What could I do?

jeudi, le 07 juin 2012

To enhance my life, was the question I had to answer today in Pretty Powerful’s weekly challenge. Tricky one. And even trickier to depict in a photograph.

Something is holding me back, something is stopping me, something is blocking me. I’m not entirely happy with the me that I am, but I’m not DOING anything to change this either. I’ve been bleating on about affecting change in my life for three years now. And what have I really, really DONE about this? Diddly squat would about sum it up correctly. And daily I become more and more resentful of myself. Go figure!!

I loosely blame my inability to take any action on being the current holder of the Procrastination World Champion trophy. I’ve held this title for some time and, though there are no contenders in sight to take it from me any time soon, it takes hours of practice to make sure that I’ll be ready when any do show up to take me on.

For my 50th birthday The Clever One gave me, amongst other wonderful spoils, a Bavarian clock. I love staring at it, trying to figure out what the time actually is. It often tricks me. ‘In Bayern geh'n die Uhren anders.’ Whilst clocks may turn differently in Bavaria, there cannot be a shadow of doubt that the cogs of my mind turn anti-clockwise.

What do I do when I procrastinate? I play mindless computer games for hours. When I say mindless, I mean mindless. There is an art in playing Spider Solitaire? Maybe. But not uninterrupted for 8 hours. Online Scrabble requires slightly more thought. But only when played against the clock.

And then there is the endless, mindless, senseless garbage on TV that I watch. Except for the past ten days or so. I have been completely absorbed in the French Open. I love watching tennis tournaments and more so when they are played in a city I adore. After the tennis, I switch to some of the world’s best cyclists fighting it out in the Critérium du Dauphiné. I vaguely follow the big bicycle races in other parts of the world, but when they move to French soil, I watch every pedal stroke.

The sometimes soothing, often excited and always knowledgeable voices of Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett carry the cyclists and me around the endless traffic circles, through the many tiny villages, over the varying category mountain tops and across the flat stages. I soak it all up. The drama, the human misery, the chess game played out on two wheels. But above all, the scenery. Through a bicycle race in France, I watch myself living a dream. Some of the towns are familiar to me, I’ve driven up some of the mountain passes, I’ve seen some of the flat stages through the windows of the speeding TGV.

Today’s time trial stage ended in Bourg-en-Bresse and I instantly recognised the coloured, glazed tiles that form the most incredible pattern on the tall church roof in the Royal Monastery of Brou. L’homme and I lunched nearby on our first road trip through France. I sometimes believe my soul lives in France. It is only my body that is stuck in Africa.

However, I feel I could enhance my life if I procrastinated less, if I read more, if I took ACTION to grow into the me I deserve to be.

The music: Roger Waters may have thought he had it bad with thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from. Well, I honestly have 100 channels of shit on the TV to choose from. And somehow, everyday, I flick through all of them hoping to stumble across something meaningful.

The photograph: The Clever One’s gift of an anti-clockwise clock symbolising my yearning to always turn back the hands of time perched on top of the TV with an image of a windy Paris on ladies' semi-finals day with many unopened books accusing me of neglect.