What's in a Moment?

This is another illogical, rambling post with no real point to it. I blame the rainy weather – it makes me whimsical and sentimental. Anyway, here goes….

I can remember being humiliated and outraged as a child because my day-care mother had the effrontery to expect me to line up and use the potty along with the other kids.

This routine requirement both baffled and deeply offended me. Was she going to line up too and use the potty with us? Was it suddenly socially acceptable to strip off and take a crap in front of people? How dare she compel me to disregard modesty? Why would I want an audience watching me perform my ablutions?

So many unanswered questions.

I would beg her not to make me to publically debase myself in such tasteless, undignified act, and typically sulked for hours afterwards when she ignored my petition. *

I was a very modest three-year-old.

My earliest memories are not of events, but rather very strong feelings and emotions. Excitement as a two-year old watching my Nana receive a bicycle for her 60^th birthday. Disappointment and shame on my second birthday because I received a doll when I wanted money in a card, like my brothers. Terror as a four-year-old at Expo ‘88 watching the fireworks. Elation when we moved to the country and I received my first pair of blue gumboots. Rage when a boy in grade one sassed me. Inconsolable grief when I lost my first teddy bear.

I think it was the strength of the emotions which made me remember the events at all. But then when I got a little older I started to remember things on the strength of the occurrences themselves.

I was nine years old and driving home from school with my mother one afternoon when, sitting at the traffic lights not two minutes from home, I made a fierce promise to myself always to remember that particular moment. Not because it was anything special - it was the most ordinary moment in the world, as we tiredly waited for the light to turn green in an old ’82 Ford Laser with no air conditioning and the afternoon sun in our eyes – but because I was suddenly aware that the majority of life’s happenings are made obsolete almost as soon as they occur; and what is pivotal one second is forgotten the next.  I pictured the innumerable thoughts and incidents surrounding billions of human beings for millennia - some extraordinary, some mundane – but all vanished into nothingness, quietly tucked away from view in the past. Where do all of these stories go to? Memories are proud.  Once forgotten, they rarely come back.

Not that I was able to reason it out like that at the time. But in some small way, I wanted to remember a moment forever, no because it was special or set apart by any strong emotion, but just so it wouldn’t be forgotten. That was the one I chose, and nearly twenty years later, it feels like a special one indeed.

And in another twenty years, what will I remember about today?

Today was a bleak, windy and rainy day in Peachester and, as far as days go, exceedingly ordinary. But there is one thing I’ll always remember about it, because at the time it seemed extraordinary.

There is an enormous window next to my bed which runs nearly the length of my room. When I woke up this morning I spent a few minutes staring out of the window at the new day. It was grey and drizzly and windy. It was very windy. The trees told me it was windy. The air was filled with leaf litter and crackling with life; bark and leaves were being buffered about, the leaves suspended in the air longest, twisting about madly in revolution after revolution, the wind yanking them this way and that, and the bark sinking heavily through the air and crashing to the ground, like old clothing carelessly discarded. The energy, the electricity from this elemental dance was thrilling. My window is suddenly a cinema screen, the day is a movie, and I am the tucked-up observer, wondering what will come next, what players will feature and how will they fare? Would any of those wild and gadding leaves fly down to my window, touch it, let me see up close how they spun and moved and make me feel as though I’d had a real-life encounter with celebrity?  Some fly some overhead (they will land on the roof), and others fall short and land in the garden. Their source, a soaring silver bark gum on a slope not twenty meters away, is the star of the movie, the one I cannot take my eyes off.

He is chattering – it couldn’t possibly be described as anything else – fiercely talking to every single leaf, shaking them all to attention, saying wildly, “Hold on for dear life, or the wind will have you!” The leaves are chattering with fear, exhilaration and because they are compelled to. The wind whips through them, laughing and howling, threatening to tear them away, swiping this way and that, orphaning them and laying them to rest on the earth. In twos and threes they are snapped from their source, at first surprised, wildly liberated for a few moments and then slowing down moments before they come to rest on the earth, a roof, a car, because they realise that the flight of freedom is brief, and the slumber of death forever. The settle themselves gently, comfortably and prepare for permanence, sighing in a final sort of way.

So I guess I will always remember that moment, because it was when I realised there are no ordinary moments, no unimportant things; that entire worlds and lives and dramas are in play all around us every second, consuming and life-altering to the players in them if only a brief, pleasant distraction from getting out of bed for me.

Although let's face it - for me, pretty much everything is a welcome distraction from getting out of bed.

Julie

* Mrs Johns was the perfect day-care mother in every other respect. I loved her cat Minty and she was the only person to indulge my partiality towards plain mayonnaise sandwiches.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: A Plea

The darndest thing happened to me the other day.   

I was sitting on the train, minding my own business, when I was approached by Kevin Bacon, who said, "Hey Julie, why do you think it is no one wants to play my game anymore - Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?"

Well, he really had me there, and I apologised to Kevin for not having an immediate response.

People, it's this simple: the game will not work with any other name. It can't be called Six Degrees of Lindsay Lohan, or Six Degrees of Dieter Brummer or anything else you might have in mind. It must be Kevin Bacon.

I think you'll agree with me that we owe it to Kevin to keep this game alive. Kevin brought us such memorable films as The River Wild, Apollo 13, Footloose and The Air Up There. It is his illustrious career and prolific body of work that makes this game possible at all.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it is based upon the premise that everyone in the world can  be traced back to Kevin Bacon via six degrees of seperation. It's most likely to work if you use celebrities though. So, you take a celebrity (Emma Bunton) and link her to Kevin Bacon.

Ok, Baby Spice with Meatloaf in Spiceworld, Meatloaf with Susan Sarandon in Rocky Horror Picture Show, Susan Sarandon with Natalie Portman in Anywhere But Here, Natalie Portman with Ewan McGregor in Star Wars Episode One, Ewan McGregor with Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge, Nicole Kidman with Meryl Streep in The Hours, Meryl Streep with Kevin Bacon in The River Wild.

Maybe that was seven degrees but I think you get the picture.

So folks, play, play, play!! Play like a five year old two minutes before bedtime! And hopefully if Kevin asks me this question again, I'll have some better news for him.

Really, it's the least we can do. AND it opens up your neural pathways - five years ago I could have smashed this in, like, three degrees.

Hmm, let's see.....

Nope, can't be done. Or can it?!

The challenge has been issued. May the true champion of Kevin Bacon win.

Julie

Falcor - Where Is He Now?

Over the years I've heard many, many people ask the following question:

Whatever happened to Falcor from The Neverending Story?

And really, this is a very good question. I mean, where can a Luckdragon go once he's had his fifteen minutes of fame? They don't exactly blend in. I'm sure he didn't want to stick around in Fantasia, not with that drip Bastian accidentally killing Atreyu in Part 2 and pronouncing Fantasia to be empty.

Little twerp.

People clearly want answers, and, unexpectedly, I am in a position to provide them. You see, it just so happens that I am a close, personal friend of Falcor's and can tell you the whole story.

Because Fantasia was becoming more and more prone to evil overlords wanting to destroy it and the Empress' passivity helped to enable this, Falcor decided to emigrate to earth where, unfortunately, he had to shrink quite a bit in order to blend in with local culture. He still retains the main features of a Luckdragon however, as illustrated below.

I give you.....Falcor Now!!

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

So, after providing indisputable evidence, everybody can relax now. Falcor didn't fade into complete obscurity. He is alive and well, living with me in Peachester, and goes by the alias of "Caffery." He likes to do normal, everyday things such as have his bottom patted, hump his giant teddy and visit the hydro bath.

He's not immune to the camera flash of lurking paparazzi either. I'll leave you with the following  pictures to be featured in Who Weekly next week. Ciao!

Julie

Falcor and his new squeeze, Teddy,
step out to Starbucks.

No Way to Treat a Teddy - Falcor is
spotted in a compromising position.

Thanks to his fame, Falcor can enjoy regular
spa treatments at exclusive resorts.

"I just want to live my life!" - Falcor's plea
to intrusive paparazzi.

Don't have a cow- no, wait....

Ummmm.....Ilikerawcowsmilk.

Sorry. *subtly clears throat.*

I like raw cows' milk.

Why? Because DAMN it tastes good! Who wants to drink that watered-down crappola from Woolworths?

But Julie, it hasn't been treated with a billion and one unnecessary processes to squeeze every last drop of awesomeness from it - you might get a disease or some sort of unpleasant bacterial infection, I hear you say. Well, I appreciate your concern, but I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take. Because that's me. I'm a risk taker. I jog without wearing socks in my runners and occasionally leave the door slightly ajar when I go to the loo.

Risssssssssssks. Hiss it out and tell me you don't feel bad ass.

Seriously - (although I was being...) Pauls and all the other Big Boy companies (it's been so long I literally can't remember their names) are holding their products hostage at one big, long, regrettable night out at the Milk Masquerade Ball, where no matter how crap your date is or how sick you get or how many times they play the Macarena or how many times a creep grabs your ass or how messy your makeup gets, you can never, never, never leave.

I understand the above paragraph doesn't make much sense. I don't care. It stays.

What supermarket supplied milk lacks (along with integrity) is the natural cream top which lasts for a third of the bottle and is basically like drinking pouring cream.

Milk should not taste watery. It should be thick, creamy and sweet. You should look forward to your daily glass of milk as a treat. Adding it to your hot beverage should be sweetness enough. Mixed with cocoa and boiled should send you to sleep where you sip.

I will no longer be supporting the enforced, ghastly, thin-lipped (you heard me) Milk Masquerade Ball. The tickets are too expensive and the guest list sucks.

My supplier of raw milk must remain nameless to ensure its continued *cough ILLEGAL* supply to its band of loyal followers. Yes, you heard my false cough - ILLEGAL. Guess that makes me an accessory to the crime now, don't it? Testify. Apparently you're not allowed to commercially sell unadulterated, awesome cow's milk. It's just too dangerous. BUT HERE KIDS, BUY A LITRE OF GUARANA AND SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!!!

Thank goodness for food standards and safety regulations - where would we be without them?

Now I'm off to buy a No-Doze at my local corner store. Roll-up anyone? They go well with Coke - now THERE's a drink of champions with absolutely no health risks whatsoever associated with it. That must be why it's so popular - because it has the tick of approval from the government, and the population can enjoy a free-for-all with an easy conscience, knowing how vigilantly it is protected from dangerous consumables.

*Silence/crickets*

Ummm....yeah, I'm gonna go have a cup of hot cocoa now and then turn in for the evening....

*Silence/crickets*

Goodnight.

Uncool Runnings

I have never been a good runner.

This initially came to my attention when, at the age of five, I ran my first competitive race and came last. Sure, it was only a 20 meter race at my little Catholic primary school’s sports carnival, but it created an unease which has never quite left me.

You see, it was the first time I tried really, really hard at something and didn’t succeed.

You can’t bluff sports. There’s no room for sleight of hand or trick psychology or even to skilfully talk your way through. You either have the physical goods or you don’t.

I was shocked to come last, because, having two older brothers who had effectively hazed me into a state of rough-and-tumble boyhood with them, I assumed I would dominate in all things athletic. Wrong. The other misconception was that, as I was tall and thin, I must be fast and athletic. Unfortunately, this wasn’t true either. I was slow, weak, lacked stamina and was devoid of competitive genes. I grew to hate organised sport.

And so like watching a train crash in slow motion, any observer could see my athletic tragedies unfold pathetically throughout my primary and high school careers. At least my friends in high school were kind enough to find my weak attempts charming.

I will state for the record here: I came last in EVERY school race I ever ran in my life. Usually by a gap of at least ten meters. I was that person.

I enclose here a photo from my high school year book where I am attempting long jump at a sports carnival. I was in grade twelve. I tried really hard and really wanted to prove something. The faces of the girls behind me say it all (hi Spope!)

I thought it would look more like this:

 

You can imagine my absolute horror when, at age 19, as I decided to pledge myself to an Indian guru and immerse myself in a path of meditation, I discovered that his rules made it mandatory for his students to run for half an hour a day.

Well shit. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

It was about that time that I took out a gym membership. This was serious. I really needed to get into shape and couldn’t fake athleticism, particularly around the robust, glowing, health-oozing people I meditated with. There was a compulsory 2 mile race every Saturday morning which I used to loath with a passion usually reserved for bad re-makes of Jane Austen classics. So I started training at home. By training, I mean a couple of times I managed to coerce my ill-equipped carcass a few hundred meters down the road. Then, gasping, I would usually seek support from a telephone pole, and try to appear as though I wasn’t an immediate candidate for cardiac arrest. It was usually around this time that a couple of dogs would race out of their yards and chase me the few hundred meters back home, where it was assumed by all that I had spent an entire day in the sun.

And of course, I came last in every Saturday morning 2 mile race I ever ran.

I decided however, that I wasn’t going to let it beat me. So I started training in earnest, building up until I could run continuously for at least half an hour every day. Sometimes it was a little more. I tried to include hills in these sessions, which I actually prefer to flat running, which is incredibly boring. I even ran at night after whatever job it was I was working, so I could fit in my daily running, and actually grew to enjoy it.

This is the part where everyone expects me to say that I became a running sensation and starting winning the races.

I didn’t, and I still basically came last in every race I competed in.

However, a turning point came when I questioned further about the purpose of our running on this path of meditation. Was it just for physical fitness?  What in the name of Sam Hill did it have to do with meditation or spirituality?

Because it is a metaphor for our inner running, I was told. When we are committed to something inwardly (be it a spiritual path, a job, a partner) we are everyday inwardly running towards a goal – to gain a higher position, to be a better partner or to feel our meditation more deeply.

When we are committed to this, we are keeping inwardly fit. We are sprinting towards something high and lofty and true. Our outer running is an expression of this. We train the body to be physically fit and healthy, but at the same time we are training our minds to be patient, goal-focused and strong. Run for half an hour a day, every day. Make time for it. Convince your mind it wants to. Do it, I dare you! It’s not as easy as it sounds.

The answer was not what I expected. Nonetheless, I understood it. I came to see running as another form of meditation, and just as effective in quieting the mind.

Therefore, when the word “marathon” was introduced, I was relatively ok with that.

I won’t go into all the gory details of what my first marathon involved. Actually, I will. Basically, it was a small, in-house affair of roughly six people who opted to run a 1.1 km circuit at the University of Queensland something like 38 times.  A marathon is a distance of 42 kilometres.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t and can’t do things by halves. It must be all or nothing. Therefore, my plan to “maybe see if I can run 10ks” was doomed from the start. We’d planned the event as a night marathon so as to avoid the heat, and started at 10pm at UQ. We had an aid station set up at the beginning of the loop with water, electrolyte mixture, chocolate, jelly beans, fruit, salts, Gatorade and practically everything else you could possible need when running a marathon.

I wasn’t quite as prepared. I hadn’t trained and didn’t even have proper running shoes (I was wearing  Converse sneakers). Nevertheless, I was as so enchanted by the possibility of conquering my doubting mind and uncooperative body, I brazenly opted to run 10km, which I secretly always knew would turn into an entire marathon.

Did I mention I have an enormous stubborn streak?

Ok, this is the point where I’ll skip the gory, weeping, blistering, pain-demented, hate-filled, heaving, gasping, lactic-acid-soaked details, but the whole thing basically took me 10 hours. To put that in perspective, a tremendous athlete could do it in under two, and an average one in maybe four or five hours.

IT TOOK ME MORE THAN TEN HOURS.

But I refused to give up. A quarter of the way into it, my shocked legs seized up and refused to bend. At all. So I basically walked peg-legged the remainder of the, oh, thirty kilometres. Surrender was simply not an option. Needless to say, I continued to walk peg-legged for the remainder of the week, much to the delight of the smut-loving chef I worked with at the time.

So, it wasn’t pretty.  There was no adoring crowd waitng to greet my at the end, only looks of repulsion. It was possibly the longest recorded time ever for a marathon. But I completed it in accordance with another important stricture: Never, EVER give up.

It conquered a mental barrier. In years to come, I would repeat this venture on an annual and sometimes biannual basis, many times in New York where my teacher lived. I didn’t dazzle anyone on any occasion (except when I exposed my pale legs), but I never repeated my ten hour maiden attempt. The best I ever did was 6:25, and I was ecstatic about it. I came to regard doing a marathon as normal, and never once dreaded it or doubted my ability to do it. After all, I’d already proven I could. I would rock up untrained, with snow white legs, and start half-heartedly limbering up in front of hundreds of doubtful, athletic- looking competitors. Oh yeah, they were scared.

All up, I’ve bumbled my way through eight marathons and continue to run on a daily basis.

I’m still not good. I get so tuckered out after a couple of minutes and I’m still really, really slow. However, I find the best trick to running is to simply be present – not anticipate the road ahead, nor imagine how wrecked you’re going to feel  in a few minutes time, and definitely don’t compare your running ability to anyone else – you only insult them and psych yourself out.

I’ve had a year of little exercise after getting glandular fever, but I’m back in training and plan to run a particularly beautiful, hilly 10km stretch of road up at Maleny called “Bald Knob Road” within the next few months. I’d love to be able to run it without stopping.

I’ll let you know how I go ;-)

One Year Later - A Tribute to My Nanna

A little over a year ago, a beloved member of our family cast aside her earthly garment and was initiated into the greatest mystery of all. In holding with the unerring tradition of death, we have not seen or spoken to her since. However, the dissolution of her spirit from our outer perceptions has not stopped her from entering into our hearts and minds to be with us on all occasions - those trivial, those important and those frankly where she has no business being at all.

Yes, Nan - your spirit is still very much alive in our hearts, and very often our actions too.

I was re-reading a piece of writing which I abridged and read at Nan's eulogy on behalf of her grandchildren. The actual piece was written a year earlier again, after visiting Nan at her nursing home one evening and realising that she was gradually drifting away.

I would like to resurrect it and post it in this blog as a public tribute to the charismatic, nous-filled and well-loved woman that was my Nanna, and also known as Nan, Nanny, Nanna Mac, Mum or Old Girl depending on which family member you ask. And critics would do well to remember - you can't fatten a thoroughbred.

Julie

The first time you were unable to speak to me was a day in 2009 towards the end of winter, but it felt like summer.

As I drove north to visit you after work, the evening air was unseasonably warm and still, and kookaburra’s laughter echoed across the sky long after the sun had set. For a beautiful hour, the sun had lit up the sky like fire in the west, behind the mountains; the first silver evening star hung low and bright, summer is in the air (the cicadas have woken up) and it is your time. It is you. You are more in this summer evening then you are lying alone in Anam Cara nursing home, still and weak on your deathbed.

 Do you remember all of the sunset walks we took at Bribie, down at the beach, first on the surf side and then on the calm side? They were great – at first we would walk, you and your grandkids, maybe play around a bit in the surf – someone would have brought a soccer ball – sometimes you would take us for a BBQ in the park, and watch as we played and made new friends. Then we would sit in the sand together, and watch the sky change from corn blue to burnt orange to hazy pink; then indigo blue and finally spangled ebony. We all listened to the breaking the waves, and their gentle lapping as they climbed the beach and tried to tag our feet. We listened to hundreds of birds screaming in the warm night air, and the irrepressible laughter of kookaburras nearly as raucous as our own, and just as quick to lapse into a peaceful, easy silence. What magic lay on that beach, in those dream time years, where a tiny black poodle name Boko once ran, and gave you such joy, and where our family had a special tree, our names carved in it forever before it washed away to sea. I always believed you understood the language of the sea: its mysteries, its poetry, the scents and memories from bygone eras which wafted from it. Or perhaps you simply learned to listen better than others.

 As we grew older, we watched the sun set from a different side of the island, from the Bribie passage, facing west, and watched it sink behind the crooked Glasshouse Mountains. Sometimes we would all ride bikes, but often we would walk down together from Doomben Drive and get an ice cream – Bubble-O Bills and Golden Gaytimes were our favourites, but you never could resist a Havahart. I couldn’t begin to count the number of ice creams I ate with you at Scoopy’s, overlooking the Bribie passage, where a million lorikeets were screeching as the sinking sun chased them home into the tall pine trees, and you sitting there like a little girl, your hands full of ice cream, chocolate all over you face and both of us giggling uncontrollably because we know it’s worth every second of it. We’ll laugh about times like these, you and I. About the time a giant dog chased us into the surf, and we had to wade home, and then you lost the house key in the sand. Or how the police always pulled you over for riding your shiny blue Melvyn Star without a helmet. “We’ve had some laughs,” you’d always say to me, “We’ve laughed a lot and cried a lot.”

 And we did. Nan, you were the only person I could ever properly cry with.

 I see you this evening – lying small and alone in your darkened room; the oxygen tank an unwelcome drone and the clinical scents of the nursing home your new fragrance, although never the right ones. Dressed in pink and white, you look as fresh and summery as I’ve always seen you – in fact, I’ve never known you to wear black. This is the first time you’re unable to talk to me, and even through I’m trying my hardest I cannot help but cry a little. You can’t talk, can barely open your eyes, but somehow you manage to say, “I can’t talk darling. Tell me the news.” And through tears I try to tell you what’s news, try to make relevant to you a world you’re not a part of any longer. After a few minutes I stop. You were holding my hand, squeezing it the whole time, and I marvel as always at the strength and warmth of your hands – my favourite hands in the whole world. Then you pull my hands towards you, press them to your mouth and croak, “I love you darling. I love you very much.” And I am sobbing uncontrollably, telling you I love you as well. And suddenly your eyes have opened, and you’re looking at me in surprise. “Don’t cry my darling. Smile, always smile.” I do my best to reassure you that I will, and that I do. Still though, I can’t stop the tears. “Don’t cry, my darling. Cry tears of joy," you croak, kissing my hands once more and then pushing them away. “Goodbye. Oh, I love you. Goodbye.”

 And in five minutes the visit is over, and I am heartbroken, because it is the first time you haven’t been able to talk to me, make me laugh, discuss the sunset, or go over the good times we shared. Yet I can feel you all around me because summer has arrived, and it is your time. I can feel you in the joyful laughter of the kookaburras, in the scent of BBQ in the still night air, in the hope and possibility of the months to come. And even here in the parking lot of Anam Cara nursing home the warm, gentle breeze hasn’t changed a bit from the one that visited us so many years ago, one summer as we played in the sand, and you sat with your grandkids and watched the sun set on the surf side, saw the sky light up and change from blue to orange to pink to indigo, to star-spangled ebony. If you listen, you can hear our laughter on it, the promise of childhood dreams fulfilled the song of the ocean, of summer, of you. Recorded on it are a million laughs, a million tears and a million happy memories of you. It’s all you, and always will be to me. I only wish I could tell you all about it. I’ll continue to smile until that time.

A Case for Beauty Over Boredom

This is probably a really illogical post, but hear me out.

I have long had a problem with balancing out the beautiful parts life with the boring realities in a way that is socially acceptable.

For me, it is very difficult to see sense of the proverbial long-term slog whilst watching the plump and luscious fruits of spontaneity fall to the ground and rot for want of takers. I despise that convention cautions me against putting my hand up. It’s almost criminal, and sits very badly with my conscience. This leads me to my second point: I have no discipline, nor the inclination to cultivate it.

I skip work fearlessly to nap on a whim. When in the office, I’ll stare out the window for a full half hour listening to a beautiful piece of music on my I-pod regardless of my co-workers and responsibilities in general. University work takes second place to the charming stories of Woolf, Austen and Rowling. I will give my full attention to animals, regardless of social expectations that I also make polite conversation with their owners. My room is a realm of dreams and closely guarded treasures, and disgustingly messy. My car is a fellow adventurer and loyal friend, and an utter affront to the human eye. Sometimes I don’t make it to the ironing board and conduct my professional day in jeans. Happiness is high when work attendance is low.  A career is a choker around the neck of burgeoning creativity. In short, I’m largely guided by my own sweet will and hate “sucking up” life’s less palatable realities.

Part of it is because I’m part of gen Y, and I want everything now. This is a concept that my patient, hard-working baby-boomer parents struggle to grasp. But it’s the truth. Why shouldn’t I get what I want when I want it, within reason?

This attitude however isn’t entirely a case of greed or ignorance as to “the way things work.” Rather, I put it down to loving the beauty of life and its possibilities too much, and therefore struggling to embrace the duller, more necessary parts. I posit that a life full of perceived exquisitely beautiful experiences is destined to struggle with the counterbalancing “bread and butter” day-to-day happenings.  And that’s what I do. Feel the magic and then lament the reality. To take your understanding further into the realms of Julie Loka (my world), I draw on the following universal experience:

You have gone away on a holiday after months of tough slogging, only to come home feeling bitterer than when you set out. This is because you connected with something joyful and sublime and entirely non-boring on your holiday, and resent coming home to once again resume being easy lackey to “the man.” You then feel guilty that instead of radiating joy and vitality at having 2 weeks away, you’re experiencing horror and dread towards the 50 weeks you now have left at work. This leads you to stare vacantly at stationary items on your desk and wonder what your purpose in the organization, if not life in general, is, and why you can’t be more like Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy from Little Women.

This analogy can be expanded to include massively great life experiences vs. massively boring life experiences. It is this grey feeling neither of elation or gloom that really bugs me. For me though, this feeling is not characterised by disillusionment, but rather, the remembrance of a separate sensation so sweet and profoundly satisfying as to make apparent its absence in all other areas.

It then begs the question: what is this feeling, and why must it be restricted? Can is not be expounded, bled from its source so it may be viewed in its entirety and made to last longer?

Here I am, sitting at my desk in the office, bathed in computer glare and surrounded by desk dividers and staplers and folders, but elsewhere, my thoughts are soaring into the great unknown, and I do not know when they will take rest and nor do I want them to.

I do not mean to colour grey those circumstances in my life which, withstanding comparison, would be considered fortunate – education, a job, a home. I do not mean to appear so entirely self-absorbed and glass-half-empty that I do not see the forest but for the trees. Of course not. But if you were told you could never see the ocean again, would you not pine for it, glorify it even? If you have experienced beauty even for a fleeting moment, does it not make it harder to plug away at that job, save those funds, trod that well-worn path?

I should not do my life the injustice of continually measuring its tolerable sum against the few fleeting yet sublime encounters I have had with beauty. It is neither fair nor wise. But I cannot help it. Once a person has journeyed to a foreign country, their homeland never seems quite the same again, whether for better, worse or indifference.

I mentioned earlier that I feel the magic and lament the reality. Ok, I can see how lame that sounds. No one wants to be that gasping, starry-eyed person. So, to make the most of it I do what I can to change reality a little. I wear jeans to the office and play hooky so I can go nap or read; I luxuriate in the accumulating filth of dream-filled bed room, drive a crap car I adore and delight in the uncomplicated nature of animals versus their annoying owners. I swear no allegiance to my responsibilities, shirk convention where possible and wilfully view circumstances incorrectly. It’s resistance at its best and is ethically, socially and morally repugnant and boarders on being totally unacceptable.

And you know what? It works for me.

Sunday Musings

I live by the sea, in an affluent bay-side suburb called Manly. I do not own a house here; I rent with a friend. I’m that person who has no money yet somehow manages to get around in Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choos (figuratively speaking). There is a great deal of luck involved. Or a misapplication of funds.

I like living in Manly for many reasons. To begin with, it is idyllic. There are wide streets lined by leafy trees and picturesque houses. You cannot go anywhere without seeing young families together; children play and ride bikes, and people exercise and walk their dogs along the esplanade.

I like it because it’s a place that has grown affluent organically, and the generations of families who call it home are by and large unpretentious and hard working.

I also like it because it is beautiful. It is a township of cafes and boat harbours and yacht clubs, and stunning views of Moreton Bay. You can smell sea air even when you cannot sight the ocean. You can ride your bike along the water front of an evening and be treated to views of tall white sails and islands buoyed in the deep turquoise.

But mainly, I like it because it is so close to the sea, and to me, the sea is all allure and unfathomable mystery. The sea is constant and unpredictable all at once, and speaks a language which both confuses and fascinates me.

How comforting is the utter timelessness of the sea! Knowing that from time immemorial it has looked the same, acted the same, smelt the same. How the sea itself must also keep to the beat of some other drum to maintain its own unbreakable rhythm. For all that it can be wild and terrifying, it is not exempt from the constant, rhythmic laws of nature. It will never do anything which it has never done before. I find this incredibly anchoring.

On weekends, and those weekdays when I am home early enough from work, I like riding my bike down to the water and finding some secluded nook from which to watch the sun set, or rather the effects thereof. The sun doesn’t actually set over the water, but the reflected colours are spectacular. If the moon is rising, it is magical.

It is usually during these times that I cannot help thinking existential thoughts (which I won’t bore you with) and ponder whether the presence of such beauty on earth is meant to remind us of something higher and forgotten. I guess I won’t know for sure in this life time.

It’s also at these times, alone and surrounded by the majesty of nature, that I think most about my family and friends, and wish to be closer and more connected to them,  as though in connecting to the purity of the sea and sky and grass, I must connect to other elements too. What are we humans if not elements of nature? It is so precious to be human and alive and capable of feeling love for each other.

I like that this is a pleasure in life that is free to all, as are the reflections that follow.

The backdrop of picturesque houses and yachts with white sails is pleasant, but for all that it is, it’s just an accompaniment. Like billions before me, my questions fly out to the sea and sky, the great beyond, and I will wait and listen for answers which, in a way, will still come from me.

After all, we are all made of the same stuff.