the grass is greener

Guardian reader's photo: simplicity


















envy is such a wasteful state of being
it offers nothing
and takes so much
when i was a kid there was a marvellous book called
The Monk & the Goat, all about a monk who lived high in a monastery perched on a rock (think meteora) and yearned to be down in the fields below, while a goat who lived in the fields below, thought about nothing but living high in the sky in the monastery.
their misguided thinking is beautifully illustrated by papas

i realise my life is filled with similar yearnings ...
i want to live by the sea, i want my life to be filled with art & creativity

i am convinced my low moods are the burblings from deep in my soul about my lack of creative expression
when i think of my depression, it is not the blues or the black dog or the mean reds, it is the swampy greys - a deep and murky place, where i'm smothered by my immobility and hopelessness, where all i can manage is sleeping and hiding from life
it's not a good place, and it's fed by feelings of missing out, going without, of not being. and envy feeds these things.

actually my life is filled with joy and moments of wonderful happiness and love

my love says that he thinks of moods like the weather. they are ephemeral and will pass. this is a good way to think of them. it's not good to coddle them, nuture them, navel gaze at them.
better to think of them as clouds (even a tempest) which are passing through you.

Philip Wolfhagen's vapour trails seem to convey it best...
Memento mori I 2006
Oil and beeswax on linen, unframed
Diptych: 180h x 192w cm

Study for Idyll XXV 2007
Oil and beeswax on linen, unframed
46h x 49w cm











**The Grass is Greener title is borrowed from one of my very favourite films. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr play post-war landed gentry obliged to open their stately home to the public to pay death duties.
In walks Robert Mitcham, an American millionaire who sweeps Deborah Kerr off her feet. Cary Grant's old flame, Jean Simmons as the wonderful Hattie, keeps him company while he's being cuckolded. A very funny comedy by Noel Coward - available on youtube.
Favourite scenes: Victor & Hattie (and a cuckoo clock) and then Hattie in a sumptuous dinner gown & Hilary