Dances with DS

I am smooth. So so smooth when I stand in the shower the water shall run off me like a sheet of glass.
I am also bold and very very brave. I subjected this poor body to such torture tonight - a multi - waxing with dear Doreen my friendly neighbourhood beautician. Legs, underarms and some unmentionables …a litany of fiery pain. I swore rather copiously and said the Lords name in vain several times but I know I will be forgiven by the Lord for this after all he knows the severity of pain. Just once I had a moment where the pain made me shoot bolt upright with a dreadful cuss emitted simultaneously. Doreen was very controlling in a good way. ‘Lie down and stop clamping your lips’ she said in a strict kind of way.
No sympathy at all for the meek.
I was so gobsmacked and out of my orb I just obeyed her. And bit a big blister on the inside of my cheek as a consequence of my suppression.
I am currently not the pretty sight I hoped for however I have very red patches - my armpits look like I have sprung a vile rash of disgusting origins. Oh please god let it all be gone tomorrow as Doreen reassured me. It’s suppossed to be a beauty treatment for gods sake. Not an exercise in a blotch job.
Oddly if I don’t look at the damage I do feel squeaky clean and rather pure truth be told. Adult hair that is not on the head is a rather ugly thing I think but that might just be me.

I feel better today. Pete & I had a long clearing chat today and we have decided to utilise some creativity and interesting ideas that extend outside of ‘norms’ and traditions to create what we want in our relationship and life. After all we already don’t subscribe to a lot of the traditional BS about - and this is our life no one elses. It deserves special consideration.

It strikes me often how one of the things I must think on is how I seem to be perpetually unable to draw on the history of others - I am always out there on the edge shitting myself taking leaps that defy everything. Having to find my own way. I don’t have security blankets though god - don’t you think I need them? Oh I do - I do, but it is as if I operate too far out of ordinary traditions and definitions to be able to find this comfort. And when painful things occur I really have a low defense system for coping.

I have a hugely intense emotional body that I try to move past the crass level (of what we usually associate with the emotions). Sometimes I think a bit of crass might be a good pain buffer but there it is - you untap these human aspects at your peril and one is that you will understand the intensity of pain in the same measure one experiences intensity of love and joy and humanhood.

As a result I just have these times I am in a huge wobbly thing. And then mercifully just when I think this time I have breached myself too far out into an unwritten consciousness and I am going to completely lose it because the mind you know - it is such a small fragile thing out there - miraculously something occurs and I see the way like a vision infront of me once more. And suddenly too into my life come people who I call my friends and they are wonderful and try to help me buffer the storms. Bless them. x

For me, surrendering is very much a key. Of course this is not my way I am a fighter by nature-lol. But I am not missing the cryptic message. And I know I am writing it all this lifetime and I hope one day I will be better at it. Maybe my history is yet to be a comfort for others…I hope it is not all in vain but I think nothing ever is.

As I live with Pete my respect and love for him only grows and we seem to be able to transgress our crises and traumas and still evolve very deeply into each other’s innermost lives. I am grateful for this intimacy & point of stability in a world that does not exactly shelter outcasts and misfits such as myself.
I think somewhere out there the Gods knew I would need exactly this sort of person in my life. He has never negated me nor throttled my spirit purposefully. I think there are many lesser men that would have cut my neck off metaphysically in a bid to curb me wick(s).
Instead I have that calibre of person that continously seeks to have me claim my life in the fullest ways possible and who not only inspires my developement on every concievable level but who facilitates it also. Actually - it is astonishing. I only need to think on how he lovingly supported me through 20 years of obesity and my surgery & subsequent life to know the admirable stuff my husband is made of.

I know if I embark on a string of adjectives publicly he will be embarressed so I’ll leave it at that and give him a big hug instead :-D.

Enjoyed being with my gorgeous children intermittently today. Love it that I can have these wonderful conversations with them now that they are all adult. My daughter is so wise for her age I love this quality in her to cut to the chase in such a compassionate way. Trying to drink it in before the journey away from them - they are what I miss the very very most when I travel. I must remember to pack in my photo’s of them.

And … I ate better today - 4 eggs for brekki, chicken bake for lunch, chili chicken for dinner and loads of milk. A good day considering though still not much desire to eat.

Short, sweet and SMOOTH tonight. I am off to my bed now.

It has been a peaceful day. Pete and I jumped into my little green car and went for one of our Surrey hills soujorns. Through the hills and woods thick with energy and dappled light we drove and drove. I feel myself relaxing with the wind in my hair and sun on my face - lovely.

We stopped in Shere at the usual pub - I had chicken breast with brie and veggies - very tasty and I actually ate most of it. I am currently very much attacking mayo - not a regular thing for me but I think my body needs the cals and fats right now.
I am quite pleased as this morning’s ‘breakfast’ was a force & gag session. Again. In my wisdom I made up a very thick puddingy protein drink - think strawberry angels delight (well, that’s what I kept telling myself as I pushed each treacherous spoonful in!). Still I managed the lot. I won’t let this beat me - booger that! I have come too far to get all sikki now.

Seems like South Africa has it’s first WLS surgeon - doing - ’stomach stapling’. I am concerned…but hoping this is just a euphimism for the RNY. We used to be a country on the cutting edge of medical technology. Second query from SA about WLS I have dealt with in a week. I think I might try to connect with the surgeon there and introduce him to the DS :-). (Erm prepare to train!-lol) At the very least patients deserve the choice. Just when I feel I will lay my fighting sticks down another challenge presents itself.

Istanbul…I dreamed last night I was in the Hagia Sophia. I dreamed of a man’s voice singing me the Koran in there. How the light filtered through and hit the mosiac of the Holy Mother. This one
And I was looking through the passageway on and on and it was so so peaceful & soothing.

I always say to my hubby…if something happens and I start to die and there is time take me there. Just wheel me in a wheelchair. I will go very easily there. His face was a picture, poor man!

I will go back and visit it YET again. It never tires me and I am always just blown away by it.

I am looking forward to that. I also hope to finally visit the Church of the Saviour (Kariye Mosque) and spend some time at the Bosphorus just sitting and being.

I am beginning to think pain & strife is very very good for creativity.
Today another major breakthrough at the workbench. Another good one!
This time I have used a piece of brown jade that is carved in ‘archiac’ form to form a centerpiece. A beautiful picture brooch with a delicious little girl in it (my own baby girl - yup she is 19 you’d not think so -lol!)…and my boys on the flip side. There is coral, pumpkin carnelian (love the earth tone and groundedness of this stone), A Ma’shaallah glass drop from Turkey, a wonderful netsuke of an infant boy climbing and a drop of amber. An old chinese piece of silver and an antique silver bead from china with bat on. All this is held by two serpentine ‘Holy knots of Life’ replete with red carnelion and amazing chinese knotwork & tassles from Tibet. It’s wonderful to wear, but again it would probably be best on the page of some glossy mag - not for yer average punter. (little whisper in head …oh go on….lol!)

Being impossibly ecentric ( I suppose-lol) I can get away with wearing such things and it is very interesting - woman come up close and must touch and look and most think the necklaces are wonderful but I know they’d not wear it. Only a very few can pull it off. Sometimes I can feel their energy is right and they should try it on. Let me try to describe this energy because it is not often found out there - not that every woman deep down does not have it. Tribal is the word that first comes to my mind but that is not really right - I am going to grapple but hey - I like grappling! Shall we replace that with kundalini type life force energy that is not dormant, but awake and moving through the body? That’s it! In this you can see wild horses, the elements, a very great shakti energy phenomena that unravels in a woman. Beautiful & mysterium tremendus! The beginning of Sophia (wisdom). I love how suddenly wearing one of my mega breast plates can transform the right kind of woman - it’s like it taps her into this space. I try to explain it - it is about energy and the import of presence. Aaargh - forget it! My words fail me.

I think too - it helps that I have been a big person. It helps when I wear this stuff I have the structure to carry it. My bones are right for strong pieces. I can wear several centerpieces in one. Plus some.

Some very dainty females cannot wear it - and they have a different energy - no less beautiful - for them I must make diaphanous light filled pieces…moonstone, amethyst, labradorite, black pearls and creamy pearls - more cut jewels and on a much smaller scale but equally please can we make it full and intense so that this adorns her intregral energy.
Actually although hardly dainty I wear both quite easily but I always struggle with which it will be.

I am not packed but it is on my mind. I am travelling with sandlewood candles, morrocan rose incence and a pair of mens undies to sleep in. Some old fav’s are my silk slippers and my hand loomed African blanket to wrap myself in at night when I go up to the Terrace to look over the amazing beautiful old city that Istanbul is. I have pictures of my children. I have enough stunning music to en-trance the entire hotel where I am staying. I am flipping hopelessly impractical. Get a grip Jane - pack the protein -lol!

I think my tools must go with to Istanbul. I called Aziz to check if it is ok I use his workbench on and off. No problem. He is off to Tel Aviv on business but his shop assistant has been informed I may pop in for a few hours. It turns me cold to think of him, a Muslim travelling through Tel Aviv? He however, has no reserves at all he loves travelling…anywhere. I hope he will be safe. Inshallah. Anyway - warned him of the exhausting security checks. It can take hours to get onto the plane - forget the latte!
Aziz tells me the weather in Istanbul is wonderful of late. So I feel glad of this. I will get more Vit D. I like to walk around bare armed. New one on me, I used to hide my arms.

Foodwise - I am just bloody awful right now. As I write I am trying to eat a packet of belgian brazil nuts choc coated a previous fav, Well I can hardly do it I feel they are so rich. I am still dropping weight. I must try to be stronger. I am now trying (and gagging) to do two nectars a day. I am forcing and my guts feels it is turning. Before I sip my mouth fills with pre nausea saliva. But do it I do. No shit.
It’s very very hard but sometimes we just must buckle down. I’m doing it ……. by concentrated power of will alone. I think there is no gremlin(grehlin) left in me and right now I would be pleased of some!

Top it all with constipation. So much for the DS trots eh! Well, I long for a good DS letgo I can tell you this is just GROSS. I feel so clogged up and oddly impure. Tonight I will try a high fat meal if I can bear to eat to try get relief.

An interesting tidbit on obesityhelp…mmmm…as I said I would still go to the Prof…in a way this substantiates it but it also has a nice balance of opinions: click here to see the thread
Music today a great mix for the avant garde at heart - Womans World Voices Vol 2some good dance music among it!:

Yes baby yes - (Sally said) Mo’ Horizons
Desert Stream - Egyptian Nurs
Look to the Spirit ( Great talent - Chiwoniso - makes me see my Africa)
Yalla Chant - Natacha Atlas

Soz about all the fiddling - I keep forgetting to put in the darned links!

Today in a flurry of creativity I have completed a necklace & interesting earring set. Amazing how some days it just flows forth. It was time for me to create something very different out of collected centerpieces from all over the world. An Ashanti weight from Africa - a beautiful piece of pristine bronze in a simple geometric pattern. Real African piece not tourist tack. I could feel a village in it - I could feel the metalsmith creating this. A magnificent agate and silver box from Scotland, I think turn of the century. Old silver watch fob chain. A netsuke of a Chinese sage intricately carved from bone. He holds in his arms a deer - meticulously carved. A bat bead carved from a seed - topped with a small amber bead. A stick of amber replete with insects in it! A woven leather ethiopian cross. A carved sacred eyes bead from Tibet. A chamfered bead of amber my mum gave me. A goon sized piece of rough sponge coral. A Turkoman breast disk of silver with amber hanging from it that I bought from Aziz. A carved butterfly agate from Cape Town. Old carnelion beads. A disk of agates from India. It can’t be sold - it’s a talisman piece. One day Katey (my daughter) will inherit it.

The earrings deliberately mismatch - because this piece works without symmetry to get all anal & tidy would kill it off but you got to have guts to wear the entire ensemble! The one earring is constructed carnelians and a piece of tourmaline. The other earring is a magnificent large silver filigree flower at the center there is a piece of lovely carnelian. It was wonderful to see all this materialise today.

Working on it I was listening to some wonderful chakra music - the best I have heard yet and I thought that I am fighting everything so hard and holding back so much and trying to be brave so no one else gets hurt…maybe I should just surrender. I don’t want to define what I surrender too - it sounds twee. Those in the know will know.

I downloaded the most beat-ful music I could find and then I had a great time dancing. Omg - this body - when I am in it like this it is something…the energy of it. It is a bloody miracle - it really is!!!

I thought okay today I will find my own rhythem and I did. I have skirted around this in the past & I dance - but not with my whole passion. My whole energy in sync. The truth is I was always a goddawful inhibited dancer - awkward, rigid, deeply not happenening and painfully self conscious. So I banished everyone - put on my music loud as anything and I move through my rigity and feelings of being profoundly silly and by gawd - suddenly it happens…I am dancing - no more than dancing… I am soaring.
(OK It helps my reading glasses are on and in the window (my mirror) I only see a blur. lol.)
Nevermind I am beyond caring what my critical mind mass has got to say. I wave it goodbye with a good bit of traditional African bum waggling

It’s so great. I feel intense heat move through me - I feel I can do anything in the bold moment - I practise a spot of belly dancing - WOOHOO…my panni might be saggi but the muscles beneath it are in pretty good nick really - amazingly enough. I flash on my Africa how when people are sad there they dance for healing and I am too. I have a blocked energy feeling for a second then it unravels and I am out there - no mind. No mind. Oh mercy.

I let go. I surrender.

A quiet day and much enjoyed. I am pottering. The acers have had food. The doggie and little old cat have had affection. The son has had hugs, the daughter and I had a lovely chat. God - I don’t know how I managed to raise such deeply stable kids - perhaps they are more their dad than flighty old me. But they are seriously lovely I think - I would would’nt I.

Spent time chatting to a friend who has decided to get the DS in Germany. I will accompany her and nurse her for two weeks post op. We are like sisters. I’m almost shocked she is going for it and I have to work through my fears for her. One thing to counsel others but she is my sister. It goes very deep & she is the single mum of three gorgeous kids. This is hard for her and for years she has tried other things but it is as if today she just has had enough. I called the Prof. Appointment in the bag already. I would still go to Germany if I was having surgery today - but just me. And probably because I implicitly trust the mans abilities after all when I look at myself how can I not?

I have completed an awesome necklace (in more ways than one. The focal point is a breastplate! It is a turn of the century Shou sign surrounded by bats - silver and enamel. Luckily I had brought back from Hong Kong an array of appropriate beads - among them a lovely buttery carved serpentine - blue & yellow turquoise - and a lovely small bat dangly bit. I added to this garnet lustrous and deep and yellow and blue tourmaline. Old battered African silver finishes it off very well.
It is huge and I am testing it as I write for neck comfort. So far so good - the question is will my neck be tired by it later on. It is very difficult to work on a massive scale with high statement jewelry because despite its size it must still be comfortable. Major factor.
I also chuckle at it - it is really also a jab at the mass produced ‘delicate’ rubbish sold as adornment in every second shop that all looks frighteningly the same. No heart to it - no sense of asethetic. It’s all about trying to ‘fit in’. Hangovers from childhood maybe when many feared they might never fit in? Dunno. Maybe. But then I should remember I am strange and I must look extremely bizarre to mainstream society -lol.
It’s so ridiculously typical of me to hammer at things that miff me…to fight it all. Why care that people want to wear drivel? Why bother? One day I must analyse what it is in me that rises up like Goliath against such trivia!

One of the reasons I adore Turkey is that there - because there are still tribal influences prevalent - wearing my kind of stuff draws positive comment and appreciation.

I have done some washing and ironing - I think for once I will pack well in advance so that leaving is quiet and not my usual flurry of crazy activity.
This time I will take my workbox to keep me busy at night. I have designed some very exclusive earrings that are begging to be given life - and given a bed and my stuff I can work at it at night.

I am also hoping Aziz will let me use his workbench once or twice should I need it - we shall see. He has come up trumps and has been very kind - checking out hotels etc to ensure I get a good clean place to stay. He’s quite funny - very paternal really - I get hysterically funny texts all phonetic - Iseeyourmushlaiter (mmmmm….what mush might that be? - Ahhhhh….I see you much later) - A louk (I look) hotel! I spend hours deciphering -lol! I think I am a complete mystery to him but he is trying to understand things beyond his contexts.

I heard from my brother last night - the baby was not turning in the womb and my sister in law might have needed a caeser but mercifully the little mite flipped itself into the perfect position during the night. I can’t wait for this baby to arrive.

One I write for myself alone.

Today I thought on how sometimes one is so sure a choice one has made was the ‘right’ thing at the time. Carefully weighed up & evaluated and carefully constructed to minimise pain. Logically.
And recently I am thinking how all this gets blasted to shards. I don’t understand it. I was hoping logic & emotions had some connection…it seems not.
As much as I made logical well founded highly pragmatic choices, emotionally there has been no preperation at all for the backlash. How extraordinarily bruised I am. How everywhere there is symbolism that pertains to me like a silent witness.
Odd things make my throat choke up and I am running internally continously, because it is so overwhelming sometimes. Perhaps externally I am running too. I have to look at that possibility as much as I don’t want to.
Although this has nothing to do with my DS it strikes me analogies could be drawn.
Expectations are the bunnygirls of the mind. In the reality of living with a choice they fall away and one is left only with emotions and worse, emotions one did not for a moment expect.
I tell myself. Have no regrets. Move on. See the lessons and grow wiser. Be strong girl - get your attitude back. Be willowlike. All happens for reasons we do not always understand. So many things I tell myself to put plasters over my rawness.
Difficult one. I cannot speak of it, please don’t ask me as I write this only for myself.

I still flash on Frida Khalo’s work. Having first unleashed my entire nightmare system, lately it brings me odd comfort. She’d have undestood. Perhaps it is time that I too pick up the brush again.

Where does time go? I am still only just getting things done - I am rushing around doing fun things (a bra buying expedition yesterday - I know it is girlie stuff) - today more appointments set up - communication between Istanbul hotel & organising airport transfers. I went to have my hair sorted out too - lovely - they have these great big generous massage chairs - head massage - I feel restored!

Decided seeing as I was in Guildford to meander through the shops which I duly did…came home with a motley of assorted things I did not need - well except for the brolly, it is pissing down here. For the rest please don’t ask me - a beautiful book for writing in - it had a silk cover, six wonderful scented candles and holders and a large Morrocan Rose scented candle because it is heady stuff ;-), a kilt pin with interesting dangly things on it (this is the one I don’t know what possessed me to buy it but never mind -lol! - A rather zooty pen - in green cutglass. A travel Kettle because I miss our tea in Turkey so much - English tea - assam - real tea…not those awful teabugs with no flavour I think they are the ubiquitous Lipton yellow label …might as well call them ‘yellow tasteless!’ I do like Turkish tea but given the choice I prefer our tea.
It could have been worse - I could have bought - Asian roomspray (silly gal I still have some gorgeous stuff from Shanghai Tang…2 deck chairs - yup like were would I put them??? A couple of pairs of M&S mens shorty unders - I rather like wearing them…though they look quite bizarre against my girlie bra thing.

I read somewhere yesterday a bloke and a woman where given the mission of buying a pair of brand specified jeans. The man went straight into the mall straight to the shop mission accomplished in around 6 mins. The woman however zig zagged all over the building popping into each shop that caught her fancy and last chore she bought the jeans. 3 hours later.
Mmmmm. Well at least I am not strange -lol!

Matt has promised me use of his ipod. Means I will have music in my hotel room which is nice.
So that is sorted.

The rest of today was spent talking to a lovely Turkish lady Aysha, who has opened a shop in our village - she was fantastic. Loads of tips about doing business in Turkey as a single female. I am trying to learn the language you see and the local Turkish people in my Village have had no choice but adopt me. I do resonate with these warm kindly uncomplicated people. I’m feeling geared up to go really - I have my plans worked out and a nice vision.

Foodwise - today in Ayshas shop I tasted the most wonderful dried chick peas - I really enjoyed them. The protein, zinc & magnesium are good and they eat so easily. Please if any of you would like to try them connect with me - perhaps if enough are interested Aysha might post them off to you. Healthwise one can’t go wrong and they are pretty tasty. I know I could get addicted. Veggie protein sources are hard to find - these are a great find.

Appetite slowly getting a bit better though not much and I am craving very very specific foods. Olives. Goats cheese. Prawns. An odd combo but perhaps tonight I will knock up a salad comprising of these things!
My rings no longer fit the fingers - keep falling off and at last I can wear my wedding ring on the correct finger (it was a tad too small before).
This sudden weightloss is very interesting to me - I have always gone up & down since year two but this time I have dropped below my lowest threshhold. I feel there has been no one here who could help me assimilate it really. It’s completely unexpected and I have had moments of being afraid I might be on a path of no return.
At this late stage weightloss is not common - more often it is weight gain. I feared writing about it too publicly because it must seem bizarre to those struggling to maintain or who are battling regains, and as I said who could help me anyway? I think understanding is probably brought out of experience & I feel so bad if someone is struggling with a regain to start expressing my fears about a weightloss. As the regain scenario is the thing happening with many who are longerterm like myself - it might really seem like I am fussing over nothing comparitively and perhaps I should be grateful…but it’s individual you know & I am best at a size 14-16 in myself & do not particularly wish to slip downwards weightloss wise. But more bothering is the complete lack of connection to food in anyway. I find myself in the supermarket unable to even plan a meal for my family so little do I care for food. Well, I like to care about food so it’s all a little scary & I just have to hope the tide will swing as it has before.
I think I might need to lean on my friends in the USA soon if this continues, some have had this there and perhaps they will be able to help me with the headstuff.

Another headstuff revelation today - I think I finally ‘got it’ that it is ALL about body shape as oppossed to some standard size. Brought on by the people watching I do - I again noticed today that there is not one body that is duplicated by another - (bar the lovely twin babies I saw today!). All bodies are so vastly different - it’s weird like I have had a rogue standard stripped from my sight.
I think clothes sizes are just rough approximations to ease our lives and not exacting measures of ’success’. And suddenly for a few hours I felt my own body really really is okay. It probably won’t last it never does but I was grateful for the respite.
Especially now.

Slowly things are distilling in my being. Slowly. Pete and I finally could talk a little - better than me doing my outward thing and him withdrawing. I think we can see a compromise - a synergy that can evolve. I can’t stay in the UK day in and day out - so if I travel this is good for all of us really. Up until now I have travelled for pleasure but recently I am piecing together an exciting business plan too and I have Pete’s support. It’s still pipeline stuff but I feel I could pull it off & more than that, I want to. Time to start stepping out and getting on with LIFE.

I’ll probably go back to Istanbul in Sept alone. If I can eeek out a month I might try but I think at least I will go for 2 weeks. I would like to visit the antique dealers there - I have a few plans! I got an e-mail back from a friend who lets out flats there - this time it will be more authentic of an experience. I am lucky because I have made very good kind friends there already and they are all being so sweet and helping me find my feet to be able to live less like a tourist - more in an integrated Turkish way. I feel protected in some ways. I’m nervous but I will be ok. I said to Pete - I need only a translator and a cd player of some kind, my vitamins, protein and some humankindness.

Being in one’s 40’s is really hard - it’s a hard time - I relook everything in my life and am trying to envision a future. I know what I need but these needs must be weighed out and carefully attuned to my families needs too. It’s not an easy balancing act.

The Frida Kahlo exhibition still haunts me. OMG. Powerful stuff. I was so moved and I thought again how little we know of a persons life - their pain, desires, needs. How little. And how lonely it is.
And the things we cannot say. There is so much I don’t say!
That must seem strange for those who feel they know me because I must appear like a floodwater of verbalage (is there such a word? - well, you know what I mean -lol!).
The thought of me opeining up any further is just too much even for me - lol.

She speaks of a moment in which everything became transparant for her and in that moment it was as if she was placed in another world and it would never be the same again. I relate. I relate deeply. And all through her artwork there is sorrow. I wanted to write ’sadness’ but sadness is small personal stuff - sorrow - well, that is universal. There is a transition point for people where when they move into another way of being - and then a tremendous sorrow engulf’s one. It’s a sign. But I won’t say more than this.

In my head I am reliving the paintings of Frida. I am sorry that the Tate are making big bucks out of her work. I am sorry people append a sort of sentiment to her work. If her angel is watching this she must be mad - or maybe she is just thinking thank god I don’t have to be part of all the b/s anymore -lol. She’d not be passive that much I do know!
An energy like that cannot ever be passive. Impossible!

Anyway. Enjoyed is not a word I really want to use in relation to her work. I can’t say I enjoyed it. It shook me. It made me cry inside a lot. It made me question my own perspectives and think on how I might be looking into a mirror. Then I was unnerved and somewhat overwhelmed. Then I thought maybe it was not a coincidence that I should look upon such potent imagery and understand so much of it way too well. Loss, pain, blood, seperation, how one’s veins run into the earth and how flowers blossom ontop of ones head are not unfamiliar to me. Then I got mad that I know the language of symbolism so well and wished I never did. That way it would have been all very mysterious and faraway…especially faraway.
Instead it was very close up and personal and I felt I was looking into this womans most private soul spaces and in turn into my own. (Yet again. *Sigh*)

We had lunch in the Cafe at the V& A later. Completely Delicious Salt Beef recipe:
Salt Beef - shredded with a fork
Red Kidney Beans
Olive oil
Capers
Roasted Red peppers
Sliced baby gherkins
Parsley chopped
Eat Cold like a Salad. It’s a beautiful colour - reds and purples. My flagging appetite was truly buoyed!
The new DS spaggetti? I can only say it was out of this world. If I had made it I would have put olives (those huge green ones) and feta cheese on the table.
I could not take in the V&A exhibits my head was too full.

On the train home riding once more among the sleeping dead awake people I was relieved. I thought then - better that most people are asleep. Much better. (Gosh that sounds arrogant - I don’t mean it in that way. ) I just mean compassionately - it is much easier to never tap the deeper aspects of the psyche and as for the collective psyche omg please do onesself a great favour and stay away! ACHTUNG & do not enter signs!(lol).

You can stay away with drugs, alcohol, medications,religion, belief systems. Failing these - may I suggest any manner of diversionary tactic - sometimes therapy is the best one.

Mmmmm - think I will go find myself a nice diversionary tactic too…

I’m still listless & proteinless. Not good. My appetite is basically bumming out a sure sign I am stressy although I have to add strangely positive too in some perverse way I don’t quite get yet. My DS lets me know the state of my emotions way before I get there. I did a borderline okay intake today but I know that is just not good enough. I feel like a hypocrite now because just last week I was getting mad about non compliance and now! *blush*

I’m losing weight fast. My panni looks wrinkled as anything & I have a scrawny turkey neck wattle (euwwww). Today at the M&S sale I pulled on a size 10 (WHAT!!!!) skirt OVER my pants! I had to look at the label several times I could not believe it - impossible!- but yup it said size 10. Weird. I thought I was 12/14 - perhaps the skirt is just a very stretchy 10. Then moments later I bumped into an old friend I have not seen in 6 months and she asked me where I was disappearing to with a look of utter astonishment on her face!
I am soooooo distorted. I am unable to feel my size. Still. I don’t know if I will ever locate my size.
The other thing is the skinny demon starts to talk. The skinny demon is very very sick really - I find myself enjoying this skinny-ness. I find myself entertaining anorexic thoughts - and I have to surpass this because I know this state - this size 10 is bloody nonsense actually and I am not living optimally nor is it good for my health (or my panni!).

On the plus side - I feel relief to know I do actually oddly enough have this control factor - I have been afraid of regains and I think also I have always seen my DS as out of my control really (aside from the basics)…I think it was for a long time - but perhaps for some of us in the 4 year out scenario this control does come to us…Melanie M has often spoken of it and I would concur.
As we all say - the DS works in strange and wondrous ways.

But despite the size dislocation factor - I do feel that I am in my body now - that much I have and I can claim. Today I have put on my music full blast and danced myself into every muscle fiber like a madwomen. My little dog cast me a long suffering look and left the room - lol. I think it is partly a reaction to suddenly not walking again. In Istanbul all day I am moving my body and then suddenly here I am at my computer again, stationery.

As you can see dear reader I am not thinking much today…mostly because I know if I start it might tip my balance and right now I need to just stay with the hour ahead. I console myself with the notion I will see a way forward eventually - there will be guidence and visions will come back. I just have to hang in here for now. C’mon Jane you can do it!

Tomorrow my mum and I are off to the Tate - looking forward to seeing the Frida Kahlo exhibition.

It’s a disaster to fall so deeply and completely into a place that getting out seems impossible. I feel like a foul wind today (might be highly appropriate that has blown back to this beautiful land. Don’t make any mistake I love England dearly. However, it’s a righteous kind of love that filters out of my flesh and biological history. A quiet whispering restrained sort of love.

It is not the hot passionate vibrantly alive gut emotion I have with Istanbul’s energy. And at my age it is flipping well time to have the dimension of this unspeakable part of humanity that has been turned aside and neglected. I want it. I want it till it makes my DS tummy wobble internally on a weird axis that reminds me of flying over a wicked bump in the road or the first time I fell in love. I want it till I ache…and I just don’t know how to link up the dots between this & that.

I am sick to death with political correctness and games played out and people not even knowing that is how they live - sadness - a kind of lost sadness that prevails everywhere. Everywhere I have been in the Western world I encounter this. I worry in part that I might be romantiscing the place Istanbul is in a kind of veiled Sis kebab & all ‘touristic’ light and sunshine kind of way but I think not.

In any event I do not wish to lead a safe impoverished emotional life always suppressing what is in my heart and in my thought stream. I simply can’t do it. I have to leap out boldly into life and live deeply in a multi-layered kind of way. I’m dog tired of the surface of things and how one goes on with it for other peoples sakes until there is no spark left. Reminds me of Pink Floyds ‘comfortably numb’ song - the same type of depression pervades me.

I am flighty, jumpy and my attention span is up the pole today. I am doing a bum job on the protein front too. Chops are waiting in the fridge and there is butternut and fresh broad beans & I am hungry so I should go and cook but it’s not happening. Nothing contents me - my mind is in high speed mode. I am thinking a short course of strong medication might not be so evil right now but then I could not bear the monotony of that suppression either so I reckon most likely I will just accept I am pitching my psyche towards that same old abyss. (note in Illume - ‘the old school of cliff dwellers’ - I relate that’s me!) I don’t learn. But I have fallen off enough times to at least be sure that I will survive it and come through it okay and have learned some things in the time I am in there. I used to think it could be chemical but I secretly know that I actually do it because I must. I must LIVE. Only there falling over my own notions and barriers do I know what it means to truly be alive.
Most of the time like the rest of the living dead I just exist in comfy limbo.

I sometimes try to analyse it - I think it is because when I start the letting go thing it scares the patootie out of people. It has the exact opposite effect of what I’d hope it would have (when I bother to really think about it.)
I would hope for debate - open mindedness - enjoyable bantering. Love even. Love and respect? - why not! Connection? Crikey I am ever hopeful. Instead it seems to bring misunderstanding and fear to people. I wonder is this because it shakes them do they look at me and think it is all too close to home? I don’t know. I am curious about it, but you see when it happens I so dislike the reactions, I am so appalled that it could hurt anyone I sink back - I sink my psyche back into living dead mode where we are all safer in our world of the known. And the thing is I know a different reality - a forbidden reality. The problem is - once you know something that is it - there can be no undoing of it.

This can’t last forever. Sooner or later one has to go where few men have been before and buck the system for good. I wish I did not know that. It’s knowing that that has a clarity for me. Otherwise admittedly I might just be pushing deep into the depths of mental confusion. But I am not - (yikes better state that!).

But enough… I am going to places now that are too open to misunderstanding and labelling. Already in my personal life I am pushing the envelope. I don’t think in all fairness most people would have the faintest of what I was on about and I find it all rather funny right now which probably is slightly psychotic behaviour -lol. Of course this only makes matters worse. And I have this mindset that starts with all the crap of just how selfish I am being etc etc… that’s the clever way that I sink back into the mundane world…that’s the way my mind makes a door through which I go back & ‘pull myself together.’

I realise that it’s in Istanbul where I present myself just in my being - nameless, without past, without anything except my passport and some dosh and a few protein substitutes - that I truly move to being. Just being. And am accepted at a level I have not known before. And that I feel passionate about Life as if my years of holding back and restraint just give out finally and the sunlight falls on me and my spirit is out there so strongly even I am amazed. I realise how much fear motivates my life and how it damages a person silently. How corrosive it is. How in the end one cannot trust oneself and how this dissipates what is essentially holy in each person. I had the insight last night that passion & holy are brother and sister.
Perhaps the word passion is too much sullied - perhaps I mean vibrancy —– perhaps I should just shut up - lol! After all it only matters to me.

Istanbul. It’s as if the place holds me together - right there in the middle of the crazy place it can be, the cats, the cars, the city noise - it is ironic that I find peace, stillness, acceptance. There is eye contact here and people are not afraid to take one’s hand. I feel sick with deprivation and I have hardly been back for two days - I feel like swearing badly and profusely - but hey better not be crass!

I also know much of this comes out of the reassembly of Jane. Deep in my soul I have always been essentially myself but its as if as the layers of fat went - at the same time this depth has entered through the layers of my existence it is truly quite unnerving. Sometimes I think getting my DS unleashed in me some kind of ungodly (or maybe dare I hope even, godly) energy that I struggle to assimilate and briefly I wonder if my weight issues in some way connected to a forceful slowing down inflicted by the atrocious disease. I’m not much for the psychology thingie for me personally - but I see some tenuous inter-reactions there. I do wish sometimes I could get help but the problem is most people can’t/won’t move towards my inner space & I get very instinctive in my being which further makes it too difficult to reach me. Besides I don’t like the idea of the blind leading the blind so to speak - that’s not smart when one is a cliff dweller.

No - I have to fly my own abysses. I have to light my own torch. Dance my own dance. Live like a brightly lit wick in the moment - intensely, soulfully whole heartedly. It’s always like that for me. Outcast - fat or slimmer- outcast. That is just how it is. I can’t function in ordinary lala land. And I still don’t know where the hell I am going or if I particularly even care tonight.

Illume most appropriately & succintly(not ) plays on my system.

“Illume”

Illume says the candle that I burn
A reflection in the window
All the way to Point Dune
Illume-like it dances
I am a cliff dweller
From the old school

I like the coastal cities
I like the lights…
I like the way the ocean blends
Into the city at night
Like living on a working river
This coastline is glittering
Like a diamond snake
In a black sky

I’m alone now
With my thoughts
Of how we could make it
Of how we could get out
What we’ve been through
All of the trauma
The smell of Nag Champra
Shadow of a stranger

I will not take you for granted
I wouldn’t trade you for jade
Or for diamonds
Not for one minute
Not for anything
I need you to be there
Just remember when I am haunted
That I was just so scared

I’m alone now
With my thoughts
Of how we could make it
Of how we could get out
What we’ve been through
All of the trauma
The smell of Nag Champra
Shadows of a stranger

What I saw on this journey
I saw history go down
I cannot pretend
That the heartache falls away
It’s just like a river
Ooh, it’s never ending
I cannot pretend
That the heartache falls away

Because it’s just like a river
It’s never ending
It’s just like a river
It’s never ending

I’m alone now
With my thoughts
Of how we could make it
How we could get out
What we’ve been through
And all of the trauma
The smell of Nag Champra
Shadow of a stranger

(What I saw on this journey… I saw history go down)
(I cannot pretend…that the heartache falls away)
(It’s just like a river…ooh, it’s never ending)
(I cannot pretend that the heartache falls away)

I’m alone now
With my thoughts
How we could make it
Of how we could get out
What we’ve been through
All of the trauma
The smell of Nag Champra
Shadows of the strangers

What I saw on this journey, what legends are made of
I cannot pretend that the heartache falls away
Just like a river, ooh, it’s never ending
No, I cannot pretend that the heartache falls away
Because it’s just like a river, it’s never ending
Falls away…like a river, it’s never ending…
La la la la… la la la la…
La la la la… la la la la…