I just realized that here is a good place for me to catalog all the things I did on my travels. I have pictures, brochures, pamphlets, books and more to share. It is so interesting to me that despite all the stuff I brought home I find it difficult to share it. I hope one day to feel able to. For now, I keep all the items in a box and I'm happy to share it with those who ask.
When you are so deeply changed by an experience, as I have been, pictures and pamphlets just don't mean as much or mean so much that you don't want to look at them. I hope that by sharing my experience with you, you will come to have some sense of how insignificant and yet profound all the images are.
In truth, these images do not express the actual words and feelings that were arising within me when the picture was taken. The picture is just a picture but the significance to me and my life is missing. That's what this blog is for. I hope that my thousand words are creating an image in your mind that expresses what I have been feeling. I hope it helps you understand my story so you'll want to know more.
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Sailing...Into Troubled Waters
Finishing my work abroad was in itself very educational in a spiritual kind of way. It was not simply that I was quiting to go to another job, which most of us do, I was not going to any job at all. I was going to travel and travel and travel. The idea of getting a job was far on the horizon. It was so far away as a concern that for once in my life I felt true mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual relief. I could take a big sigh and let it all out. There was no tension, only contentment.
I also felt content in the realization that when I got back home that I'd look and easily find work and start the next chapter of my life. My future plans were to get more on the job experience in Hospitality and Restaurant Management and work more diligently on my Business Plan for a new food business based on the Anti-Inflammation Diet. I was going to call the idea Sustenance.
Life in Edinburgh was slowly coming to a close and I could enjoy the entire process. I was excited to travel but really enjoyed working until then. I'd never felt that before! I see now the benefit of knowing when you are going to work and when the work will end. I think maybe that's why vacations don't work, because the work/job never actually ended you just took a longer break from it then the weekend.
The last month was not as I had hoped. Instead of being smooth sailing, the closing up of my life in Edinburgh took on an edge of anxiety. I had given notice to my flat mates that I would be vacating my room on October 1, 2008. I told my work that I would would be leaving on the 28th of September, at the end of the pay period, so I could finish all my packing up. All seemed fine until I got a really bad sinus infection in the first week of September. I had a fever and muscle aches, goop coming out of my nose, and a really sore throat. This meant that I could not work due to being contagious so I could not pay my rent or have money to travel. It also made my last month at Harvey-Nichols more stressful because my employers were wondering if I was really sick or trying to enjoy the summer weather and local festivities. I also had to keep packing and deal with the ridiculous inconvenience and expense of mailing my stuff home via the Post Office.
While I'm fighting to keep my last month in Scotland light and easy as much as possible, I came to understand that my travel companions back home were not having it light and easy at all. By the time our travel date approached none of us were in a state of ease. This tension would unfortunately be with us the entire trip. This tension would lead me to alter or cancel plans I made for myself. I oonvinced myself that I needed to do this to keep the peace and our group together. As it was I spent much of my time traveling alone. We would arrive in a city, get settled and we go in our own directions. In hindsight this was the best thing for us all. The reason I mention this is because of how these expereiences influenced what happened to me when I got home weeks later. I'll talk about that in my next chapter.
Thanks for reading.
I also felt content in the realization that when I got back home that I'd look and easily find work and start the next chapter of my life. My future plans were to get more on the job experience in Hospitality and Restaurant Management and work more diligently on my Business Plan for a new food business based on the Anti-Inflammation Diet. I was going to call the idea Sustenance.
Life in Edinburgh was slowly coming to a close and I could enjoy the entire process. I was excited to travel but really enjoyed working until then. I'd never felt that before! I see now the benefit of knowing when you are going to work and when the work will end. I think maybe that's why vacations don't work, because the work/job never actually ended you just took a longer break from it then the weekend.
The last month was not as I had hoped. Instead of being smooth sailing, the closing up of my life in Edinburgh took on an edge of anxiety. I had given notice to my flat mates that I would be vacating my room on October 1, 2008. I told my work that I would would be leaving on the 28th of September, at the end of the pay period, so I could finish all my packing up. All seemed fine until I got a really bad sinus infection in the first week of September. I had a fever and muscle aches, goop coming out of my nose, and a really sore throat. This meant that I could not work due to being contagious so I could not pay my rent or have money to travel. It also made my last month at Harvey-Nichols more stressful because my employers were wondering if I was really sick or trying to enjoy the summer weather and local festivities. I also had to keep packing and deal with the ridiculous inconvenience and expense of mailing my stuff home via the Post Office.
While I'm fighting to keep my last month in Scotland light and easy as much as possible, I came to understand that my travel companions back home were not having it light and easy at all. By the time our travel date approached none of us were in a state of ease. This tension would unfortunately be with us the entire trip. This tension would lead me to alter or cancel plans I made for myself. I oonvinced myself that I needed to do this to keep the peace and our group together. As it was I spent much of my time traveling alone. We would arrive in a city, get settled and we go in our own directions. In hindsight this was the best thing for us all. The reason I mention this is because of how these expereiences influenced what happened to me when I got home weeks later. I'll talk about that in my next chapter.
Thanks for reading.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
Baroness Adina Scrope is dead. I killed her. Think of the shower scene from Psycho, that's what I did to her.
Not only is Baroness Adina Scrope dead, so is Lady Margaret Howard, 9th Baroness Scrope of Bolton. She's actually been dead and buried since 1592.
These were the realizations I had way back in Edinburgh in 2008 but was too upset to blog about it. At the moment I visualized killing Baroness Adina Scrope I also thought about the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. I thought that my whole life, trying to become Baroness Adina Scrope had turned me into the Wicked Witch. I had worked so hard to become someone else that I forgot who I was. In that moment of realization, my whole life fell apart.
All the things I had struggled through to create my Period Bed and Breakfast suddenly didn't matter since Baroness Adina Scrope was now dead. What mattered most was finding out who I really am.
Hold on. Let's go back a little further. How did all of this happen? Well, if you've read my previous blog, you may see the line that triggered my emotional break. It was the one where I say that Tom Orde-Powlett would never pay me a cent for anything I ever did on behalf of his family and their fledgling business. I took his statements to me to mean that I was basically a foreigner and a commoner and unworthy of recognition or recompense. At one point prior to all of this, he and I had spoken by phone. It was when I was considering coming back down to Bolton Castle for the Armada Faire. I told him that I would be coming as Lady Margaret Howard, 9th Baroness Scrope of Bolton and felt that I should be given special recognition over the jugglers, and similar reenactors. He mentioned that all of the other performers enjoy coming to the faire and teaching kids and that they never get paid. When he said this I immediately felt that he was comparing me to an SCA performer. These are people who get together on weekends and pretend they are back in time except that they do not behave according to the socio-cultural mores of the day, they make up their own reality. Historical reenactors behave according to what we know historically actually happened. Not only this upset me but, also the fact that these people are all volunteers who like to mentor kids and I am a professional reenactor who is looking to go into business.
Because Tom did not seem to appreciate the differences in mine and the volunteers efforts I gave up my willingness to be used, and I feel, abused. It was during a moment of dwelling on these thoughts and the actual challenges of recreating Bolton Castle in the U.S., that it dawned on me that trying to start this B&B was so enourmous that my health could be affected. I thought about how I had planned to eat separately from the guests since I was now on an Anti-Inflammation diet. It hit me then that I had been in denial about my true self and I turned inward and "killed Baroness Adina Scrope."
Once I accepted that she was gone I had to check in with myself. I began at the beginning asking myself my name, age, my parents', sibling's and cats names. I sighed when I realized how much of my true Self I had forgotten or put aside. Knowing how deep the loss of my dreams and myself was, I stuffed my anger and sadness, telling myself that I would deal with the implications when I got back to the states in about a month. That was how I finished out my work abroad. The next challenge to my sense of Self came when I went traveling with my brother and his friend Richard. For that part of the story, check in for my next blog. Thanks for reading.
Not only is Baroness Adina Scrope dead, so is Lady Margaret Howard, 9th Baroness Scrope of Bolton. She's actually been dead and buried since 1592.
These were the realizations I had way back in Edinburgh in 2008 but was too upset to blog about it. At the moment I visualized killing Baroness Adina Scrope I also thought about the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. I thought that my whole life, trying to become Baroness Adina Scrope had turned me into the Wicked Witch. I had worked so hard to become someone else that I forgot who I was. In that moment of realization, my whole life fell apart.
All the things I had struggled through to create my Period Bed and Breakfast suddenly didn't matter since Baroness Adina Scrope was now dead. What mattered most was finding out who I really am.
Hold on. Let's go back a little further. How did all of this happen? Well, if you've read my previous blog, you may see the line that triggered my emotional break. It was the one where I say that Tom Orde-Powlett would never pay me a cent for anything I ever did on behalf of his family and their fledgling business. I took his statements to me to mean that I was basically a foreigner and a commoner and unworthy of recognition or recompense. At one point prior to all of this, he and I had spoken by phone. It was when I was considering coming back down to Bolton Castle for the Armada Faire. I told him that I would be coming as Lady Margaret Howard, 9th Baroness Scrope of Bolton and felt that I should be given special recognition over the jugglers, and similar reenactors. He mentioned that all of the other performers enjoy coming to the faire and teaching kids and that they never get paid. When he said this I immediately felt that he was comparing me to an SCA performer. These are people who get together on weekends and pretend they are back in time except that they do not behave according to the socio-cultural mores of the day, they make up their own reality. Historical reenactors behave according to what we know historically actually happened. Not only this upset me but, also the fact that these people are all volunteers who like to mentor kids and I am a professional reenactor who is looking to go into business.
Because Tom did not seem to appreciate the differences in mine and the volunteers efforts I gave up my willingness to be used, and I feel, abused. It was during a moment of dwelling on these thoughts and the actual challenges of recreating Bolton Castle in the U.S., that it dawned on me that trying to start this B&B was so enourmous that my health could be affected. I thought about how I had planned to eat separately from the guests since I was now on an Anti-Inflammation diet. It hit me then that I had been in denial about my true self and I turned inward and "killed Baroness Adina Scrope."
Once I accepted that she was gone I had to check in with myself. I began at the beginning asking myself my name, age, my parents', sibling's and cats names. I sighed when I realized how much of my true Self I had forgotten or put aside. Knowing how deep the loss of my dreams and myself was, I stuffed my anger and sadness, telling myself that I would deal with the implications when I got back to the states in about a month. That was how I finished out my work abroad. The next challenge to my sense of Self came when I went traveling with my brother and his friend Richard. For that part of the story, check in for my next blog. Thanks for reading.
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