Humbling thoughts

I had an evening all to myself last night and revelled in it! K was in Bristol on business so when I got back from work I had my run, ironed all my clothes for the weekend and relaxed for the eve in front of the telly watching MY programmes with impunity! Actually, K is very good about us having our own time to watch what we choose and usually heads to bed with heavy metal and headphones if it’s something he doesn’t like. I let him have footie and The Simpsons whenever he chooses and he lets me have my ‘porn’ as he puts it which is a combination of properties, culture and rural stuff (Grand Designs, Coast, Countryfile, Antiques Roadshow etc). He watches a lot of it with me, so in that respect we are agreed, but draws the line at the B&B/Hotel/Dining reality ones which is my guilty pleasure! On the whole we are harmonious TV partners and I know he is relieved that I don’t do soaps (my mother was an avid watcher, as was I, until I was old enough to choose and realised it was pure shite!) singing and dancing shows, crass reality TV and anything fashion-related or girly.

Last night I watched Tribal Wives and really empathised with the woman. It’s a lovely programme which for once, doesn’t try to exploit or mock the natives in the areas that they visit. These women have to live with families in totally alien environments and see what they can learn from these people, rather than what they can teach. I hate to say it but if it was called Tribal Husbands the idea would fall flat as they would doubtless embark on a colonisation exercise! Even Bruce Parry on his Tribe show has a habit of trying to instruct rather than just accepting what they do and he is often keen to find new insights which may well make life easier but ultimately affect the cultural development of the society.

Anyway, enough of the Mars/Venus talk! Ultimately these women have to accept real hardship, try things they are bound to fail and be fearless in the face of some challenging conditions. Last night the woman was floored by tortilla making – not because she was incompetent nor clueless but because she feared failure. The things she said about ‘not wanting to make a fool of herself, not wanting to be laughed at, not attempting anything unless she could be 100% certain of achieving it’ resonated so loudly I felt like I was listening to my own voice. Her low opinion of herself stemmed from her remote parents for whom she often felt she was a nuisance and who withheld affection. I truly understand how that affects you as my parents didn’t do cuddles, I love yous or emotion of a positive kind. They did plenty of the negative stuff but we couldn’t express love either in a pleasant way nor in the form of grief, neither. I was discouraged from ever getting upset about sad things and even when my brother lay in an induced coma (from Meningitis) and I arrived to see him, I was told to ‘stop that now’ by my mother when my eyes filled with tears.

Sure, everyone’s story is different but her words hit home hard. The tribe taught her some really significant lessons. One was that fear cripples you and she was instructed to ‘walk your life without fear’ from there onwards. The other was that you should live each day as it comes and stop planning and worrying and just do. As she rightly pointed out, she over-analysed everything (just like me – hell, what’s this blog for if not to over-analyse) and this stopped her taking the plunge on so many occasions. Plenty for me to mull over today.