Birthday Weekend and Tea With Alice Salon 46

It was my birthday on Friday, and also the last weekend of my twin brother being in town with his family, so it’s been a very lovely, mildly chaotic couple of days. I’m definitely just a woman now, if you know what I mean? I’m not a young woman, I’m not an old woman. Just some lady doing stuff.

I feel pretty good about it, actually. As I’ve said before, I’m not afraid of ageing, I have cheekbones and a personality, I’ll be fine.

It’s hard to let go of the idea that youth is an impressive quality to be doing anything with - but it’s related in my head to the kinds of people who are always somehow doing things and being congratulated on getting them done, “despite the circumstances”. I think, without being tooooo judgmental, that “the circumstances” can become a crutch. This is tricky turf to negotiate, because of course sometimes the deck is stacked against you. There are plenty of people who have genuinely got “circumstances”. I’m not talking about people in systems of oppression or miasmas of depression. Of course it is important to make allowances for people in hardship. That’s a humane thing to do - it helps others, and it helps us cultivate our own compassion and all that good stuff.

The point I’m making is about people who are addicted to “circumstances” because they fear that in the absence of the allowances people make; in the absence of how extraordinary it is that they’ve got anything at all done in the midst of “circumstances” they might discover that their work is mediocre.

Not that someone’s life isn’t hard, but maybe sometimes there are people who let things stay hard, or let things be harder than they need to be, in order to continue to do well “despite the circumstances”. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure that it’s the same thing, but in my head the two things are linked, and the point is that AS not a young woman, my achievements aren’t being judged as indicative of some future potential. The work I do just has to stand on its own merits. There’s something nice about that.

All that said, I just had a BABY! CUT me some SLACK! 🤓

Tea With Alice Salon 46

Salon this week is at 8pm 11 Jan East Coast US time:

Jan 11, 2022 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Or your local time equivalent. Stick it in your diary. I’ll send through the link and password closer to the time for the relevant levels.

As always, salon things:

- normal zoom etiquette applies. Have headphones / be on mute so we don’t get heckled by a dog or our own just-past-selves in eternal echo, etc.

- if you’re shy / would rather be sitting quietly in the back row, have your camera off. I won’t call on you.

- Any topics you want to open up, let me know in the comments here or via DM, or of course you can bring them up during the salon or drop them in the chat.

- Tea is compulsory, but we have a very broad definition of what tea is, that includes many things ‘normal’ people would call “not tea”, “absolutely nothing like tea”, “a sandwich” and “are you just pretending to drink from an invisible cup?”

Xx

A