Pattern Dancing is So Yesterday!

Posted on February 24, 2012 by

Pattern 2

(Material Pattern)

I’ve talked about my love of patterns before – I love patterns – it’s one of the reasons I like material. Material always has a pattern. So does wallpaper. So do we. In fact we have many patterns. Not the patterns on our clothes (although we have them there too) or the freckles on our skin. Our patterns are to do with behaviour, our behaviour. A simple pattern of behaviour would be…. when a particular thing occurs you always do something, the same something.

Pattern

(Light Pattern)

One example: when someone (anyone) shows displeasure you (always) feel you’ve disappointed them and you attack yourself internally. To complicate matters the displeasure might not even be real, but that’s another topic. So, the someone may have a look on their face or they may be saying the word No or they may be disagreeing with your opinion. Whatever sign they are showing of their displeasure is irrelevant to your next step…. a feeling of disappointment and internal attack.

Tiles

(Tile Pattern)

It’s a bit like a dance. The someone takes a step, then, you take your step. You, me, all of us learned this dance early in our lives and it worked really well then. It got us what we wanted, comfort and attention. We danced it so much we forgot we were dancing, so that even when it doesn’t work we dance. The only one who can stop the dance is you… but first you have to notice it.

What’s your pattern? Mairead.

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He Stole my Laptop

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

 

1

(The gift)

I was in a cafe in Dublin today. I ordered my tea (giving coffee a wide berth for a while) and noticed the cashier wasn’t giving me her full attention. Her eyes had drifted from my face to something behind me. Then I heard the words “he stole my laptop“. We were both looking behind me now.

3

(Last summer’s rose)

At a tall young man making his way to the front door with three young women in hot pursuit… and the manager…. but no laptop.  Sometimes it’s hard to be precise in the excitement of the moment…. The young man slipped through the door, he didn’t have a laptop.

2

(Raindrops)

When he was gone the words were, “he stole my laptop, but I got it back” and although five people saw the man all we remembered were his clothes, “bright yellow” and a faint sense of excitement or panic. Ours? His? Which pieces are real in our memories? Which pieces do we make up, leave out or change….. to fit the jigsaw of confusion? Our minds want a story with a beginning, middle and end. Not the most useful story, not the true story, not the easy story…. but any story and if it has drama, all the better.

Fool your mind – make up a new story, Mairead.

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Happy Pancake

Posted on February 22, 2012 by

1

(Air bubbles in batter…. essential)

I love pancakes! I love making them and I love eating them. They definitely go on my lovely life list and my list of things I love. Today as I write it’s Pancake Tuesday. In many ways Pancake Tuesday is like a little Christmas. A day for eating all the nice stuff because tomorrow we fast. Or at least that’s how I think it used to be, but no one fasts now. So why is Pancake Tuesday still so great?

3

(Cracked eggs…. imperative)

When it’s possible to have anything you want it’s very hard to decide what you really want. When you have no choice and you can’t get what you want and there’s probably no possibility of ever getting it… then it’s much easier to decide what you want….

2

(Pancake…. perfect)

When Pancake Tuesday was the last day for forty days that you could eat something sweet, that tends to focus the mind… on something sweet. So maybe if you’re having difficulty choosing what you want, it might be useful to go on a decision fast… for forty days (or forty hours or maybe forty minutes). And notice where your focus lands.

You have no choices…. now what are you thinking about? Mairead.

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Make Friends with your Obstacles!

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

1

(Bookshop with very old first editions)

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin….

But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

- Alfred Souza.

2

(Different bookshop… first editions too but not so old…)

Isn’t that interesting? You know, I am sometimes stopped in my tracks with a great creative idea or plan by the thought of the obstacles. “What about the …?” “I have no…” “but no one would….” Emotionally whacking my creativity over the head. What if I considered the obstacles part of life, of creativity, a normal part of it? Then instead of whacking the creativity, obstacles would be encouraging it…. (Because it does seem odd that creative thought would ever be treated in a cruel way.)

3

(I’m making buttons)

So… life and creativity can be lived even if there are obstacles. In fact the obstacles may be a helpful tool that increases determination and creative solution solving! So the question now is… What would you do if you knew that obstacles were a very useful component of your life?

What’s your obstacle today? Mairead.

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Lovely space

Posted on February 16, 2012 by

2

(Watercolour paper with acrylic paint)

A couple of weeks ago I emptied and moved the bookcases from the kitchen. This was a big job but thrilling! Moving furniture around has always felt like going on holidays to me.That’s because when I was little, Maureen, who took care of my brother and me while our mother worked used to regularly rearrange the furniture in our bedrooms as a treat. When I came back to my newly arranged bedroom it was like I was in a new place and I could pretend to be whoever I wanted to be.

1

(Huge tube of white paint)

Now the kitchen has a very spacious feel, there’s even an echo. I had forgotten how much I love space. And there’s more room for my arts and crafts stuff. Having it to hand means I’m getting more hands-on crafting time. Nothing too complicated. But I’m noticing some things, things I love. Like drawing a brush and some paint across paper. There’s a different feel depending on the brush, the amount of paint, the thickness of the paper, even the colour of the paint.

3

(Pretty colours)

Makes me think it’s the little things that make life lovely. A purring cat, a new tube of white paint, smiling baby photos, buttons (I love buttons), blue in the sky and the sea, green moss. Might be a nice idea to list all the little things that make your life lovely.

No harm to remind yourself how lovely your life really is, Mairead.

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Quick Fix

Posted on February 15, 2012 by

1

(The tablecloth in happier times…)

For a while now there’s been a stain on the kitchen tablecloth. It’s one of those plastic coated table cloths that just need a wipe and they’re clean. Unless….you’ve spilled some glue on it. The glue had dried before I wiped, so it didn’t wipe off. Then at the weekend I remembered how nail varnish remover is excellent at removing glue. Well, I remembered it removes glue from glass and I figured it would work the same for plastic……

2

(Cafe in Paris… they probably have nice tablecloths in there)

Turns out it doesn’t work so well for plastic. No. Now it looks much worse… the nail varnish remover seems to have removed some of the colour and some of the plastic too. Maybe a strategically placed plate will solve the problem? Or maybe if I let the cat sit on the table, that might work. Or I could stick a photograph of the tablecloth over the messy bit.

Maybe I’ll just get another tablecloth.

Sometimes it’s just not possible to fix things, Mairead.

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Chess and Happinness

Posted on February 14, 2012 by

1

(Isn’t cabbage beautiful?)

I’ve been spending a lot of time sleeping over the last week – sinus headaches. And when I was not sleeping I was watching more documentaries. One about how the FBI were tapping John Lennon’s phone because he was writing peace songs and complaining about the war in Vietnam. Another was about the world chess champion Bobby Fisher. While John Lennon’s story ended in assassination (not by the FBI…. well, I don’t think so….) Bobby’s story was even sadder.

2

(Sometimes we miss the beautiful stuff…)

Bobby Fisher learned to play chess at the age of six, he said he became serious about playing when he was seven. He was incredibly smart and a genius at chess. In the early 1970′s when Russia was still the big baddie he had an opportunity to play against the Russian champion. In Russia chess was a big deal and champions were treated very well. In America chess wasn’t such a big deal but the possibility of beating Russia at any game was a big deal.

The battle was set to take place in Iceland and might take two months to play out. There was a lot of pressure on Bobby and he wash’t coping very well. He nearly didn’t go to Iceland and when he did he nearly didn’t play. He complained about noise and cameras and privacy. In the end he won…. and that was the end of his privacy and possibly his sanity.

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(… right in front of our eyes…)

In the documentary we see him years later, a very angry old man with lots of paranoid theories. He was given asylum by Iceland in 2001 when his own country wanted to throw him in jail.

Being smart doesn’t always make you happy, Mairead.

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