Four questions?

Ah, apologies, my sweet companions of the road. I have left you high and dry. All these bank holidays have befuddled and confaddled me. I am juggling a lot right now and Time is playing tricksy.


But fear not, the Pact remains and the Journey is starting. Who is coming along? Well, every kind of person, I suspect. I love those who trust, so much – the ones who just launched in and waved their hands eagerly in the air - without having a clue where we're going or what we're doing: Louise Nash, Vivienne Tuffnell, Sessha Batto, Mud in the City spring to mind. But then again, I love those who question and those who doubt too. Will every person be sweetness and light? I hope not. There is room for the tricksters and the plain awkward squad as well as the sweet honeys (cos you can’t make pearls without grit).

Must every person be an artist and a bleeding heart? Hell, no. We need someone to make the sandwiches; someone to pitch the tents; someone to tell us when we’re going just too far, going way too bonkers, and that playing hopscotch in the storm in metal gumboots isn’t the brightest idea. Fire alone burns too bright, too fast; Earth alone gets mired in the mud; Water alone seeps and evaporates; Air alone gets spread too thin. We need one another. We need the contrasts.

My lovely niece Sophie (wise Water) came to stay for the weekend and we talked books and music, life and love, spirit and soul. But above all we talked about people and assumptions and generalisations and about jumping to conclusions. We’re so quick to judge, to condemn. Someone on Twitter said he could never countenance talking to a royalist or anyone who wasn’t a socialist. Another said she was going to unfollow anyone who had tweeted about the royal wedding. It’s interesting what pushes our buttons; what makes us decide a person is okay or not.

I’m seeing it again today on Twitter as the world erupts with fevered excitement over the death of Osama bin Laden. It’s that tribal ‘you’re with us or against us’ thing and I confess it puzzles me. I hate terrorism, I really do but I can’t punch the air at a man’s death; no, not even his death. Hate the acts, not the person, surely?

Anyhow. I told Sophie how one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had was going on silent retreat for a week. I hadn’t a clue what people did ‘for a living’ or any of the mundane facts about their lives. I just got a sense of them from – what? – intuition? A feeling? Heart?  Soul?  I snatched clues too from their images – some of us painted (obsessively in my case) in the studio. At the end of the week I felt extremely close to a few people. When we talked, I found my favourite people were, variously, a psychiatrist, a surgeon, a nun, unemployed. All titles that come laden with preconceptions.  Halleluyah - we’d by-passed all that crap.  We knew one another as people, as fellow 'pilgrims'.

‘We ask the wrong questions,’ I said to Sophie.
‘I hate that we’re defined by what we do,’ she replied.
‘It’s always the same four questions, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘What do you do? Where do you live/come from? Are you single/partnered? Have you got children?’ I suppose we’re trying to pin people down – to fit them in boxes?
‘What are the questions we should ask,’ I pondered. ‘If we really want to know what makes a person tick at a deeper level?’
‘Questions that open up stories, I think,’ said Sophie. ‘Questions that stir emotions.’

We debated this for so long we lost track of time and Sophie nearly missed her train. We didn’t really come up with any concrete answers either. But we sort of roughed out these for starters...

• Which is your favourite sense? If you could only experience the world through one sense which would it be?
• Which piece of art (music, book, poem, film, TV show, performance etc) most rocked your world?
• Your house is on fire – all people, animals and vital documents are safe – what one thing do you rescue?
• If you were a god/dess, which one would you be?

Did we pick good questions? What would you pick? What are your answers to these four?

Who's Jane Alexander?

the real Jane Alexander

Someone online recently described me as a ‘60-something Tibetan nun with a 36-year old son and an arthritic hip.’ Kinda interesting. Where on earth did he get that from? So I Googled myself. Absolutely fascinating. Who knew how many weird and wonderful Jane Alexanders there were out there. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to some of my many and various alter egos.

I’m an actress. Well, I knew this already. When I was young I went to see the bloody gloomy movie Kramer v Kramer with a bunch of friends and, as the titles came up, so did my name. ‘Hey, I didn’t know you were in this, Jane,’ quipped one pal, rather loudly. Within five minutes the buzz had gone round the cinema and everyone was looking round. Apparently I am “Angular in features, reserved in demeanor and more-or-less plaintive in appearance.” Good fit?

I’m a bishop. Wow, I didn’t know that. Cool. A bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada. Get those robes.  Actually, I love the idea of being some kind of prelate. In another life, mebbe.

I’m a South African sculptor and an artist. Oh, God, I LOVE this Jane Alexander. Her work is amazing. She is SO damn cool. She is also, apparently, infamous for her silence.
I could learn a lesson or two from this me.

I’m a wedding photographer based in Surrey. I’d show you my images but apparently I don’t allow reproduction.  So this is a generic pic.

I’m a brave woman who was institutionalised for mental illness and treated against my will. This Jane Alexander has written a book called Possessing Me: a memoir of healing, detailing a seventeen year battle with mental illness. Well, well. That one brought me up short. I wondered for a moment if I really had written that book. If you know me (me me) you’ll know that I am a fervent believer in outing the shame around mental illness. So, bravo, Jane Alexander – bravo. You can read more here.

I’m an illustrator and a marketing officer who loves 8th century Irish balads.  Oh good choice, marketing me....  here's a snippet...

"You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!"

I think that’s enough. A few other clicks gave my anti-virus program several jolts of adrenalin and firewalls came hurtling up at the speed of light. So I obviously have a fair few skeletons in my cupboard too. But there you have it. The many faces and skillsets of my online alter egos. Will the real Jane Alexander please stand up?  Sadly, not a Tibetan nun to be found.

How about you?  Ever Googled yourself?  Who are you - as well as being you?  And then again, who is 'you' anyhow?