CISV

I was asked to write my favourite CISV memory for a fellow members book project for school and I wanted to save my entry, so here it is:

My favourite CISV memory was from an activity at my first CISV camp that allowed me to find my voice. The participants were waiting in the main room when the leaders came in wearing handkerchiefs over their mouths and baggy clothing. They set up 5 chairs in the middle of the room and told us that they were terrorists and would only allow 5 of us to live. It was a lottery for our lives. The first reaction was a rush for the chairs in typical 14 year old fashion and then once everyone calmed down we all sat and discussed what to do. It was incredible for me to not only watch, but actively participate in such an activity. While we knew that there was no real danger present, we spoke diplomatically and seriously. I had been quiet the entire camp, but when I saw that no one was taking charge I somehow fell into a leadership role that I will never forget and started leading the discussion. It was perhaps the first time in my life that I had felt so comfortable taking charge of such a large group doing something that we felt important. We ended up choosing five people and ending the activity peacefully, understanding that we would react entirely differently if the situation were to happen in real life, but happy that we came to a conclusion. CISV isn’t about finding answers. It’s about asking more questions and discovering yourself. I did not see a room full of kids from around the world during the discussion, I saw my friends whom I had grown to know and love over the past two weeks. I don’t remember who made it on the chairs and I don’t remember what country they are from. What I remember is that afterwards we all hugged, then got ready for bed and sang songs (CISV style).

Story Inspiration

Where to Go

Lauren DeStefano

They warned us. They painted our names on signs. They dove furiously through the books written by the madman in love, highlighted the letters carefully scrawled by his widow who tossed the pages up around her like snow before they found her floating breathless in the sea. They said our destiny was tragic; to love each other was to die.

We were born as throbbing stars, bright and overeager. Fingers reached for us and we scorched them. In photographs, you were a fierce-eyed child. The sleeves of your dresses always torn, your cheeks muddy, smile wild. I was on the other side of the world, waiting to meet you. But as a child I met you in my dreams. You were something I’d been holding, something that broke into thousands and thousands of pieces and sank down into the water. I spent my nights trying to piece you together. I had fevers. I drew furiously on all the pages I could find. I exhausted all the ink and all the graphite trying to create some image of you that I could hold.

And then we saw each other, and everything made sense. The nights became cadenced. There were no dreams, only darkness and our breathing. But they kicked down the door. They ripped us away. I reached for you, and your eyes were just as they were in all those pictures you showed me: wild. They put us in white rooms and locked the door between us. I could hear you pounding, but I couldn’t hear you breathing.

Now they put headphones on my ears. They show me pictures of the world ending, not by these angry gods they proclaim, but because of people. People who set fires. People who hold signs. People who warn us of things that never come. And a voice in the headphones tells me that none of this would be happening if I hadn’t found you. They say we’re the madman and the widow reincarnated. They say that in a world of billions we were never meant to find each other. They planned it this way. They watched us.

They say that we’ve died and been reborn for generations. They murdered you in the womb, and they say I grew into a beast. I set fire to the city. They had no choice but to end me.

We returned as insects after that. We were dragonflies and we stayed up, up, where human eyes couldn’t reach us. But an insect’s heart can only beat for so long. It was our briefest romance.

I have no memories of these lives. I only know this life. These hands that go cold and clammy without you. These eyes that sting for all the horrible things they show me. All I understand is now. And I don’t want to destroy the world—all I want is you.

A man removes my headphones and talks to me plaintively. I don’t listen to his words, I don’t listen, because his paper coffee cup has made overlapping rings on the table, and it makes me think of your elbow hooked around mine.

I try to reach you with my thoughts. I can’t hear you, but I can feel you. You’re waving your hands, frantically signing a message to me. Your poet mother was deaf, and you can sign in three languages. You had started to teach me little words. Not always enough words to string a sentence, but powerful words don’t need sentences around them. ‘You,’ your hands say. ‘Me.’

I understand. Let them tell us their truths. Let them send their warnings, lock their doors. ‘Can you hear me?’ I ask. Your hands are still. I focus harder. ‘Can you hear me?’

I see your face, drowned and pale in the spotlight they’ve got over you, looking up. Your fingers move: ‘Yes. Yes, they’re going to kill us.’

I know what you say is true. I can see the syringe laid out on the metal cart a woman in white has just brought. They’re cuffing my wrists and ankles to the chair. Someone is holding my head steady in case I struggle. But I don’t struggle. I think of the painting of a poppy field that hung over your bed. In it, the sun is always just about to set. The poppies have caught a gentle breeze, and they’re all tilted towards the horizon, where the sky and the ground are parted by a searing line of light.

That’s the image I send to you, as the hot fluid rushes into my veins, as my eyes grow heavy. I can only hope this reaches you. I can only hope you understand.

‘Wait for me where the poppies are pointing. I’ll find you there.’

Media and Perfection

I've kind of thought "so what" about media in the past. I know it has a huge effect on us and our perception of the world and therefore the world itself, but in my eyes, I've subconsciously thought it didn't really matter, because I wasn't entirely complacent with the media's views. I now watch more television  than most people I know, if not all the people I know, for reasons I don't feel the need to get into. I don't find everyone on television attractive. However, when people on the TV show continuously talk to people as if they are "hot" I try to see it. I try to see why they were chosen for this television show and what the appeal is. It's almost always thinness. Regardless, that's not my point. My point is that I've discovered Media's hold on me. It's deeper than I thought it would be. For a long time now I've not thought of myself as attractive, I still don't, but I am sometimes okay with that and sometimes not. I have also, in the past and less in the past, given up on being attractive, because I feel like there's nothing I can do and the things I can do are not worth it. The other day I was thinking about make-up and how it would help, if it would help and I thought "no, it will not" because I do not have a certain kind of face. And when I thought what face I was thinking about I realized it was the face of perfection. Few people naturally have that face, more people do on television than elsewhere. I view beauty as a straight plain adjusted face, with not too much going on. 

I have a very selective view of beauty and that's not all I view as beautiful and people's personalities I honestly do care about more, but if I were to look at someone and decide if they were beautiful or not they must have particular qualities. Even people I view as beautiful, I don't view as beautiful all the time.

Anyway, my point is that my view of beauty has been entirely misconstrued by the media to create an indefinable and unattainable idea that basically it's almost impossible to be beautiful and if you are, you are, and if you're not, then that's too bad.

Death Wish

This is taken from a blog (http://www.inspirationandchai.com/a-gentle-teacher.html)of a palliative nurse, who has counselled the dying in their last days.

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps.
Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

What's your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?