21. January 2014 · Comments Off on A new year, a new course · Categories: Uncategorized

Last year was difficult. Anyone who reads my articles for Embrace Transition will be aware of this. But the last posted (http://embrace-transition.com/2014/01/09/east-and-west-walking-the-wood/)  put many things to rest. My childhood family has gone. My aunt’s home is gone. Any residual fear  – extending into the wood behind Downalong (the name if her cottage) – has gone.

Time then to move on. Move on in to a new year… a new phase. A new course of consideration. A new course of action. No new resolutions, just a natural movement onwards, a progression…

Time also to begin a new writing course.

I began developing Drawing on the Writer Within, using right-brain techniques to help dispel anxiety, build confidence and authenticate the writing voice, in Tokyo in 2005. What began as a series of drop-in classes swiftly transitioned into an 8-week course, at the end of which writers asked when the next would start. By the time I moved to Scotland in late 2012, DOTWW had grown into a four-course programme – a movable feast of creative and therapeutic opportunity that could be offered via courses, workshops and retreats.

Alison Gray, now returned to Glasgow, but who completed all four levels of DOTWW in Japan. Here she is writing her way through Level 1 as two Sunday workshops in Zushi. It has just been announced that she has won a Young Scottish Writers Award for 2014.

Alison Gray, now returned to Glasgow, but who completed all four levels of DOTWW in Japan. Here she is writing her way through Level 1 as two Sunday workshops in Zushi. It has just been announced that she has won a Young Scottish Writers Award for 2014.

I first offered Level 1,  INITIATION,  at the Birnam Arts Centre (on the far side of the River Tay from Dunkeld) in the autumn of 2013. But there were no takers. Concluding that no-one thought ahead to September in summer, with children home from school and holidays uppermost in everyones’ minds, I tried again in mid-autumn, advertising in The Bridge (the local monthly magazine) to put out the word for 2014

Five signed up. All women. Ranging in age from 18-80s. And so we began on January 14, filled with enthusiasm and in a great venue. Sadly the three-hour stretch of the class proved too much for the oldest participant, and she dropped out.  But not without starting the memoirs she has been so keen to record; I dropped in on Saturday and we talked through how she can continue at home.

“Stop TELLING me your stories,” I found myself repeating constantly. “Write them down.”

I hope she does.

As for the others, they are excited and motivated, and even the youngest (as quiet as a proverbial church mouse in the first class) is slowly gathering confidence to share her work with the others. To date her writings have been in the form of notes and scribbles from work, daily life and dreams. Interesting then that her poem last week spoke of scattered fragments with blanks in between.

Two of the students – close friends – are quite independently writing crime novels. One hopes DOTWW will push her on in terms of developing characters; the other not only seeks to flesh out and deepen her descriptions of Nature, but has recognised a need to research and write about the generational impact of Scottish history, religion and culture on her as a woman.

The other writer – a therapist – wants to deepen her understanding of what not only makes her tick, but those around her.

So a good start, and while four is less that five, they show all the signs of being the right four.

How many will turn up at the DOTWW taster session booked for this coming Sunday, as The Bield, a retreat at Blackruthven near Perth? On January 1st only two were signed in. At the last count. seven. So that is very encouraging.

Having set the maximum at ten, I now have to decide what to do with them. (Joking, of course.) Am thinking exercises in the morning, and offering them the tools of PW (Proprioceptive Writing) in the afternoon. While the feedback from guided WRITES (RITES as in ritual writing) is always immensely useful, one of the great advantages of PW is that students can continue the practice on their own at home.

Three of the women on the current DOTWW course had each done three WRITES in between weeks one and two.

A woman from Falkirk who attended several monthly PW sessions last year at the Orchard and Apple House at Kilgraston, Bridge of Earn, did 30 WRITES in one month, reporting the experience as “illuminating and inspiring on so many levels”.

Friend Jillian Yorke attended a PW session at The Orchard last summer because she and her partner Hitoshi were visiting us, and it seemed opportune. Jillian, who now divides her time between New Zealand and Japan, was one if the very first DOTWW students to complete Level 1 in 2007.  She found it really interesting to do a guided WRITE after so many years.

We recommence these mini workshops at this retreat at 10am on Wednesday, January 22.

Blairgowrie’s second BOOKMARK festival is also on course for October. Three of us, all indie writers and self publishers, met last week to brainstorm how we might extend the scope of our interests. Workshops seem a positive way forward since they very much appear to meet popular demand. We meet again later this month to hear how our ideas went down with the main committee.

So yes, despite the continuing rain (flood plains are flooded, water tables saturated with water coursing from high ground to low in any which way it can; even race courses resemble swimming pools!) a far more constructive start to the year.

I was in a very different space this time last year. I walked the course of the labyrinth at the retreat in Kilgraston and it took me where I needed to go: into the heart of myself to find the strength of each and every moment for the months ahead

I was in a very different space this time last year. But I walked the course of the labyrinth at the retreat in Kilgraston and it took me where I needed to go: into the heart of myself to find the strength to see through the months ahead, moment by moment

January 2013 we were both stressed out – and the arrival of all those boxes in February (ten remaining unpacked even now) hardly helped!  But while Akii slowly recovered, to begin enjoying a stress free life beyond all the rules and constraints Japanese culture imposes on its people, I struggled with incipient waves of threatening depression.

Akii had left behind a life he was more than happy to let go: “So much pain.” His father dying in 2010. The earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns of 2011. His mother’s passing from cancer in 2012; at 89 she had decided against further courses of treatment.  The further trauma of trying to decide whether to stay or leave, the trials and tribulations of applying for a visa, and packing up the home we had lived in for a decade. The life he had lived for 62 years; the one I had created over 26.

As the months passed I found myself clinging to the memories of the rich, fruitful and rewarding life that I had exchanged for what? It was not the lack of convenience (having to travel 10km to the nearest shop rather than cycling three minutes to a vending machine). It was the sense of no longer having any kind of meaningful life… of not contributing. This and (despite the great beauty of our surroundings) the isolation, the lack of social contact.

But I am optimistic. City life no longer calls to me as it did. We have joined a spa to swim and workout; Sorcha is creating me a course for Thursday to help build strength and stamina. We are making friends. Filling our diaries with provisional dates for visitors.  Really, the calendar is looking quite busy (relatively speaking) compared to this time last year.

Whether we stay long term is still up in the air. The combinative effect of cold and damp on my joints is worrying, and it may be that we will need to seek a warmer drier climate. Japan was cold in winter, but dry; in summer it was hot, but humid. Very different here.

But are we okay for the moment? Moving forward into longer lighter days with a spring in our step?

Of course.

 

 

20. December 2013 · Comments Off on Waving (not drowning) · Categories: Uncategorized

It is that time of year again: the Winter Equinox, after which sun light begins to return for longer days. Also when we choose a photograph for our year-end greeting card. In Japan they are called nengajo, and sent to friends and family with the inscription (printed or hand scribed) Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu: Congratulations on the daybreak of another year.

In the old days nengajo were either very formal or people designed their own. (Sketches of Mt Fuji remain popular.) Today a nengajo is more likely to bear a photo – sometimes a studio shot but increasingly something more casual – taken on holiday, or to demonstrate an achievement (academic, sporting or creative).

Our own has always killed two birds with one stone in offering greetings for Christmas, and New year.

Being a non-Christian country, Japan has embraced Christmas as a commercial opportunity to have fun. Christmas Eve has become the date for dates – romantic nights out for couples. While fathers take home ku-ri-su-ma-su ka-e-ki, a sponge cake filled with cream and decorated with out-of-season (once meaning very very expensive) strawberries.

Christmas Day dawns… and everyone goes to work as usual, and those remaining at home start the year end run.

How different in Europe, where – despite commercial aspects – Christmas is still regarded (hopefully) as a quiet day for family, and some even go to church. Then begins the hyped build-up towards New Year, the time to let hair down!

I love o-shogatsu (New Year) in Japan. There is the focus on slow cooking ritual meals and (as in Scotland!) cleaning the house from top to bottom and seeking to pay off debts to ensure a clear start to the new year. The eventual slowing down. The sinking into evening silence. Temple bells at midnight tolling 108 times to symbolise the 108 human sins denoted in Buddhism. Visiting temples and shrines to join the queue to ring the bell. Gathering around fires to burn decorations, prayers, wishes from the old year, while drinking hot sake (amazake). Pounding hot cooked rice in a mortar until elastic and yummy for traditional mochi.

The warm comfort of o-zoni on new year morning: a hot clear soup of vegetables and mochi.

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O-sechi in Zushi, 2009

O-sechi carries Japan through the rest if the day, and as many days thereafter as the food lasts. A fabulous spread of cooked treats. Akii’s favourites: sweet black beans (kuro-mame), fish paste (kamaboko) and small fish cooked in soy sauce and sugar (gomame). My own? Sweet egg roll (datemaki), fried fish (tai/ snapper) and vegetables (carrot, potato, beans, etc) cooked in soy sauce and sake (o-nishime), sour grated radish in vinegar (namasu) and… well I could go on forever.

So in Japan everyone gets pissed at Christmas and turns seriously spiritual for new year. Here it is the other way around.

2013 has been a real learning curve for me – for us, I dare say. But while Akii has embraced life here with enthusiasm and relief (being Japanese in Japan tends to be stressful)  I am still finding the transition bumpy rather than seamlessly embraceable. It is not easy to be a nationalist when you have lived so long as an internationalist.

With my aunt gone (she died December 12 last year, with the funeral on the 19th) Christmas 2012 passed in what I can only describe as a daze of shock and loss. At 98, of course, her death was always a whisper around the corner, but it came so suddenly that still it hit hard. Acceptance and rejection walked hand in hand for many months… right until last week in fact, when I cleared the windowsill of candles, incense, her photo, and the china cup in which I made her tea each morning. It is a ritual learned in Japan, and one for which I will always be grateful.

Whatever works, I always say. Whatever works for us all as individuals in offering respect and handling the grieving process.

To be honest, I have not grieved for Jo. Fed up with her diminished life she was quite ready and willing to go. All she wanted, she would say, was that it be quick, painless and trouble free (for others). In her sleep, she hoped. And since so it was, pretty much, I could only be relieved for her.

Relieved for her. Immeasurably sad for my self. I miss her tardy intelligence and wry good humour a lot, my last link to past.  I knew her as a vital young independent career woman. She knew me as a child, and now there is no-one who did. It has left me feeling not only bereft of my godmother and role model, but alone. Not lonely. Never lonely. But alone, yes.

Goodbye to 3-3-3 Yamanone, Zushi - our home for ten years...

Goodbye to 3-3-3 Yamanone, Zushi – our home for ten years…

So here we are, one year on. Akii did not arrive in London from Japan until December 26, and then he had to wait for our cat to land on a later flight and go through pet procedures. It was not until the 28th that he was able to take the train north, and I could meet him at the station. What a sight he made too: suitcase in one hand, backpack, and cat basket in the other. Having packed up the house in Zushi, and suffering family losses if his own over the previous two year (his father, his mother) he was reeling with exhaustion, and subsequently slept for days…

 

Near one year on, as I wrote before, he says loves it here. No cultural pressures. No immediate fear of further earthquakes, tsunami and irradiations. No stress.

Returning from a trip to Japan in August (the death of an uncle in Tokyo), he mailed that he wanted to stay in Scotland. Japan reminded him only of pain.

Hello Burnside Cottage, December 2012

Hello Burnside Cottage, December 2012

I am struggling more. The UK is not the country or culture I left in 1986. Scotland had particular challenges but, having said this, I can only be grateful: to my mother and aunt for their generosity; the beauty of our surroundings; the kindness of neighbours and open hearts (and minds) of new friends, and so the list does go on…

Which is why – despite heavy rain and the promise of more climatic turbulence as we approach the holiday season – we are waving and (most definitely) not drowning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

05. November 2013 · Comments Off on The dying of the year · Categories: Uncategorized

Yesterday Akii and I cleared gutters and pruned and raked borders in preparation for winter. It was tough to cut back roses, still producing buds, but to be sure of a good flowering next year, they had to go:  inside the cottage, in a vase on a windowsill. Today everything is frosted white and shining in bright sunshine. So just in time…

Today is also November 5, which passed me by with little to no consideration for 26 years while in Japan. There fireworks are let off seasonally in summer, with displays along rivers and around the coast. Great memories of sitting on our beach in Zushi, with cold beer and cooling fans, surrounded by families and girls parading in summer kimono, as the sky filled with light, colour and sound. The fireworks were let off on rafts or from fishing boats (comandeered for the occasion) criss-crossing the bay.

Fireworks in Japan then are about the enjoyment of summer heat and celebrating life at its most vibrant.

Here they are about historical retribution, standing around in cold weather and stamping feet to keep warm, and keeping in tune with the dying of the year.

I know which I prefer.

DSCN3829.jpgHowever I am prepared to adapt, and if the rain stays off have yet another bonfire set to light the sky while hopefully not afflicting neighbours with smoke.

In the meantime I’m off to canvass support (sell tickets, persuade buyers to contribute food) for our local community Christmas party on December 13. Amazing to think that only eight days later will be the shortest day, and then we start swinging back towards Spring.

Yes, optimism is my second name.

 

 

03. October 2013 · Comments Off on Turning full circle · Categories: Uncategorized

Tomorrow it will be one year since I left Japan to create a new life here in Scotland.

Right now my husband is in the air, on his way back here after a month-long trip relating a death in his family. He says that he does not want to return there, that Japan reminds him only of pain; “Scotland so much calmer and more peaceful.”

Initially I was shocked. He never again wants to go back to the country of his birth? But then I remember that he always thinks in extremes: life is wonderful or not worth the effort; people are kind or crooks;  we are happy or we are about to get divorced… He swings violently from black to white, while I try to walk a path of grey, the middle way.

This is not to say I don’t think in terms of opposites: ying and yang, night and day, male and female. But I also recognise and accept all shades in-between.

I try to apply this into my everyday life, and all the reactions therein. Thinking of Akii and his current mind-set takes me back to the regular trips I made back here, at the end of each and every one I was just so relieved to leave. The UK was not the place I used to love: dirty, inefficient, selfish, unkind…

I remember fighting my way through the mayhem of Heathrow Airport to step into the waiting room for the return flight to Narita and feeling all tension drain from my body; Japanese people are so quiet and politely undemanding. It always felt like a homecoming.

The reality of city life in Japan is of course very different, and here we live in a rural setting, with sheep in the fields and harvest gathered in. Maybe that is what he reacting to, against…

The pain that he describes is quite another matter and one that I look forward to discussing, getting to the root of.

I have my own struggles to admit to, try to get into some kind of order. Because the truth is the last few weeks have been the hardest yet. I have tried to describe and understand what was manifesting in the most recent of my monthly series on the website Embrace Transition: http://embrace-transition.com/2013/09/30/east-to-west-taking-responsibility/

The editor of ET, Jacinta Hin, is a DOTWW graduate, and the whole idea of creating a site to help get a positive handle on change grew out of the course (level three, AFFIRMATION) that we were in the middle of when the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, 2011.

One of the projects that grew out of the following week or so was Embrace Transition as a Facebook site; it seemed the quickest way to start networking and help us all (as well as others) cope with events that piled up one after another. It also helped keep our families and friends in touch and up-to-date what what was happening (and not happening) in a way that mainstream Japanese media failed to do.

Jacinta had long been talking about writing a book on transition (change and transformation), so it was natural for her to take charge. Last year she developed ET – assisted by Peter Gramberg’s very beautiful photographs – into a fully fledged website; the book is an ongoing project…

Despite the emotional upheavals described in Taking Responsibility, I have worked hard to stay upbeat. The weather has been glorious and the hedges are dripping with fruit… If the old adage that a bountiful autumn presages a harsh winter is true, then I need to start to learn skiing now!

DSCN3843Driven by the need to keep creating rather than sink into poor me, I made jellies from rowan and blackberries and now have a line of jars on the kitchen windowsill that glow gloriously when the sun is in the right direction. Not sure how “set” the bramble jelly is, due to my winging it rather than admit I had forgotten quantities of fruit to juice to sugar. But I did better next time…

Reaching down a book on preserving, I was shocked into laughter and some guilt all over again, as it was clearly taken out of a library in 1979 and (obviously) never returned. Oh dear. Clearly the last time I did anything remotely similar in the kitchen: over 30 years ago. I take responsibilty for this historic theft also; just hope the admittance does not land me in jail.

DSCN3838.jpgTo move on from this thought and for your interest, the photo header to this blog looks down into my preserving pan to a mass of rowan berries, half in sunlight, half in shade, with the handle providing the middle road. Ying and yang translated…

Friday I head for Provence, a repeat of the retreat that I used last year as my physical and psychological bridge between Japan and Europe. (http://www.leonardjacobson.com/events_france.php) Except of course it will not be a “repeat”. I am so curious as to how I will feel about being there. Slightly anxious but keeping this at bay with the joy of being here in the moment.

It’s windy here today, with leaves are playfully chasing one another round and round about in an endless game. The rowans and elders are so heavy with fruit that their branches are sweeping the grass below. Classic FM is playing on the radio. It’s coming up for lunch time and – with this piece coming to a natural (neatly cyclical) conclusion,  all is well in my world.

The world outside? Another matter. Right now, I hold myself in presence… and any distracting fear-filled thoughts of past or future at bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27. August 2013 · Comments Off on Books, books, books & my book (part 2) · Categories: Uncategorized
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Buy Byre Books books? Buy MY book


I am proud of Chasing Shooting Stars. It’s no accident that it’s an intricate meshing of past, present and future (which being written over ten years, I am now in and moving forward beyond); nor that so many kind words are being written and in discussion. With a background in textiles (however many years ago), I know how threads can be woven together for effect; I know how – and seemingly have the patience for –  sorting out tangles of words, character and plot when they occur, keeping the overall design on track.

Some say I was adventurous to make the journey to South America, on which the book is based. (I would say desperate for answers…)   Some think me quite mad. And they have a point!

Some say it helped them reconsider their roots and where they came from, re-evaluate their own relationship with family; I like that.   But getting the result out there to potential readers is not easy. And why I am using this blog to help pass the message on.

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Back cover of CHASING SHOOTING STARS – Part 2, The Middle Years, Chapter 15 – “Mi Familia” in Santiago, Chile, November 1999. I am seated third from right, wearing a striped scarf

One thing I regret is not including a family tree. To rectify the situation and help readers identify who is who, by putting faces to names, I have a site on Facebook. On this I post photos, and more often than not, quotes from the book. Go to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chasing-Shooting-Stars/636611926353383

Encouraged by Kristin Newton in Tokyo (we skype of a regular basis) I also have a Pinterest site in the book’s name. Here you can finds boards for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Canada, Japan and the British Isles, again to  provide background colour and information.  Go to: http://pinterest.com/1chasingstars/boards/   Plus – thanks to gentle pushing from active supporters in Tokyo and London – I am listed on Goodreads and the Amazon Author site.

As to sales, I am more than a little dependent on reviews on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, depending on from where you order. Even really critical ones help – or so I’m told, thus seeming to prove that bad publicity is better than no publicity. Fortunately though, while I only have four to date, they are all ***** (five star) which is as good as you can get!)   Come to think of it, what’s to stop me sharing the reviews from Amazon with you right here? Nothing, so here you are:

Most Helpful Customer Reviews (Amazon.co.uk)

5 Mar 2013 5.0 out of 5 stars A Mad Romp?  By suzq Format: Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase This book was quite a page-turner; I romped through the second half and had finished before I knew it. It’s a long book and takes a while to get used to three or more strands woven together. You need your wits about you as you read. CSS is a combination of family history, travelogue and personal self-discovery. The family stuff was quite fascinating and though at first I had a hard time following the various branches of this very far-flung and complicated family, once I stopped trying to keep them all under control and just went with the flow, it all came together. The travelogue bit covers Argentina, Chile and Uruguay; at least, the parts the author explored in her quest for family history. Buenos Aires especially is full of life and colour and there are plenty of comments on what to see and how to find it. There are also pertinent comments about personal travelling style: the benefits and otherwise of travelling alone or having someone organize you. The sense of being beholden, feelings of gratitude, the guilt and soul-searching involved when travelling however you do it; all the psychology of travel which we only think about in retrospect. Plus of course the dos and don’ts of getting around in countries where the language and culture are elusive: what to do and what leads to trouble. Finally it is a voyage of personal discovery, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, painful at times. We’ve all done it: easy to identify for anyone who has searched for family skeletons or delved into the depths of personal and family psychology. Nicely produced, easy on the eye, even illustrations when you lose track of who is who. Well-written in a chatty approachable style. Read it!

5 Mar 2013  5.0 out of 5 stars Phew. I’m emotionally drained! By Single Dad Format: Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase Just finished reading Chasing Shooting Stars and I feel emotionally drained! An incredible story written by an incredible story teller. Don’t be fooled – this is not a just book about researching a family bloodline, or simply a travelogue based in South America (although fascinating in itself) – it’s a journey into the very soul of the author, exploring a dark family ‘secret’ that impacted on her and her extended family for many years. It also demonstrates just how important close family really is. So much so, In fact, that it’s made me re-think my relationship with my own brother, and I am grateful for that. Genuinely interesting and highly entertaining – a real mad romp in fact. Personally, I love it!

5 Mar 2013 5.0 out of 5 stars In Argentina By Gaucho Format: Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase Argentina. I’ve always liked the idea of the place. For years I’ve had a guide book to Buenos Aires on my bookshelf but I’ve come to realise I never am going to get there. Instead, Angela Jeffs has made the journey for me, searching for traces of her grandfather, who spent much of his life there. So, she gets to stay with real Argentinians, a cousin and her family, in a way that I wouldn’t have, and the cousin takes her to places like the Tigre Boat Club, which was once the British rowing club, that I might not have known about. How intriguing. And I’m only a third of the way through the book – there’s more to come.

July 29, 2013   5.0 out of 5 stars Format-Paperback & Kindle/Amazon Verified Purchase A wonderful read! by Jacinta Hin. A wonderful and beautifully written book full of wit and unexpected turns. Angela draws you into her world and adventure, in search of her grandfather’s mysterious past. You’ll be traveling with her, page after page, discovering new family members, unearthing secrets of the past, traversing the exotic terrain and streets of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The author is a superb writer, who is at her best when she finds herself in trouble or reflecting on her state of mind. Her ability to show all of herself, sharp and unfiltered, is uncanny and makes for fascinating and often humorous writing. Once you start reading, you will not be able to put this book away!

20. August 2013 · Comments Off on Books, books, books… (part 1) · Categories: Uncategorized
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Byre Books (buy our books)? Buy MY book…

 

Passing by this bookshop in Wigtown on the Solway Firth in southern Scotland – one of 20 or more in the vicinity, with an annual book fest in October – I had to smile at the play on words. Byre Books. Buy our books. Which made me think about my books. Over the years I have contributed to any number of titles. Sometimes my name was listed along with other contributors, sometimes not. As a freelance editor and writer since 1973, struggling to raise a family, I was hardly in a position to argue. It means however that the list of books with my name on the cover is limited –  and varied – to the point of confusion.  I mean what do rug rags,  knitting, Japan and a trip to South America have in common?  This is what visitors to several online sites, including Angela Jeffs’ Amazon Author’s page – my latest attempt to self-publicise Chasing Shooting Stars as published through Create Space – must be asking. The answer is nothing really except perhaps that they pinpoint certain stages of my career. In the 1970s – and by accident rather than design – I was pretty much the leading editor of craft books in the UK.  Rugs from Rags, published by Orbis in 1977 (Trasmatter, in Swedish),  represented my first attempt to write under my own name, but in collaboration with the artist-craftsman John Hinchcliffe. Wild Knitting (Mitchell Beazley, also 1977) – my goodness, was I busy in those days!  – was another collaboration, and to be honest it’s grossly unfair that it has become associated with my name alone. I was the consultant editor, meaning that I was hired to swan into the office three times a week, make decisions, issue orders and then leave the editorial team to do all the hard graft.  It is a mark of their goodwill that I remain close to Sandy Carr (who was the technical backbone to the project), Louise Egerton (now an author in her own right in Australia but who as secretary /junior sub kept us all organised), and designer Debbie Bliss, who today leads the international field with two original pattern books a year, her own range of yarns and a magazine. Insider’s Tokyo (2001) was a commission from Singapore after reinventing myself as a journalist in Japan. It was one in a series of world capitals and – the city being the size it is, a bit of a nightmare… I still wonder if the reason it made an initial impact but then quickly disappeared was because I broke the rules of etiquette on certain subjects in Japan. The first print order flew off shelves, but the Japanese distributor failed to re-order, for whatever reason, and that was that.  Four years of hard work down the proverbial drain. And so we come to Chasing Shooting Stars (published in paperback in January this year, Kindle in June). A ten year project in the writing. Looking along bookshelves here that are slowly filling from cartons still being unpacked, I see many other titles that I can be proud of, starting with two titles co-packaged with designer Jill Leman under the name Overall Publications in the early 1980s: Machine Knitting to Suit your Mood (Joanna Davis), and Decorative Dressmaking (Sue Thompson). Not so sure about Courvoisier’s Book of the Best (1986), Edited by Lord Lichfield, in which I am listed under Acknowledgements. How on earth did I get mixed up with that? It was soon after that I decided to change my life completely… hence Japan. Which is why I have so titles from that subsequent period, including many guidebooks… I remember doing a lot of unacknowledged research soon after my arrival for the consultant editor of The Economist Business Travellers Guide (1987).  Five years on I was busy creating a niche of my own in the market, culminating with Dorling Kindersley’s Eyewitness Travel Japan (2002) for which I revised and wrote sections and introductory pages in subsequent editions. There is also the Discover Asia annual of 2001, to which I contributed chapters on Kyoto, Nagoya, Sapporo and Tokyo. These had originally appeared in Asia Magazine, published in Hong Kong, and for which I was the Japan stringer from 1989-1995. Also Tokyo Voices , a collection of 17 interviews from the pages of Tokyo Journal, at that time the city’s oldest and best respected English-language magazine. One of my interviews was included: with the wonderful actor Tsutomu Yamazaki (November 1994). Such a privilege. All in all, a pretty strange career, but only because I kept stirring things up, reinventing myself…  Maybe this has meant losing out in some respects  (if I’m not rich and famous there is no-one to blame but myself) but it has certainly kept things interesting and lively. John Hinchcliffe did pretty much the same. He died aged 61 in 2011, described in obituaries as a weaver, potter, printmaker and designer. So he too moved around within the parameters of his chosen profession.  He made things to use and look at, I wrote things to read. He did not think much of me a writer when we worked together – gave me a pretty hard time in fact –  and it’s only now that I realize why: we were both young but he was younger than me and desperate to be represented and taken seriously. And I had been thrust upon him by the publishers – an unknown and let’s be honest, pretty inexperienced wordsmith. I am better these days. With literally thousands of magazine articles, newspaper, features and profiles, books and blogs over the last 40 years plus, I can in all honesty say I have put in the work – 10,000 hours and more for sure. I’m not sure you can’t do something for that long and not get better. First take a look at John’s site that shows the variety of his work over far too short a span of years: http://www.johnhinchcliffe.co.uk/ ecoverThen go to ABOUT on this website, click on the cover image of CSS, and BUY MY BOOK.

19. July 2013 · Comments Off on Unfolding, unrolling… · Categories: Uncategorized
Ferns

Ferns in Spring at Burnside

When I facilitated my first Wednesday morning workshop in Proprioceptive Writing (PW) at The Orchard, Bridge of Earn, in May, I had one student. Financially it was a washout, but no matter. She (Vanessa) was the right student, who has since begun to make huge strides in turning her life around. June was a non-starter and I could have become depressed.  (Vanessa had flown back to Kenya to discover that while the country she had lived in over 30 years had not changed, she had – a quite startling realization that enabled her to stop mourning the old and move forward with the new.) I was recovering from being hospitalized and so my energy levels low anyway.

Anne, now back at work, and Vanessa, on her way back to university

Anne, now back at work, and Vanessa, on her way back to university

So two months passed with Vanessa keenly awaiting the next workshop, but no further apparent interest. But then a day or so before the morning session booked in June, I had a call from Anne in Falkirk. Did I have any space, she asked. Did I have any space! Yes, I replied, laughing with a kind of shocked pleasure. In fact my surprise was so intense that I forgot to take down her full name and any contact details, so was unsure until the day itself whether she would turn up or not. She did… … and yesterday along brought two more curious souls, Gail and Paul. So they were four. Not because Vanessa could attend: having decided after three years of painful transition that yes, she did live in Scotland,  she was home awaiting pets to arrive from Kenya. But due to the great surprise of a friend turning up with her Japanese partner from New Zealand to stay a few days. Jillian had done a very early writing course with me in Tokyo in 2006, so there was a magical synchronicity in her choosing to work with me again seven years on. So, from one to two to four…  with great enthusiasm all round. Keen to explore the new world of her inner being to which PW had so inspiring provided a key, Anne had done twenty-two WRITES since being introduced to the methodology in June, which I think may be a record.  While this morning Gail mailed me the photo I had taken of them on her mobile (to be posted on GALLERY asap), and said she would “see me again soon, truly!” As to Paul, he wants to take the first DOTWW writing course I can set up… As the work begins to gently roll out ahead me, and autumn schedules fall into place, I am more than encouraged. I am hugely relieved. Because without a meaning-full, use-full and help-full life, the future would be looking somewhat bleak.

Blossoming

Blossoming

DSCN3680

Could we live in a more idyllic place?

Could we live in a more idyllic place?

And the current summer weather – the best for years, or so we’re told –   is far too beautiful for that .

13. July 2013 · Comments Off on Shape-shifter extraordinaire · Categories: Uncategorized

DSCN3714Yes, the sun is out and it’s warm enough to take off a fleece, just.  The shades of greens in the landscape are too numerous to count. Lambs are fattening; sheep are shorn and suddenly half their size.  Roses are burgeoning after the late Spring, and the air is redolent with the scents of wild honeysuckles, briars and meadowsweet.

So, summer in Scotland, and after the longest winter for years there are big smiles all round. It could be of concern that we are now this side of midsummer and already nights are shortening. But let’s not go there…

Rather I went to Denmark in late May for a retreat (reported in EAST TO WEST: Opening the Door, part 9 of my series for www.embrace-transition.com/

And most recently drove 700 miles around the east coast of Scotland from Ayr, through Cumbria  and the Lake District and back up through the borders  after a workshop near Kendal: http://scytherspace.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/scything-in-the-rain/

In tune with movement all round, Drawing on the Writer Within is also shaping up, shape shifting…. With three writers signed up for the PW workshop on July 17 (a step-by-step improvement on the one brave soul who turned up in April) and a meeting at another retreat next week, I feel ready to take the plunge back into the work I love and know.

Which reminds me of Emma, who turned up for the very first DOTWW course in Tokyo,  near on eight years ago now.

English Emma, who had been dragged along by Australian friend, Helen, was not especially thrilled by the prospect of having to write…. “I’m not a writer”, she insisted, and to some extent, despite having done all four courses over the years and her writing much admired, still does not regard herself as A Writer. Yet she is one of the most extraordinary talents I have come across in years; a natural story-teller, who has until very recently shown no interest in being published…

This may be changing, however, as she is changing.  She left her prestigious (but highly stressful) job quite recently – very brave in the current climate of insecurity, with so many clinging to jobs they often hate – and headed for South America.

I know because I mailed her, along with other DOTWW writers from those early days, asking them to describe how the work has sat with them over time, and where the written word have taken them. (In Emma’s case, Peru and Ecuador…) Now she is back in Tokyo and seeking meaningful employment, brimming with the quiet unassuming self-confidence that comes from ever deepening self-knowledge.

I remember that very first class, and smile.  Introduced to Proprioceptive Writing, Emma produced a piece of work that left us stilled and speechless with surprise and admiration.

Emma reacted to our astonished silence with angry defiance. “You see,” she said. “I told you I couldn’t write!”

We soon put her right.

Though little to nothing to do with PW as a specific ritual writing practice, this is what rose in her and – in full blossoming flower – spilled onto paper:

(3 February 2005)

COME

Beware, for I am a shape-shifter.

I am the adder flickering across your path.

I am the snowflake swirling through the storm.

I am the bud that slowly unclenches under the first kiss of spring.

I am the whisper of the fern frond unfurling.

I am the far-off land that draws the swallow home.

I am the vine that hugs the ancient trunk.

I am the darkest recess of the deepest cave.

I am the vibration of the violin string.

 

I am the mountain torrent rushing from the glacier, and I am the expanse of the ocean. Beware the currents that will draw you far from shore.

I am the still axis of the tornado.

I am the perilous beauty of the sleeping panther.

I am the breath of a butterfly’s wing.

 

I am the life that runs through your veins.

You cannot hold me: I will slip through your fingers like smoke.

But take my hand, and we will dance together in the heart of the flame.

 

 

 

 

 

04. July 2013 · Comments Off on What is happening here? · Categories: Uncategorized
God's fingers separate night from day, light and dark, past and future

God’s fingers separate night from day, light and dark, past and future

The sun is out

and

in its thin light

and

promise of warmth

I’m finally,

at long

long

oh so

long

long

last,

unfolding,

uncurling,

shapeshifting

into summer

 

 

04. June 2013 · Comments Off on Eating my words · Categories: blockages, culture shock, embracing transition, integration, separation
Queen's View, Loch Tummel... stunning which ever way you look

Queen’s View, Loch Tummel… stunning which ever way you look

First I looked down, then up, and now I am just looking…  looking around the world with eyes wide open, as fully awake as it is possible to be for more than a minute or so at a time.

In large part I have the retreat in Denmark to thank for this.  I shall be writing about this in full next month on www.embrace-transition.com/

With a working title already in mind for the series EAST TO WEST  – the posting around June 20 will be the eighth written for this website since September last year. (The last, Time Slip, covering April was posted just ten days ago.) Hard to believe that only four months remain to fulfill my promise to describe my process of transition from Japan to Scotland over the year.

On arriving back from Copenhagen (though the retreat was actually two hours south of the Danish capital, just outside Maribo)  I read what I had written here back in February (under the title All change) with bemused astonishment.

Heaven on earth: Maribo Inspiration Centre, Denmark, May 2013

Heaven on earth: Maribo Inspiration Centre, Denmark, May 2013

I was so sure.

Yet now I know my words were sheer bravado, a display of black and white certainty to protect my self from any lingering regret and anxiety about leaving Japan, the country that over 26 extraordinary and inspiring years had become more than home.

What did I write just months into my move here? How long ago my old life seemed… how 2012 already seemed like a dream, another world. “And here’s the truth”, I added (firmly). “It was.”

But of course it wasn’t. It is still there, simply going on without me.

I remember– she being far wiser than me – Kathryn’s bemusement at my words.  She wondered how I could separate the past from the present with such a hard and fast line.   Surely it was more a matter of integration than separation.

This morning, however, in a mail, she agreed with something I had written more recently, describing my black and white/set in stone reaction as, maybe, “ a necessary coping mechanism…”

Kathryn and Akii being blown to bits outside Braemar Castle, August 2013

Kathryn (visiting from Tokyo via the USA and Europe) and Akii being blown to bits outside Braemar Castle, August 2013

She continues: “I think this is universal… one way we deal with loss, by saying ‘Been there, done that, it was wonderful, but now done’. Kathryn had used this strategy to handle both the death of her grandmother and the end of an important relationship. ‘It boomerangs back eventually and you have to deal with it.’

So here I am, dealing with it.  Eating my words. Which taste both bitter and sweet.

I was very unhappy when I went to Denmark. Everything seemed blocked, eased  only with words of comfort from Tokyo…

Kristin: ‘Re-entry shock is way worse than initial culture shock! Just breathe in and out and realise it may take a few years to adapt.’

Jacinta: ‘This –  what you are experiencing – is what transition is all about. A big storm. One day the calm will come.’

Calm will come in time for sure, but for now it’s enough that life feels different. Something has shifted.

For one thing, the words I have swallowed have been digested and moved on. They have not lingered, turned sour – septic even – so causing distress and pain. (A major movement for someone whose second name over the past decade has been diverticulitis!)

Good timing also, and not coincidental. Akii has hit his own bump of culture shock, which manifested while I was away as a petrol pump that got in the way of my car. Now he is in the doldrums, wishing that he could go back and make a different decision about which way to turn, in which direction to head.

But he can’t; neither can I. Going back (to where we were before, both physically and emotionally) is not an option. While the road untraveled lies ahead, we are both right now where we are supposed to be.  The sun is shining. Insects drone. The grass is full of speedwell, buttercups, daisies and bluebells. Trees hang heavy with blossom. Songbirds offer endless lessons in appreciation.

Despite the distant sound of power drills at work mending potholes in the A923, in this moment of granted presence, all is right with the world.

Now I’m smiling, wondering… In three months time will I look at these words and want to eat them too?