Guest Blogger Tom
Week 5, Recovering a sense of possibility.
I remember when I was in NYC a couple of years ago, we needed to exchange
some greyhound tickets to ones with a more suitable time as our plans had
changed. Not being familiar with how things work in the US we were worried we
may be stuck with some tickets that didn’t suit our revised schedule.
We hoped that it would not be too difficult to have them exchanged and
decided to try our luck at the ticket office. We approached the lady at the
ticket booth, a middle-aged black woman who looked very youthful and content in
what I thought an unusual setting for someone to look content. Her impressively
polished nails caught my attention as my friend approached her and asked if it
was possible to change the times on our tickets. The lady looked up with a look
that conveyed a sense of contempt and compassion at the same time before she
spoke. ‘Honey, nothing is impossible!’ she announced in an assertive
but reassuring tone. I immediately felt a smile dawn on my previously concerned
face, not sure if it was due to the fact we could change the time on our tickets
or because of this lady’s contagious optimism.
Remembering Suzy talk about our big peace at an event a few weeks ago, I
now think back and feel this woman must have had found her big peace, right
there at the ticket booth of the greyhound coaches office in NYC.
The image of that woman’s gratified face has haunted me ever since.
‘Nothing is impossible…’ I kept repeating in my head. But how can this be, it
surely is nothing more than a cheesy sportswear marketing campaign motto, less
so a life affirming dictum.
Last week a dear old friend arrived from Greece. Our friendship has been
one of the turbulent ones, like Mediterranean people know well, with long
periods of us feeling we’re soul mates, followed by periods of falling out and
feeling cross with each other to be followed by periods where we make up,
forgive but not forget and that gets repeated, hopefully not ad infinitum. We’re
obviously on our sunny patch of friendship at the moment. We were born on the
same date; that surely is not just a coincidence.
If indeed we are soul mates, I wouldn’t expect our relationship to be a
walk in the park. This time our argument lies in possibility. He loves mixing
music and I ask him why doesn’t he become a DJ? ‘That’s not possible,’ he
replies, ‘I don’t have the talent to be a DJ?’ ‘You are talented,’ I
protest. He doesn’t reply and I feel my words have gone to waste. ‘Why don’t you
come to live in London?’ I say in an attempt to continue the conversation.
‘That’s not possible,’ he continues, ‘I don’t have that sort of money to live in
London?’ ‘You’ll make the money!’ I proclaim almost in despair. But
what is it that drives me away from my Big Peace at that moment? Do I need to
convince myself that I’m talented, that I can make the money before I can
convince other people? Do I need to convince myself that nothing is impossible?
Certainly that lady had convinced herself of that.
Perhaps I have achieved the impossible. I have achieved to live and make a
life in a big and often scary city like London despite coming from a small and
safe village in Greece of five hundred inhabitants, nothing like the fictitious
Kalokeri depicted in Mamma Mia (and certainly with no Greek old ladies dancing
to ABBA songs) and a family whose income could just about afford the basics, who
had embraced and indulged in their limits. However, I took the plunge and came
to London, battled with depression and unemployment during the recession
following the year 2001 and now eight years later, I managed to be doing the job
of my dreams at Greenpeace and have a great circle of friends in the most
exciting city in the world - and I don’t want to hear any nonsense about NYC
being the most exciting city, that used to be the case years ago.
I feel its now time to embrace my inner artist; come out of the shadows and
into the spotlight. It’s time I indulged in the possibility of being a
successful and prolific writer. Perhaps indeed, nothing is
impossible.
Thank you Suzy and thank you Ms Cameron for this invitation to recover our
inner artists.
Love and gratitude,
Tom
You are a terrific writer Tom. You have the kind of grit, honesty and soul that Julia Cameron has and is willing all of us to unravel and bring to the table. I 'saw', 'felt' and 'heard' the Lady selling tickets in NYC and wished I'd been there. If Julia Cameron were to read you blog she'd be giving you and A+
Posted by: Maria | Wednesday, 04 March 2009 at 02:06 PM
Hey Tom, cool blog.
I will send a link of this to a sad soul i know (Keev.. hope you read this! Dont want to hear your sad sloppy shit no more!!)
Posted by: Rob | Thursday, 05 March 2009 at 10:04 PM