Recommended posts from elsewhere: Red light politics

 Hear, hear! This is not a new post, but still evergreen. 

Do NOT debate another person or group's humanity. That is NOT up for debate. 

https://redlightpolitics.info/post/65432741342/why-i-dont-debate

Silence

 No, I don't mean my shocking lack of consistency in writing blogs. (I have ideas, which I have even jotted down somewhere. It doesn't help if I don't develop those ideas. It doesn't help if I am not sure where I wrote down the ideas. I give myself credit for persistence if nothing else). 

This is about grief. 

My Dad died in January. Suddenly and rather brutally. Violently actually. There was no one else involved, but he slipped on ice and hit his head. Very badly. He and I disagreed about many things important to both of us, but he was my Dad and for his weird political ideas he was an amazing Dad. Nothing like death to make one realise that. I am also so grateful that we had a good Christmas together where there were no political discussions. Also while he gave the rest of the family cryptocurrency as a gift, he didn't give to me, and that moment I will cherish. For the first time in my life I actually felt as though he knew me. So anyway, I am mourning him, and I feel a lot. I am the female version of him in that sense. 

I recently bought a book of poetry about grief and it is lovely. Not every poem speaks to me of course. 

This one did though. My world is definitely quieter without my Dad. 

Rest well, Daddy.

 

   (blogger's own photo)  

Silence

by D.H. Lawrence

Since I lost you, I am silence-haunted; 

    Sounds wave their little wings 

A moment, then in weariness settle 

     On the flood that soundless swings. 

 

Whether the people in the street 

    Like pattering-ripples go by, 

Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs 

     With a loud, hoarse sigh: 

 

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light 

    Over the dead-black river, 

Or last night’s echoings 

     Make the daybreak shiver: 

 

I feel the silence waiting 

    To sip them all up again,

In its last completeness drinking

    Down the noise of men.

Young, Kevin. The Art of Losing (p. 15). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The joke is on me

I am so bitterly disappointed. 

I have always dreamed of the moment when I could breathe, and take the time to sort out all the thoughts and ideas accumulated during a 20 year long career to write a doctoral thesis. Especially after the last two years where I feel as though I was continually faced with enormous political conundrums which I was not equipped to face except as part of a team. I was part of a team, but almost none of them had any experience in my field, so I spent too much time educating them. 

So now, I was finally going to have the breathing space to think through and find solutions and evidence. 

Instead I am still being forced to write things I have not had the time to reason through. Distressed may be a good word for it actually. Because at this point, if it were feasible, I would love to give up. And that just makes me sad. I am living my dream and I am miserable. 

So, as I said. The joke's on me.

via GIPHY

New adventures, old ghosts

Well, things have changed.

Been wondering whether I would be able to give a new life to this blog. 

For one thing, I am now a PhD fellow. I am very excited, as I am not exactly a spring chicken no more, and this has been a dream since I finished my undergraduate degree in the nineties. (As I said, I am no spring chicken). The opportunity also conveniently put an end to a work situation which was slowly but surely wearing me down. 

It is a challenge, and I have had instances when I have been despondent, realising that I need to be more realistic in my ambitions. I also wonder if I can write something which will be truly interesting and, even better, actually useful. Otherwise, what is the point? I guess time will tell. Now that I am able to give in my overthinking intellectual self, I am also working through what kind of faith I want to have. I do want to have a faith, the alternative is too dreadful to contemplate. That feels like something I can write about. 

So, while this is in some respects the tail end of 2021 (thus proving even if you move from the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere never leaves you), it is also a time for beginnings. 

So as my sweetie turned a year yesterday (teen in the house?), here's to new adventures, and old ghosts.