Adoption and Self-Knowledge

I have been rather distressed the last two months. And frustrated. October began with Anita Tedaldi’s piece on the N. Y. Times about the why’s and how’s and most impotantly the justifications of terminating the adoption of her ‘Adopted Son’ and the responses that bombarded the Internet.

Then in November with the U.S. marking the National Adoption Month, the issue of adoption became the focus of some, often prickly, discussions. Each day I grew more and more amazed by the sheer intensity and energy of emotions demonstrated by those involved in the adoption process.

In effect I also got caught up in the heat of it all and drafted ideas from all kinds of perspectives. There are now three potential articles saved on my desktop, but each of them reflected the same unpleasantness that while revising I found distasteful.

Like many, I was also disturbed with the story of little ‘D’ - a story of compounding injudicious actions that added further trauma to the life of this unfortunate boy. Although now that he has a good home and understanding parents, he has a chance to heal.

The fact however remains that with some self-knowledge on Tedaldi’s part, together with more sensitivity and responsibility exercised by the social services, the child would have been saved the mindless trauma.

I do hope that her article does not start a copycat trend in disrupted adoptions.

Adoption is a very personal matter.

Adoptee, birth parent and adoptive parent—each has their own perspective. Then the involvement of the coordinating agency adds a whole different angle to an already complicated story.

It is not easy to be objective about relationships that are so essential to our existence, that are so instinctive and natural that we enter them without thinking, and that are burdened by a mythology of superlative ideals and tremendous expectations.

Perhaps as a result of everybody wanting to achieve that ideal, ‘adoption’ now seems to have become a microcosm, a self-contained world with a vocabulary that only communicates at cross-purposes.

I like to smile. I find it easy to smile and I think others find it easy to smile with me too.

But I haven’t been smiling much the last few weeks, because I am an adoptive mother and for the last fifteen years I have also been a post-adoption counselor.

Chanting

When I stopped working full-time, I joined a comparative philosophy class (very convenient, same lecture and discussion three times a week and three units every week. Could be done on the same day all together or spread over a week. Pretty good arrangement, don’t you think for a person with chronic health problems?). I also spent time reading the scriptures of various religions with guidance from the men and women who are qualified to teach their subject and do so as part of their duties at the monasteries and missions. They were wonderful experiences that I will share in another post.

I don’t know what attracted me to the subject because I had spent the first twenty-five years of my life happily indulging in thoughts and activities that even a very indulgent monastic would stop to consider saying, ‘ Ho ... hum!’ to. :)

Anyhow, after about a decade or so of pottering and digging, seeing all kinds of people and visiting all kinds of places, I sort of began to arrive at an idea of the approach to life that suited me personally. Life encompasses times and circumstances that are completely unpredictable and not always pleasant, and to be able to give of oneself with grace through it all one needs the constancy of personal integrity.

The word Personal is very important to me.

No two people can approach life similarly. Emotional and spiritual advancement may be the final goal that we wish to reach, but each of our journeys is different.

So after trying to find my way to a better understanding and expression of myself, I put together a stream of thoughts into a verse that now inspires and carries me from moment to moment.

As this blog is also the reflection of my thoughts I’ll write it down.

I will respect how I am perceived.

I will respect what I perceive.

I will respect what I imbibe.

I will respect my physical being.

I will respect my intellect.

I will respect my spirit and my further advancement into the spiritual world.

I honour the universe.

I honour Energy within myself and within the life around me.

Together the two of you are the Universal Life Force.

Together You are my life.

Together You lead me to You.

You lead me to Integrity.

You lead me to the Truth.

Bless me so I can experience You.

Bless all who teach me of You.

Bless All who speak of You.

Let me find peace within and around.

I chant these verses to myself often - last thing at night and first thing in the morning as a routine and then at all times of special joy, crisis or sadness. Sometimes I chant them just for the contentment they create in me, when I feel the world is just right.

Chanting calms me. I find it soothing and centering.

Like many others, I am not ritualistic. But I can appreciate the appeal and often the beauty of rituals, and I can understand their purpose.

I find that the rhythmic singing of words limited to a set of repetitive notes in one pitch help at once to lift my concentration from the immediate. The familiar words set to a tone in a single pattern frees my mind from the effort of remembering so I can visualize what I speak.

I have found the notes, rhythm and the pitch I am comfortable with. It is based on a particular classical style that I have grown up with and ‘though I never had ever learned or participated in organized chanting before, I found it easy to teach myself and become familiar with in little time.

This method has worked for me the last five or six years. I am alert to other possibilities that may be more fulfilling, but for now this works.

Dear God

I came across some notes I had scribbled when I was in grade V11.

I found this.

Dear God,

You are weird. I don’t get you. You don’t add up.

You are the Controller of the earth, the fire, the wind and the rain.

You are manifested in the earth, the fire, the wind and the rain.

You are the earth, the fire, the wind and the rain

You have laws that we mortals should live by, but You make and break them at will.

Yet the belief is that living by Your laws will get one to Heaven – where a lifelong of pleasure or salvation awaits.

We sin if we don’t obey and if we repent and ask for forgiveness we are forgiven. It is supposed to be that simple.

Is it?

Now when I am nudging fifty, I know better intellectually,

That’s not enough though, is it?

Raking Up the Past

Does therapy really work?

I don’t mean of the kind where one needs to be working through present issues, - like I need to see a therapist to spew out my frustration with my daughter’s behaviour, she is being treated for OCD (obsessive, compulsive disorder) with an anti-depressant and has gone hypo-manic.

I mean for some of the terrible things that may have happened in the past.

I started to write a blog about a series of events that caused me misery when I was a child. It would have been a textbook detailing of child abuse (Only those who absolutely need to know, know about this. Unfortunately there are some amongst them who I wish now didn't know) by irresponsible, insensitive relatives who were the guardians of an unfortunate child after her mother died of cancer.

Except for one-liners to state the incidents to my psychiatrist so that he was aware in case he ever needed to take them into consideration to prescribe my medications, I have never mentioned the details to anyone.

People perceive me as an optimistic and emotionally strong person and depend on me as a sounding board when they are in a bind. I have never wanted anybody to feel sorry for me. So I have never spoken to anyone.

Since I am writing my blog under a moniker I thought I’d write about those days, but I just couldn’t handle it. I was miserable and had to stop as I felt I could spiral into a depression.

IT WAS FRIGHTENING.

My memory is shot. Much of the details of those times I have forgotten completely. I seem to have always dealt with the unpleasant in life by sweeping those events well under the carpet. As a result I have lost years of my life, but very possibly coped better. My optimism is part of my spirit, but it has caused me much of my memory.

It’s the preferable trade off.

I am Learning to Accept

I am at the bottom of the ‘career’ options ladder now. I feel pretty good here. Contrary to the misgiving of others and myself, it’s not been difficult, not numbing. Not easy … but easier than hard.

One struggles while coming down the steps. Living high up on the ladder feels good. Bloody madness, but a kick all the same.

It’s flattering.

One’s ego begins to swell up into a personality so out of reach that one has to dig deep to find the reality. For a lucky few, the reality emerges from within. The struggle then is less prolonged, less exhausting.

I am one of those lucky ones.

As one climbs down to the lower rungs it takes a while to adjust. It can be either a descent into the well of a loss of self-esteem or liberation from a misplaced one.

I found myself right at the bottom – with some previous indication of what was to come, but finally without a choice.

I had been for long wanting to get out of the bubble I had created around myself, which had slowly begun to trap me in.

And without touching my consciousness my mind and body had both started to rebel against the lifestyle that personally for me should never have been. So subtle was the progress that it took me a long while to make any sense out of it, to know that my expectation from life had to change, that the bubble had begun to shrink. Then one day there was a plop and the bubble was gone.

It was unpleasant, disorienting and disappointing. To be ambitious and successful, that is the mantra of the world I was used to. To give up meant I had dropped out.

For months I floundered. A whole new identity needed acceptance. Introductions needed to be made, dates set up, compatibilities found, adjustments done.

Love at first sight is not what I experienced with the new me.

Yet one day I found there was more air around for me to breathe.

I can’t ignore the pain and the fear of what I will be up against every time a new symptom appears in my body, as it very often does. The frustration with the results of the laboratory tests is never easily accepted. Battling the side effects of the drugs is not a good feeling.

Most of all I hate living with the constant fear that my mind will suddenly go awry. That is something I will do anything to prevent.

All the same, I like the quiet of my mind.

I am free from the worry and the restlessness of many, many obligations and duties that weighed me down before.

I like the fact that now I have the time to be able to learn a classical language and read the old literature that always held a fascination for me.

I can now watch endless tennis on every time line without worrying about being unable to wake up and tired in the morning (the ATP Masters finals are on now). :)

Am I happy?

Yes. At a cost, but considering everything – it’s a good deal.

At least for now it is.

I am so Embarrassed

Its Sunday morning here.

There were some really good friends over for dinner last night.
I went down to meet them late as it is difficult to leave half way through and these days I can't deal with company and conversation for long these days. (Lupus)

Very sweetly they suggested I see this herbalist who has cured ...
I flipped.

I have tried every kind of treatment possible. Herbal, mineral, naturopathy, homeopathy, magnetic, colour therapy, stone therapy, charm bracelets, worships, prayers in every religion. I've travelled to different cities, met holy men, - woken up at ungodly hours. All of this has done myself more harm than good.
I just can't cope with these thought any more.
I know they all mean well, and I am grateful, I really am. But I still get frustrated.

Anyway - I called this morning and apologised. They were really sweet and pretended they didn't know what I was talking about. But I do still feel bad that I got at them.

Today I'll just stay home and sleep, watch the first round of the ATP Master's final that starts today and then if I have the energy write a bit for my blog.
There are three entries I have in mind, but haven't had the energy to write them out.

I will also try and be nicer to people and thank them for wanting to wish me well.

She is Special

There were many ideas for future blogs that I planned to write.

But this has to take precedence.

Every life has to carry it’s personal cross, the kind of cross that can challenge the core of it’s existence.

My recent entry to the blog world has opened up to me lives and experiences of those whose courage to go on no matter what is unfathomable.

What I came across yesterday was one of those.

At one level it is more then sad, at another just amazing.

This is about a 26-year-old mother with four children and a charmed life full of loving people and idyllic surroundings that she takes pains to create and sustain.

She herself is wholesome and pretty. She even has freckles on her cheeks.

When the youngest child was not yet one, she and her husband went flying in a small aircraft with the person who had taught her husband how to fly. Someway into the flight the engine stopped. They were lucky that this was near a hospital that specializes has one of the best burns unit in America.

But within twenty-four hours, their instructor friend died of complications from his burns.

Her husband was in a coma for five weeks or so with 45% burns. She had 83%. 83%!!

Her husband was released from hospital a couple of months before her. One side of his face is scarred.

It was six or seven months before she was able to come out of the hospital, with severe disfigurement. Her children who had been looked after by her two sisters wouldn’t look at her, come close to her for months.

Surgeries after surgeries happen to help her mobility, to rebuild her appearance.

It is only last month that she could get herself to post photos of her self on the blog. It is absolutely heart breaking.

She posts about her physical and mental trauma, about how every moment, every movement is a reminder of the life she has lost. She has to struggle to remind herself that behind that destroyed appearance she is who she is and always will be.

But she also posts about the fun breaks she takes with her totally loving extended family. She shops and goes out to eat – she does not hide herself – that in itself requires courage. Being stared at for all the wrong reasons is never easy and will never be easy.

They talk of the time before the accident as BC and the time after as AC.

Her husband has been by her every step of the way, looking after her, loving her through it all. The entire family got together to throw a party on the anniversary of their accident to celebrate life.

I have no words to describe her faith, her courage and attitude to be the best she can be to the world around and to herself.

She has , thrown parties before the ‘back to school’ day, made Halloween costumes for her children. She has flowers on her dinner table every day. She is in love with all those babies that are being born in the family. She wants it to be her turn now.

A very important support for has been her faith in her ‘Father in Heaven’.

Cheers girl! The world would be poorer without you.

Bipolar Does Not a Genius Make

I received an email today – something that is doing the rounds. The aim is to sell a book,

Apparently people with bipolar disorder are God’s gift to mankind.

I thought I’d write a summery, but it is just too tempting to share the cringe of the original, so I’ll quote the text I was sent.

“You are amazing. Many do not understand your bipolar nature; but

you can rest assured ...

The bipolar experience is no more than this:

A heroic soul born inhumanely sensitive,

desperately in need of true connection.

Add to your brutally sensitive soul the overwhelming need to

heal, create, and transform -- so that without the outpouring

of honesty, the creating of music or poetry or something of

meaning your very breath is cut off ...

You must create, must pour out your entire being in each and

every encounter. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency you do

not feel truly alive unless you are risking everything through

your divine expression.

Thank you for having the courage to create ... to transform ...

to be ... in a way other souls don't.

For without your courage and your light

the world would grow listless and dull

and the rest of us who are like you

would not have your courageous acts”

Checking against the above I surmise that I am mundane. I am also an unimaginative, insensitive, cynical, godless human being with a hardened soul and am a coward to boot.

Yet I have bipolar disorder - many years of treatment to control it has not done me any harm, which had I not been, certainly would have – and I cannot believe anyone could be irresponsible enough to air such utterly inane, unsubstantiated opinions as quoted.

I’ve been there – right after my diagnosis, struggling to validate my existence by optimistically comparing myself with those bipolar 'celebrities' whose names are floated on the Internet. Thinking myself special, thinking that I would change attitudes. I wanted to be another Mother Teresa.

I read all those ‘biographies’ of creative genius, - expressed in novels, poems, songs - all the angst, the misery, the suffering of the misunderstood soul, - that happily for the human love of tragic drama ended in delusions and the final self-destruction.

Instead of trying to face the reality of my unhealthy mind and concentrating on bringing it under control, I indulged thoughts of achieving greatness. I wasted valuable time and energy chasing a nonexistent goal.

So I’ll go out on a limb and say that writings like the above are dangerously tempting to people who have recently been diagnosed with bipolar to believe in. Because I know. At a time when they are totally vulnerable, fighting hard to find the strength to cope with living, trying to find an identity, in many cases facing social prejudices and stereotyping, these ideas are cruel traps. They glorify all that is unhealthy and ruinous.

You know what? I have come to the conclusion that I am an average human being with one or two above average aptitudes, the same as any other average human being.

I am no genius. I don’t get an automatic entry into genius-land; in fact I would not even qualify for the qualifying rounds. Bipolar disorder does not give me any special advantage or a head start. Having a malfunctioning neurotransmitter affects my nature, but it makes me who I am – lock, stock and barrel.

It is an easy equation:

Isis + Bipolar = Isis with her own abilities who has bipolar

As is:

X + any incurable but controllable health concern = X with his/her own potentials who also has …

Bipolar is a mood disorder. The symptoms vary in aspect and degree.

I admit that when I am ever so slightly hypo-manic, I may function better than I would ordinarily, but it would be relative to my own abilities, not that of others.

That is the time when the limits of one’s talents can be stretched. But that limit is restricted to the individual’s potential - meaning I’d love to be A, but I cannot. I am a product of my genetic wiring and the environment, so I can only make the most of myself.

When there is a little more mania I begin to think I am the ultimate. I throw noisy tantrums, create major drama and think everybody else in the world is a nitwit.

All the while others think I am an embarrassing, arrogant, irritating imbecile that they can’t move away from quickly enough. They don’t tell me that, but when I touch down again, I know.

A full-blown hypomanic episode, apart from making an undignified mess of me would knock me side ways and off the radar. I could pose violent danger to others and myself.

And when I am depressed? I am dysfunctional. I don’t want to wake up.

It seems there is nothing to look forward too, no hope for a future. My mind becomes frozen.

The depth of depression obliterates everything. Living so sorry, so pitiful a life seems not worth living.

So at neither extreme am I a gift to mankind. At both extremes I am apt to lose consciousness of even my existence.

Neither state makes a pretty picture.

But when I am a ‘normie’ I am rather pleasant. Average. With shinning eyes. Really.

The question always at the back of my mind is that when I am stable who is it that I really am?

Am I a personality created by the drugs or is this how I am genetically and environmentally meant to be? I never can be quite sure.

No ‘pundit’ yet has yet been able to convince me, so I am still chasing an answer.

Public figures with bipolar are often cited as how bipolar can make people into over achievers. But lets be realistic - they are who they are because of their talent, because of their drive, because they can make the most of where they are, and when they are there, and if you believe in the element of luck then put in some of that to the mix.

To avoid misunderstandings – while it is true that a person who is slightly hypo-manic can, in that window of time, seem to be driven, but the drive that a lot of people have has nothing to do with bipolar. My sister is driven and she is does not have bipolar. It is her nature.

I believe that bipolar disorder can and does stunt lives. I know a few of those lives.

I think that technically there can be people who are able to be objective about their moods, and can use the edge of the extra energy and keenness that comes with slight hypomania to be more productive and add an extra dimension to their life or work. But that kind of insight is very rare, and I have not come across it.

Needless to say it works both ways – positive or negative. One person can create while another destruct. That again reflects back to the source of their potentials. Also, the same person can be both positive and negative with a similar degree of manifestation at different times of their lives.

So lets not do injustice to those supremely gifted personalities.

Lets not put their achievement down to bipolar.

Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf were sublime writers who had bipolar disorder. Lord Byron, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Keats, and Sylvia Plath also suffered from manic depression.

Everybody knows that Vincent Van Gogh had bipolar disorder, as did Beethoven and Robert Schumann. Then there are Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, they battled with it all their lives.

But they all had the genius to do and become what they did.

Bipolar did not cause, create or control their talent.

They had bipolar.

Bipolar did not have them.

They also had genuine ability and talent.

So please, please, anybody who may be diagnosed with a health problem, any health problem - stop chasing the impossible. Concentrate on getting better and who knows, with a healthy body and mind you may well turn out to be a genius - a true genius, not because the illness has given it to you, but in spite of it.

Nothing Like Chronic Illness to Teach Humility

To put this entry into context I have to mention that I am diagnosed with both Bipolar and Lupus. The formal diagnosis followed years of severe symptoms and misdiagnosis.

Chronic, progressive illnesses that cannot be cured, only kept under control, have changed the way I live absolutely. Before what I could do and afterwards be sick, are exactly those that now I can’t do so I am not too sick. I stop before I even start.

I have to plan every activity, edit all emotions I initiate or may be at the receiving end of. The activities must not involve stress, strain or sunlight, the emotions shouldn’t cause anxiety, stress, depression or mania - now all that generally add up to normal life - so bye-bye normal life.

But what I have found is that living does not have to be copybook. Limits can open up opportunities that would never have been considered before. Limits bring with it humility, one has to then get off one’s high horse. Ambitions that were driven by the lack of understanding of real abilities and bolstered by a misplaced ego have to be given up because they become too stressful and cause too much anxiety.

It takes time to adjust, to think things through. Its best to imagine the worst scenario, so anything to keep that at bay is an achievement that is earned in baby steps, testing the water as one goes along.

I started writing this blog in September, a full six months after I became largely house bound. Soon it will be eight months.

Writing this blog has been more therapeutic than formal therapy. The mind has a way of coming up with solutions once it has accepted the question.

Notion of Achievement

To put this entry into context I have to repeat that I am diagnosed with both Bipolar and Lupus. The formal diagnosis followed years of severe symptoms and misdiagnosis.

Chronic, progressive illnesses that cannot be cured, only kept under control, have changed the way I live absolutely. Before what I could do and afterwards be sick, are exactly those that now I can’t do so I am not too sick.

I have to plan every activity, edit all emotions I initiate or may be at the receiving end of. The activities must not involve stress, strain or sunlight, the emotions shouldn’t cause anxiety, stress, depression or mania - now all that generally add up to normal life - so bye-bye normal life.

But what I have found is that living does not have to be copybook. Limits can open up opportunities that would never have been considered before. Limits bring with it humility, one needs to then get off one’s high horse. Ambitions that were driven by the lack of understanding of ones real abilities and bolstered by a misplaced ego have to be given up because they become too stressful and cause too much anxiety.

It takes time to adjust, to think things through. Its best to imagine the worst scenario, so anything to keep that at bay is an achievement that is earned in baby steps, testing the water as one goes along.

I started writing this blog in September, a full six months after I became largely house bound. Soon it will be eight months.

Writing this blog has been more therapeutic than formal therapy. The mind has a way of coming up with solutions once it has accepted the question.

I Rock!

A friend I worked with more than two decades ago called me to invite us over for his wife’s 50^th birthday. H told him that I was not well, ‘had been home since March and wouldn’t be able to make it, but that H would certainly go. The friend then asked to speak to me.

He possibly thought I’d be quiet and reserved, and there I was happy to hear from him, happy to be speaking to him. He seemed surprised and commented on it.

And here’s the shocker! I told him that - it was just as well, because it would’ve been awful to be stuck at home and miserable at the same time!

I actually told him that. I mean it was not something I had prepared for or had ready to make a dialogue of if the occasion arose. It was a thought that came to me just then. It was absolutely spontaneous.

I have truly been happy since.

For a Bipolar person with a history of deep depression, - who is in an acute Lupus flare and so a great deal of pain, who is stuck in the house for months, when even short visits to the doctors make her feel worse, - to be genuinely cheerful and able to say that she is happy, rocks.

Yeh…! I rock!

And I refuse to give my psychiatrist any credit.

The flipside: -

- Monday and Tuesday evening I went to see my sister dance. Anybody who reads my blog will possibly remember that I am the very proud elder sister of an exquisite dancer. She doesn’t live in this city, so a performance here is a treat that I look forward to. I was not out for more than two and a half hours either evening, and that included the drive there and back. Then from Wednesday I have been feeling like rubbish. All the usual Lupus symptoms, but pretty much maxed out.

- This afternoon a friend called. She was in the vicinity and asked if she could come over. I don’t believe what I said. I actually asked her if she would mind if I said no because I really didn’t feel up to it. She was of course, very understanding. But it was not pleasant to realize how dependent I’ve become on my body. On a better day, if I am expecting someone, I can plan around it. I can have the pain medications at an appropriate time, eat and rest accordingly and be ready. Anything unexpected throws me. But today was not a ‘better’ day and I would have cancelled planned meetings too.

Ho hum! I am not feeling sorry for myself. I am not feeling sorry for myself. I am not feeling sorry for myself!

Warning! A Self-Centered Crib

This is just the kind of blog I hate to write, but today this is all that I can think about.

The last couple of days I have been unwell. The Lupusy kind of unwell that is hard to describe. I am achey, have constant low temperature, swollen watering eyes that keep closing, drowsiness, brain fog and an oozy mind.

The narco painkiller with paracetamol, takes the edge off, but obviously there is a lot more behind the edge.

Today is the pits - really! It is no point even trying to describe what is wrong.

I had a screaming match with my daughter last Friday and Saturday. Stressor. Monday and Tuesday evenings I went to see my sister perform. I was driven, got good seats, had taken all the meds and precautions necessary. There was no strain at all, but my body thinks there was. So here I am, in bed, jumping at the least sound. Even brushing my teeth is a problem. Incase you are thinking I don’t – I do.

What is worrying me now is that I think I am hitting on the depression mode - not the clinical kind - but the fed up kind. I hope it doesn't get worse

For the first time ever since I became house bound, I think today I will ask a friend to come and spend some time with me. I hate doing this - prefer to let them make their own time. I don't want them to think they 'need' to see me. But today I ‘need’ to call in a favour.

I have been reading. I have two Ngaio Marshe’s books to read now. ‘Just finished Lionel Shriver’s latest.

Visiting the forums, when I can, also feels good. The folks there are real troopers, in spite of being ill themselves, they never fail to support big time. I suppose one of the reasons I manage to spend so much time on my own is because they are always there.

I wish I could thank them all on this blog individually, but I doubt they would want that. But thank you - all of you.

The Dancer

I went to see a wonderful dance performance yesterday. My sister's - but that is irrelevant. She trained in one of the old classical dance forms of our country with the legendary Master of that discipline.

From the time when we were very young she wanted to be a dancer. It was instinctive. She was absolutely driven. Nothing else had priority. Tough choices had to be made, but she always knew which way to roll the dice.

As she matured as a dancer she brought the same intensity to the pieces that she then began to choreograph.

What makes her work so splendid to watch is her knowledge of the tradition and the grasp she has on the vocabulary of that particular school of dance.

Her research on the subject of her productions is relentless, - so each item is grounded.

She uses as inspiration all of the life of the state that the dance originates from. From the various performing arts, the games that the children play, to the stories that the people tell, she weaves them all into her dance.

She takes tales from our mythology and turns them on their heads to give them interpretations that feel right - characters are given dimensions that mythology never has room for.

She has a repertory of dancers who are each fluid in their art and expressions. When in a group their talents come together seamlessly to a supportive presentation.

She is clever - my sister. She knows her own strengths and her weaknesses. She knows her time and her place. She picks and chooses and she is seldom wrong. She is constantly searching, questioning herself. Apparently secure in her knowledge of the medium, her abilities, technique and her choreography, she relentlessly pursues excellence. When she teaches she holds back nothing, so the dance form can continue beyond her.

Without wanting to be the Prima Donna - she is.

Oh ... did I mention she is beautiful?

Why White?

A friend on the Bipolar support group was curious about why she seems to only wear white, and what it may mean.

The effect of colours on one's attitude is something I have thought a lot about over the years.

For a couple of years I only wore white. It was not enforced, I just did not want to wear any other colour.
That was also the time I was at my most introspective.
In hindsight I think white represented for me a clean slate, that I drew different colours of different moods on.
In most religions the clerics always wear white so they can react to any situation - physical, mental or spiritual - without a memory shaped by experiences of a life lived before entering the Monastery.
In India, those who want to join some religious orders have to spend ten years in white clothes as a novice.
It is expected that in those ten years they will experience and absorb the nature of a true monk and bounce away all negatives in their consciousness - learn how to give up the life lived in the senses.
Theoretically,only if they appreciate and accept what that life means, can they begin to wear saffron. Many leave because they are not able to live up to the stringent standards of that theory. Many don't leave because they make themselves believe they are. There is no equipment in the world that can measure reality.
It is on the neutrality of white that the enormity of a new life is imbibed.