January 2003

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

I had a wonderful time in New York, staying in an apartment that overlooked the Dakota building and Central Park. On Christmas Day, it snowed, clean as hope, and settled contentedly on the spikes of the trees and the triangle eaves of the Dakota. We waved at Yoko Ono, but I don't think she saw us.

I ran in the park, had a shopping frenzy at Bloomingdale's, and discovered for the first time in my life, that there are shops you have to queue to get in to - then once inside, you have to queue for everything else. This was a food shop - but I did get the wild salmon I wanted to cook for Christmas Day.

Saw Hairspray - the musical, and not nearly as exciting as the movie, and VERY LONG. I suppose if you pay $100 a ticket you want some bang for your buck - and people complain that opera is expensive...

Had to go to Baz Lurhrmann's La Boheme, and while it's true it's an off-cut of Moulin Rouge, he treats it with huge energy - which is what this Puccini deserves, and goes easy on the respect, which is what this Puccini doesn't deserve. Most productions are too respectful, and too slothful. It's not a great opera - it doesn't have either the music or the muscle of Tosca or Turandot, but it's a pleasant way to pass the time, and much better than Hairspray...

My great fortune was to get a private screening of The Hours, the film based on Michael Cunningham's novel of that name, which in turn is a reading and re-interpretation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (originally and provisionally titled The Hours).

The screenplay is by David Hare, Stephen Daldry directs, and it stars Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore.

It is a wonderful film - emotional, intelligent, beautiful. Please go and see it - though as my agent, sitting beside me said, 'It's not a date-movie.'
Well, no, and it may not be a movie for men either, because it is about the lives of three women, and I am really not sure that most men have evolved far enough to spend two hours without their own company.

Perhaps I am too harsh - and the couple of guys I took with me to the screening were polite - but - and that's just it - they weren't engaged.
Let's see - it will be interesting.

I remember a friend of mine who was wickedly dating three women all at the same time, without telling the others, but he got his suffering all right: He had to go and see Bridget Jones's Diary, three times over.

I am happier than I have been for years. It's not a sudden thing, I have been getting happier for the last couple of years. I mean core happiness, which rather like core muscles, keeps the rest flexible and functioning. It doesn't mean everything is easy - far from it, or that I am not caught in vises of despair sometimes, but underneath whatever is happening on the surface, is a feeling of well being. This is precious - and partly came about I think, because I remembered how precious life is, and that we get it once, and must honour the gift.

At the same time I am terrified because I have started a book, and it is reaching the point of collapse, which it always does around 30 pages, and sometimes it has to collapse - like last time, with The PowerBook, and sometimes it has to be saved. I don't know the answer yet - which is awful.

The river rising feels like my panic. I live on a river now, and about 60 feet of my garden is under water, along a stretch of 400 feet of riverbank. It won't reach the house, because in the old days they built on high ground, and I am. It will reach everywhere else though.

Perhaps that's it - my panic will reach everywhere except the core - the place that matters. I hope so.

Did you make any resolutions? I did. - Not to lose time. Our world is wasteful of everything - we think we're super efficient, but our whole economy is predicated on waste. We are endlessly replacing goods we don't need, and spending time doing that, and earning money so that we can do that. Then we're so exhausted we watch television. Journeys in cities take longer than they did a hundred years ago.

How to use time is a study all by itself.
But I am obsessed with time - you've read my books, you know that.

On a less lofty note, I am on a 5 day de-tox, which is great for the body and mind, and I am changing my gym regime from three killer workouts a week, to five gentler ones. I am just too old to run round like a ferret now, so it's going to be 3x30mins aerobics plus 30mins weights, and 2x Pilates and swimming. This should work - and strangely lots of you ask about my gym routine, so I'll keep you posted.

For those of you starting a gym routine yourselves in the New Year - you must stick with it for at least 3 months to begin to see benefits and 6 months to get into the habit. If you can possibly afford a personal trainer once a week for those crucial first 3 months, DO IT! I gave one to a friend as a present and he has changed her life - yes, it was as evangelical as that!

So go for it girls and boys - your body is yours - don't lend it to the Fast Food and Slouch industry.

Pray for peace this year and find peace too, in your own life.

Back in February, from New York.