Death Death Death Death

What is this that there is death all around right now. T just called me to tell me that Sunny died on 18th August 2011. This is the soonest she has been able to call. And there I was thinking just the other day that I must call her. All these people to keep in contact with and enjoy whilst they are alive. I feel so sad. Sunny was such a lovely man, such a lovely funny fuddy-duddy. Somehow I knew you know. I know that sounds ripe after the news has been told but I just did. I knew I should have called and I didn't because I knew.
I wish I trust my instincts more. I tell myself it's such rubbish. The contact with ML, there is some sort of awareness about with that too, although thankfully her daughter is making such a wonderful recovery. I knew L was dying. E's friend is dying.
http://la-biscotte-ecrasee.blogspot.com/

It feels almost too much to comprehend. All this death. All this loss. All this sadness amongst people that survive. My auntie, T, my uncle, the 3 little girls, M and everyone.... it suddenly feels so overwhelming. I am not sure I can cope with so much death. But of course I can. Nothing I cannot cope with is sent to me.
I was imagining taking my last breath. It leaves me with a little panic. Wondering if that last breath feels like suffocation. I am claustrophobic I have realised and suffocating fills me with terror. And I imagine that gasping for my last breath. The gone bit is OK. I wonder if it's so horrible taking that last breath or if there is some peace and shut down within the brain. Who knows? No one knows.
I think if people were to know I think like this they would think I was macabre and strange. Is it so strange. I wonder what it must be like knowing and saying goodbye must be so sad. I hope, I truly hope that I will have learnt to be gracious and calm. That I will be able to comfort if anyone is sad around me. I would like to be able to be dignified and wise and support anyone close to me in their dignity.

It's just so sad that those lovely people are no longer here. They are in my heart - how weird that I was sort of expecting that call and knew instantly I saw T's name on my phone. Do I remove Sunny's name alongside hers?

There is a certain knowing and acceptance I feel. I understand. I know that life as I know it comes to an end. I think I am scared of losing LouLou. As I watch her getting older and little things are taking their toll on her. She is my companion and with me for so long. She represents so much of my recent life. And it breaks my heart to imagine life without her. Yet I also understand. Life comes to a close.
I wonder what mark I leave if any on this planet of lives that will go on without me?

Bliss
XX

10 Years!

Yesterday I achieved 10 years without a drink of alcohol or use of any narcotics or addictive mind altering meds.
When I started going along to AA and NA and attending treatment, I didn't sign up for 10 years abstinence. But it's been an incredible journey thus far and I have absolutely no regrets! Nope none at all.
It hasn't been easy but when I pick up the simplicity suddenly it is very serene. And in recent moths I have discovered something even higher. It is wonderful. There are no words just as I sit and write this that fully describe what "it" is that I feel I have right now. Like everything, it can pass.
No I have no regrets. But I am a mere baby at recovery, especially looking at the full extent of escape routes from reality. So I continue to take it one day at a time and find gratitude in every little thing. There is a part of me too that would love to be a social user, with no consequences. if that were guaranteed well maybe I would but if it meant losing what I have today I would not wish to take that risk.

Yesterday was actually a selected date as I cannot recall exactly when I had my last drink and drug. However I know for sure that on the 25 Sep 2001, I had not had a single drop of either pass my lips.
Sadly this anniversary also reminds me that in November of the same year my mum died. I was not sober of mind enough to have been fully present in the period leading up to her death. other addictive behaviours were at play without me even realising it. I was I think manic too, now that I am reflecting on this with new information.
I do regret that. I was there but not fully. There was her birthday in which I skedaddled before the actual event. I am so very very remorseful. I understand more now but that does not change what happened. I feel so sad and grieve the loss of my lovely mum. And now 10 years later little Lisa is dead too.
If the soul lives on somewhere beyond life as I know it, then I hope my mum will show Lisa the way and that they can rejoice in that place called Heaven wherever that may be. Maybe Heaven is simply in my heart. And there they reside together with all the other loved ones that have died and I miss immensely. I carry them with me and all I have to do is think of them.

Well done me for the great path I chose to follow that day in 2001. It was a long time choosing with a few meanderings on the moors and through the trees. And it's been uphill and  down dale, winding and circling and always, always interesting. Along the path I have met and travelled further with some people who are still walking along with me. There are those that have joined the path and then moved off in a different direction. Others turned back from whence I came. I am curious about what happens next. I do know though that so long as I keep stepping life will happen and I don't need anything to act as an escape. It's an ongoing adventure full of joy.
Trudging the path to happy destiny

Bliss
XX

Sociological movie making - Crash!

 

Cast Sandra Bullock Don Cheadle Matt Dillon Thandie Newton Brendan Fraser William Fichtner Jennifer Esposito Ryan Phillippe Tony Danza Keith David

Directors Paul Haggis

Screenwriters Paul Haggis Bobby Moresco

I hadn't realised that the cop was Ryan Phillippe.  Paul Haggis also wrote and directed In the valley of Elah. I gave them both a 3.75/5. Hmmm not a great film either of them but though provoking and difficult subject matter to tackle without being too sacremental
It makes it's strong points about racism and prejudices and fear and hatred. Ingroups and outgroups - (Tajfel). And anger and blame. How people take out their issues on others. Lack of self awareness and all about self gain. This all ends happily except for the one happy-go-lucky criminal and the suffering father. It's a creul world according to this film. There was no goodness overall. The odd deed of true humanity but a rarity. And the criminal who has certain morals right at the end. And the righteous black woman who is suddenly racist against chinese - and so on and so on.
Yup it mades it's point alright. It saddened me to have it all highlighted like that.

I remembered how threatened I suddenly felt when in Johannesburg. I was too flipping arrognat prior to that to realise I could be a minority. I was suddenly very aware that I was an unwelcome white. And then the risk we took without even realising it when we decided to drive from Pretoria, beautiful Pretoria to Sun City - 3 hours of driving without another car or town. It was all so spontaneou but now I would really be overly cautious and not do it without better preparation. At the time I just didn;t even consider the dangers. And after all we made it OK. That was always how my life was .... when did it change. When did I start becoming cautious to the point of withdrawal and anxiety. And after reading today how the brain cells are actually different in those people who have depression .... interesting.
In Niger there just wasn't the same hostilility. The very opposite. Not subservient but definitely interested in us whitey's. L.A. Well that was a culture shock. I didn't believe anyone when they said no one walks anywhere because it's too dangerous. Not even across the street. So off I went to the off licence over the road. Very quickly I realised this was trouble. I ran back to the hotel room. That was the last time and I had to buy into the fear and do what everyone did - for my own safety.
Having been to New York from 1978 until 1998 I truly saw some changes in the fears and attitudes. The zero tolerance did alter things - in downtown Manhattan - but not out of the centre. Bronx and Queens were still troubled areas. And then even in the rich suburbs like Garden City, well I saw the wealthy whites and the poor blacks.
As I was writing to my friend, I feel sad about the way folk focus on the differences. Sure there are differences, we are each and every one of us individual. But we are all humans and there are more similarities if we could only all find love. I say that to someone like my dad and he immediately picks up on "their" attitude towards "us". Ugh! Putting me in his us is so uncomfortable. Anyway, it's everyone, every race, culture, religion, community, person. If everyone could put away the differences and enmbrace the similarities - there is a lot of repairing to do. I think there are increasing numbers of people working in that direction. Not enough. I have my prejudices - I realise that I have been anti fat people and older people at differnt times. Not rude or mean. But I would probably choose to talk to someone else. I am not like this I hope now. I try to embrace everyone. I realise I can't like everyone as their are differences that cannot be overcome but I do not hate and want to destroy because of the differences. I can agree to disagree and use that as a way to explore my differences. No blame or shaming.
I pray for more people to be more tolerant and patient. I pray for that for myself.
But this has been going on since the day Adam bit into the apple and Cain and Abel were born. We have a long way to go before there is ever an Eden again.

So anyway this film is critiqued as a socialogical presentation and that it was. It certainly evoked feelings in me. I get very stressed in films anticipating the killing or the trouble or similar. I realied I ate 2 apples on the stress of anticipation. Not good.

Bliss
XX

Therapeutic trust

I think I hear in M her desire to have a degree of control but there is a real validity in knowing her therapists background.
I wrote this to her but decided against sending it ....
As I am studying about affective disorders and the value of psychotherapy either instead of or as well as chemical treatment I wondered if you had managed to acquire more inforamtion of the therpaists training and experiences and which perspective she specialises in or is she integrative. We practice integrative psychotherapy but Aleans more strongly towards psycho analysis. My slant is from a humanistic direction but of course involves behavioural as well as psycho analytic/dynamic. I also adopt NLP and REBT alongside CBT - etc. Actualy the 12 Steps is all of them.I am learning and growing with every year. Experience in my opinion as well as personal aptitude counts highly - both in observation of colleagues and personal experience as a client. But everyone has their own preferences as I see daily with clients. There is no rule.

Stoical versus outwardly passionate

An interesting dichotomy. As are many others. Compartmentalised versus whole, active versus accepting ...... there are more that raise curiosity in me. Oh commitment versus variety yes that's another as I read with amusement about the Coolidge effect.

I would love to have these debates with a diverse group of people and try to be open to the ideas of people from different backgrounds and experiences. I hear mainly about being in control of oneself . A was talking ahout being stoical as if this is a great quality. I like calm when it truly is an inner calm but a forced outwardly only stoic to me is actually a lie. It actually is quite annoying how there is a judgement that goes with that too. Or rather I feel angry I am just realisng. There is a criticism of me I think built into that by A, R and G. I have talked openly about physical changes as I have been going through menopause. Gosh as I write that I think flip! How have I become to this time in my life when mainly I feel so much younger. It seems impossible that the years have passed so damned quickly. And I laugh as I write this as when I was yonger I used to tut and mock the so-called elders as they said those very words. Ha! And those words are truly coming from me and not a replica. How very funny.
Anyway back to my irritation moving towards anger at believing I am being criticised for my way of managing my menopausal symptoms. And I guess that's where I can see that for A is is far more valuable to be stoic even if inside she is not feeling that way. I wonder where that comes from. Her sister C is very supposedly stoical (again I think that's an attempt at appearance because actually I experience her as nervy and uncertain and seeking back-up approval). G even acts as if she is serene and yet all those years she has been hiding her deepest darkest secrets. That only comes from shame surely. So, I notice that I feel like  need to air or exorcise all their faults to get the shaming I feel by them. I don't need to do it directly with them as it's actually nothing at all to do with them. I know that. But this is a part of my process. I say that as a way of excusing this meed in case anyone I know ever reads it. I really do know it's not about anyone else. It is about my reactions and thoughts about things that evokes the feelings within me. And that is when it helps me to write, write, write before I open my mouth. Then I can see whether I need to say anything or whether I can just let it go. And let it go without enabling too. That's another dichotomy. If I let go and have no emotional reaction anymore do I still say something??
I could ask if they have found it difficult hearing all my moans and groans. Hmmm that's not really going to work as they will be all code about that and say no no no then come up with some sort of justified explanation that still tells me they would prefer not to hear it all but never being direct. So they were pretty obvious yesterday. No moaning basically.
It's not permitted to be anaything but OK. I feel angry about that as it's just another group of people that won't allo others to simply be and therefore don't allow each other to simply be and it's all fucked up despite appearances.
Ha! How flipping judgemental of me. There's another dichotomy - have judgements but not working towards loving all and moving away from judgement. I guess so long as it's working but the sad thing is it's not. It's full of flaws.

Well as I am studying about emotions, it all fits in well. The ways in which different cultures promote or discourage the display of emotions. I wonder where the culture of stoicism falls within A's family. I can see how the Victorians would have developed Darwins statement that emotion is an unnecessary fallout from our animal roots. He said that emotions had outlived their usefulness. Thus I can see how to be emotional would have been considered to be quite animal-like. And then special forces in the army are prided on their lack of emotion, purely rational decision-making, regardless of death and killing. It is all revered as heroic and special". I lean more to the way of the Dalai Llama who is aware of anger and sadness for example and of happiness and disgust or fear and surprise. Accoring to Paul Ekman as a result of his tudies, the 6 basic emotions he considered are universal and therefore inherited. To me it's our emotions that are a part of our instinct and the reading or telepathy between humans. Theory of mind - gosh I remember more that I realise I even know.
So I buy more into the stoicism through emotional awareness developing emotinal intelligence. Not to push feelings down to appear stoic but to go through them working towards stoicism, i.e. wholesome calm. The more I practice the sooner I get to the stoicism these days. And I feel fulfilled, not stunted or weighted with the past. I feel light and in the present. Well more and more I am experiencing this difference and cherish it.
But if others find a different way to manage this all but weird and brief time on this planet who am I to say there is a better way. There are simply ways. The other way wasn't serving me too well and this way is serving me better the more I grow. Long live peace and serenity but even in that I am calmer as I know that everything changes and there is an AFGO with every turn.

Lots to write but studying to get on with - I will add more as I go along ......
Ah ha - "Social control of expressions results in their rapid inhibition, not the elimination, of their display" (MacKintosh, B, 2007, pg.44). Absolutely and the experiement this is referring to involves some Japanese and American people watching video clips. When on their own the Japanese show their emotional experssions. But when with other people they start to show the expression then correct themselves and smile instead!!! And people do truly value the ability to be "emotionless". For me I spent my life trying to be because it was my fathers value and in fact he condemned emotionally expressive people including my mum and eevn baby me. I was criticised for crying as a little girl.
It's infuriating but I cannot try to tell others how to be otherwise I am being the same as him. Unless of course people are coming for professional support.
Hmm - maybe the Japanese people in the experiment had been westernised? There's a confounding variable to consider.

Bliss
xx

A blind spot

When I first starting watching this film I thought it was going to be an awful thriller of one man taking advantage of a man who had just gone blind and terrorising him and his family. I turned it off. I am such scaredy cat these days. So then I read the synopsis of the film. And decided I could watch it. The difference? Well I learnt it was about a city of people who become blind because of a virus. It's pretty gruesome and there are times when it's scary. Interestingly the dogs don't go blind?????
And why just one person not falling foul to the virus. Or if others didn't as well where are they when eventually they escape from the hospital?
I am becoming so cynical of films or maybe I have just watched crap recently.



Empire Review ...
The first victims of an epidemic of blindness are penned up in a ramshackle facility. As a cynic (Bernal) with a gun takes control of the food supply, outside the facility society breaks down completely.

Review

With Blindness, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles follows up awards-laden work on City Of God and The Constant Gardener, while Canadian screenwriter-actor Don McKellar adapts a serious novel by the Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago. As film apocalypses go, this is clearly in line with Children Of Men rather than I Am Legend (though it casts the leading ladies of both those films, Julianne Moore and Alice Braga), and hopes to rank beside The Road, the forthcoming heavyweight of the no-fun-end-of-the-world epic, rather than, say, The Day After Tomorrow or Mad Max 2.

Just as we assume P. D. James was unaware that Brian Aldiss’ Greybeard had exactly the same premise as her Children Of Men, we don’t believe that a reputed literary titan like Saramago would simply lift the plot of The Day Of The Triffids and drop the killer plants. From the outset, with its nameless city setting (locations in , and ) and equally unnamed characters, this is clearly supposed to be an allegory rather than pure sci-fi. Not only is the film not interested in how and why people suddenly go blind, but neither is one main character (Mark Ruffalo) who’s supposed to be an eye specialist. Similarly, the film tells purported truths about human behaviour in a crisis — a useful message of many fall-of-civilisation films is that if the apocalypse happens, you should stick with nice middle-class people rather than nasty working-class brutes who will become cavemen within minutes — even as characters act in contrived, unbelievable manners. Having everyone avoid calling each other by name, especially in a world where verbal communication is all they can rely on, makes for convoluted, hollow dialogue, and unwise patches of dithery narration from Danny Glover don’t help.

Nevertheless, long stretches of Blindness work. Like City Of God and McKellar’s previous end-of-the-world film (Last Night), it brings on a range of vividly sketched characters in its opening scenes, and deftly establishes their connections — in this case, as disease vectors who pass on (and in one case, crucially, don’t) the blindness.

The descent of the concentration-camp-like internment centre into a foul hellhole is queasily convincing, and most performances are strong. Moore makes a compelling moral centre, Ruffalo equivocates as her woolly husband, and Gael García Bernal has most fun as the opportunist bastard who reacts to the doctor’s talk of committees and consensus by declaring himself “King Of Ward Three”, backed up by a blind-from-birth flunky (Maury Chaykin) who is “some kind of superhero” in this world.

In the third act, the film gets out of prison and ventures through a 28 Days Later-look stalled city of groping scavengers, but it has already run out of story. The last twist is guessable, and wouldn’t have got through if Robert McKee gave seminars to Nobel Laureates. Ironically, what works best is the material that also works in the most generic doomed-world movies or TV shows: the vision of the ruins of our present-day civilisation; the paranoid depiction of a panic-stricken government turning on civilian populations; the battles over meagre resources.

Verdict
Handicapped by pretensions to making big statements, Blindness is still gripping, disturbing and intermittently powerful.

So what would I (me bliss) give it out of 5? I think max around 3.5 mmm. Yes Maybe a 3.5. A  mix of thoughts that make it an interesting watch but it has been done so many times with so many different incidents. The race relations, the chais, the gangsters, the strong pulling through, the happy ending!! Grr to there always having to be a closure. Sometimes thats life but often it's not and can take years to work towards

 

Cast Mark Ruffalo Julianne Moore Gael Garcia Bernal Danny Glover Alice Braga.

Directors Fernando Meirelles.

Screenwriters Don McKellar. Bliss XX

Selkies say the truth is not what you know, it's what you believe

 
Plot
A fisherman (Colin Farrell) finds a semi-naked stranger (Alicja Bachleda) in his net. Is she an immigrant, or is she something more magical?

Review
Neil Jordan spins a magical yarn for grown-ups, as trawlerman Syraceuse (Colin Farrell) fishes a semi-naked stranger (Alicja Bachleda) out of his net. Has he rescued a drowning immigrant? Or is she, as his daughter suspects, a selkie — a mythical sea creature able to assume human form?

Leagues away from the Hollywood gloss of Splash, Ondine is funny, whimsical and as warming as a big bowl of Irish stew. Farrell’s natural accent and roguish charm make for a winning performance, while Polish actress Bachleda is the most beautiful, beguiling newcomer since Nastassja Kinski — and a much better actress. She’s Farrell’s real-life squeeze, but even he couldn’t love her as much as Jordan’s camera.

Verdict
Funny, whimsical and as warming as a big bowl of Irish stew

Cast Colin Farrell Alicja Bachleda Stephen Rea Tony Curran Tom Archdeacon.

Directors Neil Jordan.

On the coast of Cork, Syracuse is a fisherman, on the wagon, living alone. His precocious daughter, Annie, about 10, has failing kidneys. One day, a nearly-drowned young woman comes up in his net; she speaks oddly, calls herself Ondine, and wants no one to see her. He puts her up in an isolated cottage that was his mother's. Annie discovers Ondine's presence and believes she's a selkie, a mythical seal turned human while on land. If this is a fairy tale, is there a happily ever after, or do the realities of alcohol, illness, and worse intrude, including Syracuse's inveterate bad luck? As his priest tell him, misery's easy, it's happiness you have to work at.


Actually it was a little too twee. I wathced it all the way through. There were odd moments that I thought were interesting. The relationship of Syracuse with his Priest and his effort to stay off the booze. I think the relationship between those two was actually the best - quietly happening. The way the myth was intertwined with reality was cute. And of course all ends happily ever after.
I liked the music of Lisa Hannigan. Irish folk voice. And the minimalist music of Icelander Sigur Ros.

Overall I give it about a 3/5 absolute max. Howecver for a little while the little girl in me was swept along on the mythical world of selkies

Bliss
XX