Film Review: I used to be darker

I chose this film at the new FANTASTIC LOFT cinema because it was at a convenient time. There was 'Yves St Laurent' but Version Originale Sous-Titres (VOST) won!  I was the only one in Screen 6!  The title of the film is from the lyrics of one of the songs.  Matthew Porterfield: Director.  Released: September 2013.
A young Irish teenager has fled from her job in Wales. In fear, not knowing how to solve her problem, she has gone to seek refuge and shelter with her cousin, without realising that her aunt and uncle are experiencing a marital separation (love and loss). She's pregnant but takes a while to tell everyone (love and loss). Her friend has come home from college because of family crisis (love and loss).  She gets angry but is letting off steam for her own frustrations, inner hurt and quandary of how does one help anyone in crisis, let alone one's parents! There was anger from the father as he broke his guitar (love and loss).  There is release of love, everyone tried to be kind in their loss. There is obvious depression and frustration. There is redemption when lives are built up, then broken down. Life changes.  It brings the unexpected.  Nothing stands still.  It can be cruel and unkind.  The stories of the characters unfold.  There is an end to every beginning.  There is a beginning to every end. There was a sense of profundity to this film-story without an end as in everyday Life!
At first I wondered what I was doing watching such a movie about youngsters, but I sat through the glaringly, appallingly not-my-style-music.  At the end I discovered myself tapping a foot to a beautiful melody.  I wondered why the cinema lights had gone on!  It was the final song.
It was a film about letting go...but to go where?  As in real life, people wondered about their  experiences and were uncertain of how to solve emotional and pragmatic difficulties!  As in real life we go to the next experiences either of our own making or that have been circumstantially imposed upon us
It was a good film, one that I would recommend, for being gentle, even with the drama of anger and pain.  One could reflect. Occasionally the pace was a little slow, bringing a minor point of boredom when I fidgeted in my seat!

Freedom out and about

A haircut whilst speaking French and English with my friend was excellent therapy.  Seeing the rising rushing river against the bridge towers made me feel alive.  I was in wonderment at how quickly the new development of a new car park, cinema and tourist office in Chatellerault has been achieved.

I always try to go to Chez Fred in the market place to have a hot chocolate drink or lunch.  Yesterday was a surprise. I entered to find the floor covered with straw.  On walls and surfaces were veggie crates filled with straw and cut out paintings of rabbits and chickens.  From the ceiling and light fittings there were branches of wisteria, cutout paintings of bunches of grapes and maroon balloons to represent the grape. Some people sat on straw bales. No I hadn't made a reservation.  Never mind I said as I was about to leave without being served a coffee as there was nowhere to sit.  Meanwhile, Fred is waving an empty glass in front of me and indicating the barrel and bottles of Beaujolais Nouvelle, asking if I wanted lunch and finding a place for me to squeeze into. Despite my good intention to save money and to eat frugally my sandwich, "Pourquoi pas" sprang into my mouth, an opportunity to participate unexpectedly. For 10 euros I was stuffed with the buffet volonté, which Fred brought on huge serving dishes. There was no space to wander about.  Apple bread rolls were on plates.  The terrine was so delicious and I did not dare ask which meat!  I declined the black and white pudding and rillette or is it rillande, but accepted the most tasty of cold chicken, carpaccio, cheeses and green salad with tomatoes.  It was cheaper to buy a bottle but I couldn't drink that and when the French people on my table chinked glasses they were reluctant to do so with me because I had water after two small glasses of wine but when Fred brought a third glass they cheered appreciatively for it was that day in the year when Beaujolais is officially released and why they were there for the ambiance and atmosphere of Chez Fred. It was really a paid party!!  With a dessert of pears, cherries and Beaujolais wine confiture and an espresso coffee, my bill was just under 20e without the tip. BRILLIANT. What did it matter ?   I was stuffed.   With colour to my cheeks, sober and within driving limits. I felt alive again. 

I should never leave home without the camera. I considered it but thought it unnecessary,

I'm putting the date in my diary for next year and must get a small group of friends together to make a reservation. 

Carved out by hand

This is really about a hole in the wall.

In my personal life I am trying to carve out an understanding about the depths of who I am and what I represent, what my values, beliefs, strengths, essence are, not only for me and to me but also for others and to others so that I may move forward (with my new foot and feet), whatever that metaphor says!!!!!

I appear to be removing mental and emotional walls that kept me as mine own prisoner for many years. Looking back at my experiences, (written heartfelt on this blog), I've often spoken about being imprisoned and yearning to be as free as a bird. A very dear friend of mine tried to question this. She wanted to know why I felt I was being punished for this and that, and why I felt imprisoned.  I know this might sound a bit strange but I feel as if walls are coming down.  I feel as if I've broken through a chink in mine own armour and am being released from the past.  I've had some serious conversation today with a friend, whom I value enormously, and it is only now whilst I write this post for my blog about MY HOUSE, that I identify with the fact that MY HOUSE is metaphorically MY BODY and MY SOUL and all that are contained within that.

The baby that I was, the little girl who needs love to counteract parental inadequacies, (God bless them for they tried and did their best in their time), the student who studied hard to escape the exigencies of working class life, the rebellious teenager, the hippie with her long auburn brown hair sweeping down over maxi Laura Ashley styled dresses beneath which footless, fancy free and as barefoot as Sandie Shaw, she travelled deep underground from one side of London to the other, then a at the cutting edge of modern practice in the classroom (forget the theory) a teacher and a manager, a person of upper social standing in the eyes of all and sundry, the parent and the patient, the mother and a lover, a retiree which brought the child again when her adult was destroyed by external factors. Now re-discovering the confidence she once held for many years. It's different now. Mature, Grown Up. There one STORY ends. A tale begins anew.

A wall blocks out light but one can still breathe air....so what else did the wall block and keep imprisoned and what will the hole lead to? A sense of freedom of the soul and spirit,  an adventurous stage in a next stage of life.

Stones removed one by one by two young men working opposite each other in different spaces working as a team reveal a hole in the wall to become a passage between two greniers.
For MY HOUSE it opens a doorway to give change to the upper part of this house. I hope to create a habitable space there. If not, at the very least, it signifies a change in the way of life, a change of view, a new doorway to existence.  Optimism is created.

The Times they are a changing

I haven't posted for a while as I've been reeling under realisations.  I haven't run out of words, thoughts, feelings, but maybe I have been overwhelmed.  I think I got worn out and a return of M.E. hit me at the weekend!

Although there is the feeling that I've wasted several years, being dragged down (not only by myself but also my previous soulmate friend) .... I AM beginning to look positively at that negativity and understand that it was a period of TIME, when many positive events happened as well.
I AM beginning to look at the patterns of behaviour based on his childhood and my childhood that brought us to love and then dislike each other and yet he still wanted to be my friend and I his. Why was that? Probably to meet own needs.
Maybe I DID have to be carried after I lost my job but I KNOW THAT I acted as a child, NEEDING parental love and support!  So he became my father and mother figure. He was as he said my Physical Fitness Trainer.  Then (I know I am on repeat!) marital problems magnified after the physical repair of a psychologically damaging op which occurred within a few years of JOB CRASH. We moved house and country within a few weeks of that op and then I was told, not in quite these words, but that he didn't want me!!!!  In the last two weeks I've found my writings that establish the truth of that!
It's a pity we could not work through his jealousies about my son, his fears, my fears, our needs. 
BUT it was also a period of time when I carried him. Before we moved to France I employed him full time to work on my house that he also had some investment in by contributing to the mortgage to pay his part for living in my house! When we came to France he became ill ... he said it was because of me but I also believe it was because of the anxiety of renovation work and probably the future without much income as well his physical ageing.
We carried each other.
Now he has found someone else to carry for a while. Maybe she has found someone to carry HER.

HOWEVER, I DEFINITELY KNOW that I don't want anyone to carry me, nor do I need anyone else to carry.  BUT to support and be supported would be a different issue. Of course it will be lovely to have help from a friend in any capacity but NOT TO CONTROL or undermine my dignity, integrity and independence.  I don't want to be in a co-dependent relationship ever again.  I don't ever want to be made to feel afraid of someone's anger ever again.
I wish to keep my independence and that means learning to be grown up which I have been learning in the last three years. I now understand and accept that my friend was kind to make me go, kind to say we are not a couple anymore...even though at the time I was shocked, stunned, numbed, in total disbelief that he could make that choice and not try harder to save our souls!!!!!
I also realise that maybe I never indiated sufficiently how much I appreciated all that he did for me!

Of course I would like to be with a significant someone...but firstly if I can, (now that I am learning more about looking after my own needs),  I would like to meet lots of people, male and female, and begin to appreciate Life and Living.... It is time not for selfishness, nor self-centredness but certainly it is Time for looking after my inner selves... and I do mean plural.  I am more than one part. 

Well... I lasted at least 7 years after it all started to slide downhill with my friend,  having my heart tugged and shunned and nothing will take away the fact that I think I still love him and always will.  So that is that!  I know I can love again and hope that one day someone will be attracted enough to love in return.

I shifted sands this week as Cancerians do... going to see the sea has been very restorative.  I must go more often.  It's a drag, the 3 to 4 hour journey in my little Clio, but never in a hurry, I look about me as I go and learn about landscape and locations.  Of course the warm breeze, soft sweet salty sea, soft sand and golden warm sunshine in a clear blue sky, as I cycle hither and thither slowly, leisurely, or gaining momentum, marvel at little things that I see on my travels has left my skin soft like a baby!

Inside me, I am in love...in love with an island.... the golden isle of  Île de Rhé (with / without the h). It was surprisingly unchallenging camping alone. Tired after the afternoon drive I probably went to bed about 8 ish after erecting my small tent, eating oatcakes and cheese and refamiliarising myself with the beach.  With no plan other than to cycle, I relaxed.  It's fun alone because one doesn't have to keep up with anyone nor have anyone dragging one behind!!!!  I can do what I like, when I like.  Benefits.

I spent three full days revisiting places that I saw in June with a very good friend, taking different routes, visiting markets, talking to people, keeping my silence, laughing and crying as I cycled alone, stopping to eat the not ripe wild grapes and blackberries and a lunchtime treat of moules marinières and on Sunday large prawns at the oyster bar because I'd prefer to share oysters with someone!

Feeling the pain and rising above it........

I felt the breeze change last night. Autumn cometh.
The weather has changed: temperatures  in / out  for day / night have been similar for some time BUT NOW a 10C degree difference between outdoors / indoors accompanies the rain, scuppering an idea to clear the wood pile! Sabotage!

I feel Life's tempest brewing ......

I haven't posted because living alone allows too much opportunity for introspective thinking on making sense of this world and I am fast coming to the conclusion there is NO SENSE:  it is all NON SENSE!
LIFE is short.  Perhaps it has to be enjoyed no matter how hedonistic.  I've invested too much time and energy in the man that I thought I loved. I know I did love him even back in 1998 when first we became unstable.  Why has it lasted so long? Why does it take so long to heal? 

MY STRUGGLE IS THAT I HAVE deeply rooted PRINCIPLES of prudishness, pride, honesty, loyalty, integrity, decency and dignity and feel that I should be honoured and cherished for my womanhood and that THAT is also what I should offer for any man who wants to be with me!
BUT IT AINT ALWAYS LIKE THAT!!!!!!
I've made errors of judgement with my principles / behaviour but I don't have to punish who I am. 
One tries to go with the flow of life... tries to keep busy... tries to keep calm and reflect, consider motives for what I WANT TO DO IN MY LIFE, now that someone says I am a liberated woman with a thousand voices and says I rock his boat !
How nice! How flattering but it can't last!
BUT then the dream and reality of unreality crashes on the rocks! The rock is on a stormy sea. I clearly contributed to The Previous One's behaviour.  it wasn't all my fault even though he blamed and criticised me for my imperfections, failings, weaknesses. THAT is exactly what he worked upon to keep me down whenever I got strong.

Why is it that my rebellious teenager or my playtime seeking child won't listen to my adult? 
 
How much can anyone ever believe anyone?
How much can anyone trust others ... or is it all to be interpreted as a pack of lies as each one of us in the world seeks to meet our own individual needs in a selfish world?
Have I become too cynical?
Have I too much time to think?
Is it because I've been down on the floor so many times, picked myself up, dusted myself down and started all over again that I will keep doing that until I learn what it is I need to learn?
Someone please shout at me the blindingly obvious!
How can anyone ever protect themselves from the pain that is bound to come when one has had pleasure or feels bliss when it all disintegrates?
I get blissful whilst on my bike, whilst looking out with wonder across stubbled fields, clover, fields where millet ripens, huge leaved crops that must be the Nicotiana family ... tobacco,  yellow and green sunflowers in serried ranks, praising the SUN, which I do too ...... I bow my head as I eat my apple and praise God for the fact that I am alive and mobile and my happiness pours forth into the world.
I need to be emotionally inert.  That's a laugh a minute ... it'll happen when I am dead!
One tries to see good in everyone ... and know that as human beings we all feel the same ...
One tries to be compassionate and caring. I do try to love who I am and what I am so that I can share that love with others. It all sounds so trite.
One tries to know purpose in life and to what degree of fulfilment one could achieve for Self and to give to others.
I wish to meet new people, go to new places, hear new stories, do new things, see culture, so that I can learn more about REALITY.
I want to go travelling, be a hobo, but the time is not yet here.
There is a roof to be re-roofed, a kitchen to be gutted,  a bunion to be lanced, logs to be collected / delivered / stacked and how to do this with a hobbly foot will be interesting and then the rest....
This the former professional, a sometimes feisty woman who used to juggle two kids as a single parent with a full-time teaching commitment working all hours that God sent in order to prove my worth (the failing school grew from a roll of 30 ish children to 120 on roll when I was Acting Head [for my sins]). I studied for my degree status  at the same time. Before that the three of us lived in a house with subsidence where inside temperatures were below zero! Was I too busy with my job to take care of me and my kids. On reflection it did not seem to be enough but it has to be because it cannot be redone!

Mindful in solitude, I try to do the following but make little headway because of self-sabotage. 
1. Wake up ... go to sleep.
2. Eat and drink a balanced diet to lose weight before the foot incapacitates me for 3 to 6 months.
3. Exercise - I spent too long on my bottom last winter.  This Summer into Autumn I am proud of activity. I can easily walk fast for an hour in the morning and cycle for an hour or two each afternoon / evening.  It is not enough. BUT is enough for someone who had M.E., who could not walk between two groynes on a beach without a helping hand, who had to crawl up the stairs and shuffle down on her bottom, who fell asleep whilst the kettle boiled!
4. TRY to tick off jobs and tasks...e.g. currently having to make a decision on MUTUELLE payments as this is a task that has been shelved for 7 years and the recent enquiry with quotes is one year old... I have to pay out for my health costs because I have chosen to live in France. Only a percentage is picked up by the NHS... (what is that these days?)  Other goals must be to decide how to purchase a new vehicle so I pray that my little Clio keeps on moving....
5. TRY to Sort & Clear out STUFF I have not used, do not use, will never use again... Whew that is such a challenge!!!!!!  There in my attic are family photos ... newspaper cuttings, memorabilia, treasured items of monetary and emotional value...  There on my computer are photographic memories and a muddled collection of writings....and the whole story needs strategic thinking and a million ways of threshing to dump or keep in an honoured way. It's pretty scary to open sealed boxes from the past, when memories good and bad arrive to hit one in the head and heart. Currently the floor is littered with books not sold at the Books Festival ... not the same as a UK Literary Festival! but that is what this village needs to do.  It is stuck in old ways and is not keeping up with modernity... One can't keep presenting the same format... We did that at school for sports day and barbecue nights and then someone came and shook it all up!!!!! It needed a revamp and so did we, the staff!
6. TRY to think clearly, proactively. logically. No thinking would be good too.
7. TRY to formulate ideas for a plan for the future!
8. Laugh A Minute!    It keeps a level of sanity in the why of why this has happened in my life.

It's my blog... I can write about what I choose.

Angles sur L'Anglin

This is a link to a previous but existing blog 

that was created to my design with the skills of my former partner about 

Angles sur L'Anglin.

I am publicly publishing this information because the blog contains personal, creative writings about previous Feu d'Artifice (firework) events at this beautiful village.

It explains how he / I / we found this beautiful village and recently people have been asking how I came to live here.  It's hard to find the short story! This explains!

I had intended to expand that particular Blog,  but, within my inner psyche,  I was locked, blocked, stuck, ashamed. in regret, in remorse, in bereavement. It was and has been and IS difficult to accept and acknowledge all the good that there was In a Previous Life!  

Indeed, I might add to that blog  for which I have paid the domain name,  but for the Now, I have other objectives.  I enjoy self-publishing my photos and scripts as part of being Restless in France.

Perhaps it is time to publicly celebrate MY STORY and not to hide the past.

I'm wishing to remember and celebrate my past, my life, my long friendship with my former soulmate. I'm wishing to celebrate who I am and where I've been to get to where I am, despite the LOSSES experienced and despite an emotional HELL that I seem to have allowed myself to go through, for whatever reason. Agreed, it is nothing compared to what others bear in their lives.   It is just who I am. I seem to feel things very deeply and wish I didn't.
Nevertheless that does not diminish the love I have for my inner core and the love I have for other people and things.  Most of the thoughts that are truly in my head are linked to emotions. To stop them or put them into a box may mean to become mentally and emotionally inert.  I don't know about that! I am told that I have to put the past to bed in order to heal, to prevent the inner torture.

It is ironic that I come to live on a street called the Road to Hell and another plot is number 13.  I never knew these facts when I signed for the property. If I did, I would not have completed the purchase.  This actually makes me laugh... because what else can one do but see the humour in the twists and turns of life... otherwise one would go completely barmy and need the institutional nuthouse!

It is impossible to believe that once I was a person of social standing with more responsibilities for others than I could manage!

However,  here I am, mostly extremely happy to live in this most beautiful of villages despite that sometimes perhaps I do not make as much of my life every day as that which I could!  I miss many things. The clock is ticking as I search for the next adventure!

 

Yesterday

Yesterday......
PART ONE
oh George, oh Paul, oh John, oh Ringo, oh The Beatles, oh how I used to weep between screams and smiles of joy, of sentiment, of being on the edge of a cliff of musical, magical, majestical mystery.
PART TWO
Yesterday ....... was a stormy day... in more ways than one.

Yesterday, I sat on a bench under the hands of horse chestnut trees, whilst rain penetrating through leaves dropped drips, one by one, onto my blue-grey rain mac and in my hair, as I sat and studied  lightning across a river valley, watching rain fall against the backdrop of trees. Birds stopped song and flight as rain fell and when the clouds abated, the feathered friends struck up their tunes and were seen to fly from place to place, for it was not yet 9 o'clock in the evening.

Yesterday, I sat under the leaves of conker trees and smelled the damp bark. I leaned against the tree and wished to hug the strength out of it.  I witnessed conkers lying on the ground from last Autumn.  I looked up into the canopy of green and felt protected.  My wistful melancholy whimpered at my soul like a French nightingale with all the joys and happinesses of Spring and Summer but solitariness seethed towards a wonderment about people and existence.

Yesterday, I sat wishing I had my camera, purse and tissues, for I had nothing except my self and what I wore. Then CLOCK. I see before me a Toyota MR2 sports car with a GB number plate... ah ha .. English people are here.  Ah ha, and what is this, as a Porsche Boxster S parks alongside it. "Bonsoir" le monsieur dit a moi. "Bon soir Monsieur" je dit.  "Hello".  He discusses the weather and who they are visiting and asks me something where I reveal a twist in the day but reveal nothing more than the wistfulness of a stormy day.  I ask if he has seen me before, for he is quite friendly! He offers to bring a glass of wine as he clutches his two bottles of red to the place he is going to.  Of course he never arrives. Why would anyone in a thunder storm want to return to a wet bench under trees with two glasses of red in his hand when he is the age of my son?
But oh, I dreamed that he would..for a person to talk to and not to talk about me... oh no... for as I have been told I am as mad as a biscuit and I am told that I dream fancifully.
There I am in a film set ... rather as Bathsheba in the storm. I see Troy with Fanny as the rainstorm flooded the earth and spoiled the crops and yet made characters strong to allow love to win through tragedy.    Oh such a fanciful imagination in search of company and more than that... normality.

PART THREE
Wishing to maintain privacy, just let me say that the following day I was feeling so good that after almost 3 hours of mowing grass, I walked far into countryside at a pace, descending and climbing a circuit of stone steps, lanes, streets and pavements about the village and its environs.  I courageously knocked on a door to see if I could discover this person to explain that I do not normally sit in rain and thunder storms. These English people were so kind and not at all phased...so French really... we showed interest, discussing all manner of things French and English, their lives and mine. They fed me a most amazing 3 course meal followed by coffee.  I hope I can return the conviviality.

PART FOUR

Yesterday... I was told by an English person that I look French...oh oh oh... MY MY MY! J’ai arrivé.
I do actually have ancestors who are from Nîmes et de Nantes. How good do I feel!!!!!!!!

Life is looking up!!!!!!!