Wed 22 September 2010 Still alive! More blogging soon. Teufel

THE FAT BALLERINA (cont.)

Thursday 15 July NZ Time Well, for Annabelle it was very much like that - people all asked her "How did you do it?" and of course she wrote a bestseller full of wise advice, but none of all that was really the secret. The secret had been that, over a period of many years, she had gradually (actually, painstakingly slowly, with the most stupid reverses along the way) begun to live her life, and not attempt to repeat the life of anyone else, living or dead. Well, she'd lived this way most of her life, but only on the inside. Perhaps the turning point had been when she had started letting it show. Or when she really believed that she could, or, later, when she no longer believed that she had to apologise for so doing, or needed permission. Like the ballet. For years she went to adult ballet classes apologetically, hiding it: if anyone asked where she'd been, calling it a dance class. (She wasn't allowed to do ballet, she was too fat, too old). Or the clothes - after reading The Colour Purple she'd gone out and bought fabric and lain on the floor and cut out trousers for herself, and made her own bright tops and worn comfortable shoes. But she was a bit highbrow for the alternative lifestylers and a bit untamed for the intelligentsia - she didn't quite fit into any groups, although she had a few very good friends. None of whom seemed compatible with each other. And she bought a house in an area she liked although it wasn't very fashionable, and she was by now very well off, but she liked her quiet paths and bush and little rocky cove that she had to herself much of the time. And she'd never forgotten her French teacher who explained patiently to the fifth-form girls that no, she wasn't wearing her skirt back-to-front, the zip was meant to be at the front - that was the fashion all those years ago when she bought it - gasp! she was still wearing something from that long ago? Why? Answer: because she liked it, it suited her, and it fit her well. They couldn't get it, thought her weird, but Annabelle did. It was another - what's the opposite of a nail in a coffin? Another reason for her to admire her, anyway. And she wasn't allowed to do ballet. She knew she didn't have permission, but she fought hard to go against the unspoken bouncer. Sorry luv, this club's not for you. Too fat and too old, at forty. But she danced rather well,which people who knew dance could tell, even if the audiences couldn't. But even she might have given up or never started without two things. One was the other students - most thin, beautiful and well off, but two or three old, several plump and two other really fat. Within the ballet class itself she was well accepted. The other was someone she'd met at an adult ballet class when she was twenty and nine stone and thought herself too old and too fat. He was eighty-six and spry, probably the best in the class, and he had taken up ballet for the first time at the age of eighty-one. Three reasons to be a "not-allowed": age, sex and late start (of course, you've no hope of doing ballet if you haven't begun by about the age of seven, dahling). So all you fat people of low self-esteem and ugly exteriors: take up ballet! All your problems will disappear within the year. But no, seriously, that would the Christian follower's approach. Ballet helped Annabelle, because she loved it. Yes, it was the gradual following of her own centre, making her own choices, copying less and expressing what was genuinely inside her, even showing it to the world - but more than anything, it was doing what she loved. Following what she was drawn to, inhabiting her own world - not keeping away from the wider world, of course that's not what I meant at all - living in it all the more fully for living her own truth and her own love. Not trying to eat up the world outside her, but creating her part of the world from what she found within her. Like Garance in the wonderful French wartime film Les Enfants du paradis: "Je ne suis pas belle; je suis vivante, voilà tout." ("I'm not beautiful; I'm alive, that's all.")

THE FAT BALLERINA

She wasn't a ballerina, of course. Fat, yes; ballerina, no. A ballerina is the top female dancer of a professional company, top of her craft, dancing all the major rôles in all the major cities: Gisèle, Aurora, Juliette, Odette, that sort of thing. Paris Stockholm London. No, she just did ballet. Lots of it, mind: five lessons a week and practice at home every morning as dawn rose. She performed in the odd children's show: the Queen of Hearts, Cinderella's Ugly Stepmother, that kind of thing. When the show called for someone taller or more substantial than the leading sixteen-year-old, someone to play a parent figure believably, or just plain someone ugly who could do comedy and look, well - big. And one day she met a man and he didn't notice her (because she was fat) but they became jolly good chums (because she was nice and vitally alive and fun to be around) and, inevitably, they fell in love, she developed self-confidence, she lost weight dramatically and discovered that under all the lard she was actually beautiful after all, so she started using make-up seriously and they got married and lived happily ever after. Of course. But all that is merely the detail: what really matters is how she lost all that weight - or why, or what catalysed it. Because of course, she had always carried that possibility within her, and she had hitherto always ignored the knowledge of that possibility. So why did she do it now, and why not before? That is the crux of it, and of course you want to know so that you could do it the same way and get thin and beautiful and married and happy too, don't you? But it doesn't work that way, like with Christ - you know, he said be perfect even as I am perfect, and they all thought he meant follow the sandal, in other words, be celibate and fast in the desert and wander round telling the world to love each other, and, ideally, walk on water. But what if he meant more - ask questions of the learned cliques (and the dumb ones) even when it pissed them off? Study under wise and knowledgeable scholars from far-off lands and different apparent religions? Break the law if common sense and need appeared to indicate that it would be best? Live according to one's own very different truth, even to the point of seemingly opposing most of the truths everyone thought most important? Allow one's own power to resonate through one from one's own centre, find one's own path - and then put up with all those crowds of lazy or desperate seekers trying to grab the secret and the power off you and repeat it themselves without the hard and harrowing parts? Four-step Christianity was there right at the start, wasn't it? To be continued

Imperfect = Bad

It strikes me lately how our society is becoming obsessed with removing all imperfection - witness the uproar over a few politicians' use of their "work" credit cards for private expenses - most of which, it seemed to me, had been genuinely repaid later, with a few forgotten. In Chris Carter's Ministry, one of the staff members had the job of trawling through lists and letting him know how much was personal and had to be repaid. And as I said at home, before Winston Peters did on the radio - imagine standing at the reception desk of a major hotel going through each and every mini-bar purchase, use of gym, spa, or movie rental, and getting each member of the party to line up one-by-one to pay their little bit. Much more sensible to do it in one lump and apportion it later. No doubt the odd thing will get on the wrong list and the odd MP will cheat, but these should be fixed up quickly and heads should only roll if there has been blatant repeat sneaky use of it. I found myself thinking of TV shows of the recent past - like The Vicar of Dibley - where we are laughing with and at the most imperfect people and yet loving them. The only characters in that show that are not actually certifiably insane and / or mentally deficient are a fat greedy woman and a snooty greedy rich man. David is possibly the most morally upright, and certainly the most intelligent, of the village's native inhabitants, living properly in a beautiful house, wearing the right clothes and talking correctly. And he is the least lovable of the lot - we do eventually come to love him, but it is despite his correctness, success and efficiency, not because of it. It is the quirks and weirdnesses of all those substandard weirdos that make them separate, identifiable people. I'm thinking along these lines because of the no-smoking-for-prisoners ruling coming up soon, as well as the credit card affaire. I can argue both sides of the debate to myself very well - leave the poor lowlifes some tactile pleasure, versus we mustn't contribute to the enforced passive smoking of the staff, nor of the inmates. I don't know which I really think the stronger argument, but I do think our society in general is just trying to clean everything up too much, iron out the wrinkles that make a person or a place memorably who or what they are. All of my favourite people have had characteristics or habits that I really hated - and it didn't stop me loving them for their creative genius or their lovingness or their own peculiar brand of me-ness, as I love cats for their sometimes aloof independence, and dogs for their joyful slobberiness. One of my imperfect idols smokes a particularly nasty brand of cigarette and nips out regularly to swig at a hip flask, a couple are really not very bright, a few go on and on about things I was only mildly interested in, one or two are fat and several have bad breath. The one in whom I have been unable to discern any faults in self-reports a couple of doozies. One proudly kept his flat so dirty that I always arranged a toilet stop before visiting. The one I liked enough to marry, I could list pages and pages of imperfections, as could he of me - up close nothing is hidden. Fortunately plenty on the other side of the ledger is also more than visible.Two people I liked very much took such a strong dislike to each other (one was very arrogant, one very Buddhist, both highly intelligent but the quieter, less arrogant one probably more so) that it was impossible to ask them both to the same do ever again. It didn't stop me liking them both. I liked the abrasive rational pushing and challenging of the arrogant one, and the loving gentle wisdom of the quieter one. Just as, in comedy, I love both the old "My Word" and "Just a Minute" radio quiz shows, where anything unseemly has to enter by stealth and by innuendo - and my word does it ever! AND the brasher, ruder, things like Blackadder, Ben Elton, and so forth. Maybe next time you're tempted to Improve Yourself, you have a look at enjoying life instead? As it is, now. More money, a better figure, less nicotine, etc, will only give you a different style of enjoyment and circle of friends, not necessarily more enjoyment or more friends. Laughs of a different kind but not more laughs. It isn't necessarily greener over there - or if it is, all that leafery has plenty of scope for hiding some whopper bugs.

Coming Up Soon

Wed 23 June 2010 10:26pm Coming Up Soon: "We remember that we remember" - from Kaddish, by Leo Wieseltier.

Hairy Brother and Cat Stevens

Wed 23 June 10:16pm Another strange coincidence - after blogging about Douglas Adams and the other 49-year-old genius I could see happily piffling away with him wittily for all eternity, husband turned on the TV at random and it is a retrospective on Cat Stevens - his "Morning has Broken" played at my brother's funeral, on a big screen, making quite an impression as he was a dead lookalike of my brother at that phase in his life - hairy and bearded - and it was, to my surprise, one of his favourite songs. And I have discovered that a few of my favourite songs were, unbeknownst to me, by Cat Stevens - like "Father and Son." - Teufel

We apologise for the inconvenience ...

As we enter the Quintessential Phase of Douglas Adams's Hitch-hiker trilogy, my mind is constantly doing flips of recognition and adulation. That man was one who saw so much, saw through so much, understood so much, and to top it all off, could express it with wit and a kind of mathematical beauty. My maths didn't go beyond topping the last year of High School, but I sense that he actually understands the higher maths and science whose names he flings so blithely about. No wonder Stephen Fry speaks of him with love and awe in his voice - he's another of the same ilk. And he died at 49 - perhaps he didn't need to live any more. My brother was another hyper-rational genius with a sense of humour and a gift for writing - and he also died at the age of 49. I like to think he and Douglas Adams have now met - despite them both being confirmed atheists - and I am determined to keep his paperback copies of the Hitch-hiker trilogy and beyond, despite their foul, tobacco-soaked smell. They are currently airing on a box outside my front door, but they will stink forever.

Thank Goodness Mother Never Let Me ...

"Thank goodness Mother never let me get that tired." Comment in one of Dorothy L. Sayers's letters, referring to a fellow Oxford student who had studied too much, got into a state, and destroyed her chances at exams. Similar character in "Gaudy Night," nearly drowns, lurking dangerously at the top of Old Tom tower - brilliant mind, but not taking sufficient care of her animal needs. Said animal being coming close to destroying her higher self. Neglect the physical vitality too much, and you don't get an awful lot of higher-order thinking. I have been that tired, and it's no good, and it takes a lot of fun and a long time to recover from it. One of my favourite remedies: Roxie Hart, and watching old Marilyn Monroe films. Reading PG Wodehouse, watching DVDs of Python, bits of Fry and Laurie in their various guises, and now that I am partially recovered, getting gripped by a movie with plenty of emotion in it - childish, clichéd or more "real" - recently, "Me and Marley," "Midsomer Murders," "Oliver Twist" (Polanski's version - recent BBC one next, then I might revert to the musical). Teufel.

Admiring Dorothy L. Sayers

I listened to Stephen Fry yesterday talking about, amongst (many) other things, how he holds the act of admiring in high esteem. Well me too, and I admire Dorothy L. Sayers, the writer of detective fiction, creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, and also writer on theology and translator of Dante. I love her incisive use of language, her Oxford-trained logical mind, that I can appreciate but not quite match, due to slightly lesser training. Reading her detective novels I feel at home, with a peer, comfortable. Her letters have been published, by, if I remember rightly, Barbara Reynolds. The one volume of these that I have read so far shows many facets to her being and her life - the Molière plays she staged at school - much as George Sand did - the two years she cried over her lost love - her demand to be in control of her own fiction and not let some committee take over the writing of her book. Her energy of mind, will and action. Her imperfections, ridiculous emotional humanity, marriage that didn't succeed in forming a home for her son but did give her great insight into what a man gassed in the trenches could behave like. The necessity of dropping her writing work during the Second War as she couldn't get household help, so her days were filled with scrubbing floors and cooking meals for said husband and self: "and you can't cook a decent meal in under an hour and a half" (I paraphrase). Most of all, her successful combination of deep characterisation of real, complex, intelligent people and a murder mystery. She is one of my heroes. Teufel

And one more ...

Sat 29 May 5:10 pm And one more, just to confuse those from other parts - my first post appeared to be posted after my second - since I personally dated the first but not the second - back to local time. Teufel

Testing, Testing, simply a test to see what happens when there are two posts! Does Mr Google automatically archive and zealously guard all my posts, or do I have to activate that alarming "gadget" called "archive" in order so to do? Teufel

Cursed with Both Head and Heart

Saturday 29 May 2010 The Guardian Hay Festival has reignited my enthusiasm for digital communication with its "Most Beautiful Tweet" competition, being judged by Stephen Fry - poor lad, he'll be inundated - and they had the good taste to retweet one of my attempts. There followed, of course, some hours of roaming around twitter - particularly the Hay Festival tweets - wishing I were there, wishing I'd made the short trip there when I lived in Minstead, New Forest, wishing I gathered my energies up a little more often to get to that sort of thing when available here, where I am. I had toyed with the idea of calling this blog "How I Stopped Being Fat", as I intend to write quite a lot about that, but I have resisted allowing my life to be dominated and destroyed by being fat, so I decided not to allow it to dominate my blog either. Anyone tempted to put off your living until you're the perfect shape or weight - please don't! a) because you might not ever, and then you'd look silly, b) because most things are just as possible at any weight - in the last few years, while weighing close to, and then over, 100kg, I have had two children, passed two ballet exams with Merit (Grades 6 and 7 RAD), earned a PhD in French literature, home-schooled my children, appeared in Fiddler on the Roof as Yente, danced on TV (The Topp Twins), sung in a choir, written a novel, impressed Iggy McGovern with one of my poems. Do I think Big is Beautiful? No, not particularly. I don't think Big is Better, and my size is starting to restrict some of my physical activities - and I'm certainly not dancing as well as I would be 50kg lighter - but I'm still dancing - and I am often fatigued and my immunity is low. But that's only a part of who I am, and, like one of the authors of The Bitch in the House, I have got on and done the things I wanted to do, and generally done them rather well. 'Nuff said. In a future blog I will explain the "Head and Heart" reference from Dorothy L. Sayers, and I plan to write a weekly "column," rather formally, as well as odd jottings whenever I feel like it. Hopefully I'll also learn how to attach photos, links, and so forth. I leave you with an urging to watch Stephen Fry's "vimeo" on "Things I wish I'd Known at 18" on a website called something like (but don't quote me on this), "vimeo.com." Also, for the more frivolous among you, see his "Boos" - one for each episode of QI - find the link on his twitter site - they're up to number 11 at latest count - basically, you get a 30-second audio recording of the audience yelling an unusual word (for this series, all beginning with H), and you get to tweet the word you thought you heard to Stephen Fry. And if you're right, you win ... a sense of quiet satisfaction. The two I've heard so far were, if I remember rightly, "hamfutter" and "harquelbutt" - no, that second one's not right, but something like that. The current one is a word coined by Bosie, and to me it sounds like "horsellum." And to follow the Hay Festival and see what they come up with as "Most Beautiful Twitter." Adios, and, as we are increasingly learning to say in our Spanish studies, Hasta luego, hasta pronto, and also à bientôt, yours (often!) sincerely, Teufel.