Getting Sucked In

I recently finished "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini and cried my eyes out throughout the entire thing. I was warned it was sad (but good), but that did not prepare Nigel for a quiet evening on his computer and me curled up on a couch reading and weeping. He looked at me and in his usual dry humour told me to "stop it!" Of course I couldn't which fueled his next question, "why do you do this to yourself?" It brought back a funny story we often tell when we were on a plane between Canada and the UK. I was watching a light Disney movie and Nigel was busy reading or listening to his iPod. The movie's plot had been about a young family whose father had died, but had come back to help his grieving child through a last task. I again, was crying my eyes out, but desperately trying to be as silent as possible, knowing I was on a packed plane. Nigel at one point must have glanced over or heard a sniff and, nudging me, gave me a look that said, "why are you crying?" In my not-realizing-how-loud-my-voice-is-with-earphones-on I sobbed loudly, "the dad died and now his ghost has come back to help." Nigel rolled his eyes, "isn't this a Disney movie?"

UN Women

When I was in Liberia I was fascinated each time I passed the parliament building in the capital city, Monrovia, where I lived. I really liked that Liberia had the first female president in Africa, Ellen Johnston Sirleaf, who was transforming the country. I was even more fascinated with who was guarding the building. It is well known in the area that the best body guards come from Nigeria, and the president herself makes use of them. But to guard the presidential building she chose the only all female UN unit in the world: the Indian Women's Unit. I have to admit that of all the UN country units left in Liberia (the western countries pulled out much earlier perhaps due to lack of media in the area) these women appear the most attentive and fierce. I found this very attractive and was fascinated that such a unit derived from what I considered a very traditional culture. From what I can understand, some of the other UN units from similar West African countries took advantage of their position and there were reported cases of abuse of power involving peacekeepers and Liberian women. To nip it in the butt, President Sirleaf had the women brought in. On an official visit that some of the higher ranking ship members made to see the president, I hitched along and hung out outside with these women. They were shy and giggly, but loved to chat. They told me they were career soldiers who had committed to the Liberia post for 6 months. While there, they either lived in their army base or they were on duty. All of them had husbands, families and children and immediately brought out pictures to proudly show me. When asked if they felt their families were missing them and unable to cope without their mother, I was met with confusion. It became evidently clear that in a culture with extended families all under one roof they were more free to easily go off on a tour of duty. Besides, they said, they all loved getting away and being somewhere completely different. BBC links on these women: Indian Women to Keep Liberia Peace Liberia gets All-Female Peacekeeping Force All Female UN Squad a Success

The Other Non-Fiction I Would Like to Read

Spent by Frank Lipman, M.D. I came across an article in a magazine for this book and it sounded fascinating. I hear he is on YouTube too. It is a book inspired by noticing a trend among his female patients of feeling tired after 8 hours sleep, craving sugar after meals, feeling exhausted, struggling to lose weight and concentrate: in short, spent. He noticed that his poorer patients when he had worked in South Africa had more energy than the affluent "sushi-eating, treadmill-pounding Manhattanities". He points out some reasons why. His old patients lived in accordance with nature and their DNA. They woke when it got dark and ate foods that were in season. He has some interesting eating suggestions, which I won't get into here, but what I liked was his "electronic sundown". He says, "electricity is burning us out. Dalily exposure to computers and mobiles overstimulates us and ruins our sleep. I tell my clients to have an electronic sundown at 10pm, and turn off everything electrical." This includes emailing, TV, texting and exposure to electromagnetic fields (which too close to bedtime stops melatonin, the sleep hormone). "And don't charge your mobile on your bedside table - the signal it gives off also interferes with restorative sleep." -Article by Maria Lally, Grazia Magazine

A Non-Fiction I would like to Read

Resilience by Boris Cyrulnik. "A household name [and psychoanalyst] in France, Cyrulnik is revered for his work on over-coming childhood trauma and helping heal the wounds left on the country by the second world war." [He himself is Jewish and is the only surviving member of his family during the Holocaust.] "'When I became a doctor, I was very personally hurt when I would hear people say of a child: 'No point in bothering with him. He is lost.' Knowing what I had gone through,' he taps his chest passionately, 'it felt like a condemnation.'" "He is fascinated by the paradox of wealth, especially in the consumerist west: the richer a society becomes, the more unhappy its people. 'It is not easy to have a family life in a rich country. Wealth fragments family life because people can travel in a way they can't in poor countries. Poverty is a barrier to many things, but it gives solidarity to family life. In modern life, the personality can flower, but we hold our families less dear.'" Viv Groskop, "Escape from the Past", The Guardian, April 18, 2009

The Human Right

I finally sat down for 3 days to Photoshop and upload "The Human Right" series of portraits that I completed in Liberia and exhibited in both Monrovia (Liberia) and Vancouver (Canada). Click on the photo for the link... "Alfred", 2008, oil & conte on drafting film, 46 x 61 cm (18"x24") Caption: Alfred abruptly stated he believed all white people come to Africa to take pictures of the poor black Africans. At 14 years old he has more insight than most.

My Dream

I dream vividly, I dream a lot and I usually remember what I dream. Some are profound, some recurrent, some adventurous and fantastical. Their mood usually sticks with me for a long time throughout a morning. The night before last there was one moment that I kept thinking about in the morning. It was the 19th century and after a whole series of adventures I sat down with Nigel who was working on experiments in clinically putting someone to death and then reviving them using the anaesthetics of that time. He asked me to be his subject along with another doctor and patient. He said I could trust him. I sat in the chair while he reassured me everything would be okay. He would initially give me ether to relax and take me into a semi-unconscious state followed by lethal injections to stop my body from living. It wouldn't hurt and it wouldn't last longer than a moment. I remember I trusted him with my life implicitly. He put the ether soaked cloth close to my nose and I began smelling the fumes and drowsing off a bit. I closed my eyes. Then he injected two needles into the gums in my mouth and I waited to feel death come as he rubbed my arm and reassured me. I opened my eyes for one last look at him before I died and saw that he was crying uncontrollably. I imagined he was thinking about what it might be like if I really was dying. I felt my veins burn a bit as the serum travelled around my body and my breathing slowly stopped as I drifted backwards down a long dark space. I waited to suddenly be brought forward towards the light and see him immediately, but I kept moving backwards into the darkness. Something had gone wrong. I wasn't going back. I wasn't breathing. I was dead. Then slowly I felt a little bit of a breath catch in my chest and my blood moved again. I felt transformed through another tunnel but in a different direction and a different time. I slowly became aware of where I was as my breathing steadied and I slowly awoke. I was in present day real life lying next to the present day Nigel. I was both relieved and grateful to be alive and still with Nigel, but also grieved for the Nigel that was left in the last century, with what I knew was a dead wife.

I am Stuck on Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle has taken the Internet world by storm and everyone wants her to succeed. I can not stop watching her performance and find myself equally endeared to her character, her sense of humour, her authenticity, and her lovableness. Lisa Schwarzbaum asked in her article, "why do we all cry when we listen to Ms. Boyle?" She does reorder the popular world's view of beauty, transforming from quirky and loveable to stunning when she sings. The rest of what we focus on becomes irrelevant: the latest fashions, the celebrity culture we are all mesmerised with, and the self-packaging we all present to be accepted. She is not a trained singer, has not been moving in the right circles, has not bought into the "steps for success" that seem so essential when working towards an arts career. She has simply been caring for her aged mother who died two years ago at 91, singing only in Karaoke and her church. I am encouraged for the world of arts. I am weary with the theory that unquestionably goes along with being a visual artist. The discourse is exhausting and rarely feels authentic or humble. It is easy to get discouraged when focusing on it and this performance and person suddenly make it as irrelevant as I hoped it was. Many viewers have commented on a higher Universe that has given Ms. Boyle her talent. When I hear such raw beauty I don't doubt for a minute that the Creator of the Universe especially gave that talent to her. In this raw and unpackaged individual, we stare into the face of God's beauty when she sings and something unjust is made just. That is why I believe we are all inexplicably moved to tears. So forget the celebrity gossip. Forget trying to make the perfect career move. Do what you love to do to the best of your abilities. I ask myself, "what would I paint if no one else was ever going to see it?" Susan Boyle hit me somewhere deep. Our celebrity culture is suddenly exposed as irrelevant, distasteful, and complete false. I am left remembering that the real in us is the most beautiful, warts and all.

Susan Boyle

There are some things that I see or hear that bring tears to my eyes: the underdog rising to the top. I suspect Susan Boyle is exactly what the world needs...just as she is. Lisa Schwarzbaum writes for Popwatch: "I'm pondering why the experience of watching and listening to Ms. Boyle makes so many viewers cry, me among them. And I think I've got a simple answer, at least for me: In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging -- the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts -- the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective from time to time." Click here to hear Susan Boyle singing Les Miserables on Britain's Got Talent.

London Property

Looking around at property in London is pretty crazy. In the picture below, for instance, I thought I was looking at the kitchen at first glance not the back yard.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

"I will admit there were details which annoyed me. The ease with which they parted with money, for example, thinking nothing of the occasional - but not altogether infrequent - meal costing perhaps fifty dollars a head. Or their self-righteousness in dealing with those whom they had paid for a service. "But you told us, " they would say to Greeks twice their age, before insisting things be done their way. I, with my finite and depleting reserve of cash and my traditional sense of deference to one's seniors, found myself wondering by what quirk of human history my companions - many of whom I would have regarded as upstarts in my own country, so devoid of refinement were they - were in a position to conduct themselves in the world as though they were its ruling class." The Reluctant Fundamentalist - by Mohsin Hamid (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007)

Our New Flat in London

We have moved to the grand city of London and have rented an excellent furnished character flat. These pictures are from before our stuff arrived, looking a little bare. The entrance hallway. The main door is to the right of the white chair. Our washroom which sports a sky light and a window out into the hallway (very high up). Our cozy kitchen which has been great to cook in. The main hallway again this time looking towards the washroom. One of the bedrooms. The guestroom. The guestroom again. You can see how spacious it is from this picture. It double as our office. Our dining room and living room. And looking the other way towards just the living room. It is brighter than the pictures make it appear. The backyard that is used by the ground level flat. We have a large park not so far away. The view from our living room window across the street. The view looking down our road. There are shops a block away. The view looking up our road going towards the park.

Bow Arts Trust

We finally got our Internet hooked up and I can blog again. Yay! It turns out my ancient Apple laptop is no competition for Nigel's ancient PC when it comes to filching free Internet from neighbours who forget to put a password. He merrily enjoyed Internet 90 percent of the time while I might have got the same connection 20 percent of the time. I still like my Apple. I took possession of my new studio in Bow (London's East End) where all the arts and artists are concentrated. It is an old nunnery that consists of two buildings side by side. The other has an inner courtyard while ours houses the gallery called "The Nunnery". The studio is in Bow Arts Trust which is an established Education Arts Charity allowing heavily subsidised rent for artists. I viewed 5 vacant studios alongside 5 other artists. I fell in love with this one, which was actually still too expensive for my budget. Luckily two others in the same positions also fell in love with it. We 3 are sharing the space. The large window looks our onto a little park which runs into another little park on the other side of the far wall. This is the wall I proudly fixed. There was a shabby panelled wall under the one above. I covered it, extended it higher and have since plastered and painted. Our workspace.

Lodgemoor Flat for Sale (Sheffield), £185,000

We have put our Sheffield home on the market. It is a great place on the edge of the Peak District and a 20 minute bus ride to town from right outside our door. A spacious, bright and extremely quiet two double bedroomed first floor apartment, occupying an enviable position on this popular and quiet residential development, which enjoys an excellent uninterrupted aspect over the nearby open countryside. Beautifully presented throughout and being well placed for the local public transport network providing links to Broomhill and Sheffield city centre. Fully warranting an internal inspection to appreciate the overall size and standard of accommodation on offer which has a light and airy feel, and briefly comprises communal entrance, grand hallway, excellent open plan dining kitchen, living room with superb views, master bedroom with en-suite shower room. Double bedroom two and bathroom. Outside: allocation off street parking. For a MAP click here. Looking up from the bus stop. It is nestled on a green and well maintained estate. This is the view from our window in the late winter. It is a great view of the surrounding hills and a very green area in the spring and summer. The floor plan shows the thick stone outer walls and the large hallway. Our favourite room for entertaining and cooking at the same time. Great views of the open countryside. The windowsills are deep and a great place to grow plants or curl up with a good book. The dining room. The master bedroom was hard to get a shot that really showed how big it is. It has both east and south facing windows. Another shot of the master bedroom. The en suite with shower. The living room with great views over the countryside. Living room view 2. Our second double bedroom/office. This is also quite spacious, but hard to get a good angle for a photo. The large hallway. One really has to see it to appreciate it. The second bathroom. Our view. For our PICTURES of the area click on the following: Winter in Lodgemoor Winter Storms in Lodgemoor Summer in Lodgemoor Stanage Edge Stanage Edge Ramble in Autumn Contact: michal@michal.ca History: Lodgemoor Hospital for infectious diseases used to occupy this site, but was sold off this decade and converted into a housing estate. The only original buildings on the premises are the clock tower and the old nurses quarters (which has been converted to our flat), hence the 3 foot thick stone walls. Surrounding Area: It is a hike or short drive to Stanage Edge, the famous cliffs that climbers love and were used in the most recent Pride and Prejudice movie with Keira Knightly. There are a myriad of foot paths and on 3 sides of the estate are open country side and farms. Great for kids with horses, cows, sheep, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, and some sort of small, long, furry red things that scurries under the bushes. Close Shopping: Lodgemoor shops are a short walk away (grocer, pharmacist, newsagent, hairdresser, post office) Broomhill and Crosspool are a short bus ride away. Transport: Bus 51 leaves from right outside your door every 10 minutes.