Communication

  “For someone who’s just come back from an event on Non-Violent Communication, you’re being remarkably argumentative this morning” Dave said on Monday.

“Really? Am I?” I said.

I was at a foundation course on NVC last weekend which was stimulating, interesting and personally very helpful. I think of it as Empathetic Conversation, but the founders of Non Violent Communication call it the latter because they see it as having uses and ramifications way beyond personal one-to-one conversations. It could be used in all kinds of situations involving conflict and negotiations. 

The other course members were warm, sympathetic and so, so nice. During one of the exercises I was telling the group about why I don’t like aging. The three things I came up with were becoming more anxious, especially about travel, not having enough energy to do all the things I want to do in a day, and losing words - by which I mean being in the middle of a sentence in a conversation and not being able to think of the word I want to use. 

This is absolutely not restricted to losing names, although that did happen very annoyingly yesterday when I was talking to my brother about Margaret Drabble’s rift with her sister and I couldn’t remember the name of her famous sister. (A.S.Byatt)

In a conversation at the weekend with other course members who I didn’t know I used the word insouciant, knowing full well what it meant, but then someone asked me to define it and I was lost for words. It’s this kind of thing that is both disconcerting and worrying.

It reminds me of a scene in a TV drama where a detective is talking to a woman with dementia and she says “I like your - what is that?” pointing to his jacket. She can’t remember the name for it. This is happening to me, but not with something concrete I can actually see - so far.

People still say to me “Aren’t you writing any more?” 

To which I reply “No, I’m a painter now.”

I’m not writing any more because I have said everything I want to say. At the moment, the things that preoccupy me are the continuing genocide in Gaza, and the American election, which are not unrelated. But otherwise I don’t have much to say except that I am pleased to be home for the winter, especially once I’ve put the garden to bed, because now I have my daylight lamp I can paint until teatime every day. 

But if you don’t hear from me very often it’s because I’m following this maxim of Charles Bukowski in his poem So You Want To Be A Writer. Here is the first stanza:

But I can share pictures with you.

Here’s a photo of the Trail from my bike ride yesterday:

And here is a photo of my visible creative mend of a hole in my favourite jeans:

Speechless and Powerless

Something’s been troubling me.

Dave and I wear these bracelets. 

He wears the white one and I wear the black one. But when I arrived at Denver airport I took mine off, because I didn’t want to talk to the girls about what the Israelis are doing - how they are a vicious rogue state, committing genocide, bombing and starving civilians, and how they are doing it with impunity.

I didn’t want to talk to them about it because it’s so awful to contemplate and I know that if I had known what was happening at their age I’d have been traumatised. Knowing about it at the age of 75 is bad enough. Every morning I wake up and see the headlines and feel sick. I think about it during the day and feel sick. 

When I was visiting the Aging Hippie recently - a woman who shares my political views on everything and who hates war as much as I do - I talked to her about this. She said “You talk to them about other things that matter to you - about refugees for instance - why not about this?” And I told her why: because I didn’t want to expose them to the horrors of current world affairs any more than they are already. Should I have worn the bracelet and risked a conversation?

And the fact that Israel can behave the way it does, and has been doing with impunity for over a year is horrific. It’s not as if this began after the hideous and inexcusable Hamas attack in October 2023. Israel has been oppressing the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and besieging Gaza for years and years and years, with intermittent bombing campaigns on Gaza too. 

Israel has been breaking international law for years, and yet the west still sends them arms. What does Israel have to do before the west will finally say “enough is enough” and mean it?

It is a terrible thing to see what is happening and to be powerless to do anything to stop it.

The UK government doesn't care though I am sure the majority of the British people do. What is one supposed to do when one’s government acts against the wishes of its people? They don't respond to letters. They don't respond to demonstrations.

All I can do is give money to Medical Aid for Palestinians:

https://www.map.org.uk/

Or to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal:

https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/middle-east-humanitarian-appeal

Coming home

I had a lovely time away in Colorado with the family, and in California with the aging hippie, but I always love coming home.

I left a day of hot bright sunshine at Denver airport and arrived home to a soggy teatime at Hepworth Towers where the autumn colours are just as lovely as in Boulder.

It was so good to see Dave at arrivals, and when I got out of the car at home after 19 hours of travel, the quiet, familiarity, and the freshness of the atmosphere were sublime. 

Two days later I’m excited about getting back to painting. I’ve ordered a daylight lamp so I can paint past three o’ clock on winter days, and I’ve got an idea for my first painting. 

Photo by Isaac

Today I need to order a stack of books for MsX’s second birthday. She can recite The Gruffalo already. She’s not just bright but she’s a madcap, whether it’s diving head first into muddy water in the garden, or painting her head bright yellow. I see her as an avant garde sculptor winning the Turner prize at 20. I can’t wait to see her tomorrow.

How lucky am I to have a lovely home and family, how blessed am I to live somewhere beautiful and safe and to have enough of everything. 

Goodbye Boulder

 These are my pictures of beautiful Boulder

I am leaving the family today and don’t know when I will see them again.

Will sanity reign in the upcoming election?

How many wars will be going on when I see them again?

This is what is on my mind…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWt1Sk51kg

Granting impunity to lawlessness

Dave’s latest letter to our new Labour MP:

The Government is determined to side with Israel, citing Israel’s right to defend itself, and claiming what it knows to be false: that the attack by Hamas was the cause of the current war in the ME.

 

I fully agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, and I condemn whole-heartedly the unjustified attack by Hamas.

 

But what we see, and see daily, is not self-defence by any definition of the term. We are witnessing unbridled and unrestrained aggression across the ME in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, illegal settlements, Lebanon, and stretching out towards Iran. On all fronts, Israeli forces, eagerly supported by your government and the lucrative arms trade, is wreaking total havoc, destroying homes and infrastructure, razing cities and towns to the ground, displacing vast populations, repeatedly ordering further movement of displaced people, attacking the UN, killing journalists, creating starvation and hampering aid, destroying hospitals, creating a generation of orphans, and murdering civilians wherever they are found. Israel is throttling the hopes and aspirations of an entire people

 

In Gaza, Israel has banned Western journalists, and has killed 128 journalists so far, 123 of them Palestinian. It has attacked UN workers and peacekeepers, most recently this week. While it claims all its actions are precisely targeted, this is only a small part of the picture, a tiny part of the truth. Is it not clear to the government, as it is to the people, that Israel takes no account of civilian deaths which are simply seen as unimportant collateral damage ?

 

With our eager support, the Israelis are creating a desert and calling it peace. They are snuffing out Arab lives as if they are of no significance whatsoever.

 

Why is your government happy to support this unrestrained feral lawlessness that no country other than Israel would be allowed to get away with ?

 

Why is your government happy to connive with Israel’s medieval savagery by accepting and promoting Israeli propaganda about defence ?

 

After long, weary and desperate years of Tory rule, I was hoping for a resurgence of honest government, of principled leadership, of respect for equity under the law. It was clear before the election that Starmer could deliver none of these, and this is proving to be the case. During the years of Tory government, I have felt ashamed of being British. Clearly that stain will continue until we have a government which no longer supports the tyrannical impunity currently enjoyed by Israel, and no longer accepts blatant propaganda as true, knowing it to be false. Your government, led by a politician no less venal and mendacious than Johnson, sadly is not up to the task.

Dave Hepworth 

 

  

Obscenity

I cannot post trivia while Israel continues to act like a raging beast and the West does nothing but send arms. I am sick at heart.

The way Israel is behaving is obscene and inhuman. And our country is party to it. 

On being kind

I posted most of this yesterday and then took it down because I thought it mean. I’ll tell you why at the end.

This is the view as I flew from Colorado to California.

I have been in Redwood City, California, for a few days, staying with the Aging Hippie. I first met the AH at a peace vigil in San Francisco in 2006. The last time I came to stay at her house was 12 years ago: I had to check the blog to find out when it was. 

Here we were then, cycling along the San Andreas fault: a passer-by took our picture.

And the last time I saw her was 2019 when we went on a trip to Northumberland and Mull.

Today we went to the beach and it was fab. 

Doesn’t it look just like the beach scenes in Grace and Frankie?

The Pacific Ocean felt warmer than the Atlantic in Pembrokeshire in July but the waves were too scary to brave in a cossie, so I paddled instead.

Later, I was taking a quick snap of Karen on a bridge when a cyclist stopped and asked if we wanted a photo of the two of us together. 

He was old, and he was kitted out as if in England on a January day and he was wearing reflective sunglasses, and he just had the look of someone who would take ages to climb off his bike and prop it up and get himself sorted out, and fuss, and make a big production of it all, do you know what I mean? So I was reluctant, and looked over at Karen, but she gave me the nod. I think she thought we may as well say yes and get it over with. 

So I handed over my phone and went to stand next to Karen who I’d positioned exactly where I wanted her to obscure something behind her on the far cliffs, and he said “I’d like to get you with the sun on your faces,” and I thought ‘here we go’ and said “No, I want the ocean behind us and this is the place I want. Take it here.”

He said “The screen is dark,” and I pointed out he was wearing sunglasses.

He said “I need to compose it.”

“Just click it already,” said Karen, so he did. 

I quickly thanked him and took the phone and we walked away. 

“Do you think I was too brusque with him?” I asked Karen.

“No,” she said, “he needed reining in.” 

Later I looked at his shots. He had taken three, and two had my head cut off. Was that revenge? 

This is the one that was OK.

I thought about this and felt mean.

I had just wanted to take a quick snap of Karen, nothing fancy, just a record.

This chap came along and wanted to be helpful.

I thought I could tell - by looking at him - that he wasn’t in it for a quick snap and so I was reluctant to say thank you, yes, go ahead.

But we did and I had guessed right - he was someone who wasn’t in it for a quick snap, and we hurried him along.

Later it occurred to me that he might be lonely. He might live alone. We might have been the only people he talked to that day, and here was I being mean with our company. We were on holiday…we weren’t on a schedule. 

So I learned something and am going to try to be more patient/more friendly.

Aren’t I the one who is always going on about the importance of interacting with people you don’t know?

Grandmothers

 I’ve been thinking about my grandmother role.

Lux meeting me at the airport.
Photo by Isaac

Now the girls are teenagers, it’s changed. They no longer come downstairs to my bedroom first thing in the morning for chat and cuddles and screen games. They need every bit of sleep they can get. 

Also, they are out all day from 8 till 4 at school, and there are activities after school such as karate and seeing friends. I don’t spend nearly as much time with them as I did when they were little. I’d play with them and read to them such a lot ten years ago. Now I’m more like much-loved background scenery.

I said this to Dave in an email and he said “Being comforting background scenery is a role in itself.” And he reminded me of what Philip Larkin said of Monica Jones:

This is what I’ve been thinking, and then yesterday after a lovely trip into the mountains with Isaac and the girls…

Paddling in Boulder Creek
Photo by Isaac

Cece and I spent the whole afternoon doing art work together side by side. It was so companionable, and so lovely, and I reconsidered the background scenery angle.

Letter from Boulder

 I flew here on Wednesday.

A house along the street 

It’s wonderful to be with my lovely family.

Photo by Isaac

Photo by Isaac

They are all out - Isaac at work, the girls at school, Wendy on a trip. I am sitting in the garden in sunshine, having just finished reading Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry. It’s dark but also wonderful. 

I’m waiting for it to warm up a little before I go out on my bike.

It’s so peaceful here,  and the trees are so beautiful, and it is hard to imagine the hell that so many people in the Middle East and East Africa - indeed, all over the world - are living in. I am so lucky, so blessed. 

Hot Spot by Mona Hatoum 

The flight here was smooth and calm and the airports the quietest I’ve seen them, which was very welcome to this country mouse.

My usual route is via Manchester and Heathrow, but my flight was cancelled on Tuesday and BA sent me on Aer Lingus via Dublin. This route has two advantages- I don’t have to get up so early in the morning, and I clear US immigration in Dublin and avoid the lengthy queue in Denver.

The disadvantage is that my two tasty apples were confiscated by the immigration guy. And they were coxes! And coxes are so hard to come by these days. I was looking forward to eating something fresh and delicious on the plane. 

You’re not allowed to take fruit into America and I understand that, but the guy was adamant I couldn’t keep them and eat them on the plane as I do on a BA flight. This is because technically once you pass through immigration you’re on American soil, despite being in Dublin airport.

I said “Can I go back there and eat them and then come back to be screened?” And he said “No” with an unsmiling face (you know what immigration officials are like) and held up his confiscated fruit bucket for me to put them in. I could tell I wasn’t going to persuade him so there was no point in telling him what I once told a greengrocer - that eating the first cox of the season is an orgasmic experience. 

Once past the barrier I sat down and checked my phone. Isaac had texted to ask if it was going ok, and I told him about my apples. “I’ll bring you one when we come to meet you,” he said. And he did, and it was big and juicy but it wasn’t a cox. They don’t have them over here.

Well, it’s lovely to be here in the sunshine. Look at today’s temperatures:

I haven’t seen any bears yet but we had a raccoon in the garden this morning.

Photo by Cece

Photo by Cece

Time to set off on a bike ride.

Love from Boulder. 

Stop arming Israel

Yes, my exhibition was super and I talked about it in yesterday’s blog post.

This is what really matters…

When will the West stop arming Israel?

The only hope of Israel stopping its vicious obscene killing will be when western leaders stop wringing their hands, and take decisive action and withdraw all funding and all support and stop supplying arms.