by tashmcgill | Dec 17, 2014 | Love & Marriage, Relationships
I remember the instance so clearly; I think about it every time I take that same escalator. The escalator is at the airport, so I take it a lot. An acquaintance of mine (who I thought was quite mad at the time) was talking about a mutual male friend, only a couple of years married. She said, “Oh yeah, he’s great. Don’t worry I’m just waiting for the second time around. No point trying to catch a new one, just wait til they are done with the practice round.’
She was talking about what great relationship potential he was and joking about whether or not his relatively recent marriage would last. It was a serious viewpoint on her dating prospects.
Ten years on, I can’t help but wonder if she wasn’t quite as mad as we thought as I’ve watched relationship after relationship fall over, with women ready and waiting in the wings to snap up bachelors ‘recently returned’ to the market.
(Really, I mean any partnership between men and women, or same-sex relationships. However, I think there is a stronger mythology being spread around the difference between men and women.)
Don’t get me wrong, I have little respect for people who insert themselves into the midst of committed relationships and I find society’s tolerance for it to be distasteful. I’m not suggesting that I agree with her. In fact, this is the opposite of that. I’m hoping that women feeling fragmented, dissatisfied or even a little bored, might have a change of heart.
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by tashmcgill | Dec 16, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Spirituality, Strategy
I watched a crane put together a 10-metre tall Christmas Tree in the city a week or so ago. Piece by piece it was lifted into place while a group of 5 or 6 workmen in high visibility vests perfected the placement of shiny glass baubles. What a sight.
Bright neon vests screaming ‘pay attention’ to what is going on here, while traffic trundled past below and pedestrians marched quickly, bracing against the wind.
That’s the Advent season these days. A race against the clock, constructed by the most unlikely people while everyone else races around completing their business. But Advent, deconstructed or otherwise, still matters regardless of your religious beliefs. It screams out, ‘Notice me – I have something to remind you of.’
Advent is a story about leaning in, expecting and waiting. It’s a story about how we hope for better days, the kind of story our humanity needs to hear at least once a year.
You see, I’m beginning to think that a dream alone is not enough to keep us going. In fact, I have been convinced that a dream isn’t powerful at all. The only power a dream has is the focus and motivation it gives you to take the steps required to achieve it.
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, save money, shake a habit or create a new one – then you’ve tasted a tiny piece of what it’s like. The dream requires lots of action, but they are mostly very human actions. They are based in the natural world.
I’ve become more convinced that dreams need action and longing. Longing and desire are what keeps a dream alive, when hope seems lost. Hope is a supernatural kind of thing. Action comes from within us, but hope is something external and internal that we hold on to. Longing taps into the spiritual within us and dreams need both. Without longing, the dream can become dry and our motivation can ebb away. We lose both our internal and external power.
I’ve got a dream that feels out of reach and almost impossible to realise. So over the last few years, I’ve stopped praying for it, hoping for it and believing in it. I’ve stopped letting the longing for it dwell anywhere but in my deepest secret heart. Slowly, I’ve been starving my dream so that it’s easier to live in the Not-Yet reality, but it’s having an impact on what actions I’m prepared to take to achieve the dream. I’ve leaned back out of my dream, I’ve stopped hoping and expecting.
I’ve got to long for it again, letting the longing bubble up into my conversations with others. I can’t hide it away and pretend like it has no hold on me. I’ve got to seek it, praying and asking others to believe alongside me is crucial to help me lean in and get stronger in pursuit of it. Sharing my longing so that the dream stays strong and alive within me is necessary.
Advent is a season of expectancy and waiting. We eagerly await holidays, Christmas parties, gift-giving, time with family and friends. We await the New Year with expectation of what will come and what we have the chance to leave behind. And in the ancient story the Advent comes from, there’s an extraordinary example of what it means to lean into a dream – something so out of the ordinary and hard to understand that Mary’s only option is to lean forward and say, ‘Ok, let it be with me as you have said’.
Regardless of whether you believe the story to be myth or truth, this story has had a remarkable impact on our human history. Nobody questions the courage of a young teenage Jewish girl under Roman rule to lean in and say ‘Ok, I’m in it for the ride’.
Look, sometimes I feel afraid to share that longing and pursue my dreams because I’m scared that I’m asking for the wrong things. But there is no Plan B – so by sharing my longing and seeking ways for my dream to become reality, I am inspired to steps I should be taking along the way or to realign my heart to alternate pathways. At the very least, by praying and meditating more regularly on my dreams – I am comforted in the Not-Yet season.
Pursuing a dream out of nothing but our own strength is sure to wear you down. No matter the dream, we are spiritual beings and we need to integrate that into every part of our lives. So a dream by itself is not powerful and human actions alone are also not enough. Deep resonant dream-pursuing requires our whole self… spirit, mind and body.
I’m re-aligning my dream-chasing muscles with longing, expectation and leaning in to hope. What are you dreaming for? How are you leaning into it? There are 15 days left until the New Year begins. What will you enter it dreaming of and longing for?
This post was originally written for World Vision USA and adapted here for tashmcgill.com.
by tashmcgill | Dec 15, 2014 | Reviews
This is the ‘Something Fishy’ at Apero Food & Wine, the new offering from Leslie and Mo. You’ll find it tucked into a narrow long room on K’Rd. They serve delectable, careful food. The housemade everything is delicious but the sausage by the metre is a standout. They serve well chosen wines, gin and Campari. For good reason, they serve what works – and you should trust them, because they really do know what they are talking about. Check them out on Facebook.
by tashmcgill | Dec 15, 2014 | Food & Drink, Girl About Town
This is the ‘Something Fishy’ at Apero Food & Wine, the new offering from Leslie and Mo. You’ll find it tucked into a narrow long room on K’Rd. They serve delectable, careful food. The housemade everything is delicious but the sausage by the metre is a standout. They serve well chosen wines, gin and Campari. For good reason, they serve what works – and you should trust them, because they really do know what they are talking about. Check them out on Facebook.
by tashmcgill | Dec 15, 2014 | Friendship, Health, Love & Marriage, Relationships
I wish I could say that I wisely hold back in loving the people around me. But it’s not true – I’ve never once been a ‘hold back on love’ kind of girl. Which means I’ve loved deeply and truly a bunch of times, but I can honestly say I’ve never been in love, not really.
And now it might be too late, because I’m falling out of love with the idea of falling in love. At least, in the way we think about it. The way the movies tell it, or at least, the way most movies tell it.
Was there ever a more unlikely couple than Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, confessing their love to one another as the world ended in the film ‘Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World’? But by the time the story reached an inevitable conclusion, it was obvious that neither character could have found a partner better matched. It was not a long list of shared interests and mutual sexual attraction that made their love story so compelling or so real – and it was, despite contrived circumstances, honest and truthful about what love can be.
Instead, they found in one another an honest, endearing, truthful and compassionate friendship. Both characters were able to be themselves and grew to a more honest and engaged individual when supported and encouraged by the other. They gently inspired one another to a better self.
But I believe that this what we should all be looking for, a friend for the end of the world who loves us as ourselves, rather than an idea of us. The friend who brings us home to ourselves with humility and the one who helps us feel capable of climbing mountains. It’s idealistic but that’s kind of beautiful – for a girl as smart as I am to recognize the naïve innocence of that desire and desire it anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to pretend that chemistry and attraction aren’t a really big deal in successful relationships. But I also know from experience that the deepest attraction grows from the heart and mind. From the soul, I guess you could say.
True passion requires a lot of fuel, on an ongoing basis. I’ve watched love fade from the eyes of people who once couldn’t keep their hands off each other. If the sparks are your only fuel, you might fast run out of matches. True love takes a long time to grow. We confuse the possibility of love for Love itself and where we ought to nurture true and deep companionship, we burn out in a flash of heat and sparks.
And here’s the truth hidden in the detail of a movie of a story we should pay more attention to: sometimes the best friend we’ve been looking for our whole life is just within reach, within eye contact or a phone call. We just don’t recognize it when we’re busy looking for something that feels like love (sparks) but isn’t friendship.
The older I get, the less I’m looking for lusty sparks, I’m looking for a different kind of chemistry. One that is no less exciting, but a little more substantial. Is there a chance we can share a common outlook? Is there a chance I could care about you more than myself? It is probably a terrible sign for my love life, but the truth is I’m no longer looking for a fairy-tale kind of love story. I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world and that makes dating even more of a challenge. The more experience you have of what true Love looks like, the more you are able to recognize what is good and what is not worth holding on to.
In the same way you might study Van Gogh originals to best recognize a forgery, once you’ve recognized the kind of life-changing love that can be experienced in the embrace of a true deep friend, everything else feels like a cheap knock-off. I have too much good love in my life already, so it feels intimidating and impossible to start from scratch.
I’m looking for someone who can follow the sub-text of a conversation, who shares the meta-narrative, the one I laugh with like no one else and who embraces my sentimental, romantic nature. While I don’t believe that any one love can meet all our needs, I’m looking for my best friend and the one who knows I’m theirs.
Here’s why: if anybody is going to stand a chance in making love work for longer than the sparks do, it will be those who are friends and continue to nurture that friendship and relationship above all things. That’s what I’ve learned watching my parents, my friends and dozens of disasters.
I’m talking about the kind of friendship where trials and triumph matter as much to you as to your friend and layers of sub-text and meta-narrative accompany every experience. Where trivial moments of laughter, bad humour and everyday experiences meld effortlessly into what matters and what does not. Sometimes the deepest friendships appear shallow because the foundation is so deep. A deep foundation that anchors people to a common outlook is the richest and best kind of love, no matter who it is shared between.
While I would gladly embrace the heat and spark of new love, I can’t wait for old love. I’d give anything to fall in love with someone who already knows my best stories, my deepest hopes and maddest dreams. I’d love to fall in love with a friend and skip ahead to holding hands.
