Your love is making me strong (Eric Clapton)

Margo and Keegan

Wie geht's?

From time to time I use this blog as a way to explain my thoughts and confront my emotions. Sadly, this is one of those times.

This week, a close friend of mine died.

I met her at Auckland University in 1980, just as my school mates and undergraduate mates left varsity after their degrees and headed off to work. Distances start quickly. I needed new friendships.

Margo and I were both doing our masters degree in English. Being an intellectual giant, she  was whizzing through hers and about to start her PhD. I was just starting out in my extremely naive way.

A rebel, she'd married early after school (wearing black much to mother's horror which was the point), and had been out and about before returning to academic study. 

She was now with an American guy, an artist, a Vietnam Vet. Called Clay.

Holy holy. I latched onto them like a limpet and became a frequent visitor to their Blockhouse Bay flat.

We went to movies together, concerts, events, dinners at Chances R, plays, bookstores. We hung out - in the MA room on top of the English Department and at their flat. 

And we talked and analysed and discussed and I listened, absorbed, and my brain leaped! A lot!

We became close. So close that the American guy called Clay was standing beside me as my Best Man when I married Jacqueline Frances Smith in 1984. Margo was MC. Like everything she did - she was superb, accomplished, peerless. Just right.

When Keegan Warren Purdy came along, our choice for Godparents was clearly for Margo and Clay.

From then till now we stayed in touch as she went into advertising with Ogilvy and Mather (she was brilliant) and then back to Auckland University's as Head of the Adult Education Department/PhD programme (she was outstanding as a mentor).

Now she's gone from our lives.

Obviously, that news is devastating to take. 

She had that special touch - all of her network of fanatical supporters knew they had a special one on one relationship with her. When, really truly, that was reserved for Clay.

If you go back to those recent posts on the onion layers, you will understand that I feel, selfishly, as if the people who really really really know me has been reduced by one (it's a very short list to begin with).

Until we meet again, Margo, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Love - W

P.S. Wie geht's? is German. It means 'How are you?' Margo started all her letters and postcards to me with this greeting. Her first thought was for me (the reader). I'll be starting posts with this from now.

Start by discarding (Marie Kondo)

Desert Road in autumn, NZ

Iiiiiiiiiit's holiday time! 

The Light Of My Life and I have just returned from Hawke's Bay (delivering horses and horse float to LOML's step mum - Grace and Beetlebaum are wintering in Waipukurau). Plus, I squeezed in a trip to Havelock North for a coffee with my buddy, Toni. 

From there we travelled south along the yellow brick road to Palmerston North (A.K.A. Palmy) to help Jade and William with some house renos (A.K.A. renovations).

Some random notes for y'all: 

Great wedding anniversary day on the 21st - dinner (Italian fare at Pompeii) and a show with the kids (Black Panther)...excellent coffee with Toni at Bay Espresso (complete with Woodford parents!), even though the Espresso crew had changed...Havelock North resplendent in autumn colours...Thor Ragnarok on Jade/William's fancy TV was awesome...lunch in Taihape...put up guttering for Jade/William - first time ever, attached boards and door handles, trimmed the hedge as well...enjoyed watching William play football, even though the team lost 4-1...Jerry travelled so well - long drive with horses - about 10 hours via Napier Taupo highway and then a 9 hour trip home via Hunterville/Taihape. As soon as we arrived home he immediately wanted to play ball - which we did for 20 minutes!...beautiful farmers wives' gardens around Hunterville, spreading trees over driveways in elaborate designs...helicopters whisking owners to flash homes around Cambridge...great brooding autumn scenes along the Desert Road with Ruapehu and Mordor, erm, Ngarahoehoe as a backdrop...finished a book - One More Day (Mitch Albom) and discarded it on Jade/William's bookshelf, and started on Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying...I could go on but I best get to it - starting with my clothes!

Love and peace - Wozza

Tomorrow I'll be glad, because I've got Friday on my mind (The Easybeats)

New glasses.

I love my new glasses.

It may have taken nigh on 60 years but I finally got glasses that I love to wear. That's never happened before.

The last pair, bought in the Middle East, have lasted me the longest but the lens had started falling out with disturbing regularity since Feb and I bit the bullet.

I knew what I wanted. Some heavier black rimmed glasses that remind me of Keegan's and my dad's, but that were modern and mine.

Freakily, the first pair I saw at OPSM (Whangarei) were the ones. 

Literally, (stay with me), I walked into the shop with Jacky, walked towards a display of Ray Bans, eyes fixed on a black pair, tried them on. No need to try any others. Bought them.

Took all of 30 seconds.

Must have been the easiest OPSM sale ever!!

When I put them on I feel great. Can't say anything fairer than that, can you.

You say I'm a dreamer, we're two of a kind (The Thompson Twins)

Core personality - my essential self.

One potential measure of the self—how much you’re able to stay true to your principles despite what the world throws at you, is an interesting angle to consider.

Much of how I see myself is framed by that.

That's where honesty, personal integrity and loyalty to things like people and brands comes from because I like stability in some facets of my life.

Being a teacher forever, married to Jacky for 34 years, and a loyal Marks And Sparks customer comes, I guess, from the fact my father had the same haircut for 82 years - it worked for him, so why change a winning style. 

Less obvious is my openness - to wit this post and other stuff on these blogs. One of my poetry anthologies was called WYSIWYG 

But the self isn’t just the difference between what we might be, if we lived up to our ideals, and what we are. 

I find myself on a quixotic quest (maybe it started with Jonny Quest) to challenge myself, to learn, to improve.

You can say I'm a watcher, a reflector, a doer, a thinker, a dreamer (you know I'm not the only one).

So, there you go: that's brand Wozza for ya from my pov.

However, none of us are alone, none of us are completely defined by our own view of ourselves. We’re constantly bouncing off other people and looking at other people as a mirror of us. Our very sense of who we are is intertwined with what we see when we see other people look at us.

In that way - you create your version of me, regardless!

Love and peace 

You may call me Warren, you may call me Wozza
You may call me Nerraw, you may call me Purdstah
You may call me WNP, you may call me son
You may call me anything, because we're all one

How I pray, yes I pray that I won't get lost or go astray (George Harrison)

Inner layers - spiritual values, deep fears, hopes, goals, fantasies, secrets and so on. 

Gulp. And, deep breath.

That picture was taken by Jacky as I braved the terrors of the London Eye. For some reason I'm okay on roller coasters, but I resisted this activity when we lived in the UK for good reason - I hate roller skates, gondolas, Ferris Wheels, bungee jumps, skateboards, sky diving...(I realise there are elements of abdicating control linking these non-pursuits).

When she asked this time, though, I felt some empathy for her needs and thought, okay, I'll do it for her. After all, how bad can it be? Sure. 

And that picture is the result (I'm holding the seat for a reason). Look at my eyes. Enough said.

Deep fears. We all have them. Yes, even me. I'm a nervous flyer, that's my big one. My deep fear: I don't want to die in an air disaster.

I get through it by keeping an eye on the prize. I get through it by meditating and medicating.  

Spiritual values. This has been a tricky topic over my 60 years. After an upbringing involving baptism, Sunday School and a confirmation in the Anglican church, my faith was tested by my mother's death. I struggled for many years to reconcile that with a God who loves me.

Then, 26 years later, my dad died and my faith was restored. Does that strike you as odd? There were just too many signs that He was working in a mysterious way and I 'saw' my parents reunited. That was intensely beautiful, and way beyond my understanding.

Since then I have enjoyed the spiritual world via Woodford House's chapel services and taken a very emotional communion in Westminster Abbey. Buddhist philosophies interest me and sustain me. When we lived in the Middle East, watching true Muslims living the Koran also gave me hope. Which leans nicely into...

Hopes and goals - these centre around living as fulfilling a life as possible. I need constant challenges in my working life and this drives my ambitions - to live different places (my love for English life is well known), to live deliberately, in the moment, not worrying about where my maple leaf will fall. I want to front only the essential facts of life. I do not wish to live what is not life, living is so dear.  I want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

Fantasies and secrets - given those hopes and dreams, I really don't have fantasies. Sorry. I had them when I was a preteen, but then teenage boy fog, married life, fatherhood, and empty nest syndrome stepped in. Reality! What a concept (to quote Robin Williams).

Secrets? Of course we all have these and they have to remain intact. If I revealed any here they would cease being secrets, wouldn't they.

Secrets have nothing to do with my brand, while an argument could be (stuffed and) mounted that the rest of the inner Wozza, does indeed, add a considerable amount. 

I'll leave you to connect the dots.

Next (and, phew, last) - core personality - my essential self.

Love and peace - Warren

Journey to the centre of the mind (The Amboy Dukes)

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Middle layers: political views, social attitudes and so on.

All over the shop is how you'd describe my political views.

At the moment I remain a fan of Jacinda Ardern, our PM, and her relentless positivity. Happily she appears to have stepped up well but whether it's National or Labour in parliament, little seems to change substantially in Nu Zild.

The tyranny of distance and size makes us largely irrelevant as a world power.

When I started voting in the late seventies I followed my parents leaning and voted National. Since then I'm probably best described as a 'floating' voter: given the circumstances of the day, I've voted for National, Labour, Values, and the Greens.

Anyway the wind blows.

Doesn't add much to the brand, that revelation of non slavish adherence to a particular party, does it. 

Or does it? I'm persuadable and a thinker, plus - as a classic Libran - I'm always looking for balance and I feel I've attained that over the years in terms of what can be grandly called 'my political views'.

Social attitudes! You're up.

Oh dear. To be fair, a number of names have been slung my way in this regard over the years by those who know and love me the most: anti-social; snob; recluse, hermit, boring...ahem, you get the picture.

Mea culpa. Phatic communion (a.k.a. small talk) is not a strength! 

Awkwardness in party situations, a few panic attacks in situations of overwhelming noise and chronic self-consciousness have, at times, made me retreat from situations in the past that make me uncomfortable. 

Often that translates to me enjoying my own company, at best hovering at the edge of things, and being an uncooperative social partner for my nearest and dearest.

Perhaps this is why I love my anonymity in London, riding the London Underground, watching films in movie theatres and listening to music on my own.

As brand ingredients, these facets of my personality are not too helpful either. 

Seems to me the further we go into the heart of the onion, the less relevant things are to my brand, rather than more. Dunno.

Next up in the journey to the centre of the onion: inner layers - spiritual values, deep fears, hopes, goals, fantasies, secrets and so on. 

Gosh.

Love and peace - Wozza

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime (Big Country)

Outer layer: Likes and dislikes (blame my relentless positivity).

Over the years my love of Star Wars, Arsenal, and The Beatles has been a constant feature and a neat shorthand for getting to know Wozza, the teacher.

It's easy to spot - I have a huge number of posters, T shirts and ties promoting each of the big three.  

In reality my love of music is way deeper than one band (albeit the best band ever). And I appreciate a wide range of movies, TV shows and art. Yes, I am a follower of Arsenal FC but football for me also means Brazil, the dutch team from the 70's, my own playing career, Rochdale, the culture of British football and so on. 

I also support the NZ All Blacks, the Golden State Warriors/the Giants of SF and the Steelers of Pitsburgh. I love many types of literature and...I could go on...it gets complicated and people don't wait around for complicated generally. Attention spans and all that.

So you see - I've used the trio of loves to add distinctiveness to my brand and it's been very successful.

For this, my first post on that onion layer (see previous post) I'll return to my journal from 2005 to provide some specificity.

The 'I love...' list at the back of my 2005 journal summarises things I'd written about during the year:

• The weather
• The Houses
• 28 Victoria Road, Leigh-on-sea
• Scottish borders
• The trains
• The underground
• People (staff) at school - King John
• The Guardian newspaper
• The Times
• Weather forecasts
• Snow
• Walking - Southend/Hadleigh Castle/ Hockley Woods
• Leigh-on-sea shops at night
• London sun
• Fopp

All smiles!

Picking one at random - here's an excerpt from 2 January about the Scottish borders:

The border area remains a real favourite of mine. We stopped at the English/Scottish border - huge winter winds/ a rain shower and gathering gloom from impending night and the mists made this a real highlight!

I can't help it. I much prefer autumn and winter to the heat of summer. Gloomy days and early darkness have a lot of appeal. Particularly when allied to the warmth of English houses and pubs.

What does all this say about me? And how does it add to my brand?

Much like everyone, I'm multi-faceted and full of contradictions. But I know what I like.

Next up: middle layers - political views, social attitudes and so on.

Love and peace - Wozza