Just Blue

Deep Blue

This is a Photograph of Me

by Margaret Atwood

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

Work Woes

It's late. I should be sleeping but work is on my mind. I hate getting frustrated and upset by something at work, but nevertheless I am.

I keep telling myself that work is just that - a job. Go there, do the best I can, come home, get paid. But it's not that easy. I want to be appreciated, valued. I want to have input at the strategic levels.

But I just can't play politics. I have never been able to. And I never will. I don't understand how it's done, and I am not interested in doing it. I'm professional, I'm exceptionally good at what I do, I accomplish things. Projects that I'm involved in are much better for me being there, and the end product is of higher quality than if I wasn't involved.

But... I'm not willing to play power games or politics when I'm sidelined (or, more accurately, to avoid being sidelined).

This causes me a real dilemma because I realise that I've reached a stage in my "career" (if you can call it that) where I have to play politics to get any further, or even just to accomplish some of the things I want to do my way.

And to be honest, I just can't be bothered.

So now, I'm thinking, what should I do? Do I stay where I am until... when? Until I retire? That's 25 years away. Do I move on to another job similar or higher up (where no doubt I still have to play politics)? Do I say what the fuck, and pack it all in, and be a stay at home mum (not an option, I suspect). Do I get a part-time, low-stress job that pays shit and spend more time with my kids? Do I make a career change and do something completely different?

I've been gliding for awhile now, avoiding these questions. But recent issues at work have really forced me to think seriously about this.

Sometimes I feel just like that Margaret Atwood poem - submerged, invisible, inconsequential. Sometimes I think the only time I don't feel stressed is when I'm out alone with my camera, shooting pictures.

Joshua and his Grandad

Alternative Therapies

My upper back has been a mess lately. When I'm stressed, the back muscles along my shoulders and neck contract and do not release. The result is tightness, tension, headaches.

So, on Friday, I spent an hour and a half on a massage table. If you've never had a professional massage before, I highly recommend that you treat yourself.

All I can say is, there is nothing quite like it. It's almost as good as sex. Okay, not quite, but it's up there with all those things that make life worth living. And when you come out of a really long and really good massage, it is like having had really good sex. You feel drained and relaxed and completely at one with your body.

My massage therapist also did some kinesiology with me. He tried to explain it to me, but even after he demonstrated it on me, I didn't quite get it. It has to do with energy and muscles. It's all about balancing the energy flows. Still, he did some things that made me think, man, how did he do that?

I know that scientists claim that these sorts of alternative therapies have no grounding, but I like to keep an open mind about them, especially after my experience with homeopathy.

Scientists try to debunk homeopathy, but I know that homeopathy worked for me. Within three months, my homeopathist cured me of painful and recurrent urinary tract infections, something that the medical doctors had been unable to achieve in the previous 15 years. I had been subjected to all manner of tests and invasions, but nothing was found to be wrong with me, and the only solution that medical science could offer me was antibiotics, which I was on almost monthly.

But three months of a homeopathic medicine, and my infection cleared, and has stayed away to this very day, more than a decade later.

I'm still not sure about kinesiology, though. It seems a little "out there". I'd have to feel some real results. Although having said that, I've had acupuncture before, which is also based on meridians in the body, and that seemed to work.

Friday I go back for another massage, and there's no doubt in my mind about that therapy. It works wonders.