Author: Julie @ Latansani

It is strange reading advice about love from someone who professes never to have been in it! Andy Warhol apparently told peers that he was not susceptible to it. For someone who recommended falling in love deeply and without fear, this seems rather odd.

Unless it was one of those conscious, ego-based thought processes adopted to effectively deal with his own fear of it. Considering his verve for experimental and ground-breaking art, this notion might seem strange but perhaps his confidence with innovation concealed his vulnerability with love. You cannot be susceptible if you are not prepared to be vulnerable and if you’re not prepared to be vulnerable, you can never really be in love. He explored his vulnerability through his artistic pursuits; maybe he felt he had more talent for this and therefore more control. “Art is what you can get away with…” he said. You cannot get away with anything in love!

Perhaps he did not fall in love with another because he did not fall in love with himself! I find myself emotional about his self-deprecating oxymoron: “I am a deeply superficial person…I never fall apart because I never fall together.” Despite eschewing love, he had a deep preoccupation with it and the accompanying rites. The series of silkscreens that he produced four years before his death were simply titled ‘Love’ – they are vibrating with neon auras and pose in tender embraces, quite unlike the more crude images previously explored.

In 1975 he wrote an autobiography-come-self-help book – I can most definitely identify with this, especially when he said, “The idea is not to live forever, it is to create something that will.” It is a therapeutic activity, to explore through writing, art, music, the mysteries of love and life, devotion and passion, deliberating on what makes relationships meaningful, sustainable, erotic and fervent.

I think that Andy Warhol knew more about love than Rodin or Botticelli. I am going to borrow three of his ideas which suggest how you can create something which lasts forever.

Teach children that love is not perfect.

As someone who has spent a career across a lifetime in educational leadership I agree with Mr. Warhol that children should learn that love isn’t perfect. He insisted that early education could alleviate later disappointments related to love and life. “There should be a course in the first grade on love, providing a reality check, teaching children that relationships aren’t all sunshine and roses.”

I learned so falsely about love, through fairytales and film and I was devastated and felt thoroughly worthless when I discovered the reality – that these sugary stories bore no resemblance to real love and life. Warhol was especially exasperated when, in the 1961 film Back Street, they kept saying, “how wonderful every precious moment they had together was, and so every precious moment was a testimonial to every precious moment.” He felt someone needed to tell children what love was really about: constant ups and downs, challenges, hardships, loss, transience. Warhol believed that movies held the potential to show “how it really is between people and therefore help all the people who don’t understand to know what to do, what some of their options are.”

Fall in love with your eyes closed and make time and space for yourself.

I have learned, by being burned, that you cannot simply engineer who and how you love; instead, you need an organic approach to the process, feeling your way instinctively and with a healthy dose of abandon. “The best love is not-to-think-about-it love.” Generally, people fall in love with their eyes first, more so perhaps with current trends for meeting your lover by swiping right!

Warhol, as we might appreciate from his earlier artistic fascination with the phallus, knew about lust and physical attraction but he also knew that unless you take time for yourself, your love may not progress beyond the lust phase. “The biggest price you pay for love is that you have to have somebody around,” he wrote. “You can’t be on your own, which is always so much better.”

Warhol famously never married. While he didn’t open up about his most profound romantic relationships, he did describe one successful liaison – a woman with whom he had a six year relationship by telephone. The key to its success? Healthy distance. “I live uptown and she lives downtown,” he wrote. “It’s a wonderful arrangement: We don’t have to get each other’s bad morning breath, yet we have wonderful breakfasts together every morning like every other happy couple.” I don’t think I’m advocating for this half- love but the sentiment behind it, where there is still privacy, time for yourself, new things to talk about and share is essential to a sustained relationship.

You and your partner should put in equal time and energy.

“I wonder if it’s possible to have a love affair that lasts forever?”

Warhol’s autobiography makes clear that he’d considered the question at length, likely from a young age. His conclusion was that a relationship filled with lasting love should be equitable and balanced. “Love affairs get too involved, and they’re not really worth it,” he said. “But if, for some reason, you feel that they are, you should put in exactly as much time and energy as the other person.” In other words, be present in the relationship and make sure that both partners give equally to each other. Or, in Warhol’s ever-deadpan terminology: “I’ll pay you if you pay me.”

How insightful, do you feel, is his guidance in sustaining a successful, loving relationship?

Begging! Begging you!

Put your loving hand out!

Frida Kahlo reputedly told her husband, “I’m not asking you to kiss me, nor apologise to me when I think you’re wrong. I won’t even ask you to hug me when I need it most. I don’t ask you to tell me how beautiful I am, even if it’s a lie, nor write me anything beautiful. I won’t even ask you to call me to tell me how your day went, nor tell me you miss me. I won’t ask you to thank me for everything I do for you, nor to care about me when my soul is down, and of course, I won’t ask you to support me in my decisions. I won’t even ask you to listen to me when I have a thousand stories to tell you. I won’t ask you to do anything, not even be by my side forever. Because if I have to ask you, I don’t want it anymore.”

Knowing a little about the troubled background of Frida and of the heartbreak she suffered in the name of love, and through the traumas of life, I’m not certain that she meant this quite as literally as it may seem. I appreciate that her love for herself would appear strong in this sentiment – that one interpretation may be that she would not demean herself to beg her husband for the show of love that I believe most of us seek. In truth, I believe that at all times, we are doing one of two things: either showing love or crying out for it. And I think that here she demonstrates the latter.

The two stances – showing or crying out for love – may be the simplest distillation of our human condition. I am sure it is at the core of the most complex assembly of all that it means to be human; we all need to feel or experience the outward show of love. Anyone who says otherwise has simply devised the mechanism for shoring up after the wounds or traumas we have experienced. I think Frida’s was defense against her sickly childhood, her savage accident and the many betrayals she felt. Whilst she knew that she could endure much more than she first believed, surviving polio and physical injury – her spine and collarbone were fractured; three bones in her pelvis fractured and she sustained two broken ribs; her right foot was dislocated, her left shoulder came off, her right leg broke in eleven parts – she must have experienced immense physical pain from the metal rod that pierced her body in the crash. But, it is the emotional pain from which I think she suffered the most and which prompted this thought on love:

“Fall in love with yourself, with life and then with whoever you want.”

This plea from Kahlo invites you to distill romantic love and put self-love and courage above everything. Even above sentimental love for someone else. But most importantly, it is her invitation for to you to live life in its fullest colours that begs for love.

Whether you are coupled up or single, young enough to be seeking or stumbling across your first romantic love, or old enough to have surthrived several, I am begging you to fall in love with life, fresh every day! At the end of each one, the world will be brighter or dimmer, more or less kind and compassionate, and more loving or hateful because of the love you share or don’t.

I’m begging you; your move…

I have a dilemma which is becoming harder to resolve. I’d like your perspective because you may have the same issue. If you’re reading this, then it’s likely. I have a potentially unhealthy addiction which can make me physically ill but, it seems, there are lots of barriers to breaking the habit. You see, I need it in order to survive – well, actually to surthrive – but ironically, the addiction to social media and technology is making me really sick.

Like so many others, I lost some stable income this year. I turned every pitfall into an opportunity and decided now is the time to follow my dreams and to truly espouse my values. I wrote a book – a self help memoir; I took a digital marketing course and a business course; I learned how to web design and produced this site from scratch; as a help to family members during the lockdown, and as a way of spreading the love, I tutored their children and loved it so much that I also set myself up in the role of personal tutor. I am happy and thriving.

I have applied to volunteer jobs and some paid positions with no interview or affirmative nod to the validity of my credentials; sometimes without even a reply. This is a sign of the times but the lack of contact and connection is neither kind nor humane. This is the first time in my life that this has happened but I’m still keeping the faith, telling myself it’s their loss, my gain and that I am being guided towards a more spiritually rewarding path!

All mental health positive and good tactics methinks.

But the bottom line is, even with the optimism, and philosophical stoicism, we all need an income. I sold the car and it makes me feel good to live in a more ecologically friendly way and I love cycling, and bringing back the essential shopping in two panniers is hilariously funny at times, when the back pack – loaded with potatoes and an acceptable quantity of loo rolls – makes me feel like ET. But, although I have cut fumes along with costs, I still need to pay my way and cover the monthly bills.

And so, I need to market myself. The skills that I am offering are inherently human but one of the few ways that I have of promoting myself to those who could really benefit from them are not directly from human to human but through the channels of social media.

And there’s the crux of the dilemma. I am fully aware of the dangers of social media – the lure of the sticky, the dirty use of data, the fake news, the manipulative posturing…and the spread of hate because ‘someone‘ needs to take responsibility for all this mess and confusion. But it’s one of the few ways where I can attract custom to take up my sparkling skills as a writer, or teacher, or host, or celebrant. And then I can’t help but face the horrors head on when I’m trying to use the same platforms to market my talent!

How do I reconcile this? In fact how does anyone sift through to find the advantages of human connection on social media and avoid the negatives, the manipulation?

The advice in my book, The Will to Surthrive reminds me to practise what I preach because I know it works. So, firstly, I am going to be super conscious.

I will not respond to or post incendiary material – even if it is designed to challenge the craziest of assertions. I’m going try even harder, with more conscious effort not to take the bait to challenge the facts of an issue when someone else has posted something which is inflammatory. It can only have the effect of entrenching more misery and despair. It’s not easy – my son arranged a baby shower to celebrate the impending birth of his first child, and the ensuing fiasco with such complex and confusing regulation nearly drove me to distraction, with some groups being allowed to meet in crowds of thirty but we were restricted to six. But the occasion went ahead, following new protocol and we focused on the love and human connection and excitement – along with the hope that my Granddaughter will change the world very much for the better.

Unscrupulous figures might data-mine our social media accounts and they are the reason why so many have lost trust in anyone promoting something or someone. In current scenarios it’s all too easy to jump to good-versus-evil simple idylls and then we are scarily close to being manipulated into blaming segments of society and of spreading hate. Now, more than ever, we should be spreading the love. In all of my endeavours, that is my purest intention.

I live independently and am aware that I reach out to social media when I need human contact. It is, at first, reaffirming if we post about a current issue and twenty people ‘like’ it but one of the most powerful lures of joining in unhealthy conspiracy theories or collective blaming is feeling that we belong; we become addicted to the socialisation we feel when we are in distress. This isn’t real – it is a virtual connection at best, a disconnection and isolating knock-out at worst. It can pit neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend, old people against young people…it’s so cleverly devious, it can pit purple against pink! We are all in distress from the wider effects of this virus right now and the only way through this is to empathise, to collaborate, to seek the positive benefits of community, to understand and to remain kind. To seek real connection.

Maintaining meaningful spoken communication through phone calls and safe visits are of vital importance. We can steer conversation towards shared experiences and memories and good times. We can also ensure that, by maintaining real, healthy connection – and keeping virtual connections clean and purposeful – we can look forward to good times again.

And I can look forward to you benefitting from the love, experience and kindness that I can offer to you through my writing and my work.

One of the joys of being a celebrant is the ability to break with tired and cliched tradition which can bear little or no relevance in our changing cultures. Of course, traditions have positive benefits in that they can create unity and links with the past, but they can also trick us into thinking that we must tread a forged path in order for any rite to be valid, and that the collective consensus dictates how something must be done.

Not so, as I found out this week by visiting the delightful Sarah Hemingway, of the Palace Avenue Theatre in Paignton. I love exploring new ways of celebrating life’s joys, in ways that are unique to those celebrating, and I love so many of the positive attributes of breaking with tradition. Marriage does not have to follow the repeated groove of being the grandest, no-expense-spared ceremony for the sake of following tradition. Instead, it can be about love and passion – not simply for each other but for shared interests.

That is why The Palace Avenue Theatre is a spectacular venue to be considered for your ceremony. There’s no denying the beauty of a rustic barn, or the magnificence of a country estate – and the quirkiness of forts, treehouses, museums, wildlife parks, vineyards, forests and majestic castles has been explored by many couples wanting to celebrate with a grand gesture. But I am not aware of too many theatres where your nuptials can literally be staged.

If you love all things theatrical, combine this with your wedding theme for the formal marriage as well as the reception. You can tread the boards and wed your ward by marrying under the spotlights, with an audience of up to three hundred (well, when restrictions are lifted), or say your ‘I do’ in the more intimate setting of the bar with some fizz and your family and friends. Hosting your wedding breakfast in Stage Left is a fantastic option to have all of your celebrations in the one dramatic location.

Sarah has been incredibly supportive and, over the coming weeks, together we will be presenting you with a styled, professional shoot so that you can step away from somewhat overused clichés and explore the magic and the unique possibilities of a theatrical, ambient and artistic ceremony at https://www.palacetheatrepaignton.co.uk/venue-hire/weddings/.

Look out for the images in my November blogs!

I was researching something for an article that I was writing and it was dated Saturday 2nd April. It seemed so relevant to what I was thinking at the time and I wanted to use it but really needed to ascertain the year that it was written; it might have been discredited if it was out-of-date or superseded by the next innovative thought. So I thought my quickest, most effective and accurate means of determining the document date was to check it with Siri. You have evidence of the outcome in the image!

AI is coming, whether we like it or not. Well, actually it’s here already, like it or not, accurate or not, morally right or not, and it will not be leaving us anytime soon. In terms of river analogies, which seem to have grabbed a significant part of my attention of late, 2020 combined with AI is a bubbling rapid combined with a treacherously fast current rushing over a deep underwater channel and undercut, rocky banks that make it seemingly impossible to climb out of when you’ve fallen in. The pandemic has certainly created tricky meanders which, along with technological ‘advances’ have propelled us towards a very different river view. It has
certainly fast-forwarded many future predictions. For example, the consultancy group, McKinsey predicted by 2030 there would be 800 million jobs lost to automation worldwide; for sure the pandemic has speeded up this process but it seems it was coming anyway!

So, in order for me to be relevant in my dotage, is it really necessary for me to learn to code? Should I derail myself and head back to train as a robotic, research or data scientist? Or hone my technical and analytical skills, and pursue becoming a business analyst?

No, absolutely not because I believe that the future requires much greater emphasis on the skills you can’t code, like empathy, negotiation and creativity.

Think of the skills that it takes to carry out the following tasks: Parenting or caring for loved ones – old or young; Teaching or nurturing children; Creating art, music, dance, theatre, entertainment; Working in struggling regions in and around our homes where not everyone has access to even the most basic of needs; Preserving the rapidly diminishing environment; Reading or writing for pleasure or personal growth; Preventative health care; Character-building for your kids, your team, yourself; Building community connections; Developing a passion and nurturing a hobby; Becoming involved in local government.

These are activities of a normal life, rich with community, kindness, balance. Sure there are parts of jobs that can be automated such as using an automated text message system to confirm appointments, but core skills of those who work in and around a community remain current. You can’t automate creativity, empathy and love.

I have been watching a TV show this week, always delightful, often hilarious, for certain packed with pathos. Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. I have a new bucket list item as a result – I want to sit by a river, preferably alongside those two, concocting weird menus, reflecting on life and as Mortimer says “really knowing what it is to live it!”

With new regulations imposing restrictions again, I think I am forgetting what it’s like to really live and it’s very easy to feel like we are drowning in a river of problems. It’s looking like we have to cancel planned family gatherings again because of new rules as of Monday. It’s a funny old world – I’ve always thought it so but now it certainly seems more funny peculiar, than funny haha!

I’m so grateful that I have had so many times in the past when I didn’t consciously have to look for the positives in each moment. I have had so so many of them, and although I didn’t think I took a single one for granted, I know – now that I can’t currently have them in the same way or even know when to look forward to some of them again – that I will be super heightened to the magic of those moments when they return.

So what to do until then? Well, we cannot stop the flow. The rivers and streams of time simply cannot cease. My youngest brother (already well into his fifties, at what may be our last gathering of siblings for another while) noted that we are all now white haired or steely grey; it seems that it had finally dawned on him that, although he will always be the youngest, no matter how hard he tries to remain young at heart, he is no longer young! It seemed such a revelation to him and it obviously made him wistful. But for me, the epiphany was energising.

We are all in this river together, sometimes it’s fast paced and, at others it slows down to allow us time to take in the views on the water and on the riverbanks. We have little choice as to where it meanders; maybe we can swim towards a certain tributary, or we can use a raft of energy trying to get back upstream to the Headwaters or hang furiously onto the trunk of a tree while the river swells but we are all heading out in one irreversible direction to the ocean. So how, you might ask, is that analogy energising?

Because the epiphany led me to appreciating that instead of drowning in the problems, getting caught up in pollution of the river, we can be creative with the way we travel down or on it. (Of course, we can be careful not to add to it’s pollution but that is a tributary for another blog!)

Instead of using all our energy in fighting against the stream, we can create a raft from where we can enjoy the ride, the views, the fellow travellers, the other inhabitants. The raft is made up of our conscious thoughts. We can train them and learn how to exercise some control over how and what we think while we are on this river. By being conscious and aware in that exact place in the river, in that exact moment, choosing to what we pay our attention and choosing how we construct meaning from that experience we can, honestly, make the most of every moment. Sure, we will head over rapids, and maybe we will wallow in some of the muddier flood plains but, if we are aware, at every given meander, of the magic of the river we will stay awake to the journey, and that is energising and worthy of our fullest attention.

…try something new! Get out of your comfort zone and rise to the challenge of embracing a new hobby, or learn a new skill, or take a step on a different path.

And, if you’re a little afraid because others out there seem to be stronger, fitter, wiser or more intelligent than you, remember – a lone amateur built an ark but it took a whole team of professionals to design the Titanic.

The wedding law commission is looking to make changes to the laws which govern marriage – those which have been in existence since 1836. It is hoping to reform regulations which stipulate how and where couples can get wed. The commission was launched today and the consultation period will run until 3rd December 2020.

The current law on giving notice:
A person must give notice that they intend to get married in person at their local registry office, where they must have lived for seven days. This notice is posted at the local register office.

The proposed law:
A person will be able to give notice that they intend to marry remotely, and can choose their district. This notice will be published online and available to the wider public.

The current law on wedding types:
Couples must choose between a religious and a civil ceremony. There is no option for a legal ceremony to cater for couples with differing beliefs, or beliefs that are non-religious.

The proposed law:
The proposed changes would allow weddings conducted by non-religious organisations such as Humanists or by independent celebrants to be legally binding.

The current law on location:
All couples must be legally married in a place of worship or a licensed secular venue. They are unable to get legally married outdoors, even in the garden of any aforementioned venue.

The proposed law:
Legal weddings will be allowed to take place anywhere the couple chooses, including outdoors and in their own homes.

The current law on ceremonies:
Civil weddings and some religious weddings must involve certain prescribed words. Religious elements are not allowed to be included in civil ceremonies.

The proposed law:
There will be no prescribed words, allowing couples to have more flexibility deciding what form their ceremony will take. Civil ceremonies will be able to have religious elements in them if the couple desires.

Now is the time to modernise and improve the situation so please do respond to the consultation with your views by accessing the online form.

I found this on Facebook today…it is so beautiful and provides many profound answers to the question, ‘What Is Love?’ A team of professionals posed the question to a group of 4 to 8 year-old children, ‘What does love mean?’ Their answers were broader, deeper, and more enlightening than anyone could have ever imagined!

‘When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.’ Rebecca – age 8

‘When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.’
Billy – age 4

‘Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.’ Karl – age 5

‘Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.’ Chrissy – age 6

‘Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.’ Terri – age 4

‘Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.’ Danny – age 8

‘Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen.’ Bobby – age 7 (Wow!)

‘If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.’ Nikka – age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet!)

‘Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.’ Noelle – age 7

‘Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.’ Tommy – age 6

‘During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.’ Cindy – age 8

‘My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.’ Clare – age 6

‘Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.’ Elaine – age 5

‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.’ Chris – age 7

‘Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.’ Mary Ann – age 4

‘I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.’ Lauren – age 4

‘When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.’ (what an image) Karen – age 7

‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross.’ Mark – age 6

‘You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.’ Jessica – age 8

And the final one from a four year old child whose next door neighbour was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, ‘Nothing, I just helped him cry.’

At the end of the film Cloud Atlas, Sonmi~451 is a clone a woman and she stands alone in front of a camera…

“Our lives are not our own,” she says.

Our world is very much obsessed with individuality, so much so that these words seem almost defeatist and lacking in ambition. At school, our children are pressured to achieve, to be stand out exceptional – life is a competition and being individual is promoted as protecting you from the failure of others. And being stand out exceptional can ensure you don’t suffer from the incompetence of our rule makers.

It is fabulous to be original, to be creative and to think for ourselves. But, I do not believe that we are meant to be islands. We should not be isolated from each other, super confident in our superiority and our ability to win and to survive whilst others are losing or suffering. The idea that, if we came first, we deserved it, but if we lost, it was just our terribly bad luck is not at all helpful. We need each other.

Where we were born can define us. To whom we were born sets our genetic code. We can be affected and infected by bugs and bacteria and yet we think we can change our destiny by competing and working harder and faster and stronger so that the lone fittest survive.

But this is not as it is. On this Saturday, as our teachers and our children prepare to head back to school, as some of you tie the knot, as we prepare for a bank holiday celebration with loved ones it is important for me to remember one of my favourite ideas, “I am because we are!”

I love this quote because it shows how our very existence, our core being is enriched because of the loving connections that we can develop.

“We are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. Truth is singular. Its versions are mistruths. To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other.” DAVID MITCHELL