Technology and I...

Whilst changing the template I have lost the links to this blog. Apart from the courtesy aspect it doesn't matter that much, as you aren't losing much traffic by not appearing here, but I do like to mimic a "real" blog, so I'll be trying to regain the links...I can feel a "Technical?" coming on...( for the uninitiated, that's a phone call to one of the younger generation who can help with such matters, usually Paul - sorry Paul!)

I also lost the famous counter which confirmed the lone state of this production.

On another tack I am fast becoming addicted to "Google Whack". I may become famous in this crazed world yet!

Back to bed for more catching up with dreams,

Jocelyne

The scandal of the lone blogger

It has occurred to me, while checking out other folks' blogs and seeing the number of comments they generate that I am in this community much as I have been throughout my life, and in any community, a bit of an odd one out.

At primary school, I would walk around the perimeter fence of our playground lost in thoughts, or singing the latest hits (many of these, being in France , and in the fifties, have since become great classics by the way...and not just in France...cf "je ne regrette rien", to name but one). When I wasn't singing known songs, I was composing symphonies in my head and singing them out loud. I don't remember how they went, with any degree of precision..otherwise, I would be a composer, see?...but I do know that I had an extraordinary amount of trouble ending my symphonies...I always found another crescendo, then descendo, then crescendo again...until the school mistress clapped her hands and we were lining up again, ready to go back to class in an orderly fashion.

It's not that I wasn't "popular"...just that I was mainly popular with the boys, since I preferred their playground activities to the girls'. The boys at my primary school were Supreme Thespians: during each play time they enacted some famous saga or other; from Blue beard, to Joan of Arc, from Tom Thumb to The Three Musketeers. I, as their Lady, was always given a good part by all those budding stars. I have it on good authority, having met up fairly recently with a couple of them, that those boys fought for the honour of carrying my satchel to school! This fact is all the more surprising that, as a child, I was given steroids on a permanent basis, as a result of which my appearance was less than good because of the bloating caused by the life-saving medicine ...(The girls called me all kinds of names...aaawwwH!Silly moos!...)But I was, and still am...to some extent, and please forgive this rather narcissistic outburst, plucky, funny, up for anything fun or slightly out of bounds, and the boys loved me. I loved braving the snow with them, ploughing and sliding, up to our necks in deep trenches, along the dodgy path overhanging the "waterfall", instead of walking the long way round to school; I loved scaling the walls at the back of the priest's house, instead of going to catechism, and exploring the secret gardens of the rich estate those walls were meant to protect...I loved adventure, a bit more than your average girl did! I was not a garçon manqué (Tom boy), oh no sirree! but I was one of the boys all the same.

Thus I was somewhat excluded from the various girly cliques and slightly bullied...I didn't care much, because I was always top of the form, and that shut them up, once a month when the rankings were announced: I can still hear Madame Vigier announcing softly: "Première de la classe, avec une moyenne de 9/10 (...or such like...again forgive the poetic license), Jocelyne Douvre!" That was a good sound: it meant I wasn't going to get beaten when I got home. All my dad would probably say, is "Can't you ever manage a 10, you idiot!"...aaaawwww! ( But then he also beat me when I could not stop shaking because of having contracted St Vitus dance -chorea is the proper medical term I think...more aaawwww?... Ha! No need to aaaawwwww on my behalf: everything is just as it is meant to be!)

Actually, since those faraway days, my dad and I have done such a lot of concilliatory and reconciliation work that we are now quite close, and the relationship is harmonious. He has just sent me a wonderful present: 365 Buddhist thoughts illustrated with 365 photographs of Tibet and Tibetans. It's calles "Offrandes" and is by Danielle and Olivier Follmi .It is stunning. By this I mean a: the book is stunning (awesome for Americans...?) and b: the fact that he should be able to judge so accurately the kind of thing that makes my heart sing is also stunning!

So, I have now reached a stage where I am quite gratified that so few people venture on my personal journal as to render the concept of www redundant , as it continues this life time tradition of being slightly out of synch with the norm, of not quite gelling with the rest of my community...whatever it is...of making a contribution which has the same relevance as those early performances in the playground at the Ecole communale de Flacé-les-Macon ( a village which no longer exists!). Yet writing here pleases me immensely... and the "boys" I meet in my Webb-sharing world are sweet, intelligent, polite, respectful, interesting. They'll know who they are!

The photo on my profile was taken by the Number One Boy, Paul, and put on the site by his friend Dave: my thanks to both of them!

Out of my window, all I see is a faint crescent of moon in a deep blue sky, and I feel blessed.



Love,
Jocelyne

Little boy lost

I have just received through e-mail a very sad, and yet immensely hopeful message. The photograph of a little boy of about two, taken in a hospital in Phuket. I am sending it systematically to anyone I have a (H)e(lp)-mail address for, so if you read this, it is likely that you will either have received the picture of be receiving it as I work my way through my list of email contacts. (No you won't! see further...)
But how wonderful it would be, if the originator of the message was able, through the network, to reach this little child's grand'dad, or aunty or anyone who knows who he is. When David comes to visit me to-morrow, I will ask him to put that picture on this blog...I can't think of a better baptism for using photos (long overdue) on this site.


OH!Hang on a minute, no I won't! Because, I have been informed that these e-mails, designed for the soft hearted are malicious...

Or: how to go mad with conflicting visions of events...As I am feeling ill, this is only very garbled...more to-morrow if I feel better.

Let's all send our good wishes to a little soul, anyway, lost in the midst of chaos; let us hope for/pray for/visualise/ a better future for him and countless others like him.

Jocelyne

Millionnaire!

It's new year's eve. Every one is out and about, visiting friends, going to the fire works, dressed up as a mythical character for their party of the year;in a word : having fun!

And here I am, alone with Ken, too ill to "do" anything. Too ill to go anywhere, too ill to have people round.

I am having a shower, always with my phone in attendance, since people may be worried if I do not reply to a call, as they know I am always in at the moment!
The phone rings! (It's a sure thing: if you want a phone call, take your phone with you when you have a shower or a bath, trust me!) From under a mountain of lather (passion fruit, this time I think, the soap a present from a friend, so not the usual coconut which smells of wet dog in-the-nicest-possible-way...), I blindly reach for the phone. "Mum! you're on loud speaker, I've got a few friends here and we're playing who wants to be a millionnaire; would you like to be a contestant over the phone?" Hey! Man! Red rag to a bull: I LOVE playing games, even quizz games where I usual don't do so well.

So after the few minutes it took to complete a quick wash and brush up, dry my hair and get dressed I was ready to win a million! On loud speaker, with Paul's friends Chris-David Tarrant et al. I was quite nervous, would you believe: thought I may look stupid and so on if I didn't know some simple stuff...WEll, after much banter, pretend scratching of brain, 1 "50/50" about a Scottish cheese and 1 "ask the audience" (Charles would kill me, I didn't know about the size of planets and wasn't sooooo sure whether Saturn was the biggest one...) I won a million! I think the master of ceremonies bucked fate somewhat by choosing a question on French litterature for my million question...No matter, I won fair and square since I knew that Voltaire wrote Candide.

Paul and his friend are working overtime to collect together the million pounds I have won, which in any case I have already donated to the Asian disaster fund. And for that reason alone, I do wish it was real.

Love to all,

Jocelyne

Resolutions?

I think I like them!

I like the renewed optimism which new year's resolutions bring to bear on dealing with one's "issues" and/or "problem behaviours".

I have not been in the habit to make them, though! Probably because , for the last few years (let's call them the post-therapy years) I have been blessed with a profound sense of optimism and with the confidence that I can only be getting better; and because before that, I wouldn't have had a clue as to what needed to be addressed!

Awareness and faith in the self would, therefore, seem to be the linchpins of any serious resolution making.

This year, optimism abounds, faith in the self is unmarred, but I can't find a particular area to focus on. It's not that I think I am perfect, -honestly, I don't!-, it's that I am already doing a lot of the things I think I need to be doing. Does that make sense? Would you like an example?

OK, let's talk about "gossip". I have never been what you would call a galloping gossip...Nevertheless, I became aware some time ago that I do talk about others, as a means of entertaining, rather than as a monger of secrets.(Secrets ARE safe: do not worry on that score!). So there's something I have been working on for ages: not concerning myself with passing on information about others. It is very hard: especially in the close network of friends who know each other well, where it could pass for sharing news...I found myself listening to a conversation bewteen two people in my sitting room recently, in which I just could not participate, because they were "discussing" a third party...

What IS interesting, is that for ever and a day, I have been a very vocal, lively, chatty member of any gathering. I thought if I didn't make a contribution to a conversation, my grand input would be missed...Hey! Good news! It really isn't! I can sit and listen, and say nothing -those who know me will appreciate what a departure from the norm that is!!!!-, and no-one will even notice. Mind you! If they did, they'd probably think I am too ill and too tired to chat as usual! So, on the quiet, I am learning to listen...

Well I am planning to continue with this effort, can you call that a resolution? I'm not sure...

I suppose the next step would be skilfully to change the subject? So far I haven't yet mastered that. I do know some lovely people who are adept at changing the subject, when the conversational territory does not suit them. I find myself thinking: "Oh, they've changed the subject"...and going along with them, as I don't much mind what the topic of conversation is, since my friends are, after all, a bit of the creme de la creme, kindness and morality-wise, even if I say so myself...

I suppose, the one thing I AM going to work on is the area of tact. I haven't got much, and I love it when other folks do! I want some!

I'off to think about how to be more tactful!

And I dare say that's a pretty good resolution to make after all, since I hadn't started to work on that particular weakness.

The Great Adventure of Self Improvement continues! (I didn't mean to make it sound so pompous, by the way, but I am not going back on the sentiment that last phrase expresses, either!)

Now, about the disaster in Asia. I hope that the British Governement will recognise the generosity of the British public in their contribution to the disaster fund (through www.dec.org.uk/) as a true mandate for increasing its own pledge of help and relief.

So to any who venture this way, much love again, and wishes for a congruent self,

Jocelyne

2005 : HAPPY NEW YEAR !

I WISH YOU ALL A PEACEFUL AND FULFILLING 2005.

LOVE.

JOCELYNE