Of Diamonds and Pearls

Photo: At Lake Tahoe three years ago, wearing the diamond necklace. 

I have a confession: I’ve never been very good at holding onto possessions.

I lose stuff. And when that stuff is expensive, and especially when it holds sentimental value, the loss stings. 

Usually these things are circumstantial and a lot of the time beyond my control. For example if someone chooses to steal my Raymond Weil watch during yoga class (when I have placed my watch to the side of the room), is that my fault?

If I lose the pearl pendant with chip diamonds - that an ex-boyfriend gave me - on my way to a lunch eatery in downtown Los Angeles because it's slipped from its gold chain, is that my fault?

But the biggest sting of all happened last night during my walk/run commute from my home in Hollywood to the Hollywood Christmas Parade. 

I lost my diamond necklace, the diamond worth a great deal – both in monetary terms (thousands) and sentimental value. It was my late mother's given to her by my father in 1970. 

I don’t know what happened, how can one really know what happens, when suddenly the piece of jewellery worn one minute is no longer there the next? Perhaps I hadn’t clasped it correctly, perhaps the leather jacket and scarf I had chosen to wear yanked it off, the chain may have snapped – who knows, but it’s gone and I have since searched the house high and low. No necklace. 

I didn't realise its loss until this morning when I went to put it on for work. And then I retraced my steps in my mind...that frantic search one embarks (did I notice I was not wearing it once home last night?...no, I hadn't, but come to think of it, I do not recall unclasping it either). The friend I had gone to meet at the Parade said she had not noticed my wearing it- and it's the kind of necklace one notices. It had been a long day (out house-hunting most of the day) and I'd been out to dinner early evening. My mind was operating on auto-pilot. 

I searched for meaning. Two big 'jewellery item' hits - lost - in less than a month. I consulted my good mate in Australia who indulges me in "what this could mean?" interpretations.

She said (knowing some circumstances in my life of late - which she pointed to in her message, but I have edited for privacy purposes):

With you, I think metaphorically you could view it as a sign of things coming undone - eg even being a carefree property-less spirit given you are looking to bring that life to an end by buying property (which I think will be really good for you and your future happiness and security). It is also a sign of too much going on in your life and losing track. You have been really busy so maybe the universe is trying to encourage you to slow down? Anyway, I really don’t know. It must be really, really upsetting.

Yes, I can tell you - it is really, really upsetting - and not just for me, for my father also - who bought the diamond for my mother. My mother died 21 years ago, so there is that sentimental value too, obviously - albeit, I am one that carries more the person's memory than holds too much weight in their material possessions, but having said that, it's another piece of her lost to oblivion - and as I said to my friend Devon tonight: "mum would not be pleased".

I tried to report it to the police station in Hollywood - and the young policeman wouldn't take the report "no-one will hand in a diamond, no-one has, no-one ever does." So I left my name and number instead - at my suggestion, not the policeman's. I think I'll go back and insist a filed report is made, especially as my father has since made me aware of the diamond's actual value. 

Interestingly, without prodding, the policeman said: "My mother says if you lose jewellery, it means people are hating on you." I looked at him quizzically. Certainly I could think of at least two people possibly "hating on me" but who knows? The fact the policeman chose to share this belief with me, was interesting at best. Naive on his part...age will help him realise those sorts of comments in similar circumstances, are best left unsaid.

The incident also reminds me of friend in Melbourne who experienced a home burglary and had a Rolex watch stolen and her beautiful (and very expensive diamond engagement ring). She had insurance, and was able to financially be compensated - but ended up replacing her jewels with zircone stones (ie fake diamonds). She just didn't want to go through that grief again. Who can blame her? I'm considering this path myself. 

And to the person/persons who found the diamond (if in fact it has been snapped up and does not sit waiting to be grabbed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame), Jesus said (as interpreted by Eckhart Tolle): "If someone takes your shirt, let him have your coat as well." I hope that person derives joy from the diamond, perhaps they'll give it to their partner and the lover will happily wear it, or that the person sells it - but gets a decent price for it and can feed their family for months to come. OR they do the honorable thing and turn it in. One thing's for sure - they'll never know its true value and about the persons who once wore it with love. 

There's nothing I can do about it now. It's out of my hands. Literally, out of my hands. 


(there's an update to this story, SCROLL below)

Photo: My friend Sarah and me two years ago in Adelaide, I'm wearing the diamond necklace. 

Photo: With Beth Orton after her concert, I'm wearing the diamond necklace. 

Photo: my LA friend Devon and me at Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood. I'm wearing the pearl pendant necklace. 

Photo: In Melbourne, wearing my pearl pendant. 

The update - five days later (from original post):

I found the diamond necklace. It was at home (lol), I must have taken it off (absent-mindedly I tell you) after returning from the Christmas parade. It must have been hidden in the sheets (which I washed) OR fallen into a rug that I shook out today. Either way, it mysteriously showed up after I'd shaken out the sheets and two rugs outside my apartment. I did not notice it during this activity, it didn't fling out in sight as I shook the items - but when I went outside again a few minutes later, to see if I'd inadvertently shaken out my diamond stud earring (yes, I am terrible at holding onto things) the necklace was lying there - as clear as day, on the brick paving. Is this hocus pocus stuff? - did my mother move it to my line of sight from the "other side"? I will never know - or perhaps I will....one day (and I found my diamond stud earring too so life goes back to order...for now).

Spending seven days on a Buddhist Silent Meditation Retreat

Photo - Joshua Tree, Joshua Tree desert.

Photo - the Buddha holding reign during our seven day silent meditation retreat. Above him was a bell that was rung by retreat participants to signal each meditation sitting and walking.

The decision to go on a seven day Buddhist silent meditation retreat doesn't really come out of nowhere. It's the culmination of many years of experiences and circumstances, harking back as far as childhood, that leads to one's participation in such events. 

Like a virus that lays dormant, it's a seed waiting to sprout, holding with it the likelihood of one day resurfacing, like the time I got Shingles at 35. I was putting myself through a great deal of emotional stress after a breakup, and all of a sudden I ended up with this rash running down my lower back. 

I had planned a visit to the doctor for another matter - and while there, I asked him about the rash. "What is it?" I asked. He inspected, "that's Shingles.” So of course off I went to our good friend Google and discovered that Shingles is actually the same virus as Chickenpox, and you can only break out in Shingles if you have had the Chickenpox. I do not remember having the Chickenpox and yet that stubborn virus had lain dormant all those years waiting for its trigger.

My parents took me and my brother to Bangkok, Thailand, when I was six years old. It was here where I saw the great gold statues of Buddha in the Thai Temples and the monks praying and meditating at their feet. Throughout my life I've also taken part in other spiritually related activities such as going to church, learning martial arts, practicing yoga, and embarking on solo travel to places such as Europe, Africa, and India. 

I came to Buddhist Meditation about seven years ago – something I knew I would benefit from after the sadness of saying goodbye to my pet dog (17.5 years!). I was literally led to a place of practice from picking up a brochure about it in the local dry cleaner. From that time on, I have come to know the value of meditation and listening to dharma talks (Buddhist teaching). 

Observations about the retreat, its participants and me

I discovered from the week and its 100 or so (about equivalent mix male/female) attendees, that I appear to have a head start on matters of self-reliance and resilience. I am an independent soul who is used to doing things on her own. A self-declared warrior woman. Throughout the week there was lots of crying (not mine – others) and I noticed a number of people walking around with forlorn expressions on their faces. While everyone has their own story and ways of dealing, mine does not include breaking down in front of strangers in a mess of tears.

In terms of silence – many people said during our group meetings that they had struggled with the concept of walking into a situation that demanded a full week’s silence. I welcomed it - tired by the noise! yak yak yak - and I’m used to the quiet. No husband, children, pets, and I live alone. Night after night, I go to bed alone. Morning after morning, I leave an empty flat and return to an empty flat. 

Silence does not bother me. I rarely speak when I’m on my own but occasionally I'll talk to myself, those one-off comments or reminders that one makes out loud. There was a bit of this during the retreat – usually something done without thinking about it too much - so oops, I did break the ‘noble silence’ in that respect.

I've also been to two, four day long, yoga festivals at the same site. I decided to camp, so I wouldn't have to share with another person and could exert a greater level of independence. But at times camping can test one's constitution. 

Night time prowlers

For instance, around midnight is when the coyotes come out. We don't have coyotes in Australia, so I had some catching up to do…we did have the Road Runner cartoon though - an early, albeit comical, introduction to the coyote. As well coyotes remind me of the Australian Dingo and Australians are pretty up to speed with dingoes.

On about the second night of my camping, as midnight rolled around, a sudden cry was released - a howl. Not like a wolf’s howl, but shorter. Is it a dog? I wondered. And then before much more thinking could be done - a pack of animals answered the call. A cacophony of cries heard across the desert, and there I was - in the four walls of my canvas tent, freaking out.

My peeing pattern - or so it seems now, appeared to follow the coyote cry, or their cry would wake me to my pattern. The coyotes started up again the next night about midnight, and again the next - in synchronicity with my bladder alert: "Time to dump some water." 

I summoned the courage to leave my tent, beating down my fear, and zealously opened the tent zipper. Bumbling my way out into the open air, I took my release within a few feet’s distance of the tent. I was nervous to scan my iPhone flashlight across the desert expanse, but I did – just a bit - to ensure the coyotes weren't within range. 

I broke the noble silence again (in addition to talking to myself) the day after hearing the coyotes for the first time. I’d come across three men who were not part of the retreat but looked like they worked on the property. 

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked. "Yes..." they replied. "That noise," I explained, "the one that sounds like dogs howling, and happens around midnight, is that the coyote?"

"Yes," each agreed.

I discovered these men were locals and for the next few minutes we were engrossed talking about coyotes.

"Nothing to worry about," the wisest looking of the three said. I made that assertion - him being the wisest - because he had been very present to my inquiry - and had taken it all very seriously that here in front of him stood a damsel in distress. This man had lovey blue eyes and a tanned, wrinkled face, handsome in that older Robert Redford kind of way. 

That night, around midnight like clockwork, the coyotes started up again, I was in that half-asleep, half-awake state, and as I heard the cry - my mind started playing tricks on me visualising a coyote jabbing its nose through my tent zipper and pawing, like a bear, to get in. Its face finally broke through the zipper and its mouth grabbed at my pajama pants while it backed its body up to drag me out. My mind finally caught up with itself and I realised it had been some kind of dazzling hallucination. 

Human fear

If coyotes weren't enough, by night four, I had worked myself into a state of frenzy fearing the possibility of a male intruder breaking into my tent and raping me! (or murder...)

One of the precincts (rules) of the retreat was to refrain from any sexual conduct, which included the actual physical act of ‘self-love’. I started to become concerned that the men’s sexual urges would be building as the days progressed - and that they would seek their release on me!

There was also a considerable number of male workman operating around the retreat center and many of these men had driven past my tent several times a day - they could easily see I was camping alone. 

Any rustle of wind that stirred my tent in the middle of the night would send me on edge and my heart pounded. It wasn't until many hours later when I was finally able to doze off from sheer exhaustion. 

Group meeting with our teachers

Twice during the week, the schedule included two small group meetings with one of the Buddhist teachers to check in on how things were going with an opportunity to express our concerns. The day I was scheduled for group landed the day after my 'night of terrors' worrying about being attacked.

The teacher, typical to how one would expect a Buddhist yogi to respond, 'held space for me' while I relayed my fears, and provided reassurance that in the ten years she had participated in such retreats, all had gone without incident. The teacher suggested I “meditate on the fear” and so I did. And it worked. The next three nights I rested in the reframe of my thinking: I'm on private land, attending a retreat with a bunch of Buddhists - nothing has happened of that nature before – and the maintenance workers of course would lose their job for any such behaviour. You should be ok.

The only demons I wrestled with around camping for the rest of the trip included the cold nights and as a consequence, insomnia. When I did clock in some welcomed REM, my dreams were close to real life scenarios - included people I knew, and more vivid than usual. That was interesting to me. 

The meditation schedule

The schedule followed the same structure from Monday to Friday. It included a 6.30am meditation sitting (I never went to this because I don’t like being up that early!); 7am breakfast; a 9am mandatory meeting that included a morning dharma talk by one of the teachers; 10am walking meditation; 10.30am sitting mediation; 11.15am walking; 11.45am sitting - followed by lunch at 12.30pm.

The afternoon would keep to that kind of rhythm with dinner at 5.30pm and another mandatory meeting at 7.30pm for more dharma talk. At 9pm, there was led chanting - but I never went to this either. By that stage, I was ready for bed and as a Christian, did feel a bit uneasy with the idea of devotional chanting to a deity other than God or Jesus. 

We were only required to take part in the 9am and 7.30pm activities and I confess I missed a lot of the sittings and walking meditations, instead opting to do my own thing. It seemed to me though that the majority of attendees followed the full schedule. I would go off back to my car and tent and sit on my foldout chair to bake like a lizard in the sun, and read (something we weren’t meant to do – me breaking ‘noble silence’ again) and I managed to do some yoga as well went for a little jog one day too. Other times I’d go off to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea and eat snacks.

We were also given a daily 30 minute “work meditation” and mine was to dry dishes “pot washing” although there were more than just pots to wash, rinse and dry. All was going well until I cut my right index finger on a steel ridge on the tap and had to band-aid it up to stop the bleeding. The cut was pretty deep and it’s still healing today.

What happens while you’re silent?

The main teacher had cautioned us on the first night about some of the things that were likely to happen during our ‘silence’. He said it was not uncommon to form a ‘vipassana romance’ where we’d settle on a favourite retreat participant (or more than one) and start to formulate stories or fantasies about them. Of course, no one was talking during the retreat so these ‘romances’ were purely fictional and one-sided in our own heads – the teacher said it was not uncommon to court, marry and divorce our chosen person, all within the one week. Amusingly this did happen and to many of us – some revealed details about their having ‘vipassana romances’ on the final night when we were able to talk again. And of course, when people spilled the beans on having experienced a vipassana romance, everyone thought they had been the subject of the romance!

As for me – there were a few people who I probably could have pursued an interest and I did fancy a couple – but nothing that turned to heart stopping lust. Which to be honest, I was thankful for. Lusting after someone in silence sounds pretty painful to me (but of course we’ve all done it). Incidentally, I came across a New York Times Modern Love article about exactly that (forming vipassana romance). Read here.

Breaking the silence

On Saturday, we eased back into the 'real world' in that we broke our silence among the group. During the morning we were encouraged to make eye contact again - and by the afternoon we were speaking to each-other in the outdoor areas. That night, we came together around a campfire and a night of haiku (a short, descriptive form of poetry), limericks and general sharing of retreat experiences (including divulsions of the vipassana romances...). 

The final day - Sunday - involved a sentimental parting in the morning of bowing to each-other in gratitude and acknowledgement of the togetherness of the week that had transpired. It was emotional, touching, and tears were shed. 

Not long after, we were all on our way. Me a quick fall back into consumerism - off to the designer outlets just down the way to grab some autumn wear...(and I did get some lovely buys - thank-you Prada and Marni). 

By Saturday, the second final day, I was ready for the retreat to be over. And isn't that the best way for things to end? When you're ready?

Photo - Joshua Tree desert - 6.45am Sunday October 29, 2017. 

Photo - my camp spot during the week long retreat. Loading up Fred the Ford Explorer in preparation to leave, 6.45am Sunday October 29, 2017.  You can vaguely see my tent to the left of the car hidden by bush scrub. 

Photo - the retreat precepts - we were requested to adhere to these during our seven days participation.

Two more writing exercises during my time at Esalen Institute

Photo - sunset at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, September, 2017.

In day three of the workshop, we were asked to write about:

What is sacred?

I spent three years in a boarding school and every Sunday during that time we went to church. The principal would come and inspect us in the main hall before our leaving on the school buses for the Presbyterian City Church. Shoes polished, check - hat, gloves, pantyhose...if there were scuffs on our shoes or a run in the pantyhose, we were promptly ordered to return to our rooms and rectify the misdemeanor. 

I found solace in the church, a place where I could just sit and be and feel at home. Our bony teenage butts on those hard, wooden pews - sitting obediently among the student brethren and other church goers, idly playing with the ribbon that marked a page in the Bible, or flipping through the hymn book and mouthing the words of a verse. 

There was a sense of being taken care of in the church - something greater had your back. I developed that feeling very early on and it continued after boarding school, when I was living with my parents again and would accompany my mother to church most Sundays - something her breast cancer diagnosis had prompted on. The ritual of church fostered a special connection with my mother, something I continued to have with her until she died, and her funeral held in that same church we'd been attending for five years together. 

After university I took off for Europe, as a 21 year old backpacker, and whenever I felt homesick or lonely, I would call into a church and just sit. There were some astronomically beautiful churches in Europe and I especially remember one in Bruges in Brussels where I sat and prayed for my mother. Great wooden paneling, intricate stone carving, gleaming lead-lighted windows depicting all the great religious motifs. 

Two years ago, I was in Rome and received an email from my cousin that my uncle had unexpectedly passed. He was a beloved fellow, jovial, and wily as a young buck. A farmer his whole life, he had some fantastic stories about time on the land. I responded to my cousin that I was in Rome, but it a most suitable place - the holy city - to be on discovering this sad news. Later that evening, I found a quaint little church just down the road from where I was staying, and said a prayer for my uncle - wishing him Godspeed for his journey on. 

Another writing exercise was to talk to...

Your heart's deepest yearning

Whenever I'm feeling alone, and that 'woe is me' feeling of despair has crept in, I will sometimes look to the times when I've felt pure contentment (or close to it). Most people think having a partner is what's going to make them happiest, but so far, I've experienced better times single. Truest to my heart is when I am on my own.

Having said this, I am never quite on my own during these times - and the desires that drive that yearning - is for connection. It's a bonus when understanding is also thrown in. Some form of contact with another living person, animal or thing - can turn into a nourishment that uplifts the soul, or keeps it steady and stabilized, saving oneself from the perils of despair.

I've found that in a community of day-to-day interactions. The morning visit to the local cafe, exchanging small talk and general observations with the barista; seeing my yoga teacher, and her acknowledgement by way of a nod, that she's glad I "showed up" to class. Doing the weekly rounds of poking my head into my colleagues offices at work to check in and see how I can help.

I also yearn for new experiences and like a butterfly that has broken from its cocoon, it's in this environment - foreign and new - when I lose myself from that conditioned trap of self. Away from routine, my senses become keenly acute and it is in navigating these circumstances that I sate a yearning to be free and content and thrilling. 

Writing workshop at Esalen Institute

Photo - the Esalen Institute, Big Sur - September, 2017

I took off for the long weekend (Labor Day in the U.S) to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur (google it for those who do not know it) and undertook a 2.5 day writing intensive with Mark Matousek (Google him too : )). 

As follows some of the works I penned (and the whole group did this) each with a time limit of around 35 minutes for writing. 

Today in a writing workshop at a world renowned health "new age" retreat centre called Esalen, Mark Matousek, the teacher, asked us to write about our conception. 

Why we were born?

It's interesting that today (September 3) is father's day in Australia. 

I believe I came into this world because my father urged my mother to have another child. From my understanding, and these things are too often vague (because parents don't usually talk about how or why their child was born) my mother was happy with just one child, my brother, and perhaps happy is not the right word, I think she thought her maternal duty was done with one. 

But for some reason my father wanted me. I say for some reason because my mother was the one who did the heavy lifting when it came to parenting. We were a traditional family in that sense - dad the provider, mum the homemaker. I know also that after I was born, my father didn't stop there. He wanted a third child.  Dad had told me much later, in a humorous kind of way, that he would have liked to know which sex was the dominant. I would have loved another brother or sister, but alas, it wasn't to be. 

As it turned out that way, so too did it transpire that my brother is very much like my mother, and I am like my father. We all adored our mother, but I would say if one were to align my brother and I, alongside our parents for a "who's alike?" character assessment, people would draw that conclusion.

 - another of the exercises was to write about "the mother's gaze" and how that has come to shape who you are -

The Mother's Gaze

What did I learn from my mother's face about love?  And how I was seen or not seen.

When my mother died, my father included the poetry line: "the maiden smiled, her eyes overflowing with laughter" in the newspaper's death notice. This line had been said of her several times when she was younger. 

My mother had a soft face, her skin was supple and she had a beautiful smile. She wore a bit of a mask though, she was a great actress. I copied a lot of that - to this day. Someone would call for her on the telephone (she was not a well person she had breast cancer for 10 years until it claimed her life at 52 years old) and she'd furiously wave at my father - "no, I don't want to speak to them"...and yet, dad would pass her the phone. He was very much of the belief that if someone had taken the time to call, the least we could do, was speak to them. 

Mum would take the receiver and instantly transform her voice into one of gaiety for the receiver's end. Very few acquaintances or friends knew the side of my mother that shooed my father away. I saw it often as she was comfortable around us. In thinking about it, I have definitely replicated her two faces. 

The romantic men in my life have struggled with me on that level. They think they're getting one Caroline, the charming and friendly one, and then another side emerges. A side that isn't always nice and chipper. Mum was triumphant in amping up her personality for others. Almost like Gloria Swanson from Sunset Boulevard "I'm ready for my close up."  

The other thing I would mention, about my mother's face and its influence on how I felt loved, was during the time very close to the end of her life when I was visiting her in hospital. The calcium in her bones was breaking down and too much calcium in the bloodstream can, I understand medically, cause dementia.

As I walked into the hospital room she looked at me with a confused almost blank look on her face. I think for the blink of an eye, she didn't know who I was. But then her reaction to my hug and kiss - was how it had been several times before, when she did have her wits about her, at home. Mum was not welcoming of my affection or embrace. She pushed me away time and again, and on this day in the hospital, she gave me a terrified look of "get away."  

This event, and the others leading up, have had a huge impact on my impressions of my mother's love. 

Photo - view from Esalen Institute outdoor dining area. Big Sur, September, 2017.

A long intermission

My goodness, it's been almost a year since I last blogged. That's astounding to me given I have kept this blog up to date pretty regularly across the years. I guess the main reason for my big wide stall pertains to a general level of happiness with the status quo, and no nagging requirement to share my musings with the cyber community or as cathartic exercise - and probably more to the point - that in a career of public relations - it involves a lot of reading and writing. So it's not uncommon to run out of puff at the end of a work day and then pursue extra-curricular writing - such as personal blog maintenance.

But here I am - posting again, just to acknowledge and say - that I haven't disappeared. I'm still here...and there will be more. Still where, one wonders? The child of the universe has a lot of land she can traverse. Well, right now, Hollywood, Los Angeles. Yes, isn't that special? Special indeed for an Aussie girl who grew up on Hollywood film.

So that's enough for now - even though I could tell you that I visited Marilyn Monroe's grave the other week and happened upon other famous people buried there too, such as Truman Capote, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Farah Fawcett...and that to broaden my community here in LA and make some new friends - I have enrolled in a comedy improv eight-week class organised by the well-known to industry peeps, Upright Citizen's Brigade. 

And that one of my favourite things to do when I'm feeling down, bored or blue, is to youtube "crocodiles in Africa" and stumble on the majestic mash of those fabulous dinosaur reptiles battling it out in nature's cycle of life (visit this one for true awe-inspiring wonder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM) or that reading this article a friend posted on her facebook feed made me remember my own experience of losing my mum and it made me cry: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/brian-nankervis-pays-tribute-to-his-mum-20170509-gw0s46

Yes, there's lots of that sort of stuff that I could share - the daily LIFE stuff - that makes up the day-to-day and keeps you feeling human and joy.

It's near summer here in LA. The sun is out and it's warm. And I've recently discovered a cool coffee place around the corner from me where I can drink an almond latte and listen to people talk about screenplays and directing films, as well was recommended, and since been to a delicious deli-restaurant & fine wine shop/institution (Greenblatts on Sunset Boulevard) where the servers treated me well and were nice to me.

Those things make me smile.