DIARY No 19 - LOST IN TRANSITION

Periods of transition are frequently difficult to manage. One thing is in the process of passing, whilst another begins to emerge. Letting go, when it’s not yet clear what form the future will take, is not easy. 2006 appears to have been a year of transition. Stepping out from the supportive conditions of a Buddhist Right Livelihood Business and finding work in the harsher, less forgiving light of the secular world. Regular readers of this blog, and most of all my friends in the Dharma, have heard, read or seen what this process has been like for me. Often I experienced an inner conflict, as aspiration and desire for creative freedom, vied with financial anxiety and a need for security. I think, in the end, the latter has won the day, for now at least. My writing and painting have become concentrated evening and weekend activities.

So, as we are on the cusp of 2007, I am tentatively looking forward to whatever may be in store. I’ve been working Full Time at the Crematorium a little over a month. The increased money is very welcome. My work is taking on a consistency and engagement not present when I worked Part Time. I’m learning new things, like how to master the new computer based music system in the Chapels, and how to burn dead bodies effectively. It seems odd when I return home and David asks me what I did today. If I replied literally,’ I burned six pensioners in their sixties, seventies and eighties, two middle aged people, one male, one female, plus a non viable foetus, and cleaned and hovered the chapels, I think that might be unwelcome. Yet, this is what I do most days. If you had asked me this time last year what I’d be doing by 2007, this is not what I would have envisaged at all.

When aspirations hit the fan of reality, one has to be prepared to revise expectations and learn to live each day as it comes. Obviously, there is a personal practice in what I now do for a living. Largely it is in the realm of doing what seems appropriate, sometimes guarding the gates of the senses, at other times making sure I stay in touch with my feelings. My body, as always, remains the best indicator. Back pain and sleep patterns become unpredictable, when I’m not conscious enough of my responses. Occasionally, I do detect horrified anxiety, in amongst my usual day-to-day worry and flurry. This is particularly so if I’ve had a few days working in the Cremation Room. Observing the state of a burning cadaver moving from decaying flesh and bone towards ash, raking out what’s left and placing in a plastic urn or wooden casket, is not an insignificant event and does have an effect. It can alienate you from your feelings, or when you find your forehead frowned in deep furrows, the nature of your responses is all too apparent, it’s in your face. Levels of black, or mordant humour have to be monitored, they’re good indicators of suppressed feelings. Most of the time my feelings appear just neutral, or at least a trifled numbed. Anyway, I digress.

Next year I have a few things to consider. How quickly it will be possible to sort out my bank loan etc. Watch what effect having a decent income has, and not raising my expenditure to match it. Focus on writing and painting as much as I can. David and I need to seriously think about getting a bit bigger flat, if not now, when? Though I meditate now, it’s still erratic, and far from frequent. I need to be more aware, the nature of my resistances, what are they about? I find myself writing quite passionately about practice when I explore a Dogen discourse, but the bum still doesn’t hit the meditation stool with confident assertion. Whilst physical circumstances have had an effect, I know they are just the excuse, not the reason. What I really need is a meditation retreat for burned out meditators, where you try to identify what exactly is up. I’m still experiencing my recurrent back, hip and ankle pain on the left side of my body. I haven’t been able to afford to go see an osteopath this year, but I sense I do need to take a different approach, not just alleviating but resolving, but how? I know these are primarily emotionally based symptoms, but I am no nearer finding what needs to change or be transformed. It appears to be less to do with changing circumstances, (I’ve tried that) and more to do with changing how my body responds to stress. What is that stress anxious about in the first place? Perhaps I should try meditating! That’s enough! enough for one year at least.

FILM REVIEW - Lost Highway

Life in a David Lynch movie is one strange occurrence after another. Lost Highway is no exception. There is the Jazz musician who seems to be having a little problem with his jealousy. His wife, has a very complex time concealing her extra curricular activities from the aforesaid muso. On top of this, there’s the young man ,who wakes up one morning in a prison cell previously occupied by the muso for murdering the wife. Was that a dream or an identity crisis? He ends up falling for a blond version of the muso’s wife, and then killing her old lover by colliding his cranium with the edge of a plate glass table. There is also a psychopathic gangster, and a ghost faced man, who seems to know what is going on but never tells anyone. In the end the young man turns back into the muso after being rejected by the blonde. The last we see of him, he’s revisiting his own house and being chased down a darkening highway, his head screaming like a Pope in a Francis Bacon painting. Crazy, or what?

Did I like it? I sure as hell did. It appears to be David Lynch's take on the whole noir genre. Part a homage, and part a surreal and imaginative extension of its dominant moods and characters. It has tension and atmosphere by the bucket load. A peculiar narrative thrust that keeps you engaged even when the story starts to defy logic. Its images are potent and disturbing, without being gratuitous. Lynch produces films with great flair and in the most distinctive style imaginable. He also has the gall ( and the money ! ) to realise these perverse little tales in tinsel town America.

The DVD extras were of neither use nor ornament. Not one, but two interviews with Lynch, which tell you zilch and are mostly just obtuse deflections. Plus, the usual actors fawning and licking the cream off Lynch’s genius, and a ‘Making of’ that looks like its composed of random out takes filmed by a gnome. Just watch the movie OK, leave it at that.

QUOTATION MARKS No 8

To think that you will be happy by becoming something else is delusion.

Becoming something else just exchanges one form of suffering for another form of suffering.

But when you are content with who you are now....

then you are free from suffering"

AJHAN BRAHM

DIARY No 18 - A VISIT FROM INSOMNIA

I’ve just completed my second week of Full Time work at the Crematorium. The first week was pretty much as I expected it to be, mostly working as a Chapel Attendant. I've been tired by the end of each day, though I have felt more consistently engaged. There was something about working Part Time, which left my energy broken off just when it reached a purposeful flow. This week I began my training as a Cremator Technician. This means I have to do one hundred cremations, pass an examination, and have one complete cremation closely monitored.

The days went OK, but I found my sleep quickly became almost non-existent. Over three nights I only had six hours sleep. With each new morning, I awoke more bleary eyed and mentally zonked. David was, unfortunately, also having a period of restlessness and fidgety sleep. So we weren’t a great deal of help to each other, compounding rather than easing each others problem. Each night I awoke after a few hours sleep, heart pounding away as if I’m in a panic, unable to relax or slow it’s pummelling action. Obviously, I could say this was all due to the change in my work. Watching the cremation process in much closer detail, days, rather than hours, of raking out the remaining crumble of bones, must leave a mark on ones psyche. I can’t see how it would not. I am, however, reluctant to just park it there and let it solidify into fact. It doesn’t feel quite that simple.

To start with there is the whole practical circumstances under which I’m sleeping to consider. If both of you, sharing a bed, turn over frequently and heavily, that’s not going to help either of you settle. Sometimes, being over stimulated just before bedtime doesn’t help. Both Monday and Tuesday nights I was engaged in deep and engaging conversation prior to going to bed. I reduced my coffee consumption, plus, looked at any thing which might disturb my sleep; like needing to pee in the middle of the night; or eating too much dinner. For many years, since living in a flat above extremely noisy and unpredictable Scottish Shift Working Lorry Drivers, I’ve slept using earplugs. Our bedroom window is blacked out, because we live opposite Cambridge United's Football Ground, which has floodlights, and two well lit advertising hoardings. Such strong artificial light tends to wake me up believing its morning. Having reviewed these, then I can consider how other circumstances might come into play.

Starting work Full Time at a Crematorium is, after all, quite a big step. Especially after all the soul searching, which concluded that I wanted to work Part Time to provide space to write and paint in. Once more, my desires appear to have been subsumed by practical necessity. There is a cloak of sadness wrapped around this, one that I haven’t wanted to look under too carefully. By Wednesday afternoon, I was beginning to sense an emotional upset and tearful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not only am I working around death all the time, I’m also experiencing the death, for now at least, of a deeply held desire.

Listening to The Archers on Thursday night brought some of the emotion more cogently to the fore. Two of the Gay characters, Ian and Adam, were having a Civil Partnership Ceremony. It’s all been handled in a typically Radio 4 way, well meaning, slightly clichéd and above all lavished with liberal worthiness. At the end of the episode, the Mother of one of the characters said how proud she felt. I felt those tears welling up as she spoke. The day before, I got a Christmas card from my parents, and a separate card for David. I was a little put out that there wasn’t a card addressed to both of us. When David opened his, it was signed quite formally as’ from Mr & Mrs Lumb’. David, quite understandable, felt not fully welcomed into the bosom of my family. David’s Mum has been very open and generous. She has bought presents for my birthday and at Christmas, in every way she has behaved as if I’m part of her family. So the contrast is quite marked. My parents are really quite conservative, and from an entirely different generation. That they sent a card, was their way of acknowledging our relationship. I also recollect that my Brother in Law was still calling my parents Mr & Mrs Lumb years after he married my Sister. So, its not about discrimination or rejection, its more related to a level of formality they think is appropriate to someone they’ve only met once. That David is my partner would not change that. They may also be uncomfortable, not quite knowing how to couch or refer to something, which in their generation would never have been talked about publicly anyway. Social formalities have relaxed generally, but not for my parents. Though having said that, it doesn’t stop me feeling what I am is not fully accepted by them. This is what was touched on, and made me tearful. I was upset about things not being how I would like in terms of my work, my desires and how my parents relate to my partner, and myself, as gay men. Simple unsatisfactoriness, delicately interwoven like a thread of pain through the rough and ready cloth of everyday life. Owch !!

QUOTATION MARKS No 7

I know of no more encouraging fact

than the unquestionable ability of man

to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

BOOK REVIEW

Walden, or life in the woods – Henry David Thoreau
Published unabridged by Dover Thrift Editions 1995.

It was over twenty years ago, on good old BBC Radio 4, that I first came across Thoreau. ‘Walden’, was their Book of the Week. It was a lively, clear and succinct reading of his ideas and experience, whilst he lived his back to earth lifestyle. He may not have been the first urban dweller to do so, but he was certainly the first to effectively write about the changes then overcoming civilised humanity. These days ‘dropping out of society’ is a common place occurrence. However, it often is only a partial one. Some semblance of support by the host society remains, if only in the form of ‘the dole’. Thoreau was unique, in that he was looking to be independent and self-supporting, in a way we would struggle to achieve these days. The talons of civilisation dig deep into self-determination, to hold us within its bounds.

Anyway, when I first heard it being read, I was captivated. I went out immediately and bought a small pocket sized edition produced by Shambhala Publications. In that period, I was fond of underlining in blue pen any apposite statement I found in books. Looking back through these blue lined sections, tells me something about my concerns at that time. Extensive sections of ‘Walden’ are selected, such as :~

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”

Concerns about what it was like to live an essential life, were then dominant in my psyche. How to live simply and contentedly was paramount. Thoreau, though quite a pragmatic man in how he approached his solitary life, was motivated essentially by a romantic impulse; to return to a state of grace that had been lost. This underlying romanticism was what struck me most at that time. These days, I handle this sort of ideal with a more sceptical touch. Even Thoreau saw his ‘simple life’ as an experiment only, living like this for only a couple of years, before then returning to his former lifestyle. Without the donation of Emerson’s land at Walden Pond, the whole experiment would have been impossible anyway. Besides, the town of Concord and civilisation was never too far away if it all went ‘pear shaped’.

This Dover Edition is unabridged, my original pocket edition was heavily cut, as ,no doubt, were those radio readings. Not without good reason I am currently discovering. I’m finding the unabridged edition quite heavy going. Pages and pages of ponderous, pontificating prose to wade through. Some of his observations on the nature of a civilising society are spot on, whilst others appear cranky, quaint or just over simplistic. I suppose this is why, these days, he is routinely severely edited. His writing style is very Victorian. Overloaded, for modern readers, with small asides and references, tucked within unfeasible long sentence structures. To make him palatable for contemporary audiences, his verbose writing style needs to be curtailed by the hand of a skilled surgeon. Then his undoubted ability to express the universal zetgeist of this, and any other industrialised era, emerges, strong and potent.

I do wonder whether we do Thoreau a disservice by treating him in this way. We make him a mythic figure, an archetype of the outsider, living beyond civilised norms, not a man of his time. Thoreau was certainly not some proto-hippy, new age Victorian, getting off his head on opium. He was just one of many 19^th Century social analysts, who looked at the emerging industrialised nations and started to question, with an air of looking backwards like Rousseau, asking quite where we were going with this headlong rush for progress. As the first to really articulate this, Thoreau is justifiable revered. For in it he expressed the basic form for an Ideal of an Alternative Society, this found its audience in the disillusioned drop outs of the late sixties. The rendering into our complex civilisation, of this beautiful dream of the simple life, of a form of society not hell bent on creating a living nightmare, is why this book is still significant. When you actually read it unabridged, you realise it's style is what has not worn well. The myth that Thoreau represents for us now, has overtaken the reality of his experience then, and its mode of expression. He is being revised and remodelled to fit our contemporary dreams of escape.

DIARY 17 - IT COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR

As I’ve said before I’m in the middle of writing this piece on a Dogen discourse called ‘The difficulty of such a thing’ It is certainly occupying inordinate amounts of time and effort, though it is an enjoyable process. So my attention to this blog has been a bit neglectful, sorry.

Good news has come forth, in the form of a date to start full time work at the Crematorium. So this coming Monday 4^th December is the day. When my manager told me, I said I’d been about to give up hope. She replied, that three months was actually quick to get a result. Well, save me from encountering the prolonged version, I don’t think I could handle the waiting. As it happens I am as mightily pleased as my modest sized form can contain. I’ve been given a new job designation as Chapel Attendant / Cremator Technician,( I’m going to be trained up to do the latter )and my pay grade has been raised too. So I’ll be on a full time salary and be paid more on top of that. Eight months down the line the end of my financial constraints seems finally to be in sight. Once I get the measure of my new salary, I’ll take a hard look at my finances and see what adjustments need to be made. How I get on with full time work at the Crematorium will be revealed only by the taste of it.

Christmas looms like an over jovial relative you don’t really like. David and I went up to Nottingham on Wednesday, for a days Christmas shopping, in what, so far as I can see, is the best shopping centre in the UK. I’ve got most of it sorted now. In comparison, Cambridge city centre on Saturday was horrendous, I can honestly say I will not be venturing there for long in the next few weekends. Whoever said shopping was the new religion might be onto something, it tests the patience of a saint, you never feel satisfied, as if you’ve been duped, and your encouraged to believe in the power of money to raise the dead and cure the sick.

We now have a small Christmas tree, pert and decorated like a flapper, fairy lights, the lot. This year the festive season seems to have crept slowly upon us. I guess the prolonged Indian Summer caught us all off guard. So, suddenly the countdown has started, and the heads down rush to the shopping finishing post has begun its mad frenetic whirl. Here’s hoping I can keep my head.

DIARY 16 - EXTRACTING THE PAIN

Last weekend was a weekend of agony. I went to bed Friday night with a slight ache in my bottom right back tooth. Saturday morning it was a throbbing pain which subsided when I took painkillers. By the afternoon it was not so easily pacified. I rang the emergency dental number where they asked a few questions about the toothache.'On a scale of 1 to 5 where would you place your pain' etc. In the end .even if I'd wanted to the only available dentists were in Wisbech or Huntingdon. By this time the combination of toothache and painkillers were making me feel decidedly heady and nauseous. So driving anywhere was out of the question. They did suggest a particular regime of painkillers that might ease the pain,but they added, ' what you really need is a course of anti-biotics'. So I struggled on until Monday morning when I walked down first thing to my own Dentist. He took an X Ray of the area and gave me a prescription for anti- biotics. 'I will call you once the X Rays are done, I may want to put you on a double dose of the anti-biotics' By the time I had slowly ambled home and sat down the phone rang 'could you come in at ten to three this afternoon, the tooth has an abscess and needs to be removed'

Back into town, this time hoping for the blessed release from pain. I wasn't waiting long before I was called through. He started injecting local anesthetic into the gum all around the tooth. It was only a slim needle, but it felt like he was putting a six inch nail in there. For the first time in my life at a Dentist I let out an agonised cry. You know the cries in movies where a hero is being slowly strangled by 'the mummy' or some such other fiend, well it was those sort I let out. As he pulled the tooth with his silver pliers it was relatively painless. Afterwards I felt in shock, I hardly dared stand up. 'If you feel you're going to faint sit down, don't do anything too active as that will only increase the blood flow, take it steady and slow' With those few words I left the Dentist and went to pay at reception. You really should have seen the looks on the patients faces waiting in reception. A mixture of horror, compassion and anxiety flashed across their faces. If I hadn't been struggling to keep upright at the time I would have laughed out loud.

I took the walk home at an even slower pace. I'd thought about getting some Pro-Biotic Yogurt to help my stomach cope with the effects of the anti-biotic but actually just getting home was all I could manage. Most of that Monday I spent asleep, I went to bed at 8.30pm and didn't awake until 5.30 Tuesday morning. Once the anti-biotics kicked in I was fine. I had to watch not to rushing around too much or else I got dizzy. At the end of a day at work I was pretty pooped. Today nearly a week later the swelling has gone down and I can feel the cavity quite clearly. The gum is still a bit sore when I eat, but essentially its back to business as usual.

Even though I was in such pain I still managed to meet up with my friend Eugen for breakfast on Sunday morning and went out for a meal with David Welsh in the evening. I apologise to both of them if I wasn't quite my usual self or attentive. In a way it was a miracle I could still do any of what I'd planned. Though my David said I'd looked distinctly grey and unwell all weekend.

Physical pain is something we rarely feel these days outside of toothaches or breakages of limbs. Painkillers are so readily available. How they coped barely a century ago I dread to think. An abscess under a tooth might have been a life threatening if it poisoned the blood system before the tooth was removed. Such extreme pain was I suppose a more every day occurrence. Whilst I'm not some New Age nut who thinks our sense of alienation would be overcome by experiencing more pain. I do think it has weakened our robustness in coping with life's travails when pain is so readily masked or got rid of. What we complain about, what we litigate over, would ,in previous generations have been brushed off as how life was. Well, it's still how life is, but it's hidden behind a chemical screen, occassionally it steps out and shows us its hideous potential to wreck our hopes and dreams.

QUOTATION MARKS No 6

If one is unhappy, one wants to know the reason why.

But it never occurs to one to ask why one is happy.

it is therefore unhappiness, rather than happiness,

that causes us to reflect upon our condition.

It is unhappiness that makes us think

SANGHARAKSHITA

DIARY 15 - SEEING THINGS AS THEY REALLY ARE

It is difficult to see things clearly. It is difficult to know what to do for the best. We travel hopefully in a certain direction, not always confidently, but, hey you have to decide to do something! I am writing yet another piece on a Dogen discourse. this one is called 'The Difficulty of such a thing'. In essence it's about a perennial Chan/Zen problem with Buddha Nature. If we already are what we seek, then why practice or how should practice be in the light of this knowledge? This was the dilemma which was at the core of Dogen's own Great Doubt. It drove him to leave Japan and search for four years in China for a teacher who could answer this question. My essay is focusing on 'the difficulty' in finding the right framework for spiritual practice. Dogen ends the discourse with a question' How is this suchness?' I feel to be at the edge of my current understanding in writing this piece, I'm definitely being stretched. I'm a Dogen enthusiast, but not a scholar. My approach explores more from an imaginative/poetic analysis. So far it's goes well ,but rather slowly and ponderously, with frequent stops for reflection. Occasionally my confidence gives way, but I think it will work out OK with persistent effort.

Writing these pieces recently has been just one factor in my gradual re-engagement with studying the Dharma. I find I am reflecting on and refining what motivates and keeps me here within the Buddhist tradition. I was looking through 'Peace is a Fire' and 'Stream of Stars' to find a quote of Sangharakshita's I'd half remembered. In the past I've found some of his writing rather indigestible in book form. These little bits, bobs, and gobbets of wisdom really struck a chord. This time they seemed pertinent, perceptive and provocative in a way I don't remember experiencing before. Having not read Sangharakshita for a while I think I might be searching out a book or two to re-evaluate my connection with him.

Having decided to work Full Time at the Crematorium I find I am gradually relaxing, feeling happier and more content. The last eight months have felt like a pretty rough ride at times. Adjusting to working outside of Right Livelihood, learning to micro manage my finances and trying to find alternative work, meant I was living in a constant state of anxiety. In stopping for the time being looking for anything else,I'm finding all areas of my life are loosening up as a consequence.

For quite a while I've been going over the question of what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm beginning to realise that ,actually there isn't anything major I really must do career wise. At my age beginning a new career is not impossible, but would require determination and a clear idea of how this might happen. Neither of these do I feel I remotely have enough of, I don't think I care all that much. I've never been that ambitious, and find maintaining interest over the longer term a bit of a hard slog. I'm a bit of a gadfly in my interests and aspirations. If I have any ambition it is to be content. Yet I've had this bee in my bonnet for decades about there being something I must do with my life. It has a feeling behind it of panic, a desperate burning need to fulfill something in order to matter. As a gay man I'm unlikely to leave any offspring behind at my demise. Will I leave anything else behind to be remembered by? Is dieing in contented obscurity such a bad thing anyway? Can I be content with obscurity?

I am frequently at my most unhappiest when what I want from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness becomes entangled in irreconcilable and contradictory impulses. When I sit down and just start to simplify things my level of happiness and contentment rises. The simpler it is the better. So long as there is creativity ( writing & painting ), time with Friends, time with David,and time for the spiritual life what more could I want? I think I should stop asking 'what more should i do?' questions and just focus on enjoying what I am doing.

DIARY 14 - Am I Possessed, If So By What ?

It was only a casual conversation at work that started it all off. Working at the Crematorium we rarely know how the deceased died,endlessly we speculate. Sometimes the charity the donation box is dedicated too is an indication. Often the people in the office know more. My interest is always perked when a Coroner has been drawn in,or the deceased died young. In a very brief chat in the office I found out that one of the deceased had laid down on a railway line. My fellow Chapel Attendant heard the Humanist minister say he'd sustained severe head injuries. One of the women in the office said immediately, that's just short hand for meaning nothing was left of his head. There followed a conversation about how a person who commits suicide must never consider the effect their actions have on the Train Driver. One person piped up that she knew of one train driver who never worked again and ended up killing themselves on a train track too. This all struck us as a really perverse thing to do.


That brief chat has set my mind off. This week has been creatively a bit thin, apart from two pieces arising from this conversation. I've written a poem called 'Derailed' which is about a man with his head on the rails waiting for the train to arrive. This has been followed by a short monologue called 'The Train Driver's Statement' about how a suicide on the tracks affected him.

My writing over the last few years has kept returning to themes around death. This is well before working at the Crematorium by the way. If anything that also seems to have arisen out of the same impulse. Something is definitely trying to work itself through here. The Nick Cave obsession appears to have passed. I'm not reading about serial murderer's or the history of death practices anymore. It may be my age, time of life, a passing phase or I'm secretly possessed by a demon. Curiously no one else, including David, has yet noticed this. A demon could be cunning though. All sorts of clever ways to disguise his appearance, tuck the tail and mask the horns. You know, there are some days when I'm heartily glad I'm not a Christian. All that good angel, bad angel stuff can drag you down and affect your social life.

Strange the things that compel and motivate us. Perhaps it is best that we don't really ask too close a question. Stand back, observe it all as it is happening and get what you can from the journey.

SCREEN SHOT - Freedomland

Well, this film is a bit of a hotch-potch. From the opening jump edited title sequence one expected a very streetwise and stylish edgy thriller. This was misleading, for apart from two scenes later in the movie this style was completely missing from the rest of it. I believe this exemplifies the essential problem with the script and direction. It cannot make up it's mind what it is trying to do.

The story begins with a woman Brenda ( the inestimable Julianne Moore ) wandering with bloodied hands into a hospital. When the local good guy cop Lorenzo ( the ever reliable Samuel L Jackson ) appears, she tells him that her car was carjacked by a black man. Shortly Brenda reveals under pressure from Lorenzo that her young son was in the car. This sends everyone into a spin of hyperactivity and racial tension. As the movie progresses Brenda's testimony becomes increasingly suspect.... Themes of psychological trauma, racialism, police partiality and brutality and family dysfunction are flung around with reckless disregard for plot coherence.

If the movie just stuck with the psychology of its main characters, and kept it central, this would have been a great movie as opposed to an OK one. The script is perpetually throwing in more side stories and characters. With no time to be properly assimilated it leaves you confused. An unsatisfying feeling of having wandered into someone else's argument unprepared and issues being left unresolved, permeates the movie. For example there's Billy & Felicia's relationship, there's Lorenzo's imprisoned son, there's Lorenzo's relations with his white colleagues and the Police Force generally, there's the local black leader, Worst of all is Brenda's hot headed policeman brother Daniel. Who behaves erratically and violently,and is last see ten minutes from the end of the movie running off as if he's about to throttle someone, and is never seen again. This lack of focus is the result of a badly conceived script and means the movie leaks its compulsive energy.

The director,Joe Roth,has to take some of the flack for the flaws. I've already mentioned it's stylistic inconsistency. It also is appallingly lit ( read atmospheric ) and sound mixed. Soundtrack and dialogue seem to be constantly fighting for the fore ground. Important dialogue suddenly gets ramped up and the background music faded to grey and then back again. I understand the director Micheal Winterbottom began this film project and Roth picked it up when he ducked out. Not a good sign, but it might explain the stylistic schizophrenia.

The crowning glory of this movie is Moore and Jackson's performances. Without their superlative acting skills this movie would be dire. Unlike the dodgy 'The Forgotten', where Moore's believable psychological breakdown over the disappearance of her son, gets whisked away on the ludicrous whim of an alien abduction, her performance here has credibility and consistency. She is quite in her element when conveying deeply traumatic inner conflicts. Though we never get a sense of what she was like when she was less kooky and more normal. Likewise, Jackson's character has these internal dilemmas and symptoms which are never fully explained like his asthma and family background. Within the limitations of the script both have done what they can. As a result they lift this movie several notches higher than it really deserves.

MINOR RANT AS EPILOGUE

What is it with Special Features on DVD's? Generally they are so insubstantial as to be hardly worth there trumpeting it across the front of their cases. The worst aspects are the commentaries or making of the movie features. These fall into two camps. The first is a fawning luvvie fest, where director and actors fall over themselves to ensure they get more work. They can never imagine anyone else playing the part of the axe wielding masked murderer. The director is a genius, so sensitive and appreciative of the actors craft you'd have thought he'd helped them give birth to Jesus. The second camp, is where everyone knows this film is an out and out pile of poo, so all concerned rally round to justify its existence,defend this turkeys artistic credibility and fail dismally. We have just watched it after all, we know all too well.

On 'Freedomland' the writer justifies his script by saying he's lived most of his life in such districts, so understands what he's writing about. Not from the evidence before my eyes. Besides I'd have preferred not to see him, he's in his fifties, white, wrinkled and unshaven, with a fully tonsured head of luminous auburn hair. The set designer, talking about the setting for the black ghetto, said he'd chosen the area because it reminded him of an Escher drawing. I mean please! credit me with at least one brain cell to work with at least. Though maybe I've missed the point and these special features are really meant for geeks only.

The best Special Features I've seen recently were on the DVD for 'The Hours'. The luvviedom was kept to a minimum. All the movie making features genuinely helped you understand the creative choices made and the background to the subject matter of the script. The Director of that movie was Stephen Daldry, a highly experienced English Theatre Director. Perhaps I'm just repulsed by American sentimentality and their slushy sense of what is 'meaningful and profound'.

DIARY 13 - DHARMA, DRIVING AND DAVID MEETS MY PARENTS

I’ve been off work for the last ten days taking a well earned break. I’ve spent most of that time doing exactly what I wanted, which has been mostly writing. I’ve been working on a Dharma essay entitled ‘The cold in my bones’ which draws on a single sentence discourse by Dogen which goes as follows :-

“If this greatest cold does not penetrate into our bones, how will the fragrance of the plum blossoms pervade the entire universe?”’

I’ve found this an absorbing task, through exploring my own responses and analysis. It’s main theme is the necessity to reflect deeply and consistently on impermanence. For me it has raised issues of what effective practice is, particularly for a 21st century Western Buddhist. As is usual with my longer written pieces I coasted two thirds of the way through and then I hit a sandbank. I am beginning to learn that that is when real graft is required. I just need to keep writing regardless of quality and coherence. Eventually enough of it makes sense that I can precis, edit and polish the results As it currently stands its about 5,500 words long. Today, I’ve started refining a couple of earlier essays on Dogen discourses, one called ‘Binding oneself without a rope’ and the other ‘Enter the grass and transmit the wind’. This writing, and the study I’m doing with Paco, is helping me to re-engage with the Dharma in my own way, after the last few years when all interest had seemed to desert me. So far I’ve not shown anyone my Dharma writing, though I think I might be getting ready to break that silence soon. I have an idea that these essays could constitute a little book one day, who knows !

Another achievement was driving David and myself up north to see my parents. I’ve never driven such a long distance before, particularly not on motorways. Newly serviced, the car ran very smoothly. I realise, to my shame, how neglectful I am of it so longs as it starts and runs at all. I could give it a bit more care and attention than I do. I’ve never been that interested in cars, so I guess its asking a lot to manufacture one now. Travelling up there went OK. With three breaks for coffees and breakfast I was pretty brain dead by the time we reached my parents house. Coming back Sunday night in persistent drizzly rain, was also a challenge, but perhaps was not quite as dreadful as I’d imagined beforehand. It did demanded a lot of concentration and I wouldn’t like to repeat such a journey too soon. I prefer train travel, at least you arrive relatively relaxed and rested.

The main event of the weekend was David meeting my parents for the first time. It was also the first time I’d taken any boyfriend home. Though I had a restless night beforehand, I was quite relaxed about it all on the day. I think all that driving absorbed any nervous energy. David understandable was quite apprehensive. I think it went fine. David is such a easy likeable man, I didn’t see how my family wouldn’t warm to him. He seemed to enjoy himself, though I think he’d had enough socialising by the time we left on Sunday evening. My Parents, Sister, Brother in Law and Nieces were all pretty much as they usually are. No one appeared to be nervous or self conscious. My Mother was good natured and as lively a talker as ever. David was worried that there might be lots of embarrassed silences where no one knew what to say, but then he’s not met my Mum before.

It’s been interesting to ask David how he saw my family. I’m so used to them and obviously have a rather set way of viewing their behaviour. As usual, I got into a bit of a pissed off downer after a day of my Mother’s incessant blathering. I just found it draining to be forced to listen all the time and not be engaged in normal conversational dialogue. This is a very old frustration which I tire of hearing myself intone justifications for. I really should have grown bigger than it by now. It would, however, seem I have not.

David said he found my Mum very positive, bright and engaging, much like I can be when I’m at my best, Owch, bulls eye !!! Other things he noticed were particular expressions and habits which my Mum and I share, and a laugh that my Dad has, which is similar to one of mine. He also noticed the time when I asked my Dad a direct question and my Mum answered for him, one of her habits I sincerely hope I haven’t copied. Still it is all very useful to hear this because it gives me another perspective to view them from. It also highlights how much I anticipate situations and overreact ,such as to my Mum’s talking. It’s all very salutary and sobering like other words beginning with S such as sibling.

QUOTATION MARKS No 5

Freedom is being content to be where you are.
Prison is wanting to be somewhere else.
The Free World is the world experienced
by one who is content.
The real freedom is freedom from desire,
never freedom of desire

AJAHN BRAHM