The future we inherit

I like to imagine my daughter saying to me, in 20 years time, 'I cant believe you were walking around when pregnant next to all those polluting cars in cities. How were those cars allowed? It was so dangerous. People were dying every day, from car crashes and from diseases caused by car pollution. And you walked around with me pregnant in all that pollution! Unbelievable'

Will it be the equivalent to smoking indoors, smoking while pregnant or drink driving when my daughter is my age? When I was at university I couldn't imagine people not smoking inside. It seemed an integral part of going out - the smoke went with the music. Now it seems amazing that we ever did.

I hope that this will be the same with car pollution. Its crazy really given how much we know about the health threats of cars, the impacts of pollution on our health, the risks of road accidents and the contribution to climate change. Of course the vested commercial interests and the social norms of having a car as a sign of freedom are hard to break. Car advertising is so ubiquitous. The latest Bond film I saw last night seemed like one long car advert. But it doesn't have to be this way. Imagine buses advertised like cars:

My hope is that for one, cars in cities will be a rarity. In fact driving cars in cities will be considered the worst choice - why drive yourself when someone else can drive you on public transport (because  in my fantasy public transport will be efficient, clean and affordable).  Cities and towns will be mostly pedestrian with cycling or a super efficient clean public transport network the main ways to travel. 

We stumble into our future, rarely due to a plan but because of a million micro decisions and a few with power channelling money into where they think profit lies.  Sometimes a breakthrough will happen when a bold vision is given, leading to changes in behaviours and social norms. I like this story of neighbours who have got together to take over residential streets and block out the traffic so their children can play together. 

How about this for adults as well as for children? Mass weekend ‘Occupy’ of our favourite streets, blocking off the traffic in order to simply sit and read the newspaper in peace.If anyone has been to Venice, you know how amazing it can be to walk for hours without seeing or hearing cars. If only we could will that vision here too.

Little People

I love miniature things. These mini drawings of little people in my neighbourhood are by a Mexican artist, Pablo Delgado, who lives nearby. Delicious!

Goldsmith Row, nr Hackney City Farm

Radio 4 are looking for suggestions for a 'Women's Power List', which comes accompanied by the ongoing debate about why there are still so few women that hold powerful roles. Or rather, so few that are publicly prominent and recognised. I was really shocked to hear John Humphrey's on the Today programme saying that they couldn't find a female expert to discuss breast cancer so asked a male expert to 'imagine' he was a woman. Luckily some women have taken the initiative to address this with a new website listing experts.

One obvious change that I never hear suggested is to reduce the crazy work hours of these senior roles. The macho culture of staying in the office for 10 to 14 hours is ridiculous. Its bad for our health, social life, relationships. And I'm convinced that long hours doesn't necessarily mean you are more productive. Granted when you have a very senior role you do have to work harder, as your responsibility grows and there are more decisions to take, but this shouldn't mean that you spend long days in the office every day. There is this amazing invention, the internet, which has removed the need to physically be in an office all day at certain hours. So why not work when you can, arranging it around all the other commitments life has? And if you are working from 8am to 8pm 5 days a week, and on the weekend, perhaps you are actually doing two people's jobs.

you don't need to look this to be superwoman

If you are in a senior role, you have it within your power to change this working culture, to lead by example, and to create a more positive working environment for those lower down the pay scale. This is the revolution that will enable more women to go back to work once they've had children, and for more men to spend time sharing childcare without the stigma that less hours means less commitment. Or for those that don't become parents, they should be able to finish work at a reasonable hour without having to pick up the slack for those leaving to pick up their kids from school.

A friend told told me about her (female) director who denied a part time working application for a new mother on the basis that 'I had to work full time whilst being a mother, I found it hard but had to make sacrifices, so why shouldn't you too?' Where's the sisterhood! If I ever get to a senior role where I can shape the working environment, top of my list will be making sure everyone is able to work around their life, not live around their work.

Day of the Dead

my window sill on sunday

On Sunday Mexicans from across London gathered in my neighbourhood to celebrate Dia de los Muertos.

I really love this Mexican version of Halloween which goes back to Aztec times. It has some purpose to it, rather than just a fancy dress theme.

The idea is to bring mementos, photos and favourite drinks or food, of the dead that you want to remember. These are added to an altar along with flowers, fruits and symbols of death/life. The atmosphere in the community centre where this was held had become a magical, calm space.

Remembering and celebrating the dead isn't ghoulish, its an important part of the cycle of life. I love rituals with timeless relevance like this.  Its a shame we don't have many opportunities in British modern culture to honour the dead. We have national moments such as Remembrance Sunday, but no tradition for remembering your family, friends, idols or even pets. The Wellcome Collection's current exhibition, Death: a Self-portrait, explores some of these issues - how we confront or hide from death. As my mother said when I gave her an apron with day of the deal skeletons adorning it - 'Oh i don't want to see those, they just remind me that I will be one soon!'

Aside from the solemnity of the occasion, the mariachi played with such enthusiasm they continued through a fire alarm, and the colourful decorative skulls and catrinas (images of dressed up skeletons) make it a visual feast too. In fact the imagery of the day of the dead is becoming more and more fashionable. The skulls providing a more democratic, folk, human version of Damian Hirst's cynical bling diamond skull.

The altar

women dressed as catrinas

Internet inspiration

Just in case you missed this inspiring story from t'interweb.

When a Sikh woman was ridiculed on the social news site, Reddit, for having facial hair, she responded not with anger or shame but with a calm and enlightening explanation. Heck she even apologised herself if her looks were confusing for some people.

It got even better when the idiot that posted the surreptitiously taken photo then apologised with humility. The power of her straightforward acceptance and lack of concern about her looks is amazingly refreshing and inspiring.

I'm not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it's who I am. Yes, I'm a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn't reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying 'mine, mine' and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. 

The response from the guy who posted the photo was also a delight to read:

I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.

So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.

The curse of multi-tasking

At a party last weekend I was reassured by a group of inspiring women about taking a week to write one simple blog post because of baby distractions. Your brain feels fractured into endless simple, repetitive tasks. One had managed to write a chapter of a forthcoming book about how to be a writer on parental leave with all the unavoidable perpetual interruptions (while caring for her four month old).  Impressive!

The hard truth is that to do most things in life to any successful level you need stretches of uninterrupted time to focus or let the imagination wander. A painter, composer, designer, architect, carpenter, brick layer, they all require focus whether to make sure the walls stay up or the joins fit.

So it concerns me that women are always told they are naturally good at multitasking when this is beneficial to managing a household or caring for a baby, but translates badly into most work contexts.

Multitasking in the work environment – checking emails while trying to draft a paper, or sending a text while in a meeting – has been shown to reduce your IQ level and damage your efficiency.  It is common sense that trying to do several things at once often means that no one thing is done thoroughly.

I've observed so many times in offices how it is women who are left, or volunteer, to do the juggling of the administrative tasks while the men focus in on opportunities to concentrate that will further their career. I think it’s this cultural belief that women are naturally more suited to those multitasking roles that contributes to gender inequality.

I have done this myself so many times. I envy my husband who can sit at the kitchen table, enter his creative world and write a chapter while surrounded by dirty dishes and the phone ringing. I will always allow myself to be distracted by thinking about what to cook, who I need to phone and whether the floor needs a clean, before I focus on writing.

Perhaps the multitasking woman was selected for in cave times if it meant you could look after a baby and keep an eye out for danger. But cave dwelling is long behind us, and so should the myth of women being the only multi-tasker. 

If we are to see greater equality at work and at home then women need to get over being the ones that multi task the best, and men need to learn to become better at this when it’s needed – for domestic and child care. This multitasking myth simultaneously lets men off the hook – “I can only do one thing at a time” means the dishes and laundry pile up while the baby is being cared for – and keeps women from breaking free from the tyranny of a million tiny distractions.

Walthamstow Tapestry

On Saturday it was brilliant to see Grayson Perry's beautiful, huge 'Walthamstow' tapestry hanging in the newly refurbished William Morris Gallery. I had recently watched Grayson Perry's fantastic TV series on class taste, in which he observes the ubiquitous Morris decorations in the homes of the one of the middle class tribes along with the other identifiers of organic vegetables, Le Crouset dishes, the Guardian, recycling containers and full bookshelves. (Sounds too familiar for my liking) I long for more Grayson Perry documentaries, he is such an eloquent and funny narrator.

The William Morris Gallery sits in a gorgeous Georgian house where the Morris family once lived, in the middle of a moated park. We sat under a tree and observed with Perry's class lens the trendy young parents (we were guessing ex-Hackney dwellers). The tribe markers being skinny jeans and converse for the women and men with rolled up jeans, a scruffy band t-shirt and kid dangling off an arm nonchalantly while drinking a beer.

Pixelated nature

This striking image taken of the cells in a bee hive, show the patterns made by the variety of local plants and flowers harvested by the bees.

 
 
It reminds me of this stained glass window installation on the High Line in New York. The windows were made from pixelated images of the Hudson river. Beautifully murky!

Maya arrives

The slippery, warm entrails are slapped onto my stomach. As he cuts the cord I become two. My insides come outside became another. A pause as we sense each other, we feel our breath. Our skins fused together with warmth, blood and love.  Her lips tasting my skin, as I smell her hair. Cocooned in awe, we are floating. 

Now I am a deflated balloon, my belly wrinkled, the air passed into this new world before me. I am slipping into a warm sea of oblivion. I want my spent body to be swallowed up. I feel finished.

Her movement brings me back as a wave lifts me, flops me onto the shore, panting with exhaustion and relief. The warm sun rays of love prick my skin until I am glowing with peace and purpose. I feel complete.

 ------------------

I dont want to turn this blog into a motherhood and babies space, but that was my initial reaction to my daughter's arrival. Sylvia Plath describes this with more elegance:

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.  The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

New York Particulars

Working in another country is a great way to observe the small daily differences. I was working in New York in December to February and these are some of the Manhattan ways that I loved.

Cabbages as winter street flowers. I wonder if anyone ever eats them?

The trend for ordering ice coffee 'to go' in the freezing winter. Is it like hot tea in the desert?

Big breakfasts in diners - a perfect halfway between a cafe and budget restaurant. Here is where i ate frequently, on my way home from work. Also a good place to eat if your alone.