7 Oct 2009
Make-Do or Mend
As wartime chic hits TOPSHOP, Oxford Circus, lets’s hope that diluted gravy browning up the legs doesn’t come back. In line with economic belt tightening even M&S have given up sexy voices on the telly, binned ready meals and told us to COOK more, with 1+2+3+4 different ingredients to throw in a pan before Corrie comes on. Maybe Bisto Gravy and eyeliner pencil will be the new punk in 2010 as VIV strides across the Paris Catwalk age 68. But she WAS a war baby, timeless imagination is before us – we are not worthy! As the current vogue for austerity demonstrates, worth, self or otherwise is linked to survival and survival has merit but living beyond survival, in the world of extras is the real ovation.
Giving up a habit, compulsive behaviour or an addiction would not be worth it’s salt if all you did was practice the art 
of survival. That’s why alcoholics who just stop drinking and that’s it, behave like George Dubya, a dry drunk, and we all know where THAT led – the War on Terror.
of survival. That’s why alcoholics who just stop drinking and that’s it, behave like George Dubya, a dry drunk, and we all know where THAT led – the War on Terror. Bit of a reflection on his inner self there me-thinks. Just stopping a habit without mending is foolhardy and this is why diets don’t work. Vivienne Westwood by example is not just a survivor, her verve demonstrates how imagination, spirit and focus can create continuous genius and in these trying economic times we need a hero to worship. It is unknown whether Viv has any addictions other than being Viv but this is not the point, the point here is that make do & mend need not mean dour.
When I gave up the booze, drugs and the fags on the same day I was given a choice, make do with living without or MEND YOUR WAYS so history does not repeat itself. I had after all fought my own war with drugs of all kinds ( including work ) over a 17 year period.
Living in the world of EXTRAS is the goal of recovery from addictive, compulsive behaviour to avoid relapse. Cast aside those material gains from no longer being bang at it 24/7, the real reward of giving something up is not immediate nor it is attached to the present, the real reward is clearing the wreckage of the past. How many people do that? Then they wonder why relationships, diets and promises don’t work.
Looking back over photo albums is a great reminder of the way we were, the way we put up with emotional dysfunction as the norm, the way we brushed our own door mat to be trodden on daily by a substance, person or a memory.
Until we cleanse these toxic times they reside within us, scaring our progress into a new world of internal freedom. Reclaiming the past, as Viv demonstrates in her collections is an act of honouring and until we honour our own past, the world of extras will pass us by. We don’t hear too much these days about humility. We hear a lot about where we are heading for but not where we have come from. Running away from ourselves, our shames, failures and defects of character will eventually trip us up. The rust resides under the shiny car bonnet.
The 4th Step of The 12th Step Programme of Alcoholics Anonymous
( and now used by over 200 other anonymous recovery programmes ) is a bummer.
It hangs around waiting to be trodden on. Finally the leap is taken.
" Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves "
This involves, with guided support, writing from your earliest memory to the present day and notice it does not include a fearless moral inventory of other people or the wrongs they did to us. It is simply a written version of our own internal soap opera. When we mend our ways and stop making do with what no longer works, progress begins.
After several attempts and lacking progress I went to Portugal for a week in 1984, stayed in a friends villa and finally hand wrote 38 A4 pages of material in 7 days. Barely six A4 pages in a day, three pages before sunbathing and another three pages after sundown. Hardly a struggle. I was sick of making do with old habits returning so set about to mend them and started living in the world of extras. Extra hope, extra esteem and extra trust. Nowadays with laptops, wifi and a budget flight to the sun, it’s a doddle for anyone.
Ask yourself, as you plan a jam packed weekend of release, when was the last time you checked for rust under your bonnet and are you prepared to write 6 pages a day of rigorous honesty until completion?
