Happy Easter

Whatever is true
whatever is noble
whatever is right
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-
Think about such things.

PHIL 4 verse 8

Joe, the South African friend of the whiskey, drove me up the mountain yesterday to see the roses. I have been moonlighting most Thursdays and have not been doing my usual escapes to the sands or camping with my geologist friends, so was really in need of a short escape.  
I was feeling tired and sore and in need of finding a place of peace inside. We drove out of town with some soft Mozart and not too many words, and as we left the city behind, I immediately started to feel lighter.

There is something about a trip in a car that makes me want to go and go and go to the end of the road. There is something about the leaving of a place, and the anticipation of arriving somewhere new, that really revives a part of me. It reminds me of the long road trips with my parents, with my grandparents, uncles, aunts.. singing songs, stopping for yummy picnics on long open roads with a sign before to signal the shade of a tree, playing "I spy with my little eye". Road trips are imbedded in my South African culture, and my love for them is inherent to who I am.

I love my car here in Oman. His name is Ollie, named after Oliver Twist, always asking when we stop at the petrol station, 'Please,Stefani, can I have some more?'
After the Cyclone Gonu, I refused to write him off. He was completely flooded and it took months to get him fit and well, but he has been going well ever since. He is always polite and has only ever broken down twice, once withing spitting distance from home and the second within spitting distance of the town where my bedu family live.

It is already quite warm and humid in Muscat, I noticed 31,5 degrees Celsius this morning, so it was pleasant to get up into the foothills and then higher into Al Jebel Al Akhdar, the Green Mountain. It is not really green as we would imagine green. But when you get to the top of the plateau and squint your eyes like crazy, you can imagine when the Omanis would name it that.
There are beautiful views over to the terraced villages, where the people grow different fruits and of course the roses.

It is quite late in the season, and I half thought we might have been too late, but approaching the village of Al Aqr on foot, I was really happy to see some pink splotches still on the bushes. I was also expecting the place to be inundated with foreigners, but it was almost as if it was booked just for us. There is a path along the mountain with lovely views, past a pool down a little wadi, on by a small picturesque mosque with a sky blue minaret.

I love the roses here, they are not pristene and pruned, they are a bit raggedy and windswept and a wonderful pink. The pure fragrance hits you and one can wander down one side of the main rose garden treading carefully along the top of a falaj, water way. I sat for a moment in that shady place watching the bees enjoy the sweetness of the petals, listening to the small birds and looking at the small red dragon flies flitting over the water. An wiry wizened old man who reminded me a little of my oupa, my grandfather, came jaunting along the wall with his stick, happily chatting to himself. He gave us such a friendly greeting and had such a glint in his eye, it was difficult not to share his enthsiasm for the day.

We left that place and had our own picnic at one of the lookout points. An Omani family stopped in a pick-up truck and all piled out, children, women and all. They proceeded quickly into the hills, one woman carrying a couple of small plastic bucketlike containers, I am still curious to know what they were collecting. Joe took out his pocketknife to cut neat slices of chicken and I reclined on my purple pillow with the sun in my face, able for a moment to feel a deep kind of rest.

It was a good Friday.

Root canal No 3, what have I done to deserve this?

Khalil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, 'your pain is the breaking of the shell of your understanding'. Mmmm, this is wonderfully profound until one has this amount of toothache in 3 months! I just don't need this level of understanding, thank you very much, I would rather stay ignorant and hidden in my safe hard shell. I have to thank Alex from the bottom of my heart for writing to say that he understands the whole rootcanal thing being on a different kind of level, I thought that I was coming across a bit loony.

Toothache kills all creativity and the will to write anything, that's a fact. At least now I can say that a whole new chapter has opened for my tooth saga, one which I have been resisting, I have to say it.... tooth and nail.
I start my third rootcanal treatment of the year tomorrow.

On Wednesday the pain was so bad that I went to see Dr Matt in the evening. He ended up giving me three injections, I was sobbing like a baby on the chair, and my tooth was still throbbing. Instructed me to start taking some antibiotics. On the drive home I took more painkillers and was in such a desperate state that I decided to swing past Joe's house. He had casually mentioned earlier that he had a medicinal bottle of whiskey.... A bottle of Irish Jamesons to be exact, which went down all too smoothly.

 I recalled my first weekend in Ireland, in magical Donegal, many moons ago where I was firstly introduced to the chocolately creamy Guiness that one only gets in Ireland, followed by a good few drinks of Paddy's whiskey. This is after I asked the barman for something 'tasty and a bit rough'. After tasting a small tot...much to his surprise I took a 20 pound note from my back pocket and purchased the bottle. Say no more.

Back to Wednesday, or Thursday then, to be exact. I came to on the couch rather worse for wear, with various huge bruises, but no toothache, much to my relief!
The pain had returned by evening and after going through an uncomfortable weekend, I returned tonight. I was still hoping to escape the fate of another rootcanal, but Dr Matt says its a textbook case, the pain hits you just as you think you are ready to fall asleep. Horrible. Anyway, no way out of this one.

I do have a few blessings to count, one of which is a really funny book written by a South African, John van de Ruit. It is called Spud, a story set in a boy's boarding school in SA. It was the perfect antidote to get my  of my own suffering, and I highly recommend it.

Blog, who thought up this crappy word?

So who thought up this really weird word 'blog' anyway?

 I'm writing to people, and no, not just people, people who are close to me and important to me, and inviting them to share in my thoughts and life by reading my blog.

One lady wrote, "I have an aversion to blogs". I realised that I also have an aversion to blogs, now I am writing one... how crazy.

People don't like the effort of getting to the blog, even if you can stick it under your 'Favourites' or subscribe.

My theory is that people don't like visiting blogs because the word BLOG is so uninviting, simply grim if I have to be honest. Nothing about the word makes me want to go there, visit there, commune there, share there, learn there.
 When I open my centre of learning, it will definitely not be called BLOG.

The word sounds so cumbersome, rhymes with bog, fog, smog, log, grog, flog, frog. These are heavy sticky cold shitty things that hamper you in your progress. No lovely, light, airy, interesting, zesty connotations at all! The whole feel of the word is dense and yucky.

And what about "blogspot"?? Who wants to go there? All of the above with pimples...?

And then we make a verb out of it as well, 'blogging', horrible. This doesn't sound like a fun thing to do at all.

Well at least I am glad I broke through my mental block and am enjoying myself. Sometimes you need to give that thing a chance that you have been resisting. And apart form that I think we should start a mini revolution to change the word to something more luscious sounding ;)

Great Roots

I feel like a hypochondriac because my tooth saga is dragging on. The two rootcanal treatments on the left side of my mouth are now finally finished, much to the joy of me and much to the disgust of my bank account.

It is just so strange that since the caps were put on on Saturday evening, the right side of my mouth is really painful. It is not deeply excruciating pain, but a constant awareness and aching discomfort. Enough to color my whole day, effect the quality of my interactions.  I really had to push very hard today to complete setting the exam for my students tomorrow.

Since Saturday I have taken Panadol, Advil, Ibuprofin and today went to buy some Cataflam recommended to kill all forms of toothache in no time at all. Mmmmm, I managed a 2 hour painfree nap and that's it, woken up by it again. I really dislike taking painkillers, but when I do take them, I at least expect them to do the job!

Why am I telling you this. Probably because if I was with you now, you would hear no end of it!

Also, I think I am writing this because I am hoping that there is some kind of story in it. It all started 4 years ago actually shortly after I arrived in Muscat. I paid hopelessly too much to have ceramic inlays in about 4 of my teeth. I went to the lengths of taking a loan from the bank. Needless to say, that dentist was very smooth and persuasive. And I was very gullible. That was already the second smooth dentist that had talked me into parting with lots of cash, only later to find that he had done a shoddy job. Anyway, these inlays are supposed to last forever.
Famous last words.... In January two of them broke.

When I visited Dr Matt and he told me this, also informing me that I needed 2 rootcanals, it was just the last straw on the camel's back. I had been dealing with all the passport stuff and appraisal at work and personal issues and I just could not believe it. I literally did feel shaken to the roots. I spoke to Claire who said that I was clearly busy with a clearing out process, a process of catharsis on many levels, of letting go, and this was obviously a physical step on the road.

 I went straight to Louise Hay who has the following to say:
Teeth represent decisions. So problems with teeth are a sign of an inability to break down  ideas for analysis and decisions. Root canal problems mean that I can't bite into anything any more and that my rootbeliefs are shifting.
There was some truth in this in the sense that I am examining my life on every level and getting rid of everything in my space that doesn't support me. I have felt for months that I have been wading through syrup on many issues, and that many things have been stalled, difficult to break down and chew and digest. I could definitely be more decisive and stand up for myself more.

Hester used to say that not choosing is also a choice.

The first time I sat down in the dentist chair, it felt like an incredible emotional door opening. I still do not really understand where it came from, but it felt like a wellspring gushing from the very foundations of my life. Thank God that I trust Dr Matt. Throughout the whole sitting, tears just kept streaming down my cheeks. I had to make myself so vulnerable to allow him to do that deeply invasive procedure. I realised that I had been bottling emotion of frustration for months, and that maybe this rootcanal work was necessary for me to let go, let go, let go.

After the first sitting of 80 minutes, Dr Matt and I got talking about the miracles of life. He said that so many people define a miracle as something huge and mindblowing, but that he found the ability of the body to heal itself an incredible miracle. Every small cut is healed, the body regenerates, we take it for granted.

I don't really know why I am trying to explain it to myself. I do believe that the physical is a manifestation of what is happening inside and I am really struggling right now.

On my little altar where I light my incense every morning is an extract from a poem by Robert Bly,

We did not come to remain whole
We came to lose our leaves like the trees
The trees that are broken, and start again,
drawing up from great roots.

I am so truly grateful for the knowing that I have great wonderful healthy strong roots to draw up from, and that you are an essential part of them.

Pandas and naps

Male pandas perform an average of 8 handstands a day. There's no apparent evolutionary purpose in this stunt. They do it because it's fun.

Suggestion: Identify a new non-sexual activity you'll do not because it's good for you or because it'll advance a goal you're pursuing, but for the sheer pleasure of it. If you can't think of any, do the research necessary to find one.

ROB BREZSNY- PRONOIA

This is not as easy a task as you think. We are so goal orientated. Well, I realise, although I resist setting goals,  I am somehow  so goal orientated. So many things I do are means to an end. 

I like swimming, both in the sea and in a pool. But I tell myself I do it because it is good for me, it will make me strong and healthy. I will live longer. From now on i am going to experience the joy of the water more.

 I like reading and writing, but I tell myself that it is for my own betterment, to relax myself, to develop my brain, whatever. But do I ever tell myself that what I am doing is purely for fun, for ME?

I eat when I'm not hungry, and I tell myself that it is OK, I identify that I am comfort eating or just eating cause the yummy food is in front of me. But do I ever tell myself that I am doing this simply for the enjoyment of the moment?

One of my resolutions of 2009 that I am carrying on in 2010 is to take more naps. I think this could count under something which I do purely for pleasure. But I realise that I tell myself that it is to be less tired. I now can officially nap in almost every room of my house except the bathrooms and the kitchen. I have majilis cushions, a daybed, a spare bed, my own bed, sofas outside. I think lying down is very good for me. I think I should do it more often. And so should you!

From now on I am going to do it purely for pleasure and not tell myself any other stories around it. That goes for quite a few of my other activities. Living in the moment , doing things for sheer pleasure. My research continues.