it on my lap.

I watched myself get a bit thirsty. I stopped and bought myself a bottle of water.

I watched myself worrying about getting lost and being late. I asked for directions.

As I met the two recruiters, my bracelet and sunglasses flew across the room as I stood up to shake their hands. I watched myself quickly regain my composure.

We went upstairs and sat on the roof terrace in the sun. It was hot. I drank the water I had bought earlier.

I watched myself being dynamic, clear, confident and graceful.

I learned what Just Do It means.

It means don’t look ahead. Look now.

Because that is where the power is.

When I let go of the outcome, the path rose up to meet me.

I suspect it works for most things.

Unhappily married? Let go of the outcome. Listen quietly and non-judgementally to yourself moment by moment. Talk (or don’t talk) from that place.

Feeling fat? Let go of the outcome. Listen quietly and judgementally to yourself moment by moment.  Eat (or don’t eat) from that place.

Feeling anxious? Let go of the desired outcome of freedom from anxiety. Listen quietly and non-judgementally to yourself in the moment.  Have your anxiety; it doesn’t have to have you.

You know that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where he needs to cross a chasm and suddenly he sees the invisible path that will take him across?

It’s a great metaphor for what happens when you see that the goal is an illusion,

that the past and the future are irrelevant,

that the only power you have is in this moment,
putting one foot in front of the other.

Summer Supper

The goal was not to make a quick meal for my family that was healthy and more delicious than anything the great Ottolenghi himself could have made, but that’s what happened.  Ten fingers.

This is how:

Couscous salad

250 gm. Couscous

400 ml boiling water

Tiny cubes of one sweet potato boiled till soft

Beluga lentils

Chopped flat leaf parsley

Salt, pepper, cinnamon on the sweet potato

Tablespoon of oil in the couscous

Put couscous in bowl. Add boiling water and oil. Leave for a bit. Add other ingredients.

Fish Ocean basket style

Plate of flour with fish spice mix

Plate of sunflower oil

Jug of melted butter and lemon juice

S&P

Fish fillets: cod, haddock or kingklip

Dip fish fillets in flour mix, in oil plate

Then onto hot, oiled frying pan for 6 or 7 minutes

Then plate

Pour over with butter/lemon juice 

Steamed asparagus

Getting over heartbreak (and other problems)

Recently, I have heard the following said by some of the wonderful people in my life:

If only he loved me,

If only we could be together,

If only we lived in the same place,

If only I hadn’t slept with his best friend,

If only he would come back to me

If only he didn’t work so hard,

If only I had more time,

If only my boss wasn’t an arsehole,

If only I was married,

If only I could change his mind,

If only it wasn’t raining,

If only my child was gifted academically,

If only I weighed 63 kgs

If only I had a meaningful, well-paid job,

If only I had as many followers as Pioneer Girl,

If only I always said and did the perfect thing,

If only I had more energy,

If only my child didn’t wear such short skirts,

If only I had the discipline to write 30 pages a day,

If only I could live by the sea,

If only the sun was shining,

If only I was rich,

If only I had had a better childhood,

If only my child was happy,

Then I would be ok

I would be happy

I would be whole

Then my proper life could start

When people say those things to me, I want to hug them and sit with them until the tears end. Then this is what I want to say:

You are on this planet right now,

It is your turn to be here

One day your turn will be over

But today it is your turn

And you are OK

You are whole

You are not broken

You don’t have to fix anything outside or inside to be OK and whole and happy.

Happiness is not conditional on freedom from suffering

Your circumstances will never be completely perfect,

Your thoughts will never be completely perfect,

But know you are part of an infinite and intact wholeness that is already perfect

And always perfect

So get up

Stay in the game

Look after the body you live in

Feed it well

Be kind to it

Stretch it and strengthen it in the way it likes

Do what you have chosen to do with all your might.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This soup is near perfect: quick, delicious and nutricious. It's now on our soup-roster along with butternut soup, leek and potato soup, tomato soup, chicken soup, thai coconut soup and the favourite bean and barley soup.


Nigella Lawson’s Lentil and chestnut soup

Ingredients

One onion

One leek

One carrot

One stick celery

Two tablespoons oil

225gm red lentils

One and a half litres vegetable stock

22gm tin of chestnut puree

Parsley

Double cream

Method

Chop and fry first four ingredients in oil.

Add lentils and stock.

Boil for 40 minutes,
Add chestnuts, boil for another 20 minutes.

Blitz, add cream.