Great Britain - you are tremendous (Paul McCartney)

Wie geht's?

As I was sitting in the dentist waiting room yesterday, my mind wandered. In the hurry to get here after school I'd forgotten to bring a book. Doh!

So my mind wandered.

To England. Oh England.

Where oh where did my love affair start?

Before stepping into those Rochdale streets in 2003 I'd had a sense of belonging generated many many years before.

Let's go back.

When I was four, I took myself off to the football ground that was close to where we lived in Royal Oak.

So that can't be true. Mum must have taken me, right? As if a four year is going to yell out, "Okay mother and father - I'm off to play football now. See ya!"

Mum must have taken me. Probably after I'd shown an interest, because that's unusual for four year olds isn't it?

My only truly distinct memory was trying on the football boots at Seymour Park. They were far too big for my four year old feet. So I needed multi layers of socks.

I was good to go. And set for life.

Before I enter teenage boy fog, one thing leads to another and everything becomes interlaced.  

English and Scottish accents at the park. Weekly football magazines from some glamorous land called Fleet Street about teams called Wolves and The Arsenal. Swallows and Amazons. Coronation Street. The Beatles. More and more books, some set in overgrown English gardens. Roy of the Rovers. Look and Learn.

Look and learn indeed - Wozza - an Anglophile from Nu Zild.

I want to rock your gypsy soul, just like way back in the days of old, then magnificently we will float into the mystic (Van Morrison)

Photo by Kirill Bubochkin on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

What is it about me that I love shedding a skin from time to time?

And what's with all this moving (and shaking) dude?

Gypsy blood (as my closest mates have suggested)?

Was I born a travellin' man (tryin' to make a living and doin' the best I can)?

Is it wanderlust? A restless itch that needs a scratch?

I don't know - it's a puzzler.

It's not genetic, I do know that. My parents stayed in two houses (both in a similar part of one town) all their married life.

Our current move is inspired by a few things: SWMBO's unhappiness with her job and where we live (we needed another paddock so we've had the house up for sale for a while); my love, okay, obsession with English culture; the fact I can transfer within the parent organisation; James Whatley's advice - don't move away from stuff, move towards stuff; and a big part of that is moving to be closer to my family in Bury. 

I think it comes down to few essentials.

One's a belief - that I want to (always) live my life close to the bone and the other's a fact - the world is a whole lot smaller than when my parents were about.

The global village that Marshall McLuhan wrote about is well and truly here. The school I belong to is called OneSchool Global and it has campuses throughout the world: Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, the Carribean, Europe, America and the UK.

It looks the same (uniform, colour schemes) and feels the same (ethos and vision), so I'll be among friends when I take up my new post as Head Teacher of OneSchool Kenley in Surrey, England, later in the year.

Love and peace - Wozza

It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way if we'll keep on the sunny side of life (The Carter Family)

Wie geht's?

Relentless positivity is the place to be (baby).

It's a phrase I heard from Jacinda Ardern during her recent (successful) campaign to win election. She got my vote!

I've adopted the phrase because I can relate - relentless being of the 'never give up' variety.

Luckily, apples never fall far from the tree. When I was growing up, my mother's sunny disposition and positive, pin your ears back, attitude was what I saw every day.

Optimism and a can do attitude can go a long way. They can also aggravate some people.

Rather than saying  'Regards from Karen', a colleague of mine signs off her emails - 'Rainbows and sunshine'. Some of my staff are annoyed by that. Go figure. 

The poem you're about to fall in love with is of the moment - autumnal changes can be seen as negative to some (all that leaf decomposition I suppose) but I love autumn. 

It clears away the old, ready for all that new growth in spring.

New Rooms The mind must set itself up wherever it goes and it would be most convenient to impose its old rooms—just tack them up like an interior tent. Oh but the new holes aren’t where the windows went. Kay Ryan (2015) Love and peace - Wozza

Why being slapped in the face was a highlight of my week!

Wie geht's?

That sounds like an opening statement from one of my favourite TV programmes - Would I Lie To You? hosted by Rob Brydon.

Yes, it's true. This week I was slapped in the face and it became the highlight of my week.

You don't need to know any of the details. Imagination is more powerful than information after all according to Albert Einstein.

What you need to know is why it became a highlight.

Two reasons - one - recently a colleague wanted me to talk about a highlight and a challenge. This instantly sprang to mind and I wasn't sure why because on the surface it looks like a big fat lowlight. 

And then, two - I read this:

Amor Fati is a mindset that you take on for making the best out of anything that happens. Treating each and every moment – no matter how challenging – as something to be embraced, not avoided. To not only be okay with it, but love it and be better for it. So that like oxygen to a fire, obstacles and adversity become fuel for your potential.

It was part of a post on a blog called Barking Up The Wrong Tree.

I'd actually read the post a few days ago on George Couros' wonderful blog.

The whole thing centres on control and lack of control. When slapped I had no control over events (I had no idea it was about to happen, it happened, I was stunned that it had happened).

But then I realised I had complete control over my emotional response - I could accept and make the most of what happened.

Want and need are wrapped up in this. 

More from that blogpost:

Life is not gonna give you what you want all the time. You’d agree with that, right? Then why are we so frustrated when we don’t get what we want? We take pleasures for granted and are frustrated by the difficulties. Yet we readily admit difficulties are inevitable and pleasures must be worked for. It’s totally inconsistent — and the source of most of our bad feelings.

Everything is not and should not be easy. You can get where you are going, but you need to start here, with your life and its circumstances, whatever they may be. It’s not a perfect life, but there is no perfect life. There is only your life. Love it. And rise to the challenges it offers you.

Yes, I love my wife, I love my life, and I wish you my kind of success (Dicky Fox).

Love and peace - Wozza

We were talking, about the space between us all (George Harrison)

View from the ART room doorway

Wie geht's?

Well - actually, we were talking about the Buddhist concept of duhkha (doo-kar) - dissatisfaction or craving.

If you require a primer, I've written about the concept a few times in the past, like here and here.

It's hard talking about this with Jacky. We have different views.

My aim is to be aware of my reality, rather than thirst for another reality. When I do, I need to be aware of the craving, acknowledge it, and aim to move beyond it. Easier said than done.

SWMBO feels that's wrong - that impatience should be accepted/ embraced for what it is - a craving that pushes us and provides forward momentum along our pathway.

It's an interesting contrast of approaches.

Steve Hagen (in Buddhism  Plain and Simple) gives his view:

In ignoring this - our actual experience - the mind no longer rests quietly in Wholeness, but begins to lean. The Buddha called this "disposition of mind," or intention. This forms the second link on the chain. Any actions that come out of such a mind are willed. 

We routinely act out of intent, out of a leaning mind. Nature, acting out of the Whole, does not. We commonly see things "out there" and go after them. Our mind is thus characterised by division and separation. 

Simply put, willed action is radically different that unwilled, or natural action.

Loads to think about here!

Trust the maple leaf, is my parting thought.

Love and peace - Wozza

The winner takes it all, the loser standing small (ABBA)

Wie geht's?

Whimper. Whimper.

That's the sound of me watching Arsenal capitulate to Atlético Madrid recently (second leg of Europa Cup semi-final). It also describes the craven way The Arsenal played.

Following and supporting a football team can drive you mad. Rochdale F.C. have teased their fans (me included) all season and flirted with disaster, only to pull off a remarkable escape.

Arsenal F.C. have just teased me all season.

Comprehensively, that second Europa semi summed up this wretched season. There were few highlights. Actually I can only recall one - the first game against Spurs (Nov 19, 2017) when the team fired like Liverpool and Manchester City did this season on a regular basis. 

Losing if you play well is honourable. Losing when you give everything you have and get outplayed by your opposition is also admirable.

Losing when you are playing badly, get outplayed, and don't give a damn is what happened in too many games this season.

Things were redeemed slightly by the classy send off for Arsène Wenger - our longest serving and most successful manager (in terms of winning major titles). 

Since 1996, he did the business and gave everything he had to give. Can't ask for more than that.

Pity the players couldn't deliver the same during that Europa semi-final. I'll shut up now.

Wozza (Frustrated gooner from Nu Zild)

In the giving of my eyes to see your face (Yes)

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Pome is a newsletter by Matthew Ogle. He simply sends out a poem a day by a random poet. That's it.

As I say, simple. But I'm finding myself eagerly looking forward to each day's random poem. 

This was a recent one that stuck:

Fiction If I get the story right, my mother's grief will melt back into sand— just enough for a shoreline the size of her driveway. We could hold our shoes by their heels without talking. In this version, I know the password to leaven the latch of fingers wrapped around aluminum. I hold a compact mirror up to her nose to see the fog of the living. If I get the story right, a fog will settle over the shore and there will be no other place to look but at each other. Keith Leonard (2016)

Yes, you need to read this one a few times. Yes, you need to invest a little effort. But its riches are eventually revealed. Or maybe it just gelled with my mood for the last week.

For me, poetry is a small window into the self. Because every reader sees something different in the images and references. And everyone's interpretation is right.

Mine is contingent on a few contextual facts. My mother passed away in 1983. It's still raw. One of my best friends passed away last week. It's still raw.

I love the title - Fiction. It's made up, open to interpretation, and one person's view. If I get the story right...uncertainty is always a factor. And there are always versions of truth in stories.

Mother's grief could be the actual grief of an actual mother grieving, or, as I saw it, it could be the grief associated with a mother's passing.

The ending, I love, because it is hopeful - breath becomes fog of the living and rather than grief it's looking into each other's eyes again.

Ah, a thing like that!

Love and peace. Me. Miss you mum. Miss you Margo.