An all too brief stay in Turkey in September 2011. What an absolutely wonderful place. Caroline and I, and Tilly (her daughter) and her friend Oly stayed in Calis, near Fethiye in the Mugla province. The weather was amazing, the coast and countryside were fantastic, the 3000+ years of history visible in ruins everywhere was truly awe inspiring, and the geographical features, such as the Saklikent Gorge, spectacular.
However what made it such a beautiful place for us were the people. The Turkish people are the most friendly, most caring, most interested and interesting people I have ever had the joy of encountering.
So, I just want to say, ‘teşekkür ederim’. Thank you to the people of Turkey. May you always be blessed, may you always share in my dharma.
Some of the time that I’ve been away has been well spent at ‘the plot’ – a piece of land allotted by Merton Council to Caroline some 15 months ago (while I was away in NZ for 3 months). The plot (20A) lies in amongst a lot of other plots of communal land, collectively known as the Phipps Bridge allotment. Very British, as you’ll know if you’ve happened to see ’Another Year’. Well that’s Caroline and I – off to the plot at least once a week, easily spending up to four or five hours pottering away - planting, weeding, landscaping, harvesting, weeding, building, tipping, trimming, weeding … an endless wonderfully meditative cycle.
I’ve loved it. I’ve loved watching it grow, become, change. I loved getting my hands dirty: eating fresh beans, potatoes, beetroot, onions, courgettes, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries; building fences and clearing land. I never would have known that I would have loved this gardening lark so much.
Once again, my lady gardener has planted a seed within me, has nurtured and nourished it, and I have experienced the benefit, the blooming beauty and the wonder of being something other than that which I thought I could be. Thank you darling Caroline. Thank you for all the joy and the laughter, the times of toil and the times of rest, the sitting and sharing, the planning and the production, the planting and the reaping. I love you. I love us. I love who I am with you.
It’s been a busy time. Transitional. Crazy kind of.
I’m being a teacher and becoming a teacher, teaching and learning to teach as I teach. Learning to teach in a more formal way as well – every Wednesday I’m attending a course aimed at getting my PGCE (over a 2 year period). I’ve been filling in for absent colleagues as well over the last two weeks – taking classes of new students with new levels of ability (I’ve gotten used to teaching entry level students, so fronting up to advanced learners has meant new challenges). So I’ve been scared, uncertain, felt out of my depth, got through, and at times been happy with what I’ve done . And then many times after teaching I’ve caught a train and gone to Steatham and done late shifts at the residential home, hanging out with my wonderfully individual and idiosyncratic friends at Prema House .
Leaving my home, often with Cari still asleep, in the dark at 7 in the morning and coming back at 10.30 at night, more often that not exhausted. And more often than not to a home-cooked hearty meal. Thanks darling – I feel very spoilt
A very full time, full of bits and pieces, new and old things, exciting, different and demanding moments, and moments of quiet joy and appreciation. Full rather than busy. I’ve been absent here, present elsewhere. I’ve used a lot of my time writing, creating and planning lots of lessons, activities and tasks for my students and little of my time writing, creating and expressing myself in other ways.
Now I want to get back here and yet I feel a little lost, unsure of myself, still alienated from this place, my place. I didn’t really return fully here after my six month absence. I’m not sure if I’m meant to be here anymore. I’m not sure of the purpose of this, and yet …. the teaching, the busyness of working is ….hmmm functional? I don’t mean to indicate at all that it’s not extremely satisfying. It is. It’s challenging and exciting and satisfying and creative, and it is what I wanted and I am becoming in it, what I wanted to be. Which is working as a teacher in a variety of ways and learning my craft. And yet… the creativity, the energy, the desire, commitment, determination and the results ….are slightly off tangent, slightly off target somehow.
And in this moment of writing and reflecting, I remember. I remember one of my reasons for wanting to spend this time learning my craft. I wanted this so that I would grow in confidence and skill, and that at some point in the future I want to use that confidence and those skills to create and deliver a dharma course. Now I remember. Now I answer a question I have yet to ask (how very Buddhist – having the answer before the question…lol).
On 7 February I start teaching at Highdown Prison. Once that happens, once I settle into that then I feel as if I have got to where I wished to be a year or so ago. I will be teaching; in the prison, at RACC, and with some individual students. My life will be full of teaching and learning experiences. This is what I imagined, this is what I wanted.
Once again things have panned out as I imagined them. This seems to be happening for me more and more recently. It is a quite startling realisation – that life is turning out as I wished. That the dreams I have of what my future will be are actually manifesting themselves.
Of course now that I am on the brink of this manifestation of regular, varied work as a teacher of English I can not help but think ‘what is it that I want to lie ahead?’ I can’t help but think this as I know that I can manifest that which I imagine. With this knowledge comes a sense of responsibility, an awareness that I need to be more attentive to what I wish for.
So here I am.
Happy? Most definitely! Excited? Yes. Wanting to once again become more spiritually focussed? I think so.
I love you all. May you all be a happy. May you all experience the wonder of your dreams becoming your realities.
“And my teachers were very good. They were friendly with me. My English teacher Simon he was very strong. But he was bald. I thinked he is lived in Shaolin Temple for long times. I like my teachers”.
David 11 year old Chinese student
Part of my time away was spent at a boarding school in Suffolk. This was my very first gig as an English Language teacher. I had wanted this experience months before when I first heard about residential summer school - it appealed to me as a rite of initiation. And when the time came I was suitably filled with trepidation, which wasn’t eased when Cari pulled into the school. The Royal Hospital School is a grand place, huge, overbearing almost, set in 200 acres with a beautiful view of the estuary; this is a true boarding school in every traditional British sense of the word. It was an impressive site/sight, and quite a meditative paradise for the first 1/2 day … before the kids turned up.
First off, coach after coach from identically dressed students from China, via Bath. 200+ Chinese students who marched their way around the parade ground each morning, did extra study before classes and fell asleep late in the afternoon classes. By the end of the 5 weeks, having taught cohorts of Spanish, French, Arabs and a smattering of Israelis (not together luckily), we the teachers were wishing for the return of the Chinese. At the time of teaching then we did not fully appreciate their disciplined nature, politeness, motivation and willingness to learn.
It was a roller-coaster ride, one that reminded me of the ten day Buddhist retreats I have experienced / endured. Some days, some teaching sessions were magic, fun, exciting and I really felt like maybe, just maybe I knew what I was doing. Other days, other sessions, sometimes following immediately on from one of those moment of self-glorification were disastrous, devastatingly slow, bumbling, bungled and draining. A roller-coaster ride then; a box of chocolates from which we never ever knew what we would get next.
Luckily we were all in it together. That sense of a common experience, perhaps as much as the brutal but beneficial introduction to teaching English that this was, was the biggest gift that came from these five weeks. While I was experiencing a confusion of highs and lows at least I came to know that I was not alone. All the other teachers, both those that had been here before and those that hadn’t were having the same bumpy ride.
As for my fellow teachers? Well it’s a young persons’ game. The average age of a residential summer school teacher, from my experience, seems to be about 24. And the average hour they finally get to bed, on any night of the week, seems to be about 2.00am. They drunk a lot, got high a lot, and generally had a shitload of fun. And then there they were – ready for their first class, first thing in the morning.
Luckily for me by the time I got to the Royal Hospital I was not only 51, but I was flat broke. Otherwise I may have been tempted, in fact I pretty sure I would’ve been. As it was I was struggling most nights to rustle up enough money for a pint. On top of that much of my very valuable coin was going on painkillers - I was knocking back 2 or 3 pretty much every 4 hours. I was living with a wisdom tooth that needed extraction, and I was waiting for a hospital appointment, one that I had postponed when I had heard I had got this five week gig.
On the weekends I managed to get away. The weather was, except for maybe 2 or 3 days, glorious, and I made the most of it. I had taken a couple of ordinance maps with me which I used to full advantage, mapping out 8 – 15 mile walks around the surrounding area. This is glorious countryside - and once againI felt that surging joy that I get from following public footpaths through glen and dale, orchard and forest, farm and village, open land and country lane. I loved those days that I was up at 6.00am and out walking by half past, not returning til late in the evening.
I also loved the alternate weekends which I got to spend with Cari. Being back in the UK, and then soon after being away from her only confirmed even more the rightness of my decision to return here from NZ. We love and support each other so so well, and I have come to realise that in all that I do, in all that I am, she is the one that I hold close. She is the one who knows who I am, and with whom I can be all that I am. So the couple of moments we got to share together were very special. One involved a weekend in Norfolk, the other was my surprise visit to London which mostly involved some quiet time and us sitting and watching our veges grow at our little allotment. But that my friends is another story…
I woke in the night and looked across at Cari asleep beside me. Reached down and touched her hand. Closed my eyes and listened to her breath. I awoke early this morning knowing I am where I am meant to be. I do not feel different, I am different. I am relaxed and reassured.
I am close to a source of happiness and trust. I lie next to a spring from which as I inhale I drink long and deep. Within only days of returning here I feel that calming and rejuvinating elixir coursing through my being.
How to explain it? Love obviously. This modest and humble woman wraps herself around me, envelopes me in a shawl of light and love, and sets me free from all my fears. She is the word. She is all that I believe in, all I aspire to, all I want for myself and all those I love.
She makes it real, makes it safe.
Safe to be myself – all that I am and all that I believe I am not.
