I went to my first Groenlinks onderwijs werkgroep meeting on Tuesday evening. I was really nervous, mainly because in meetings like this, I am rubbish at making a good impression; I get triggered easily, I end up talking too much, even if I tell myself to shut up and I get overly distracted by trying to read everybody's expressions and trying to work out what people are feeling.
I had hoped I would meet a kindred spirit in some form, half the members weren't there and there were three people from another werkgroep, so it wasn't a typical meeting.
I know that things don't change or get better quickly. I know that councils attract people for different reasons and that we possibly all want similar things but are either resigned or pitching a different angle. But what I felt was mostly resignation. I got triggered by a couple of bingo card moments, as I call them. First someone said that the reason primary schools are so segregated is because and I quote Turkish parents only register their kids when they get a letter when the child is 4 and so instead of registering the kids from birth at the bestest school, they go to the primary down the road. And the other was that said within those minorities you also don't find involved parents "betrokken ouders". Both statements really triggered me. I'm sure these people are good people at heart, but really? those old chestnuts?
It made me think of the cycling bingo cards we used to joke about at council meetings, if you read the british press or see anything about cyclists on the TV - cyclists are all middle aged, middle class and white, they have beards, they ride two abreast, they don't use lights, they are invisible, they don't look where they are going, they run lights, they don't pay road tax, they don't follow the rules of the road, they clog up the roads on Sundays on their sport rides, women don't like cycling or riding bikes, it ruins their hair and so on.
When you are a female cyclist, with lights, that stops at lights, obeys the rules (most of the time) and I ride for transport, I might as well not exist. I don't exist, and it's only by seeing how life in NL is do I know for sure that it's not that any of this is true, it's the environment that matters.
Same applies to Autistic people, you can make a bingo card of assumptions and "truths" about what auties do and don't do, what they can and can't do. The fact is, as dissabilities go, it has one of the largest proportions of adults not in work. This has nothing to do with their ability to work, and everything to do with environment.
And so the equality/minorities bingo card the same is also true, so there are people and just people. Give them what they need, they do what they do - some will do better than others and some will stand out as outstanding - good and bad, high and low. The environments never started off the same to to expect the same or similar result, or to blame the individuals, is a bit pointless.
Should you replicate the same environments? probably impossible, so no. But which elements are clearly missing? What systems exaggerate the problem and why?
For example signing your kid up at birth, some schools allow it, some don't. Some have lotteries when the school is oversubscribed. Why are they oversubscribed though? What is it that these schools provide? Safety in numbers? the "right type" of kids for your kid to befriend, children of similar background? fear that your child might get influenced by the "wrong sort"of kid? What if some of them just wanted that school because it looks nice, it's the closest, it seems to offer the right variety of subjects? But what if where you live, there isn't a local school like that? why not? Why does the school with the expensive houses get the glory? Are the houses expensive because of the school? So it's not about whether you register your kid at birth, or stick their name in a lottery. It's not about buying a house in the right area,. It's simply about the quality of the school; does it do what it says on the tin? if there aren't schools of equal quality or if you have this scores on the doors, pressure on schools to perform to attract kids, but this is unfair because some schools can get more money out of the parents or they have ties to a particular secondry school that's popular, then it will never change.
I don't think life will ever be fair or that you can make all things equal, but surely, if you can take steps to even stuff out? Kids don't get to choose who their parents are, so if there's any point in a persons life where the state should invest in, it has to be childhood. So why all the cuts to education?
It's not all about funds and money though, it has to be mostly about how you use it and who gets to benefit from those funds and why.
What's holding back the reforms in education to bring it into the 21st Century?
What's holding back NL from inclusive education?
Is there a vision?
What's the plan?
What are we waiting for?
What is the point of the onderwijs werkgroep? what can it achieve? I need to know the boundaries.
Thursday, 24 May 2018
Wednesday, 9 May 2018
Story of my life
You take all the hard to teach kids of average or above intelligence and go from there. It might be a small class, but it's still a bunch of kids that all require something else but that something is the question.
Then there's if that's not right, then what is? Does it exist already? can it be done? Well there are other options we can try, and then there's two children, both difficult, both require very different types of approach.
So I find two different schools, one is an hour by taxi bus and the registration process is on hold for at least another month due to it being in another municipality and they, quite rightly want to put their own people first. The other for the other boy is closer, but still in another municipality on the other side of the city, to the south. This one though, probably won't let us have the taxi bus. The distance is similar, but from what I've been told, I won't qualify. That in itself is frustrating, just the autistic way I'm being treated by the powers that be.
So, I set up meetings, ring people, email people, visit people, get advice and try to work out what to do. Since January when it became clear that their current school can't deliver for either boys, it's been a combination of trying to make it as bearable where they are and simultaneously work out when and where to move them. The new school year being the best thing all round, both to give us time to get it right, and so that the kids aren't moved mid year.
The whole situation could be prevented, the whole system needs reform, so I've become part of work groups, aspired to start up my own source of advice and information for parents in my situation. A nebulous and thankless task. To document and piece together the right paths in an ever changing, hard to pin down set of systems; the kids are all unique, the circumstances varied, the parents with their own ideas, the schools limited by visions (more lack of), the endless layers of experts. All with their own ideas, or lack of, the form filling layer, and the bit where you jump through hoops to get help, only to find that it spawns a couple of new issues with every new approach. A massive flow chart of time and energy when the best and most effective answer would be to stop moving the kids around and just get them what they need in their local school. Bring the solutions to them, not pass them from pillar to post, taxi bus, greenwheels hire or an hour on the bike there to talk to the school.
All the while I'm working, just 12-16 hours a week cleaning houses for 11 euros an hour, 2-3 hours a day, most weekdays. Sometimes before the appointments, or time spend emailing and phoning and reading. Sometimes after.
Then the kids get home, tired, wired, hungry. Swimming lessons for one, Singing lessons for the other. They want to escape into screens and games, fantasy worlds and darkened bedrooms where they can disappear into YouTube. I do what needs doing, feed them and after we've had a chapter of audio book about 9pm they go to bed without too much fuss.
Wednesdays I've got choir, some nights I go to something social, once or twice a week. A couple of times a month, I go off and leave the kids with their Dad while I get to spend time with a friend. I've even managed a few days away with my Dad in February.
I started the year with a clear idea - sort out the kid's school situation and help others in a similar situation as me. I guess I've made progress as far as the boys are concerned. I've not been able to document much, partly because I don't really feel like I've definitively got many answers to share with others yet.
I'm still waiting to find out if the school I found for my youngest will be a suitable fit or indeed be an improvement on the current situation. I'm poised to register the other kid in a month, once the registration date is opened.
Then there's a whole other side to me, the bit that's me, the me that's unhappy. Unhappily married with no prospect of being able to survive alone - apart from the need to parent together, the husband isn't providing, I'm not providing, so we are sinking into, if not poverty, a very tight, limited budget - one without the little extras that make life nice - trips to the cinema, holidays, a new laptop, daytrips for the kids, spa days, a games console or at least a bit of home entertainment other than the chromecast. I am concerned for stuff like being able to save for the house maintenance - there's probably about 40k worth of stuff the house could do with doing, maybe more. There's the future - a pension, the last part of my working career - another 20 years to set up and build up whatever I will have to live on if I ever get to retire.
Then, as I write in the empty, quiet, but grubby house, messages flood in, the boys are on their way back home. Time to get back on with it.
One last thing I need to put down, the desperate sadness, the hopeless pit of loneliness, hopeless and fearful fighting back tears I'm doing the last week. Is it hormones? is it the fact that we are so tight money wise? is it the fact that I have no plans I can stick to? Is it that all the ideas I have to maybe find a job, study, write, do something useful seem to slip away? I can't grasp anything that feels like a future to live into. Cleaning houses, is making me very sad, I often find myself crying as I clean, I hate it, I want to die, then I cry because I'm needed, I can't be gone. I have to be there. I don't exist, I can't exist, I can't not exist, I am needed. I am nobody, I'm mum.
Saturday, 5 May 2018
Bevrijdingsdag
It's the 5th of May. This is an important day in the Netherlands, the anniversary of the end of the german occupation during the 2nd World War. Utrecht was occupied with a capital O and a large part of the male population was taken away and put to work towards the end of the war and the women were left to get through the harshest winter on their own. For those left behind, it was a frightening and painful time. Just what I've been reading about in today's paper. More significant distraction.
Bevrijding for me also refers to this being the first of hopefully many respite weekends. The kids are wonderful but also exhausting, more than normal kids. OK we are also lucky and they aren't physically handicapped, but it's taken me long enough to admit that we needed something like this so I'm not going to justify it.
It is weird, quiet, dare I say it, lonely. I'm enjoying the peace, but I don't want to be alone. Tobe and I are pretty much at opposite ends of the house. He's in the attic bimbling about probably anxious that he's not doing what he should be doing and I'm here in the garden doing the same.
I have lists, right now though, they aren't very well put together. I feel like my integrity is all disconnected and things aren't standing up straight or able to work like they should. I am also not inclined to do anything though. Half of me wants to get all busy, tie up loose ends, tidy up the mess, and get cracking on those things I want to do. Half of me wants to sit on my arse, scroll face book, drink tea or gin and have absolutely nothing to do with anything that should be done, just relax. I doubt anyone would deny me the relaxing thing, after all, I've not had a holiday without the kids as such, that hasn't involved somebody else's obligation or care since they were born. I think that's not quite accurate, but what it comes down to more, is I haven't defined and organised my time very well and I don't get the most out of my time, work or play. It's all a bit hazy.
It feels like those dreams when you are on a journey somewhere and suddenly find you've lost your stuff, you are on the wrong train or the person you are with or should be caring for has vanished. You keep trying different things, and you just can't seem to work it out. I generally start getting upset or angry, then I wake up.
I'm awake now though and it's like hide and seek. I get up and wonder around the ground floor, I feel dizzy and weak. I recover and slowly look around, it's messy and needs tidying. There in the corner, toby's escape room stuff. A cardboard veg tray from the supermarket full of paperwork to file. Every available surface in the middle covered in art stuff I need to work out how to store. I've not done anything creative with it ever, I want to, but I can't get going.
I see the clipboard week list I bought at the beginning of the year, for weeks this year, mayby 70% of them, I've got round to filling in the plan for the week, maybe 20% of them I've actually looked at again after having done it at the beginning of that week. That's not as bad as it sounds, as just knowing what I was doing a few days in advance, did really help. What didn't help, is that my desk is the dining table, I'm not a hot desk type, so having to decamp when we used it to eat or play a game, didn't really help. Maybe if I'd have found a way or somewhere to store my stuff that wasn't just out the way, I could do that fine, but it's not worked yet.
Maybe I need a writing shed in the garden. Maybe I should commute to one of the buurtcafe's when they are on and go and work there. I'm going to be volunteering there with the volkstuin/moestuin very soon. Maybe I should use that as a way to get out and get work done, not try to do it at home. At home do the jobs I should do at home, clean, tidy, cook etc.
Spaces all confused. I need to make definition, work out where I am.
So many half baked ideas and plans, I don't think plans is the proper word, it's all just ideas. Planning is the bit I can't focus on.
Where to start. Back to pen and paper.
Bevrijding for me also refers to this being the first of hopefully many respite weekends. The kids are wonderful but also exhausting, more than normal kids. OK we are also lucky and they aren't physically handicapped, but it's taken me long enough to admit that we needed something like this so I'm not going to justify it.
It is weird, quiet, dare I say it, lonely. I'm enjoying the peace, but I don't want to be alone. Tobe and I are pretty much at opposite ends of the house. He's in the attic bimbling about probably anxious that he's not doing what he should be doing and I'm here in the garden doing the same.
I have lists, right now though, they aren't very well put together. I feel like my integrity is all disconnected and things aren't standing up straight or able to work like they should. I am also not inclined to do anything though. Half of me wants to get all busy, tie up loose ends, tidy up the mess, and get cracking on those things I want to do. Half of me wants to sit on my arse, scroll face book, drink tea or gin and have absolutely nothing to do with anything that should be done, just relax. I doubt anyone would deny me the relaxing thing, after all, I've not had a holiday without the kids as such, that hasn't involved somebody else's obligation or care since they were born. I think that's not quite accurate, but what it comes down to more, is I haven't defined and organised my time very well and I don't get the most out of my time, work or play. It's all a bit hazy.
It feels like those dreams when you are on a journey somewhere and suddenly find you've lost your stuff, you are on the wrong train or the person you are with or should be caring for has vanished. You keep trying different things, and you just can't seem to work it out. I generally start getting upset or angry, then I wake up.
I'm awake now though and it's like hide and seek. I get up and wonder around the ground floor, I feel dizzy and weak. I recover and slowly look around, it's messy and needs tidying. There in the corner, toby's escape room stuff. A cardboard veg tray from the supermarket full of paperwork to file. Every available surface in the middle covered in art stuff I need to work out how to store. I've not done anything creative with it ever, I want to, but I can't get going.
I see the clipboard week list I bought at the beginning of the year, for weeks this year, mayby 70% of them, I've got round to filling in the plan for the week, maybe 20% of them I've actually looked at again after having done it at the beginning of that week. That's not as bad as it sounds, as just knowing what I was doing a few days in advance, did really help. What didn't help, is that my desk is the dining table, I'm not a hot desk type, so having to decamp when we used it to eat or play a game, didn't really help. Maybe if I'd have found a way or somewhere to store my stuff that wasn't just out the way, I could do that fine, but it's not worked yet.
Maybe I need a writing shed in the garden. Maybe I should commute to one of the buurtcafe's when they are on and go and work there. I'm going to be volunteering there with the volkstuin/moestuin very soon. Maybe I should use that as a way to get out and get work done, not try to do it at home. At home do the jobs I should do at home, clean, tidy, cook etc.
Spaces all confused. I need to make definition, work out where I am.
So many half baked ideas and plans, I don't think plans is the proper word, it's all just ideas. Planning is the bit I can't focus on.
Where to start. Back to pen and paper.
Tuesday, 12 December 2017
A man destined to hang can never drown
Friday morning as I arrived, a little late for my appointment with my psycologist, Daniel Cowman started playing on my phone. It is usually on random and my SD card with hundreds of albums has four by Regina Spektor: Begin to hope, Soviet Kitsch, Songs and Mary Ann meets the Gravediggers. I really enjoy Regina Spektor, I saw her play live earlier this year in Amsterdam at the Paradiso and cried real tears of joy and Wimsey when she played Samson.
But then since then, it's now Sunday, Daniel Cowman is playing the piano and her haunting melody through my head like a ghost that needs something from me. My meaning making machine head just needs to get it's thoughts together so it can move on.
The song was playing I don't exist, I don't exist, I don't exist and Now that we've go that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly, doesn't mean that I can do whatever I want. Apart from the fact I liked the melody and structure of the song, I felt the urge to look up the lyrics and meaning to the song. Who on earth is Daniel Cowman and why is he destined to hang?
Firstly the lyrics
Firstly the lyrics
There are two sections where there are links to who he might possibly be, from a Modest Mouse song called Cowboy Dan where Cowboy Dan drives into the dessert shooting his rifle saying "God, if I have to die, you will have to die" The world should have stopped existing, how can it go on if I don't exist? But the bit that captures my imagination is the idea that a man destined to hang can never drown. There is no such thing as destiny and when a person is sentenced to death or even to prison time, their fate or destiny is controlled. Now can I take a fucking bath? so by drowning in the bath before he's sentenced to death, he's regained control.
This came up in the case at the Hague. Former Bosnian Croatian war criminal drunk poison after being tried and convicted.
The worst thing you can do to a person is to take away their freedom. Lets face it, if you are being tried for war crimes, you've been messing with the freedoms of not just the odd person.
So maybe this song is a tale of freedom, an expression of one person's relationship to it.
and now that we got that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly
Doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I want
Now that we got that clear, and you know that I'm not here
Doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I please
When you cease to exist, when you die, you don't get freedom, cus you don't exist!
The untimely death sentence, Heroine Boy, out of control, dangerous to himself and all around him, destined (no such thing) to die, but why hang when you can drown. It takes courage to take your fate into your own hands and finish your own life so that you don't let someone else have that satisfaction.
If you are an addict on death row, arguably someone who's whole life has been manipulated and abused, from the start, parents, the system, addiction is a disease that has been criminalised.
A war criminal is a different animal, but whether he contests his innocence or just doesn't agree that what he did was a crime, when the day of judgement came, he took the power to decide when he no longer exists.
This came up in the case at the Hague. Former Bosnian Croatian war criminal drunk poison after being tried and convicted.
The worst thing you can do to a person is to take away their freedom. Lets face it, if you are being tried for war crimes, you've been messing with the freedoms of not just the odd person.
So maybe this song is a tale of freedom, an expression of one person's relationship to it.
and now that we got that straight, doesn't mean that I can fly
Doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I want
Now that we got that clear, and you know that I'm not here
Doesn't mean that I can go do whatever I please
When you cease to exist, when you die, you don't get freedom, cus you don't exist!
The untimely death sentence, Heroine Boy, out of control, dangerous to himself and all around him, destined (no such thing) to die, but why hang when you can drown. It takes courage to take your fate into your own hands and finish your own life so that you don't let someone else have that satisfaction.
If you are an addict on death row, arguably someone who's whole life has been manipulated and abused, from the start, parents, the system, addiction is a disease that has been criminalised.
A war criminal is a different animal, but whether he contests his innocence or just doesn't agree that what he did was a crime, when the day of judgement came, he took the power to decide when he no longer exists.
Redirecting thoughts
The human mind is a powerful generator that cannot be turned off; it can only be directed.What thoughts would you like (re) direct today?
I am nothing, empty and meaningless - a useful thing to remember when I'm telling myself that life isn't fair and complaining that things aren't all my way. I am a lighter person, but i also need to direct import in the direction of things that for no reason other than I choose, are worth doing.
I am searching for some magical purpose, calling, that thing that I am born to do. But it (probably) doesn't exist, in my case perhaps.
Am I destined to be a writer? Have some really interesting ideas and plots I want to explore, plus I am a pretty good writer and inventor of ideas. But I have limited time and energy, and an urgent need to spend what time I have, earning even a small amount of money.
There are jobs out there that I could do, using my brains, experience and energy, if only I knew how to find them, how to convince them I was useful and if need be invest time and energy learning new skills. I am a clever person, but I'm still working out where I'm cleverest and where I'm not.
My story is that I don't know, I am bored of applying for jobs where they come back with the fact that I have no recent experience, yes I know! that's because I'm suddenly unemployable! Talk about catch 22. I need someone to be willing to take a risk, or to give me the opportunity to catch up, it wouldn't take long (if any time - it's rubbish, I am not rusty at all, I just haven't been employed for decade - I've worked for myself and run a family).
This is also kind of a storyline as technically I'm working now, I clean 3 mornings a week and child mind 2 afternoons a week, so that's a respectable part time income, except that there's no progression, no holiday money, no sick pay and no security. It's hand to mouth.
So the fact is, I'm working, the rest is whatever I happen to feel like.
Maybe I should compile a list of all the things I'm interested in, all the things I'm good at, all the things I'm ok at and all the things I hate or I'm rubbish at. Then see what drifts to the surface.
How much time and energy to I actually have to do stuff? How much time am I actually prepared to dedicate to earning a living?
If my story is that I don't know what to do with myself, then the obvious thing to do is to focus in on that rather than it being ever present on in my peripheral vision and every time I see something I might like I think about it for an hour, a day a week, maybe a month, and then I remember there was other stuff I liked or that it requires money and time investment which makes me nervous as I have wasted so much in the past and changed my mind and my plans.
Up to now I've seen that my short attention span lends well to project work, that my intelligence lends well to being able to fully comprehend a situation or task, that my strong language skills lend well to being a good communicator, both verbally and on paper. My integrity and honesty lends well to working on things that make a difference - I am not motivated by money, pay or even acknowledgement so much as doing stuff that is useful and there's a tangible result or outcome.
I am a good leader, I am not proud or vain or interested in power. However I'm rubbish at demonstrating that I'm a good leader in an interview, because I haven't worked out what it is that I actually did in situations where I took the leadership role. I don't gravitate towards leadership unless I see that it's not already being led. I possibly avoid or lack the confidence to impose or offer leadership, to me leadership requires invitation. This probably isn't true, or it is true but I'm not seeing or interpreting the invitation.
So many things - a mind dump
My head is infinitely spilling over with ideas and things to get round to. Amazing stories that i forget, jobs I would like to do, things I would like to try, ideas I want to explore and they vanish quietly as I carry on with my life.
This life that I slowly try to keep a float, where the work I'm paid to do is a drop in the ocean to what we actually need. Where my peers are telling me about their academic and professional projects that do seem to pay them to have the lives they want. They get to travel and have choices. Here's me cleaning houses. I actually quite like it, I can switch off just enough, it's the simple, repetitive task that lets my brain go into free flow. With the radio on in the back ground, stimulating my thoughts and teaching me new things.
I have great ideas while I'm cleaning, sometimes practical ideas, sometimes really good plot ideas for films or stories, sometimes I work out really great ways to fix the worlds problems, if only that really mattered and I was in a position where I really could help.
Toby's mental health is a constant worry and burden, he shouts his head off about needing peace, he bangs doors because we clattered something. Everything he does is a laudably violent retaliation for the audio sensitivity he feels. It's exhausting and relentless. I hear myself saying, well he does do stuff like take the kids sledging or step in at the weekend when I had flu, but there's bound to be a fall out of spasms and shouting that follows and I am very selective about when I choose to give myself that time to be sick. I have to because, I know if I don't i will be no use to anyone, and when I do have a break, knowing that it will make Toby suffer his illness worse for that short time, it's so that I can carry on and pick up again. I'm cunning and ruthless short, but it's so that we can keep going long term.
My whole life I have day dreamed wonderful ideas and created special interests to distract me, sometimes they coincide with work, or actual stuff to do, sometimes it's accompanied by me reading books or watching stuff about it. They vanish as quickly as they appear, and I'm left with the residual broad general knowledge which is useful and makes me a very rounded person.
But I have no expertise, I want one, I need one, I just want to focus for long enough so that I can do something useful. I catch myself, I find something, I become fanatical, then I can feel it loosing it's magic, I complain internally and externally, then to my relief, I release it. Usually to allow more space for an emerging priority, this priority might not be self generated, but it's generated by utility or love, urges, necessity, survival, aspirations. These things are so overwhelmingly powerful, they take me over and yet they are ultimately self generated by me, they are powerful, I move mountains for myself, for others, I am powerful, energetic, creative and clever, tenacious and resourceful. Then there's something new, first I need to recover, to flop, to collapse, to sleep, to sloth, maybe a day, maybe a week, my back goes, I lie down a lot, it makes my back worse, then I rest, I slowly get more active again, recover, the energy returns and I am back for the next project. Except they are not projects, they are hugely inefficient and I am wasting all this energy being very useful but not really. I can justify this as motherhood, my kids get good parenting, better than i see some of my peers doing.
But then I see others doing so much better. Money can't buy so much of what parenting involves, but it damn well helps! there are lots of things they are not getting because we can't afford it. There are lots of things they are not getting because I don't have the bandwidth, between my own autism and Toby's I can't fit it in. We schedule, we plan, we create strategies, but we are still somehow not getting it right.
Some of these I can justify, excuse, explain, some of those explanations are justified others explain alright, but I can't justify and I don't excuse. I want to improve and each time I see something, I resolve to move it in the right direction. I can't see everything, I can't be everything. I wish i could be paid to do what I'm good at so I could pay someone else to do what i'm not good at.
I desperately want to create something useful, fulfil a purpose and get paid enough to be comfortable to do it. I have denied my passions and special interests as too niche or too pointless, I have diluted myself and hidden myself under a facade of responsibility and respectability, I don't know who or what I am any more.
I change my mind so many times as to what I could do with my talents, but I don't have the time or energy to practice my talents, I don't have the executive functioning to remember to practice them more's the point. I want to break these patterns of aimless idle dreaming, dreams are great, but how can I make at least some of it reality, I don't need much of it, I just want something to become real.
Reality shouldn't just be drudgery and obligations, or just the empty pleasure of a telly show, a trip to the pub, a board game or a day that the spa. They are never going to go away, and i don't want them to, but that world, where people study for stuff, they make stuff, the create possibilities that become useful stuff. People go great, nice stuff you are doing, or even what do I do with this stuff? But they have produced something, like it or not.
I want to produce more than just waste.
This life that I slowly try to keep a float, where the work I'm paid to do is a drop in the ocean to what we actually need. Where my peers are telling me about their academic and professional projects that do seem to pay them to have the lives they want. They get to travel and have choices. Here's me cleaning houses. I actually quite like it, I can switch off just enough, it's the simple, repetitive task that lets my brain go into free flow. With the radio on in the back ground, stimulating my thoughts and teaching me new things.
I have great ideas while I'm cleaning, sometimes practical ideas, sometimes really good plot ideas for films or stories, sometimes I work out really great ways to fix the worlds problems, if only that really mattered and I was in a position where I really could help.
Toby's mental health is a constant worry and burden, he shouts his head off about needing peace, he bangs doors because we clattered something. Everything he does is a laudably violent retaliation for the audio sensitivity he feels. It's exhausting and relentless. I hear myself saying, well he does do stuff like take the kids sledging or step in at the weekend when I had flu, but there's bound to be a fall out of spasms and shouting that follows and I am very selective about when I choose to give myself that time to be sick. I have to because, I know if I don't i will be no use to anyone, and when I do have a break, knowing that it will make Toby suffer his illness worse for that short time, it's so that I can carry on and pick up again. I'm cunning and ruthless short, but it's so that we can keep going long term.
My whole life I have day dreamed wonderful ideas and created special interests to distract me, sometimes they coincide with work, or actual stuff to do, sometimes it's accompanied by me reading books or watching stuff about it. They vanish as quickly as they appear, and I'm left with the residual broad general knowledge which is useful and makes me a very rounded person.
But I have no expertise, I want one, I need one, I just want to focus for long enough so that I can do something useful. I catch myself, I find something, I become fanatical, then I can feel it loosing it's magic, I complain internally and externally, then to my relief, I release it. Usually to allow more space for an emerging priority, this priority might not be self generated, but it's generated by utility or love, urges, necessity, survival, aspirations. These things are so overwhelmingly powerful, they take me over and yet they are ultimately self generated by me, they are powerful, I move mountains for myself, for others, I am powerful, energetic, creative and clever, tenacious and resourceful. Then there's something new, first I need to recover, to flop, to collapse, to sleep, to sloth, maybe a day, maybe a week, my back goes, I lie down a lot, it makes my back worse, then I rest, I slowly get more active again, recover, the energy returns and I am back for the next project. Except they are not projects, they are hugely inefficient and I am wasting all this energy being very useful but not really. I can justify this as motherhood, my kids get good parenting, better than i see some of my peers doing.
But then I see others doing so much better. Money can't buy so much of what parenting involves, but it damn well helps! there are lots of things they are not getting because we can't afford it. There are lots of things they are not getting because I don't have the bandwidth, between my own autism and Toby's I can't fit it in. We schedule, we plan, we create strategies, but we are still somehow not getting it right.
Some of these I can justify, excuse, explain, some of those explanations are justified others explain alright, but I can't justify and I don't excuse. I want to improve and each time I see something, I resolve to move it in the right direction. I can't see everything, I can't be everything. I wish i could be paid to do what I'm good at so I could pay someone else to do what i'm not good at.
I desperately want to create something useful, fulfil a purpose and get paid enough to be comfortable to do it. I have denied my passions and special interests as too niche or too pointless, I have diluted myself and hidden myself under a facade of responsibility and respectability, I don't know who or what I am any more.
I change my mind so many times as to what I could do with my talents, but I don't have the time or energy to practice my talents, I don't have the executive functioning to remember to practice them more's the point. I want to break these patterns of aimless idle dreaming, dreams are great, but how can I make at least some of it reality, I don't need much of it, I just want something to become real.
Reality shouldn't just be drudgery and obligations, or just the empty pleasure of a telly show, a trip to the pub, a board game or a day that the spa. They are never going to go away, and i don't want them to, but that world, where people study for stuff, they make stuff, the create possibilities that become useful stuff. People go great, nice stuff you are doing, or even what do I do with this stuff? But they have produced something, like it or not.
I want to produce more than just waste.
Saturday, 14 October 2017
Glorious Autumn and the many great ideas I get while cycling somewhere.
This morning I had to pick up my Son from a sleepover the other side of the City in another town. It's a good ride, about 45mins, through the city and out the other side. The weather this morning was glorious. Autumn at it's best, blue skies, temperature in the mid teens, the trees going yellow, red and orange, people milling about on foot and by bike mostly, the many markets, the church bells, the city is slowly getting going in the late morning sunshine.
Firstly I imagined a film treatment - my bike ride through the city, it was so perfect, the streets quietly getting going with mainly people on foot or by bike, very little motor traffic. The city is full of trees, coming into Autumn, the buildings beautiful. But where am I going? why am I cycling? it's not a bike ride - I get frustrated by the UK preoccupation with cycling as a sport and leisure activity. Utility cycling is where it's at. So this wonderful morning bike ride was not just a random bike ride, I was picking up my son, most of the people I saw on bikes were going somewhere for a reason. Cyclists on roadbikes did come up on the route too, in lycra, doing the sport and leisure thing, but the majority were on utility cycling bikes, off somewhere for some reason.
I thought about how you could film some of these journeys. A case for utility cycling. To illustrate to other countries how utility cycling works with the right infrastructure; how by enabling over half the population in a big city go go about their daily life safely and easily by bike, how the quality of life rises. It's healthy, almost free, fast, effective and fun.
If I had been living in the UK, going to pick up my 9 year old son from a sleep over in another town would have to involve a car or public transport. I have a transport rack on the front of my bike, my son loves to sit on the front, it's relatively easy, the paths are good and it's safe. It's safe because should something happen, he simply jumps off. I can't live in the UK like I can in the Netherlands, the biggest difference is the bike infrastructure and it makes the experience of life in a city completely different to my experience in the UK.
So today's half baked idea was to make films of the short rides people make accross the country while going about their lives. Utility rides - journeys that pretty much all would need to be done by car in the UK. To collate these films by people and use them to educate town planners and road designers as well as politicians and the public in general how it actually works - that life is way better that way - it's healthy, fast, fun, nearly free and good for the running of the city, it's economy and it's general health as a whole.
Then I remembered that I am already incredibly busy and I often have good ideas like this while riding around, doing stuff and then I carry on with my life. I'm not the only one, maybe I need somewhere to dump all my half baked ideas, save them for later. Most of them never get off the ground because I lack the time, money, resources and skills to do anything with the ideas. Their viability is irrelevant.
So a place to dump all these ideas, to get into the habit of writing them down, banking them for later.
Now back to the rest of life, time to take the kids to scouts (by bike) and off to the shops (by bike). Who knows what wonderful things might pop into my head...
Firstly I imagined a film treatment - my bike ride through the city, it was so perfect, the streets quietly getting going with mainly people on foot or by bike, very little motor traffic. The city is full of trees, coming into Autumn, the buildings beautiful. But where am I going? why am I cycling? it's not a bike ride - I get frustrated by the UK preoccupation with cycling as a sport and leisure activity. Utility cycling is where it's at. So this wonderful morning bike ride was not just a random bike ride, I was picking up my son, most of the people I saw on bikes were going somewhere for a reason. Cyclists on roadbikes did come up on the route too, in lycra, doing the sport and leisure thing, but the majority were on utility cycling bikes, off somewhere for some reason.
I thought about how you could film some of these journeys. A case for utility cycling. To illustrate to other countries how utility cycling works with the right infrastructure; how by enabling over half the population in a big city go go about their daily life safely and easily by bike, how the quality of life rises. It's healthy, almost free, fast, effective and fun.
If I had been living in the UK, going to pick up my 9 year old son from a sleep over in another town would have to involve a car or public transport. I have a transport rack on the front of my bike, my son loves to sit on the front, it's relatively easy, the paths are good and it's safe. It's safe because should something happen, he simply jumps off. I can't live in the UK like I can in the Netherlands, the biggest difference is the bike infrastructure and it makes the experience of life in a city completely different to my experience in the UK.
So today's half baked idea was to make films of the short rides people make accross the country while going about their lives. Utility rides - journeys that pretty much all would need to be done by car in the UK. To collate these films by people and use them to educate town planners and road designers as well as politicians and the public in general how it actually works - that life is way better that way - it's healthy, fast, fun, nearly free and good for the running of the city, it's economy and it's general health as a whole.
Then I remembered that I am already incredibly busy and I often have good ideas like this while riding around, doing stuff and then I carry on with my life. I'm not the only one, maybe I need somewhere to dump all my half baked ideas, save them for later. Most of them never get off the ground because I lack the time, money, resources and skills to do anything with the ideas. Their viability is irrelevant.
So a place to dump all these ideas, to get into the habit of writing them down, banking them for later.
Now back to the rest of life, time to take the kids to scouts (by bike) and off to the shops (by bike). Who knows what wonderful things might pop into my head...
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