On the morning of October 5, 2019, I knew my. life was going to change, but did not expect so many changes. I am used to unexpected pleasures but this year just has been Unexpected.
The next three months were a roller coaster of happiness... players from Iran, Qatar, a crocodile named Carlos and a little poet from Cote Sauvage and new friends in Cochin, Siem Reap and Muscat. New friends also mean saying good bye to some old friends, directions change, paths change and like the trains that diverge in the night, you too, drift part.
New Year's eve by the ocean in Fort Cochin..
Managed to squeeze in a couple of good months in three visits to Cuba in early 2020.
Then things began unravel and I was stuck in Miami. The initial few months were fantastic in that the self isolation was a boon after a year of very hectic travel.
Months began to move on, also noticed that friends were dropping in and dropping out with great haste.. I cannot begin to tell you how many left. All these social isolation and psychological loneliness were too much for many,
Carlos kept me company, The Little poet kept on writing poems. and I, like in that poem by Jacques Brel :
Les bourgeois c’est comme les cochons
Plus ça devient vieux plus ça devient bête
Les bourgeois c’est comme les cochons
Plus ça devient vieux plus ça devient…
began to deviate from my normal nutrition and unable to go anywhere, began to accumulate in my mind sorrows of other people.
That was until 16 July 2020
Today is Day 80
Thanks for eighty days of Love
wonderful days, made the social isolation, the complete change in lifestyle bearable by the first eighty days of love
As Michele Gurevich would sing
YES this social isolation has been good to discover so many new singers from all around the world Michele Gurevich a Canadian singer living Copenhagen was a delightful find
I am passionate about the things i adore and I want to maintain the passion and only with the magic the passion is possible beyond the firs six months of love..
Let people think for themselves and let them not begin to delve into my thinking, before they learn their own thinkings.
Joyce McDougal. the name came to my mind. I was a student of Anthropology in London, the two most delightful years of intellectual luxury and my teacher Cecil Helman who later became a friend, mentioned the names of two psychiatrists: One is a Medical Anthropologist, Maurice Eisenberg from Melbourne (why are the best known Medical Anthropologists, Jewish?) and the other was Joyce McDougal who was a New Zealander (we who come from outlying european societies strive harder?) practising Psychiatry in Paris.
The psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall, who has died aged 91, made significant contributions to the understanding of perversions, psychosomatic symptoms, female sexuality, creativity and addictions. Her clinical insights, theoretical originality, open-mindedness and lack of dogmatism made her unique throughout her 60-year career and enabled her to create a valuable link connecting the Anglo-Saxon and French psychoanalytical schools. (The Guardian)
Cecil wanted me to read her second book.
In Theatre of the Mind: Illusion and Truth On the Psychoanalytical Stage (1982), she went back to her favourite metaphor, presenting patients enacting fantasies on a kind of inner stage, in response to the pain of earlier parts of their life.
I was immensely taken in by this book. We are the script writers of what we say. There is only one stage, this one where we are acting out our scripts. But in some people, the scriptwriter packs up his bags and leaves and they are no longer sure of what to think or say.
Only fantasies remain and soon that becomes the reality for them.
I enjoyed using this method in my patients and also on some friends and could easily see that in many people the script writer either is dormant or departed.
"When invited by the Dalai Lama in 1993 to explain to him the aim of psychoanalysis, she replied: "To find one's truth about oneself." He responded that this was also the aim of Buddhist meditation."
Thank you for 80 days of Love. Feelings have to be intense and at the same time pure, otherwise you would be betraying the scriptwriter, mine is sitting up there , writing this.
I was immensely upset this afternoon. But as the night fell and was soothed by the singers of my selection, I am strangely calm. I received word from Cuba to say that I can return on November 1st. My sister wrote: i will get everything ready for you, all the food you like would be here, just bring yourself here!
I may not be able to have my usual large dinner parties but I may be able to invite some close friends for drinks and savouries!
I have only. one thing left to say
a poem by my favourite poet, who lived la chascona in Santiago de Chile, La Sebastiana in Valparaiso and in Isla Negra ( I have been lucky to have visited all three houses) would summarize my feelings at the moment
IF YOU FORGET ME
Here is an analysis by someone or other . (shavi sikaria)
This language beautifies the idea that love imbibes itself into everything. Common objects become reminders of a significant other because everything becomes connected to that love.
Then there is “Well, now; if little by little you stop loving me; I shall stop loving you little by little.”
This line seems to communicate that his love must be noticeably reciprocated or it will slowly die. It shows that the love he has for the subject of the poem isn’t a need.
The next stanza is “If suddenly; you forget me; do not look for me; for I shall already have forgotten you.”
The noteworthy aspect of this line is his perceived ability to tell whether his subject will be faithful in the future just by how they are in the present. He is saying he would have already forgotten by the time they forget.
Next is “If you think it long and mad; the wind of banners; that passes through my life; and you decide; to leave me at the shore; of the heart; where I have roots; remember; that on that day; at that hour; I shall lift my arms; and my roots will set off; to seek another land.”
He is saying that if he isn’t accepted for all of his beliefs, he will stop loving the subject the moment he is left, and he will take all his deepest investments in the relationship away with him.
My scriptwriter had been learning to write in another language, he packs away his canvas and the letters. and RELAXES
October 5. 2020 begins
Coincidentally some faces from the past
Wish them all well.
I know I can expect some unexpected pleasures.
