UK trip update

So we've been back in the UK for nearly two weeks!

One of the things that I notice being back here is the reaction of people when I ask them how they are. One of the Costa baristas responded and returned the question, most others look blankly at me and think I’m That Special Person that every town has. Ha ha, I don’t mind! It’s been rather nice to see the faces of the counter staff light up because someone has stopped and asked how they are before getting down to ordering a coffee or paying for the shopping. That’s one thing I’ve gained from Oman for sure.

I’m reading ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom at the moment which has prompted a few maybe not revelations, but contemplations certainly. Staying on the subject of a cheerful greeting, Albom writes when greeted by his old lecturer so happily every week, “how much better would people get along if their first encounter each day were like this – instead of a grumble from a waitress, bus driver or a boss?” referring to how Morrie would really greet someone and listen “as if you were the only person in the world”. I plan to carry on greeting like this…but I wonder how long it’ll take for me to resume my typically British manner and grumble a ‘hello’ if anything at all!

Weather- it has varied between rain, 14C and partly cloudy and 24C (relatively cool but it was humid!). I wonder how Mimi, (Shy Rebellious Arab Chick LINK, not my sister!) is getting on! I haven’t been on the internet for so long that I can’t even check in to see how she is faring in the UK (she is here from Oman).

Books cont'd

My brief birthday thoughts a couple of entries back prompted this one.

Elaborating more on Anne Morrow Lindbergh's book, 'Gift from the Sea' and the paragraphs that struck a chord with me...

She has found a channelled whelk shell which prompts chapter 2; some excerpts from this chapter that ring true:

“I mean to lead a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily… But I do not. I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity…The life I have chosen as a wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications. It involves a house in the suburbs...It involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills and making the ends meet in a thousand ways…It involves health; doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine, cod-liver oil, vitamins, trips to the drugstore. It involves education, spiritual, intellectual, physical; schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball or orchestra practice; tutoring; camps, camp equipment and transportation. It involves clothes, shopping, laundry, cleaning, mending, letting skirts down and sewing buttons on…It involves friends, my husband’s, my children’s, my own, and endless arrangements to get together; letters, invitation, telephone calls and transportation…

"For life today…is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands…through social and cultural pressures…My mind reels with it.

“For to be a woman is to have interest and duties, raying out in all directions from the central mother core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel…We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community...”

With a little humour, she continues:

“I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing to do with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls – woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.”

She comes up with simplification of life as an answer! Easier said that done of course, but she call the cutting out of distractions as a first step.

I love her analogy of a woman being a pitcher; she spills herself drop by drop until she is drained and then needs to fill herself back up. “…woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim.”

On this note, one of Yogamint’s recent posts is Be Still My Heart:

Be Still My Heart
Breathe into Quiet

"These days it’s not enough just to sit down for a moment to take a breather. In a restaurant, at the office, even in your own home, information bombards you, asking to be read, listened to, interpreted and decided upon. The effect is that when you sit, even in the absence of any input, it takes your body a while to shut down the channels that are open to receiving these electric, sometimes emotional pulses.

Do it anyway. Give yourself time to let the storm pass. Most importantly, tune into the body. Breathe deeply. Notice any involuntary movement and placidly direct the breath to whisk away the uncontrolled reflex. Wait. Don’t move your attention until you feel calm. Once you’ve done this everywhere in your body that needs attention, focus on your heart. Let the breath find its rhythm. And now, having surrendered all other unintentional movements to that of your inner metronome, rise, ready to play your tune for the world."

And so reading this along with Lindbergh's book made me finally decide to close my Facebook account…for now at least. My head feels overloaded with everyone else’s information. Which is actually the reason I went on it in the first place – having emigrated I wanted a way of staying touch with family and friends back home; it was a quick and convenient way to let everyone know news and goings-on and to find out theirs. So those of you that know my details, can contact me via email, text, skype and home phone AND this blog – become a follower if you want. I’ll be off it probably in the New Year, starting a little fresher if you know what I mean. New Year’s resolution (although I don’t always agree with them – most just set you up for disappointment!) is to email and call the Family more and call my friends here rather than texting and facebooking, and make my life simpler. InshaAllah!

There, that feels good! It'll probably annoy/upset a few people back home but I'm into quality not quantity now!

Until I just can't resist checking out friends' photos!

Edit: at the time of original writing my pitcher was empty! SO tired! But I’m sitting here reading and writing this, slowly being recharged, the kids back at school, I’m organising my new diary and calendar, I have Boot Camp starting today and I have a awesome new camera on which to vent my creative urges! This is the year for my photography, I am really going to focus on it… Oh and I decided not to close my fb account....too many people I want to stay in touch with! I'm just simplifying it.

December Book Club

My first ever book club meeting on Sunday. Less painful than I thought and, absolutely no offence meant to my gorgeous friends present, but less in-depth and intellectual than I expected! Quite informal actually! I was slightly worried before when I had read the Reading Club questions suggested at the book of 'The Empress of Ice Cream'

So before my husband continues to grass me up [refer to comment posted in this post] I would like to jump to my defence and state that yes, there was some wine there, but all I had was a warming, Christmassy glass of sherry that HAD to accompany Domestic Goddess' mince pies. One of which I forgot to bring home...any spare, DG?

The less said about the Secret Santa pressies the better.

Next book:

This wasn't my choice but it's the sort of book I would probably have gone for. I love a book that has some great art of any sort on the front cover.

Books...

Well, I joined a book club last Easter. Haven’t been to one meeting…I’m almost destined to not go! And I never seem to get the suggested book on time! However, I might be on track for attending the December meeting! AND I’m reading the suggested book!

Quick book club question for you: What is the etiquette for having a discussion about the book when some people (i.e. me) have not actually finished it? Do I have to stick my fingers in my ears and go ‘la la la la’?

So the book of the moment is ‘The Empress of Ice Cream’ by Anthony Capella…it just sounds sumptuous! It is set in 17th century France and England and is about the confectioner to King Louis and King Charles. I’m halfway through and all I want to do is eat pear sorbet and frozen custard!

I tend to read a couple of books at the same time, one usually fiction and the other spiritual or philosophical. At the moment I’m also reading ‘A Gift from the Sea’ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Charles Lindbergh’s wife). I’m still reading it but already I have found it a beautifully simple and touching book. She takes herself away for a few weeks to a house on a beach, simple living, no distractions…bliss. She finds certain shells on the beach and these inspire a particular musings. I love the beach and the sea…my heart is on the Outer Banks in North Carolina so the book appeals even more.

Several paragraphs really grabbed me…admittedly it was after a day with 20 five and six year olds and then coming home to my own pair of squabbling siblings so it did mean a lot more at that point! Evenso, it holds an element of truth and an important point of reflection for me. It’s a separate entry in its right, for another time. I bought it for my Canadian cousin-in-law (love you Sista x)

It has given me a idea of what I would like for my birthday…a day where I do not have think about anything, or where we are going on that day, what we are doing. I don’t want to worry about transport there or indeed back. It wouldn’t be a day of doing nothing, but a day of not worrying and planning, just being with my family and friends.

Oh, and I’m also dipping into another book. This one was recommended to me by a very nice Omani college lad in Borders in MCC. He saw me looking at a book on Duas † and struck up a conversation regarding a book he thought I’d find interesting.

The book is ‘Allah’s Miracles in the Qur’an’ by Harun Yahya. What sold it to me was the massive section on Science and the small section on Mathematics. I could at least use my own knowledge to help me question what Yahya has written.

Sorry, still too many questions unanswered.

†Prayers, supplications, affirmations (correct me if I’m wrong)

I particularly like the conversation that is suggested to follow someone sneezing of all things!:

The muslim who sneezed says:

“Alhamdulillah” (All praises and thanks are due to Allah)

The muslim who hears a sneezer say “alhamdulillah” should then say:

“Yar hamukAllah” (May Allah have mercy on you)

THe original sneezer replies:

“Yahdeekumu-llaahu wa yuslihu baalakum” (may Allah guide you and set your affairs in order).