happiness

Wandering and Wondering. With Pie.

| Betsy

The photo below is of Chester. Chester lives out in a giant pasture in Fearrington, a retirement village not too far away. Hanging out with him the other day and making a new friend was delightful.

 

 

And speaking of retirement, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the future, especially after talking to my friend, who manages Plus500 Erfahrungen. And how the hell I’m going to pay for it. Tonight I walked home with my housemate after Bingo at a local shop, and we ate what was left of the blueberry pie she won on the last game. Fresh blueberries had splattered purplish pink on my arm, and my lips and tongue were stained blue as we walked home in flip-flops, making smacking sounds both on the pavement with our feet and with our mouths full of pie. There was a sweet sense that the summer was beginning as we soon started to itch from mosquito bites and I kept dancing to Kelis’ “Milkshake” which a new friend played for me between Bingo games. Awesome.

But then back home, I’m faced again with the conflict that keeps rising in my life, where I’m transitioning on the career front from that amorphous-sounding “freelance” towards something more sound and less stressful. I want to work out of choice when I’m 80, not work out of necessity. So I’m wading through job listings, my CV, the stories and advice of others and my own self-doubt with thoughts of my future in front of me. I think that life is meant to be lived and that work is something you should feel passion for, as with passion you challenge yourself and others to move forward and improve.

I would like to work in an environment that’s helping others (especially women) develop their own livelihoods in countries without proper infrastructures. With years of research about women, community, war, identity and indie businesses, it just seems like a natural fit. I love exploring the unique power of creativity and the way it can help as it heals. I love asking questions. I love weaving the intricacies of different cultures together and watching how they create a fabric of humanity. So I’m left in my living room, by the window, looking up at the moon, wondering how to best navigate my future.

It was nice to take time out tonight from wondering about 401ks and retirement plans and finding full-time work that is truly fulfilling and to just walk by the light of the moon and eat pie. It didn’t matter that it was dripping on our toes or on the pavement or staining our fingertips, it just mattered that we were happy to be there. And I wonder about those of us who are wondering and struggling and constantly questioning ourselves as to whether we’re doing the right thing. If we’re on the right path and fighting the right fights and where we need to be. We wonder and wonder and wonder what our future will be, knowing that we are the only ones who can craft it.

Maybe it’s daft, naive or just plain sadistic, but I truly believe that we will find the right path, the right people, the right places. We will realize that our transitions are natural progressions instead of failures. And I hope and trust that when I’m 80, I’ll be going home from Bingo in the light of the moon, laughing and lucky enough to live somewhere without worrying about the electric bill. Blueberry stained teeth and pavement, however, are purely optional.

welcoming the familiar and the familial.

| Betsy

So it’s almost Thanksgiving here in the U.S., my most favorite of holidays for reasons like snuggliness and hugs and warm sweaters. Tomorrow I head to the Georgia coast, which means a few extra special things like late night talks with my grandfather when everyone’s asleep, knitting with my grandmother, long solo walks on the quiet beach, watching the sea for the dolphins that always come at dawn and dusk.

And if I’m extra lucky, it also means spending an hour or two walking around and taking photos of the Southern gothic beauty of the Christ Church grounds and hearing all the family stories I never tire of even though I know them by heart.

After all the food has been eaten and the football watched and the whiskey consumed and the naps had on Thursday, it will be Black Friday. There are many sites online with coupons for the shopping day to end all shopping days like here and here. Many sites that help you with your day after Thanksgiving bring-on-the-holidays spendiness.

But what about actually celebrating Buy Nothing Day instead? Not just participating in the no spending activities, but actually enjoying the day itself? What about taking a day to enjoy all the things around you that don’t cost money?

How many more shirts do you really need? In this world where we are lucky enough to be able to drive to the store down the street and choose between 30 different brands of peanut butter, why spend a day off fighting just to consume more? You could be listening to old family stories again, remembering them for when you’ll be the only one to recite them, or curling up on the couch with an old blanket and your favorite book.

What about choosing not to buy new new new, and enjoying the tiny wonderful things that are on offer nearby, at arm’s length, and for free instead? What about daring to enjoy what’s in front of you instead trying to replace it for a new shiny moment? What about daring to be okay with what you have instead of looking for more? These tiny notions of rebellion and resistance are where life is to be enjoyed, honored and fully lived.

my continuing love affair with the seasons…

| Betsy

Here’s a little secret:

I <3 fall. Not THE Fall with Mark E. Smith (although I do adore them), or the falls I often make because I'm clumsy, but fall as in autumn. Today I went to the woods and tromped around in pigtails with some friends and we drank coffee from a flask and ate vegan muffins and satsumas. Fall is the time of year that makes me want to run around and create create create til my hands bleed. Fall makes me want to howl at the moon, take walks through downtown London holding hands, fling myself into huge piles of raked leaves, wear bright colours, go to the Battersea Dogs Home and cuddle with abandoned puppies, pull out my old Minor Threat and Operation Ivy tapes and sing outloud offkey.

Also of note, the following information was passed along to me and maybe you’ll find it meaningful, too:

16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is a worldwide campaign that provides opportunities to take a stand against gender-based violence and to mobilize around women’s human rights. The 16 Days Campaign, initiated in 1991 by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, runs from International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25th) through International Human Rights Day (December 10th). The campaign makes explicit the connection between women’s rights and human rights. Over one thousand organizations in approximately one hundred and thirty countries are participating this year.

AIUSA’s Women’s Human Rights Program is once again participating in this worldwide campaign and encourages each of you to do the same. AIUSA’s campaign theme this year focuses on the murders and “disappearances” of women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Mexico.

Background on 16 Days

In June of 1993, representatives of nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world gathered in Vienna, Austria for the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights. Women’s human rights advocates had worked for two years nationally, regionally and globally to ensure that women’s rights were recognized as human rights at the conference and that violence against women was included in the discussion. The resulting document, the Vienna Declaration and Platform of Action signed by 171 states, was historic in its emphasis on the global pervasiveness of gender-based violence and in its compelling appeal to governments and to the United Nations to take action to eliminate such violence. The document declared:

The human rights of women and the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. Gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation, including those resulting from cultural prejudice and international trafficking, are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person, and must be eliminated.

Since the Conference, significant gains have been made on the international level for the movement to end violence against women. In December of 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW). In 1994, the UN Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences to monitor the various manifestations of gender violence on a worldwide scale

In 1995, the UN held the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing where women’s human rights advocates again demanded that governments take concrete measures to improve the status of women. The resulting Beijing Platform for Action included a chapter devoted to eliminating violence against women. In 2000, the Beijing Platform for Action was reviewed by the UN General Assembly and the resulting document sought to strengthen governments’ commitments to fulfilling the human rights of women worldwide.

The murders and “disappearances” in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City are but one illustration of the rampant gender-based violence that persists around the world today. Join with Amnesty International and help end violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and around the world.

For more information about how to get involved with the 16 days campaign, visit here.

Screw summer, fall makes me happy. So go do good things as the weather gets cooler and you have to pull out the mittens and you can start to see your breath.

Rock on fall!