Week Minded

Highdown Hill, West Sussex - Photo NJG

It's Friday, one of my non-work days. With some time to myself, I've been reflecting on how it's gone.

What's been happening? How did I show up? Did I learn anything? Did I apply any of that learning? 

Well, yes and no.

Being present in social media channels means that one gets exposed to a lot of noise. Sometimes I contribute to that noise; sometimes, I hope, helpfully.

The week started off really well, with my weekly walk and talk with my Counsellor followed by my continuing to walk further, exploring local pathways not previously walked, but trusting my sense of direction and following the waymarks. In total, some 10k in uncharteristically glorious weather, the benefits of which for my mental and physical wellbeing lasted well into Tuesday. Joyous.

This week also saw two "[insert cause/subject here] Week" campaigns which are both areas of personal interest to me - "Learning at Work Week" (#LAWW21) and "Dementia Action Week" (#DAWW21). 

One of my professional bodies (for whom I work part-time) is an active sponsor of LAWW and we have discussed and acted on this both internally as a team and in our support for the HR, L&D and OD profession externally.

This blog is my activity recognising that, enabling me to reflect on and share what I've learned this week.

It's also Dementia Action Week, a cause close to my heart, for family reasons. I'm a research volunteer for the Join Dementia Research (@BeatDementia) programme, and have been contributing to their online studies since 2014. A few weeks ago, they asked their volunteer community of study participants if they would be prepared to be interviewed to share their story of how and why they got involved. I was selected, interviewed and my story was published this week, as part of their DAW campaign, here: "Making a difference through online research studies".

My hope is that people reading it may be prompted to get involved themselves and thereby add to the data which will hopefully speed understanding about and prevention or cure of this cruel disease.

Then on Wednesday morning, I learned from a friend on facebook that another friend from my college days back in 73-76 had died suddenly of an aneurism. A year younger than me, a wife, grandmother, photographer, generous sharer and all-round lovely person, her death hit me quite hard. 

I've spent a lot of time in the last few months discussing and sorting out my and Mandy's end-of-life admin - Lasting Powers of Attorney, Wills, Funeral Plans - and, having survived heart surgery myself six years ago, death has been much on my mind. Sheila's death and her family's loss really brought this to the fore.

Wednesday was probably the low point of my week. Thursday, however, was satisfyingly clear-minded, focussed and productive.

And here we are, it's Friday already, and today I chose not to join in the weekly 08:00 am #LDinsight tweetchat with my #PLN (Personal Learning Network), and had a long lie and leisurely breakfast instead.

So, what, if anything, did I learn this week?

It's good to to talk | Sometimes you don't need to have a clear destination in mind and you can just enjoy the journey for itself and for whatever physical and mental nourishment it provides | It's OK to have a down day; don't beat yourself up about it | You don't always have to show up; the world will keep turning.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Dying of the Light

I'm pretty unsentimental about pets.

I didn't grow up with them around and didn't actually own any until just before Mandy and I got married in 1985. Two cats, sisters, acquired from my soon-to-be-Brother-in-Law. Deferred children, right?

They moved with us from London to Hove in 1990. We had our children and they grew up with cats around. Inevitably one cat disappeared one Bonfire Night and the other got old and had to be put down a few years later.

We got two more cats. Natasha and Sam got to choose and name them - Rocky and Pepper.

In 2014, the very weekend that Mandy and I decided we wanted to move and put our house onto the market, Rocky disappeared. We just thought he'd gone walkabout. Turned out he got run down and killed locally and his remains picked up and disposed of by the Council (no collar, no chip).

Pepper moved with us to Worthing in 2014. And she got old. In the Autumn of last year, at the age of 16, she developed symptoms which were identified as hyperthyrodism. Long story short, we were persuaded to go for the "99% success rate" cure of radiation therapy.

She was the 1%.

Within two weeks of the treatment, Pepper died in my arms, struggling for breath, as Sam and I were getting ready to take her to the emergency vets.

I've lost friends and close family. I've been to many funerals; more so now as I get older. I thought I'd kinda got the death/loss thing squared. I hadn't. I hadn't been there at the moment of their passing.

This time, I watched the light in Pepper's eyes disappear as she gave up whatever the fight was she was having and she became still. She'd gone. Whatever suffering she'd been experiencing had stopped. So had she. Although 'just' a family pet, I was profoundly moved to witness such a fundamental transition from life to death.

We had Pepper cremated and, this afternoon, we mixed her ashes with garden soil and compost and planted a rose bush with and for her in the garden.

I'm pretty unsentimental about pets.

I miss her.

Exclusion Zone

I kept away from social media yesterday. I felt that my SoMe (social media) communities were engaged in a collective discussion around a topic for which, although I had some sympathy, I was not 'qualified' nor engaged with enough to want to participate in or discuss, nor to raise any other topic which could be construed as 'off message'. The topic, of course, was the death of David Bowie.

This got me thinking about why so many people have a view that social media is 'not for them'; how they feel excluded from 'the club'; that they 'don't have anything to say' in those spaces. I get that. I have found a community - and a voice - in social media, principally in my professional field of Learning & Development, but also in other areas of personal interest. And those communities  have been enormously important and supportive to me and my family in this last year, for which I am eternally grateful.

But sometimes, it feels like I'm the only person in the world who hasn't been touched by - or indeed, cares enough about - some events. And that triggers my 'not belonging' injunction, big time. I feel myself drawing back into my shell, wanting to keep my head down, whilst trying to resist an underlying anger and almost contempt for others' genuine and sincere sharing of their individual feelings. This makes me feel even more unworthy and shallow, as though I am lacking in empathy or cultural awareness, whilst all around me are remembering, emoting, respecting and sharing their grief and their loss. 

This is difficult stuff, by the way, and I share my thoughts here advisedly. I made the mistake several years ago (2011 in fact) of expressing a contrary view to the death of another cultural icon in a fairly dismissive tweet, and was rightly called out on it. I blogged then about how that changed my perspective and thinking about intent versus impact in social media "What Else I Learned on my Holidays"

Nowadays, I try to exercise consideration (and thereby constraint) in my SoMe activities. I am very conscious of the appropriateness of topic or comment in the face of others' national, community, collective or indeed, individual experience, which is immediate and heartfelt. Whilst I recognise the importance and significance of David Bowie's leadership in our art, music and culture over the last 50 years, and I totally get how important he was to so many people - particularly, it appears, in my SoMe and PLN (Personal Learning Network) communities - and whilst sad for his family, friends and admirers for their loss, I remain pretty untouched by his death.

So I stepped back yesterday and let everyone get on with it. No offence intended.  As my Jewish In-Laws say at times like this, I wish you a long life.