My body was under attack.

For starters there was the constant pain on my left side that started in my back and moved to my stomach. There was the weird feeling that something was crawling under my skin. The itchiness. The super sensitivity of my skin – if anything touched it I felt like I was being zapped by electricity. The tiredness only I couldn’t sleep – I couldn’t get comfortable. About three days later the first spots appeared. I had my suspicions. I hoped I wasn’t right only it turned out I was.

“You have shingles,” said the doctor.

I wanted to scream but I sat there silent. Until a few months ago I knew almost nothing about shingles and in many respects I wish it had stayed that way. My husband was also diagnosed with shingles back in December only his was on his face.

“Did I catch it from my husband?” I asked immediately. I had a need to blame someone.

“No, this is pure co-incidence. You can’t catch shingles from someone else that has it,” responded the doctor.

“Yeah right,” was my thought.

What did I do to allow this sleeping virus to wake-up and flourish in my body?

Fact one: anyone who has had chickenpox has the shingles virus lying dormant in their nerve roots waiting to be activated.

Fact two: the virus remains dormant forever in some people – they are the lucky ones!

Fact three: this virus wakes-up when disease, stress or ageing weakens the immune system. Bingo, two out of three for us. The last 12 months have been incredibly stressful. In many respects I’d be quite happy to file 2011 into a memory file that I don’t return to too often if at all. As for ageing – well, we’re both over 50 so sadly we’re on that downhill slope.

My husband keeps saying to me “shingles is your friend”.  This irritates me. He believes we both ended up with shingles because our bodies were sending us a message – a wake up call of sorts. Our bodies were trying to tell us that they’ve had enough and we need to look after them better – “You need me in good working order and I can’t do this alone. Take better care of me.”

Over the last 10 days my wonderful husband has looked after me above and beyond the call of duty in an attempt to help me on to the path of being well. This is his gift to me and I love him for it. I was down, and even though he still isn’t fully recovered himself, he was there alongside me.

This morning as Lynsey dropped me off as close as possible to the venue where I would be working today I noticed this poster on the outside of the Archives New Zealand building. I looked at it and thought, “That is what Lynsey has been doing- he has been carrying me.” I felt so incredibly blessed.

My husband carries me in so many ways. He loves me unconditionally. He believes in me and my abilities. He encourages me. He is there through the good times and the bad.

Thank you Lynsey for being the extraordinary man that you are. I love you so much.

xoM

 Manifesto
12. Every day love yourself.
21. Every day seek the support of others. You are not alone.
35. Every day focus on what matters to you.

For a while now I have been following Connie Hozvicka (Dirty Footprints Studio) as she has transformed herself from a school art teacher to an Artist – yes, an Artist with a capital A!

Connie is passionate about the ability of art to change lives and she has certainly used it to create the life she wants to be living. Connie oozes “creative juiciness” and her passion is very infectious. I have participated in a number of her online art journalling workshops and have loved each experience and my interactions with her.

Yesterday Connie promoted an upcoming wishBIG ecamp and offered a gift to her readers:

“Just in case you’re feeling lucky…
I’m giving away one free registration to a lucky commenter!

Yep, all you need to do is leave a comment below telling me what your wishBIG is for 2012….and you might be the lucky snowball that wins!”

I am not sure why this invitation attracted my attention. First of all, I don’t believe in wishes (fanciful time wasting says the sceptic in me). Secondly, I have come to believe that there are two types of people in this world – those that are born lucky and those that aren’t. I definitely fall in the latter category. As you can see there is lots of healthy left brain thinking going on here: wishing is a waste of time and is for dreamers, setting goals and taking action is what its all about, dreams can’t possibly come true so why waste time thinking about them … I could go on but I’m sure you get the picture.

Fortunately, I also have a right brain – my wonderful creative and spirited friend that said to me, “Really, is that what you honestly believe? Why don’t you wish? Where’s the harm in giving it go?”

I have a book, The WishingYear by Noelle Oxenhandler, sitting in the rather large book pile by my bed waiting to be read. This book has been there a while. It is in pristine condition – it has not been opened. A part of me thinks, “I bet her wishes come true and do I really want to know about it”. Another part of me thinks, “There might be something in this and maybe I need to explore this more – maybe I need to start wishing.”

Thanks to Connie, I started wishing yesterday. I began by wondering what my big wish for 2012 is. What I desire to happen for me above all else in the coming twelve months.

Here’s what I wrote …

Hi Connie

Thanks for this opportunity. You have an amazingly generous spirit.

Wishing is not something I do very often for myself but I do it very easily in relation to others.

I have convinced myself that wishes come true only for lucky people and I am not one of them. For me luck has never figured into anything, only hard work. It is exactly this thinking and it’s related actions that has led me to the point where I am writing this from bed as I am trying to recuperate from shingles. My body has said I’ve had enough – you will slow down – so in the last 7 days I have had plenty of time to think about what I want to change in my life as I have tried to deal with the endless pain caused by this virus inside my body.

My wishBig for 2012 is that I start honouring and believing in myself and accept that I am enough as I am. I always think I’m not good enough and that I have to prove myself to be worthy of anything and everything. As a result I push myself incredibly hard and take everything I do very, very seriously. I am always putting energy into needing to be more – to improve and develop myself to be the best I can be – and being there for everyone else. However I always forget that I need some of me as well.

I have allowed my day job to control my life. I want to change this situation. At the moment it is a means to an end. It is not my life’s work. It is not how I will be defined on my death bed. I do have dreams for a different future. I get panicked that time is running out and that I need to do it all now. I don’t. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will I be. This is a lifetime’s work and that is why I want to make very day count but not at any cost.

What I want is to love me as I do so unconditionally everyone else. I want to love all of me and make time to honor my physical, spiritual, creative, and intellectual needs. I want to bring balance, laughter and joy back into my life so I can start turning my dreams into reality.

I want to be that girl that allows herself to make a wish with a dandelion in her hand and imagine anything is possible. I want to believe and trust that wishes can come true for me too.

Love Marica

There are numerous other wishes lurking around inside me. They are begging for a voice if they are to have any power to become real.

What do you wish for yourself in 2012?

Manifesto
12. Every day love yourself.
17. Every day look through a new lens.
34. Every day focus on your dreams.

My office overlooks our city’s Civic Square. It is the most spectacular view. Every day as I look out any of the numerous windows that line the walls I always take the time to soak in the moment and feel grateful. These windows are living picture frames. The natural, every day art works enclosed within these rectangles always move me in some way. I am forever grabbing my camera to try and capture the memory of what I see before me but none of these photos ever truly do justice to the experience of what I see and feel.

Today as I was working away one of my colleagues told me to look out the window. I saw an older couple walking across the square holding hands. They seemed so in tune and connected with one another. They looked like they loved and cared for one another. I found myself smiling as I watched them walk.

“That’s what you and Lynsey will be like,” my colleague said to me.

As I reflected on this scene I remembered a poem Lynsey and I read to each other on our wedding day – Let’s grow old together.

Let’s grow old together …
beginning with today.
Let’s work slowly with each other and build a relationship that we can both enjoy being a part of.
Let’s share love and understand that neither of us is perfect; we are both subject to human frailties.
Let’s hold each other close and whisper though the night – pledging our love, honouring our commitment.
Let’s encourage each other to pursue our dreams, even when we’re weary from trying.
Let’s expect the best that we both have to give and still love when we fall short of our expectations.
Let’s be friends and respect each other’s individual personality and give one another room to grow.
Let’s be candid with each other and point out strengths and weaknesses.
Let’s understand each other’s personal philosophy, even if we don’t agree.
Let’s lie awake long into the night sharing our innermost secrets.
Let’s be friends as well as lovers.
Let’s laugh at time and plan with each other and wonder how we ever got along without this love we’ve found.
Let’s never take for granted these moments that we’ve shared, but always be reminded of how intensely we have learned to live, how completely we have learned to love.
Let’s grow old together…
and look back on life and smile.
- Braxton Brown and Peggy Smith

Manifesto
03. Every day is an opportunity to reflect on the past.
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.
05. Every day is now. The present moment.

I have a friend who lives in a revamped commercial building. Numerous changes have been made to aspects of the building since she started living there. For example, the entrance stairs and hallway have been carpeted.

As I was standing in this hallway today saying good-bye to my friend I could picture the brightly coloured advertisement for a herb and spice company painted on the bare concrete floor that now lay hidden beneath the carpet on the spot where I was standing.

This reminded me of all the things we see and experience every day that are here one moment and then gone the next. Sometimes they momentarily disappear. Other times they are gone forever. Then there are those things that lay hidden between the layers waiting to be revealed at some later time.

Manifesto
17. Every day look through a new lens.
36. Every day be still. Connect to your inner being. Listen and be guided by it.
39. Every day trust that there is a bigger picture. You are a part of it even if you may not know what it is.

We are now officially half way through 2011. I’m sitting here wondering where these last six months have gone?

Oh yes, now I remember, it’s been busy. Very, very busy in fact. One day has blurred into the other and somehow I feel cheated as though I wasn’t a participant in what took place – yet, I was. There was the review and re-structure at work, having to apply for a new position, being successful in my application and then having to establish a whole new team, having numerous visitors come to stay from overseas, beginning a new programme of study which required me to travel one weekend a month to Auckland, and then there was the myriad of normal challenges that life likes flinging at us. In the process I became lost to myself.

It became very clear to me that things had to change.

Over the last six months an important process has taken place that has helped me clarify the way forward. It was gradual and I didn’t even realise what was happening. Each decision I made felt right – it was as though a huge pressure had been lifted off me.

Today, as I watched the rain fall and felt the cold of winter bore its way into my being I was surprised as to how energised and excited I felt. I’ve learnt that giving things a go is important. I’ve also learnt that when it isn’t working how you imagined you can pull the plugs and move on. Often we change without even realising it and yet our dreams and passions are stuck with the old us and not where we are here and now.

I appeared to have moved on only I hadn’t consciously registered this fact. I wanted to make the space in my life to be doing what matters to me today.

This has definitely been the season of making decisions and self-discovery. None of this has been easy and without a lot of angst and the odd tear or two, but it has all been worth it. I know what I want and now the challenge is to make it all happen. I’m going to need all the energy I can muster!

As an aside, the fruit in this picture is a quince – a fruit introduced to me by my husband Lynsey. The quince jelly Lynsey makes is unbelievably delicious and the smell of this fruit is quite unique.

Manifesto
22. Every day refine, clarify and simplify.
38. Every day be brave and give things a go. Use fear to trigger you into action.
43. Every day accept you will make mistakes. Learn from them. They are opportunities in disguise.

As one year comes to an end and another begins I go through a process of looking back in the hope that it will help me to move forward. This annual ritual is not always a pleasant process as my family will tell you.

All too easily I become consumed with what didn’t happen and what I didn’t achieve. You know the routine – you start by looking at the list of goals you’d set the previous year, you go through them and discover the truth … I didn’t lose weight, I didn’t exercise enough, I didn’t blah, blah, blah …. on and on I go. Often I am not even aware this negativity has taken over although I do know the consequences of it only too well. I feel sad and worthless as a result. My dreams are discounted. My passions are ignored. My achievements are not even acknowledged, let alone celebrated. The thought of things being different seems impossible. What’s even worse I start to set similar goals for the year ahead because this year it is going to happen – only it doesn’t. I then start to look for all the faults within me that are to blame. And to think – I do this to myself. I choose to put myself through this angst and for what purpose?

Every year I try to change my response to this self-imposed yearly review and every year I return to this same place to a greater or lesser extent.

This year I am determined to change this pattern.

In retrospect it is true that 2010 was a year full of many challenges – my sister fighting endometrial cancer, my mother-in-law almost dying and her difficult rehabilitation process, my uncle in Croatia becoming ill and dying, my son’s ongoing health issues, Lynsey’s job being disestablished and uncertainty over my own job are a few examples of what I dealt with.

As I look back I realise my role was to love, to support, to listen, to physically help out where needed – basically to do whatever was required to help others and myself get through whatever presented itself – and I did it despite the numerous obstacles along the way that tried to trip me up. So even the difficult times were a gift because they helped me to focus on what really matters to me.

It is easy to look back in retrospect and say if only I had done such and such. The fact is we can’t go back. We all do the best we can in any given moment in time. The only thing we can change is what we do next once we realise what it is we would like to have changed.

At the same time 2010 was a year full of some amazing experiences and achievements for me – further developing my portrait photography skills by completing two courses and showing my work in two exhibitions,  being accepted for the Masters in Art Therapy programme at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, celebrating my mother’s eightieth birthday, being promoted at work, completing a number of online journalling workshops, going on a five week trip to the UK and Europe, forming new friendships both in-person and online, and creating all sorts of different art works whenever I had the opportunity.

As with every other year of my life what has been is now relegated to the archives of my being. The memories are there should I need to call them up – the good, the bad, the ugly.

None of this need to define the way forward unless I choose it to.

So what have I learned about me over this past year and what am I going to take with me and develop further as I go forward?

I learned that I am so much more than any one thing that I have or haven’t done. I am so grateful for the year that’s been because I have grown and changed as a direct result of all I experienced. As for the year ahead – bring it on I say. I am ready! I have behind me what I have already learnt. I have the ability to be creative and always challenge my thinking. I am ready to learn more this year about me, about life and about living. I am ready to be even better than I already am and that feels great.

Manifesto
02. Every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.
03. Every day is an opportunity to reflect on the past.
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.

I have been asked in job interviews, “What is your greatest achievement?”

The first time I was asked this question I didn’t need to think long about what I was going to say.

“My children – giving birth to them, growing them, supporting and believing in them, loving them, and being a positive role model for them,” I responded.

By the looks on the interviewer’s faces I knew this wasn’t the kind of achievement they were interested in. They wanted a work achievement not a personal one. I didn’t care. My response wasn’t going to change. The interviewers needed to change the question they were asking if they wanted a different response. The same would be true today.

Being a mother isn’t something you switch on and off. It becomes hardwired into your being from the minute a child is conceived. Everything changes physically in your body as you carry and nurture the growing being within you and by a process of osmosis all other parts of you change as well – what you think and feel, how you see things, what matters to you, what you do and how you do it. Other things change too, such as Christmas.

Ever since I gave birth to my first child the joy of Christmas has centred on being with my children. I have always been determined to give my children memories and traditions of a love filled celebration that they in turn might choose to adapt and incorporate into their adult life. There were times when this was really difficult for me to do because of other things that were going on in our lives. Somehow I managed to find the strength to not give in to these life events (and let me tell you some of them were pretty major!). Adversity has a way of making me me more determined to overcome it. Christmas continued to be celebrated in our home even if compromises had to be made out of necessity from one year to the next.

One of the traditions we established as a family was to always make sure we set aside time on Christmas Day to be alone together, even when we are celebrating this day with others. This is a time when we open presents we have made or bought for each other, when we share something special to eat and drink, and when we simply feel the love of each other’s presence. It is a noisy time with the sound of all of us talking, laughing and even crying (out of happiness off course) and our must-have Christmas music playing in the background. For me this is the heart of Christmas.

This special family time was however a lot easier to achieve when my children were younger. These days we no longer all live in the same house or even the same city or the same country. So began our new Christmas morning tradition. Our solution has been to gather those of us that can be physically present and use technology to bring in those that can’t be. So this morning Lynsey, Damian, Mira, Nathan (Mira’s partner) and I sat around a laptop surrounded by our presents, food and drinks. Zofia, who is currently living in London joined us via Skype even though it was only Christmas Eve for her. And so began approximately three hours of relishing being in each other’s presence.

We have been doing this for three years now. I have come to love this time. I am so grateful for the technology that enables us to still be together despite the fact that the nature of our lives has seen us separated by great distances. It is very definitely simple things that are the greatest presents of all.

Sretan Bozic! Meri Kirihimete! Merry Christmas! to all of you. May you too experience the peace within of being surrounded by love.

Manifesto
05. Every day is now. The present moment.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
35. Every day focus on what matters to you.

Traditionally I would put up our Christmas tree some time in early December. Even though part of me considers this to be a real chore, and I procrastinate about doing it, another part of me secretly loves this task. Christmas just isn’t the same without a decorated tree taking pride of place in our home.

I begin this process by selecting a Christmas CD to play. The music always works its magic and gets me into the swing of things. Furniture gets moved to make way for the tree. Boxes of decorations gathered or created over the last 30 years come out of the cupboard. Every decoration has been lovingly packed away ready for use the following year, each with its own story. Not all the decorations go up every year. Some are getting very old and tired. Yet all of them are special for one reason or another. The lights are carefully untangled in preparation for their placement on the tree. When all this is done I begin the placement of the items on the tree. This is the fun part as the green of the tree comes to life with all the colours and shapes being added to it. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the lights come on.

These days this process is pretty much a solo effort but in days gone by my children all got involved. I loved those days when we laughed and sang as we dressed the tree. No matter what was going on in our life we still always put up a Christmas tree. It became our celebration of life and love. There was always an energy and excitement about this task that would nourish my spirit and calm me despite whatever else was happening at that time.

For me a special part of Christmas is to be able to sit beside our Christmas tree looking at its lights and decorations sparkling in the darkened room and just be in the moment. I become lost to a world of memories, of dreams and of possibilities. In those moments I feel safe, secure and at peace with myself. Anything seems possible.

Yet this year, for the first time ever in my adult life, we decided not to put up a Christmas tree. I justified this decision by the fact that we weren’t going to be home for Christmas so why bother. This was very much a decision made out of tiredness. All I could think about was the effort it would take to put the tree up and take it down again. I didn’t once stop and think what this decision would mean to me personally and how empty I would feel without going through a process that has been ingrained in me as a ritual of significance.

Every night we would come home from work to a home devoid of a Christmas tree. It felt wrong.

Then our Christmas plans changed. I knew immediately that the first thing I had to do was to put up the tree but … again … I took myself down the path of thinking about how much work this was going to be and could I really be bothered. I dragged out the boxes of decorations from the cupboard and sat there looking at them. Did I really want to go down that old familiar path of doing what I had always done? Was it time to do something different with the tree?

As I pondered what to do next my eyes focused on the knitted doll sitting on our couch. She was made for me by my 93 year old mother-in-law. I love this doll – the crazy colours, the fact that she has four handbags hanging off her arms, her beautiful dread-locked yellow hair. More than anything I am really touched that my mother-in-law, who was at deaths door only a matter of months ago, took the time to make this gift for me. I named my doll Little Ruth in honour of her creator.

“Why don’t you make Little Ruth your angel at the top of your Christmas tree,” suggested my sister who happened to be visiting me.

As we played around positioning the doll on the empty tree a new plan unfolded. We decided to decorate our tree with Lynsey’s peeps (amazing soft sculptures he creates).

Suddenly I had the energy to get going. Lynsey placed the lights on the tree. Next came some red balls. Little Ruth took prime spot at the top of the tree. Then we placed the peeps: Graeme White, the twins, Burt, Alf, Rufus and Peggy. I found some white chiffony fabric to drape around the base of the tree. This seemed appropriate because it reminded me that my daughter who lives in London and she was experiencing her first ever white Christmas.

As I stood back and looked at the completed tree it felt amazingly satisfying. I was reminded that change was not all bad. Change is good for the soul and it can be fun.

So this year I do have the company of our Christmas tree. I can still enjoy the magic it evokes in my being and my senses. Our tree looks beautiful. Its arms bear the creations of people I love. Even though it went up a lot later than I would have liked the key thing is it went up. All feels right with the world now. Bring on Christmas.

Manifesto
42. Every day celebrate. Who you are. What you have achieved. Things that matter to you.
46. Every day you can change your thoughts.
48. Every day there are things you can’t change. You can change the way you think about them and deal with them.

Work is love made visible.
Khalil Gibran

“I’ve got chicken pox!!!!!” announced my 15 year old nephew, Stefan, on his Facebook status.

As I read these words I knew our Christmas plans had just changed. In our household plans changing is normal. Sometimes we have a Plan B up our sleeve and other times we don’t. Even after all these years of knowing and experiencing this reality it still takes me a moment to process what has happened, what it means and what I am going to do about it.

My first instinct after reading Stefan’s words were to contact my sister and assess the situation. I needed to gather facts to help me make a decision.

My 27 year old son Damian lives with a rare chromosome disorder which means he lives with an impaired immune system. Even though he had all the normal immunisations and illnesses like chicken pox as a child his immunity to all these diseases was wiped as the result of undergoing treatment (chemotherapy and radiotherapy) for leukaemia when he was 10 years old. In normal circumstances once a child completes their treatment they undergo a re-immunisation programme but this was not possible for Damian. As a result he is immunocompromised all the time and diseases like chicken pox and measles have the potential of making Damian incredibly sick should he contract them. As you can imagine we have become super vigilant in trying to keep Damian away from any known infection possibilities. Taking risks with Damian’s health is not an option.

So today instead of driving to Auckland (an eight hour drive north of where we live) to join the rest of my family that were gathering at my sister’s home to celebrate Christmas together, we stayed put. Instead of sitting in a car as a passenger or taking my turn at driving I spent the day in the kitchen getting ready for our own Christmas celebration.

It felt good to be in the kitchen. I spent the whole day creating – my daughter Mira’s favourite bean salad, a homemade herbed soft white cheese, preparing a multi-layered jelly, ginger crunch, shortbread, meringues and a white chocolate rocky road were amongst some of the items I produced. As I was putting trays in the oven and seeing the products coming out I was reminded of the days when I baked all the time. The memories came flooding back when I had time to be in the kitchen and create all sorts of wonders that delighted others. These days cooking is a chore I want to get over and done with as quickly as possible because I never have the time to think about what I’m going to cook let alone actually making it.

Today was different. I didn’t have to go to my day job. Instead I worked in my kitchen to create treats for the people I loved. It felt much more satisfying than anything I normally do during my working week. As I worked I thought about all the people in my life and what they mean to me. Everything I did today was infused with a bit of me and it felt incredibly good.

How satisfying it must be to work every day producing something that manifests your love made visible.

Manifesto
11. Every day do something for someone else.
47. Every day you are responsible.
48. Every day there are things you can’t change. You can change the way you think about them and deal with them.

Another Christmas is close at hand.
A time to celebrate
the gift of life.

Celebrating
beginnings and endings
lessons learnt along the way
achievements
pain endured and survived
new dreams
new plans
decisions made
opportunities taken
shedding things and saying good-bye
being grateful for what we have and what has been
and the fun we had along the way.

Celebrating
the people we love;
those that can be with us
those that can’t.

Celebrating
connections
through shared experiences …

I watched her move across the stage
oblivious to anything except
what she was doing.
The moment took over.
Floating
so beautiful
so graceful.
The colours flickered before my eyes.
The music filled the air.
I was transported to
another time
another place
another girl.
Now became before.
My niece became
my daughters
my sisters
me.

Celebrating
the person I am today.
Different
truer to herself
full of love
surrounded by those that love me
seeing and experiencing every day
excited by what has been, what is now and the possibilities of what lies ahead.
Grateful for all I have,
all that I am,
my life.

Manifesto
01. Every day is a fresh new day.
24. Every day is a journey. Not a destination.
39. Every day trust that there is a bigger picture. You are a part of it even if you may not know what it is.