'Carry a heart that never hates, a smile that never fades and a touch that never hurts'.
Once again, since I last wrote, a million things have happened!
People have often asked me: "Haldita, where do you get your energy?" And I have had many answers, until recently, I realised... It's "From LOVE".
Last Sunday was dinner at Aisha's. She had asked me to go early and give her instructions on how to make the only thing I can still cook, and even that is once in a blue moon for my parties: my grandma's aubergine soufflé. There was a feast of colourful dishes set on the table for dinner, of which the soufflé was just one. My post-operation diet did not allow for much variety, but the non-fried dishes I could have were as exquisite as the ones I could not and as delicious as the company surrounding the dinner table.
Next came a meeting with Sirena, who had agreed to join me in my new venture, a new business idea. So far, all the ideas to start working again since my separation have failed. In a way, like all the men I have met, but not as many. A test of time and timing. Going through a kind of excruciating pain mentally, as well as physically, could leave one at a loss; a loss of remembering why we are here and how to move on, not to mention how to make the changes necessary to get out of one's dismal situation. It took me three years of therapy and workshops to realise that unless I made the changes needed, life would continue to be the same: unhappy. In complex relationships, instead of thinking, 'How can I get out of this troubled state?', one tends to get wrapped up in a shield of negative thoughts, and it takes courage and know-how to get out. The state of unhappiness will reach a time when you cannot take the pain any longer, till it becomes torturous, and only then comes the time when you will reach out for an answer and a way out. Those times, as far away as they seem, were the best thing that could have happened in my life. The lessons I learned because of it, have made me throw myself into a time of self-discovery and I have learned to love myself and everyone around me; even those who may have hurt or upset me. All this to say, the situation of no work and not having a man in my life is not due to a lack of jobs or men but the fact that I would not settle for anything less than I deserve. A fulfilling job and a man... Who knows about that one?!
On Tuesday, Ernest asked if I would join him at Tate Britain to see the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition: Victorian Avant-Garde. That French word throws shivers down my spine; the sound of it brings about a 'je ne sais quoi' of coolness. PRB: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed, and in 1849, a group of seven heartfelt, passionate English painters, poets, and critics burst into the art scene of their era. Their ideas, which mocked tradition, were considered crude and primitive. The contrast between colours, art inspired by music, a new concise and precise approach to nature and love of Shakespearean subject matters made it all a perfect example of Aestheticism and Romanticism.
In 'The Order of Release' 1746 by John Everett Millais 1852-1853, the woman stands strong with a child in hand, giving a release paper to have her husband leaning on her shoulder discharged.
In 'Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus' 1851, from Shakespeare's last scene in 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', William Holman Hunt's detailed autumn leaves show the favoured white paint on the faces, hands as well as the garments replace the darkness. It also portrayed intimate relationships and affairs ending in tragedy, non-traditional.
In The Awakening Conscience by Hunt, a mistress rises from her lover's lap, stricken with the realisation of a life misspent, her memory stirred by the music. A beam of light shines through the window to save her. A moment of truth is experienced, with the scene of a sunlit garden behind. Her conscience is awakened; she has been leading a false life. Now, a revelation.
It amused me to see so much emphasis put on the woman's guilt while the lust and the begging eyes of the man, sitting with his mouth half open, go without mention! Then, think, how much has the world changed in time?
Going around room after room was delightful, looking at the paintings in depth and discussing our points of view on the ones that caught our attention with Ernest. The handle on the minutes and hours had passed as a breeze swept us from one hall to another.
Tuesday dinner at Lady Saba's, with the presence of her good old friend Iris, was a bundle of fun. The ladies were telling me stories of their past with celebrities and travel with their gay friends all those years ago. Always a delight.
There were more lunches and dinners till Thursday evening arrived. I felt well rested, and the time had come... to hit town. By the time I was ready, Aisha texted me to meet her and Kristel at Nozomi's bar, where the DJ was playing great tunes, and we mingled amongst the friends already there; it was a wonderful surprise to see Al again on his visit.
By 1:30am, everyone was ready to leave, but it was my first night out (correctly), and Aisha took me to the new Loulou Club opened by one of the partners in Anabel's. Needless to say, in London's posh Mayfair. The decoration was homely and elegant, with a mixture of colour and texture, and the number of rooms we visited, primarily empty by that time of night, was overwhelming. It was like a large house with many living rooms, but the atmosphere seemed cold. We ended up chatting to two chaps in the covered smoking area and managed to scare one of the boys off while the other, Wills, joined us for a nightcap and plenty more laughter, trying to figure out the British way of living. This membership status is the need to belong to a club and mix with the same people.
We each headed home in the early hours of the morning.
Friday was a day of rest, but when the night came, the meeting was at 8over8 with an old friend from boarding school, Paloma and her cousin, and a ladies' early dinner. After the girls left, I drove to Lawrence's house party in Mayfair, where I got to meet many great boys and a couple of lovely ladies. Fab GG party (Girls and Gays). I am following the doctor's exact orders of a limited diet, no exercise and no sex! No good.
Then came Saturday, Battle Abbey revisited (my old boarding school), which used to be strictly a girls' school when I attended but is now mixed. Something extraordinary happened to me on that day. It was a beautifully sunny day when I got to Battle after a pleasant one-and-a-half-hour train journey passing through the lush green English countryside. Although those rides back to school were cold and dreary in those days, I could only feel the warmth of the sunshine coming through the window of the almost empty wagon.
Once there, the taxi was waiting outside to take me back to my memory lane from all those decades ago. We walked around the not-so-changed building where King Harold resided in the past and us years later. And what a name for a boarding school, Battle Abbey. It was indeed where the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066 while we went through our own Battle of survival in an environment so far from home. Coming to a foreign school to board was not easy; we were away from all the luxuries life could offer, the lack of love from our family, and, significantly, the language skills. But the discipline we were taught was a lesson that helped us throughout life.
My best grade of A came for posture! As in how we walked, sticking our heads up as though we were walking with a book on our heads, table manners, and generally being on good behaviour. I found some girls standing outside, behind the science lab, smoking a cigarette in hiding. That made us all laugh. We were still at school.
When my friends in London texted about meeting up for lunch, I wrote in reply:
'I'm in Battle today'. Confusing them slightly in thinking, what am I talking about?
At lunch in the vast library, where the shelves with old books were half empty and the rest filled with new paperbacks, I bumped into Kim, who had befriended me years after separating. We had become inseparable and were like close friends who would tell each other everything, but our friendship had turned sour over time. I am not even going to begin to get into the gossip of who said what or who was right or wrong, as I told her on the train journey back:
"You know Kim, shit happens in life. We drifted apart, and as grown-ups, it's silly to say you did this, I said that, etc. That's for three-year-olds to bicker about, and if we do, then aren't we ever gonna grow up?!"
She gladly agreed with me, and we parted in London with a hug and a smile.
Resolve whatever issue you have with anyone, or it will hunt you in the next life, and let's face it, we could die at any moment in time. Life really ain't worth the hassle. Let bygones be bygones.
Once again, since I last wrote, a million things have happened!
People have often asked me: "Haldita, where do you get your energy?" And I have had many answers, until recently, I realised... It's "From LOVE".
Last Sunday was dinner at Aisha's. She had asked me to go early and give her instructions on how to make the only thing I can still cook, and even that is once in a blue moon for my parties: my grandma's aubergine soufflé. There was a feast of colourful dishes set on the table for dinner, of which the soufflé was just one. My post-operation diet did not allow for much variety, but the non-fried dishes I could have were as exquisite as the ones I could not and as delicious as the company surrounding the dinner table.
Next came a meeting with Sirena, who had agreed to join me in my new venture, a new business idea. So far, all the ideas to start working again since my separation have failed. In a way, like all the men I have met, but not as many. A test of time and timing. Going through a kind of excruciating pain mentally, as well as physically, could leave one at a loss; a loss of remembering why we are here and how to move on, not to mention how to make the changes necessary to get out of one's dismal situation. It took me three years of therapy and workshops to realise that unless I made the changes needed, life would continue to be the same: unhappy. In complex relationships, instead of thinking, 'How can I get out of this troubled state?', one tends to get wrapped up in a shield of negative thoughts, and it takes courage and know-how to get out. The state of unhappiness will reach a time when you cannot take the pain any longer, till it becomes torturous, and only then comes the time when you will reach out for an answer and a way out. Those times, as far away as they seem, were the best thing that could have happened in my life. The lessons I learned because of it, have made me throw myself into a time of self-discovery and I have learned to love myself and everyone around me; even those who may have hurt or upset me. All this to say, the situation of no work and not having a man in my life is not due to a lack of jobs or men but the fact that I would not settle for anything less than I deserve. A fulfilling job and a man... Who knows about that one?!
On Tuesday, Ernest asked if I would join him at Tate Britain to see the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition: Victorian Avant-Garde. That French word throws shivers down my spine; the sound of it brings about a 'je ne sais quoi' of coolness. PRB: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed, and in 1849, a group of seven heartfelt, passionate English painters, poets, and critics burst into the art scene of their era. Their ideas, which mocked tradition, were considered crude and primitive. The contrast between colours, art inspired by music, a new concise and precise approach to nature and love of Shakespearean subject matters made it all a perfect example of Aestheticism and Romanticism.
In 'The Order of Release' 1746 by John Everett Millais 1852-1853, the woman stands strong with a child in hand, giving a release paper to have her husband leaning on her shoulder discharged.
In 'Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus' 1851, from Shakespeare's last scene in 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', William Holman Hunt's detailed autumn leaves show the favoured white paint on the faces, hands as well as the garments replace the darkness. It also portrayed intimate relationships and affairs ending in tragedy, non-traditional.
In The Awakening Conscience by Hunt, a mistress rises from her lover's lap, stricken with the realisation of a life misspent, her memory stirred by the music. A beam of light shines through the window to save her. A moment of truth is experienced, with the scene of a sunlit garden behind. Her conscience is awakened; she has been leading a false life. Now, a revelation.
It amused me to see so much emphasis put on the woman's guilt while the lust and the begging eyes of the man, sitting with his mouth half open, go without mention! Then, think, how much has the world changed in time?
Going around room after room was delightful, looking at the paintings in depth and discussing our points of view on the ones that caught our attention with Ernest. The handle on the minutes and hours had passed as a breeze swept us from one hall to another.
 | |
| Tate Britain - Pre-Raphaelites |
There were more lunches and dinners till Thursday evening arrived. I felt well rested, and the time had come... to hit town. By the time I was ready, Aisha texted me to meet her and Kristel at Nozomi's bar, where the DJ was playing great tunes, and we mingled amongst the friends already there; it was a wonderful surprise to see Al again on his visit.
By 1:30am, everyone was ready to leave, but it was my first night out (correctly), and Aisha took me to the new Loulou Club opened by one of the partners in Anabel's. Needless to say, in London's posh Mayfair. The decoration was homely and elegant, with a mixture of colour and texture, and the number of rooms we visited, primarily empty by that time of night, was overwhelming. It was like a large house with many living rooms, but the atmosphere seemed cold. We ended up chatting to two chaps in the covered smoking area and managed to scare one of the boys off while the other, Wills, joined us for a nightcap and plenty more laughter, trying to figure out the British way of living. This membership status is the need to belong to a club and mix with the same people.
We each headed home in the early hours of the morning.
Friday was a day of rest, but when the night came, the meeting was at 8over8 with an old friend from boarding school, Paloma and her cousin, and a ladies' early dinner. After the girls left, I drove to Lawrence's house party in Mayfair, where I got to meet many great boys and a couple of lovely ladies. Fab GG party (Girls and Gays). I am following the doctor's exact orders of a limited diet, no exercise and no sex! No good.
Then came Saturday, Battle Abbey revisited (my old boarding school), which used to be strictly a girls' school when I attended but is now mixed. Something extraordinary happened to me on that day. It was a beautifully sunny day when I got to Battle after a pleasant one-and-a-half-hour train journey passing through the lush green English countryside. Although those rides back to school were cold and dreary in those days, I could only feel the warmth of the sunshine coming through the window of the almost empty wagon.
Once there, the taxi was waiting outside to take me back to my memory lane from all those decades ago. We walked around the not-so-changed building where King Harold resided in the past and us years later. And what a name for a boarding school, Battle Abbey. It was indeed where the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066 while we went through our own Battle of survival in an environment so far from home. Coming to a foreign school to board was not easy; we were away from all the luxuries life could offer, the lack of love from our family, and, significantly, the language skills. But the discipline we were taught was a lesson that helped us throughout life.
My best grade of A came for posture! As in how we walked, sticking our heads up as though we were walking with a book on our heads, table manners, and generally being on good behaviour. I found some girls standing outside, behind the science lab, smoking a cigarette in hiding. That made us all laugh. We were still at school.
When my friends in London texted about meeting up for lunch, I wrote in reply:
'I'm in Battle today'. Confusing them slightly in thinking, what am I talking about?
At lunch in the vast library, where the shelves with old books were half empty and the rest filled with new paperbacks, I bumped into Kim, who had befriended me years after separating. We had become inseparable and were like close friends who would tell each other everything, but our friendship had turned sour over time. I am not even going to begin to get into the gossip of who said what or who was right or wrong, as I told her on the train journey back:
"You know Kim, shit happens in life. We drifted apart, and as grown-ups, it's silly to say you did this, I said that, etc. That's for three-year-olds to bicker about, and if we do, then aren't we ever gonna grow up?!"
She gladly agreed with me, and we parted in London with a hug and a smile.
Resolve whatever issue you have with anyone, or it will hunt you in the next life, and let's face it, we could die at any moment in time. Life really ain't worth the hassle. Let bygones be bygones.
 |
| Battle Abbey School |
 |
| The Walls surrounding the Grounds |
I actually got home that Saturday afternoon and fell asleep for two hours. Woke up at 20:30 to realise I was late for Jane's birthday party at her home, so pulled myself together and managed to get to the party at my usually fashionably late hour of 22:00. A whole band of musicians was playing various instruments from all over the world, and there was a wonderfully jolly atmosphere in the air. I met a charming artist with whom I had a good long chat whilst sharing a joint. Lola arrived when most guests left and kept me there till 4:00am. At which time, I said goodbye and drove towards Fire in Vauxhall, a club I had not been to before and, as it happened, although Sirena had my name at the door, they said 4:30am was too late to enter and that the guestlist had been closed. I could have probably got my way in, as I was definitely too smartly dressed in my latest NYC look of black leather and fabric trouser suit with a Hermes scarf tied as a bow around my neck but could not be bothered so politely said thank you and drove down to my favourite night spot in the world; fabric. Always think of Plan B.
Instead, I was greeted in the usual super-friendly way that the staff always greeted me: home at last. I was lucky to find Judes as I went to Room One's DJ booth and followed her the whole night from one room to the next, hanging out with DJ Cari Lekebusch, who was refreshingly open-minded and such a delight to talk to, and his friend Florine who was an absolute sweetheart. Plus, everyone else who helps make my nights in this club so memorable. Well, the memory part can be questionable at times! Haha. You may have to be a clubber to get my meaning.
Judes looked at me a couple of times, dancing in the DJ booth in wonder, laughing and saying:
"Look at you. I can't believe you had a gall bladder removed three weeks ago, and you're looking so well for it! Incredible."
We always have a good laugh together. Her text the following day was so touching I had tears in my eyes. What a woman! She called me 'one of the wonders of the world'! Ha-ha.
I stayed at the club for the afterparty, so when I got out at 10:30am on Sunday, the sun shone bright, and the air was filled with love. Yes. More love. As I drove home in the traffic, the roads were closed because of a marathon now underway. Shoot. It hit me that my girl was running half a marathon in aid of a charity, and I had to go and support her around midday at the finish line. A mother has her duties, even a Party Mum. And so I got home, changed into a tracksuit, and was re-routed to Hyde Park. Only got to bed at 4:00pm! But then, I slept for fourteen glorious hours.
Speaking of bed, it's late. Next week is the report of a week of 'Art in London'.
I would like to leave you with the thought...
Stop trying to control the uncontrollable.
Make Love... Not War.
Instead, I was greeted in the usual super-friendly way that the staff always greeted me: home at last. I was lucky to find Judes as I went to Room One's DJ booth and followed her the whole night from one room to the next, hanging out with DJ Cari Lekebusch, who was refreshingly open-minded and such a delight to talk to, and his friend Florine who was an absolute sweetheart. Plus, everyone else who helps make my nights in this club so memorable. Well, the memory part can be questionable at times! Haha. You may have to be a clubber to get my meaning.
Judes looked at me a couple of times, dancing in the DJ booth in wonder, laughing and saying:
"Look at you. I can't believe you had a gall bladder removed three weeks ago, and you're looking so well for it! Incredible."
We always have a good laugh together. Her text the following day was so touching I had tears in my eyes. What a woman! She called me 'one of the wonders of the world'! Ha-ha.
I stayed at the club for the afterparty, so when I got out at 10:30am on Sunday, the sun shone bright, and the air was filled with love. Yes. More love. As I drove home in the traffic, the roads were closed because of a marathon now underway. Shoot. It hit me that my girl was running half a marathon in aid of a charity, and I had to go and support her around midday at the finish line. A mother has her duties, even a Party Mum. And so I got home, changed into a tracksuit, and was re-routed to Hyde Park. Only got to bed at 4:00pm! But then, I slept for fourteen glorious hours.
Speaking of bed, it's late. Next week is the report of a week of 'Art in London'.
I would like to leave you with the thought...
Stop trying to control the uncontrollable.
Make Love... Not War.
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