giovedì, agosto 23, 2007

Conscious and subconscious both come to heel

Last night I dreamt I had a dog as well as my cat. We had been travelling around the world, with the F-word as well and maybe some other people in the entourage, and ended up in some pretty warm place with lots of parks. We went out to a grocer's to get some beer and cheese, and the cat followed.

The dog was fine, he was trained to heel and didn't need a leash. Lexie, however, wasn't allowed to go if she didn't accept wearing a cumbersome collar that would let us track her down if she got lost. I was trepidatious about the whole thing - as I said, where we were was full of beautiful parks and I was concerned she'd shoot off and tree herself or get hit by a car or something. In my jet-lag dumbness I'd also forgotten to collar her before we left the executive suite where we were staying, so I'd have to do that on the street.

I was expecting a potentially dangerous struggle as I leaned over to put the tag around her neck, but she came over and accepted it with mild enthusiasm - as though wearing a bloody stupid collar for a little while was the price she had to pay to for some freedom. She trotted along with us, a little more curious and cautious about her surroundings than the amiable, loyal dog who trotted to heel without looking left or right, but she kept pace.

My subconscious doesn't make things opaque for me. Needless to say I am less angry than usual about going into work today. Also the sun has finally come out, and I've decided that if we go Plan Gold Coast I'll spend two months of each year in Canada. So there's no more problems for the moment.

5 commenti:

Dale ha detto...

See? One blog post, one dream and you're beautiful again, unclouded. It's the weekend. Rejoice.

Anonimo ha detto...

So last night after I asked Baywatch, the father of my son to be, what La Spiffe had to say today I knew it was time to finally reach out. Remember me? MK. The Adalgisa to June Anderson's Norma last year in Toronto? Thank you, btw, for your kind words about that gig. Lady, I don't know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the fact that I'm seriously on the verge of jumping into a Shiatsu training course. And considering, like you, leaving behind one kind of career for one altogether different. I keep trying to search my soul for the reason I'm even looking in that direction. And yet something about it speaks to me. It "requires" the practitioner to meditate and rely on their intuition.... I also am immensely attracted to all things Dutch. Have spent 8 years in Europe. What else? Well I guess if you miss opera we may have a thing or two to chat about on that front as well. Se vuoi, possiamo anche chiachierare in italiano. Hello Mistress Spliffy Spliffe. So nice to meet you.

Dread Pirate Jessica ha detto...

OH MY GOD. Adalgisa reads my blog? You were awesome in Norma! Dale, Adalgisa from Norma reads my blog! OH MY GOD!

Now that that fangirl moment is out of the system. . . MK, I understand the specific attraction to shiatsu - the degree of involvement of the giver and the gettee makes it better and more relaxing than any other sort of massage I've got, and the world of research behind it seems like something I could really sink my teeth into for the rest of my life.

But I think in a more general way one major thing attracting me to it is the idea that I haven't done any useful labour in my life. Every job role I've filled could be struck off the face of the earth without making the lot of the human race materially worse. I don't think that about shiatsu.

I don't think that about opera either though so you must tell me why you think you're attracted to such a change. I do miss opera something fierce. . . but the season is starting here soon and I'll start lessons again when my job probation is over. Thank god for the opera season making autumn a little more bearable.

Anonimo ha detto...

What kind of lessons will you start??? I hear you on the "usefullness" of Shiatsu. I'm reading about it and yeah, one could study it for years. What strikes me the most, me thinks, is the connection of psychology with physiology in Eastern medicine. It's the ever fascinating chicken or the egg way of looking at things. Do we begin with fucked up feelings which in turn fuck up the organs which "house" those feelings or is it that we fuck up the organs (i.e, too much red meat) and become neurotic? You see my other passion, beside opera, is psychology and this draws me into shiatsu. Dig? It's scary as hell though! For I too get the grief from mommy and daddy about "this is not what we/you have made so many sacrifices for!" There's also the travel factor that's become a major pain in my ass. A year ago I was doing Adalgisa in Nice. Living a perfectly vegan lifestyle, with the sea just across the street from my abode. The audience was very generous, etc. and all I could think about was getting back home. I guess it's a shift in priorities. Wanting to be someone's mother (for real this time and not in the fucked up way I used to look for that role in relationships!)and wanting to establish some roots for a change. So you know what I do. What do you do? Btw, I envy the fact that you are so close to the friggin' Dutch border!

Dread Pirate Jessica ha detto...

Yeah. I appreciate the well-knit relationship there between the physical and the mental. So common sense, but the way medicine is organised in the West makes it bad business for a psychoanalyst to tell you to get on a treadmill or a doctor to tell you to get a couple of years of talk therapy, and bad business all around for either to tell you to cheer up and get more energy by eating more whole grains and tryptophan rich cheese. So people are left farting around, googling their symptoms and getting taken in by shysters. At least shiatsu thinks of the gettee as a whole human.

Ugh, disappointing the parents has gotten rougher and rougher as I get older, I don't know about you - maybe it's having a better sense of their mortality, but the waves of guilt when I think of not being an executive to be a masseuse when I think about them . . .

I'm an editor and writer for a trade magazine, and while the trade is the most laughably tedious in the world I'm still a writer and editor and making lots of money being it. I've always wanted to be a professional writer so as far as my parents and half of my brain is concerned, it's ridiculous I'm thinking about not being that anymore, and being a freelance masseuse who hopefully has the time to write what she wants when she's not working, even if that sort of massage is part of a really fascinating field. You get me?

Anyways, you must have though about teaching. Is it just really not attractive to you? I always felt pretty bad for my teacher, having to listen to my voice abuse nice songs.