December 8, 2008 at 7:32 pm (costa blanca, spain, yoga)
Tags: chakra, massage, pain, spain
Pain is a very personal thing. As a massage therapist, I deal with pain on a daily basis. The infinite, minute subtleties of discomfort – ache? sharp? tingling? stiff? sore? tender? – are something so personal that it’s really difficult to describe accurately in another language. I speak pretty good Spanish now, but still get lost between “dolor” and “agujetas” (that’s pain and sore, btw). So here, for your enjoyment, is a list of the Spanish synonyms for pain:
desconsuelo, mal, pesar, suplicio, tortura, aflicción, angustia, congoja, daño, pena, tormento, calvario
-aflicción – agonía – agujeta – agujetas – alifafe – amargura – arrepentimiento – atrición – cimbrón – contrición – jaqueca – desolación – duelo – enfermedad – goce – lástima – mal – patetismo – pena – pésame – prueba – punzada – pupa – purgatorio – sentimiento – sufrimiento – tormento – trastorno
Clearly not all of these deal with physical pain. But then again, how astute are we when differentiating between the two? It’s not that coincidental that neckache coincides with a bust-up with your partner in which words were left unsaid (visuddha chakra). Nor it is unusual for the lungs to ache when grief is intense (in TCM, grief is associated with Lung Qi).
Net conclusion: I need to improve my vocabulary. Let’s see, how can I work ‘alifafe’ into a sentence?
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August 8, 2008 at 1:42 pm (costa blanca, spain)
Tags: rain
Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rainPlease rainPlease rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain Please rain…
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July 23, 2008 at 12:57 pm (costa blanca, humour, my two cents, spain)
Tags: beer, cops, life, spain
Here’s something you don’t expect to see in stuffy old Europe. Lackadaisical Thailand perhaps, corrupt India almost certainly, but modern Spain, member of the EU, spender of the Euro? I don’t think so! Whassat you say? Well this morning I popped out to get a cup of tea – badly in need after a night up with the baby. In the cafe there were only two or three tables, one of them occupied by two local policemen, in uniform and obviously on duty. Both were smoking fags and both had a bottle of beer! This was 11:45 AM, people, and the cops are drinking BEER on the beat! But you know what happens next don’t you? Guess…go on, guess. Yep, they finish up, put on their sunglasses and get on their motorcycles to patrol the streets!! So I go back to work exclaming my surprise and you know what the receptionist says? “Oh yeah, they’re there every day”. Jeezus and I avoid the cops cos they’re unpredictable…but under the influence? Hmmm…
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July 15, 2008 at 3:07 pm (busking, costa blanca, my two cents, spain)
Tags: busking, guitar, joy, music, singing, spain
Today I chickened out. Thinking that I ought to profit from my day off, I rashly decided that I would busk a few songs and earn a few pesos. But facing the moment of truth, I turned away.
I can’t quite understand what it is that renders me unable to perform in the street. I have no such fear of the stage. Only the street. I think that it’s the “in your face” nature of busking. Like, people are just sitting there having a coffee and suddenly along comes me with my guitar. I play a few songs then stick my hand out and ask for money. It’s not that far removed from begging really.
Maybe that’s why I can’t do it: it seems debased, makes me out as a pauper. When you’re on stage, you know that your audience has come to listen to you, to hear your music. You’re there on the stage with everyone paying attention. You are respected. There is reverence (sometimes!) You have their attention. On the street you compete with traffic and passersby. No one came to hear you play, you might be an intrusion, an annoyance, in the way. So it’s not really fear of playing that paralyses me, it’s fear of the reaction to/perception of my performance.
Perhaps there are people who enjoy the challenge of winning over an apathetic cluster of coffee drinkers. Maybe there are those who believe that they will put a smile on their faces and brighten their day. Perhaps there are some who are hungry enough to have to play and that’s the sole motivation they need. I guess that I don’t believe in myself enough to credit the idea that I could brighten a bored stranger’s day. I guess I’m not hungry enough. I don’t need to do it, so I have the bail-out-the-backdoor option…and today I took it.
Do I feel ashamed? No. I do many things well and can’t expect to excel at everything. Disappointed? Yes. I’d have likes to write about the coins collected, the boogie woogie dance I did, the applause and appreciation. But certainly I feel optimistic because I know that I shall overcome this block and sing in the street this summer. For no reason other than to prove that the talents God gave me – my voice, my joy, my love of music – increase the happiness in this world, if only by a fraction. Sat Nam.
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April 13, 2008 at 4:40 pm (Italians, costa blanca, spain, violence against women)
Tags: murder, Pippa Bacca, turkey, violence against women, wibc
…for disproving the theory that humans can be trusted to be good. Italian artist Pippa Bacca was murdered and her body dumped in roadside bushes in Gebze, near Istanbul, Turkey. She had been hitch-hiking, dressed in a white wedding dress, from Europe to Palestine in an artistic project designed to promote world peace and prove that humans can be trusted. Her sister Maria is quoted as saying:
“Her travels were for an artistic performance and to give a message of peace and trust, but not everyone deserves trust,”
Well, that’s for darn sure. I think it’s charming that any woman would consider hitch-hiking alone through Turkey and the near-Middle East in an attempt to prove the goodness of mankind. It’s such a wonderfully european notion, to think that a WOMAN could hitch-hike alone through Turkey. I would love it if she has actually made it. Because the first thing I thought when my partner read me the story was “I’d never hitch-hike alone through Turkey”. I guess that ’s the fear that’s already gotten me. As a woman, I have been trained to understand that men are dangerous, that they must be avoided/mollified/coddled/obeyed. Men have sensitive souls and soft little minds…after all that’s why a woman in a short skirt and a few drinks is asking for it, that’s why a colleague who wears flattering clothes is a slut, that’s why a woman who says no is a bitch. Sorry, I went off a little there. But I’m not going to hit the delete key cos this shit really really bugs me.
Spain has nothing to brag about when it comes to equality or the societal acceptance of violence against women. The Women in Business Club, of which I am a member, was formed in 2004 to promote awareness of violence against women in Spain. There have been 39 women killed by their partners so far this year -2008. A nice average of just over 10 per month. ARGH.
Does it make a difference that it happened in Turkey, a muslim nation? I don’t know. I’d have to understand the statistics…are there more rapes/murders of women per capita in muslim societies than in christian/secular societies? Well, reading the Chanelling Energy Blog, it looks like the problem is worldwide. I would reasonably say that in European societies, perhaps women have a better chance of getting help. Or maybe not. You see, I was hit by an ex-partner, and it took me ages to get away from him. I fell into the typical victim trap of wanting to help him/being afraid of him. I stayed three years too long…I finally got away when I realised that I was worth 10 times him and just got the hell out. Out of the country, out of the routine, out of the way.
God, It’s just so depressing. I want to be able to say ‘Bloody macho muslim Turks! You see, that’s why they shouldn’t join the EU!”, but I can’t. I’m not a racist. I’m not prejudiced. I, like Pippa Bacca, believe in the goodness of human beings. Should I?
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April 11, 2008 at 7:55 pm (babies, love, spain)
Tags: babies, karma, motherhod
My daughter is 13-months old. Although we don’t have any extended family nearby, she lives with her mummy and daddy and both of us have the luxury of time to spend with her. She is loved and cared for by her parents, cuddled and caressed. She is calm and tranquil and securely attached to us both. The little girl who I look after a few times a week has no such luck. Her mother adores her but is forced to leave her 6 days per week while she goes out to work. Her father loves her but lives in England still as her doesn’t speak Spanish and besides, the job situation here is pretty awful. She shunts from friend to neighbour, mewling and crying and waiting for her mother to return. She is five months old and already has a brow creased from frustration. We all do our best but it’s hard when it’s not your child. Somehow the cries are more annoying, the dribble more disgusting, the poo smellier. I try to treat her as if she were my own but she never settles down…or if she does it’s 5-10 minutes then she’s back at it. She wants to be held. She wants her mummy. She wants security and routine and familiar places and she has none of that. I can’t help thinking that two girls, born within 9 months of each other, neighbours, possess two such different karmic loads. Not to be too self-congratulatory but we have the luck to be able to provide a stable, secure household full of love. While little A…well, her mother adores her.
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April 11, 2008 at 7:42 pm (costa blanca, expats, humour, spain)
Tags: drink, herpes, wagon
I’m on the wagon. No, I’m not an alcoholic and I don’t need to join AA. I have the unfortunate honour of nose herpes. Yep, practically every month I get a big herpes sore on my nose. It’s ugly, it scars my poor nose, it hurts, I’m afraid of giving it to my partner or daughter and it just generally SUCKS. Living in sunny Spain doesn’t help as exposure to sunlight can trigger herpes outbreaks. Let’s just say that the old SPF50 is in daily use, as is a sunhat. But, I have to acknowledge that drinking alcohol is another strong trigger for the virus to proliferate. Not to mention that vasodilation makes my poor nose ever redder (not a good look, let me tell you). So, I’m off the sauce. I miss it at suppertime, but otherwise it’s not a problem. In fact, I always lose weight when I stop drinking – like right away and enough to have people saying ‘hey you’ve lost weight’. So, it’s bye-bye booze. Let’s see how long I can hold out. Guess that means I won’t be joining the DPT (disturbing purple tan) brigade out on the terazas by the beach!
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April 9, 2008 at 9:13 am (costa blanca, humour, spain)
Tags: alopecia, guests, hair, spain
I’m anglo-saxon through and through. I’ve got short, fine, straight fair hair. I don’t think that I lose much hair because when I clean my floors, I don’t seem to come across much. Now, I live in Spain and am lucky enough to have good friends who come to visit regularly. Which is great but more than half have long, dark, curly hair. And I love ‘em but the reminders of their visits turn up on my broom for weeks afterwards. There’s something about hairs that bugs me deeply. I reckon it springs from my sister’s struggle with alopecia. At the age of fourteen, she lost all her hair and we, of course, found most of it around the house. Her hair’s never grown back, btw.
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April 8, 2008 at 9:53 pm (costa blanca, expats, spain)
Tags: shower, water
Know what I miss about living in Canada? Taking looong showers and not worrying about water shortages and droughts. The Costa Blanca is dry, dry, dry.
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