The Daily Blog experiment – gratitude

My sister from another mister/country/continent Judith, asks today, on her blog Spirit of Tarot, to shuffle, and turn over three cards, with the question “What am I grateful for?” as the prompt.

Well, Judith, didn’t that prompt arrive just as I opened a new Kickstarter tarot deck – Spirits of the Woodland Tarot.

4 of Coins: solid foundations are showing up as support. Oh my, yes. I am grateful for the habits I’ve given myself over the years. As my ADHD has worsened(I suspect menopause really kicked it off, but there are threads of it through my whole life), I’m very grateful that I put hygiene habits in place early in life. Ablutions, teeth brushing, hair brushing, skin care, clean clothes, out of bed at a reasonable hour, bed aired, windows open. I read so much about people who struggle with these things, and I’m so very glad that they are non-negotiables for me. Other habits as foundations are in progress.

8 of Coins: Hard work and nurturing the growth in myself is paying off. I am grateful for all those years of writing, even if I doubted I would ever get published again. I can’t not write. And now that I have the habit of databasing my writing on Tuesday mornings, and using Duotrope on Tuesday afternoons to find call outs for submissions, I am starting to see my writing out in the world again. So very grateful for the hard work I’ve put in, both on that habit level, sheer bloody mindedness, and also, the personal growth of admitting I can’t do this stuff on my own, and employing support workers to help me. Me, the little mouse, is so grateful for my hard work. Look at me looking at my nest, thinking ‘yeah, I did that’.

8 of Cups: the upgrade. I am grateful for the times I recognise something is restricting me, and decide to move beyond it. I can’t believe that I am still at odds with my daughter, but there it is. I’ve pulled back on contact just for now, because I’ve felt (redacted) of late. I am grateful that I’m doing this self care, even though it’s painful.

The Daily Blog experiment – hello winter

Yesterday was a top of 20 degrees Celsius. Today, it was 14, and even cooler up in the Hills. MidWife and I had lunch at Miss Marples’ Tea Rooms in Sassafras.

I don’t know why people rave about the Devonshire tea. Because I have never had a good scone out of that place. The gluten ones are cut and have the consistency of a cake slice. The gluten free one I had today fell apart, was coated in flour, and tasted like flour all the way through. Dry as buggery too. Urk. Oceans of butter might have saved it, but all I had was good raspberry jam. I gave the scone up as a bad job, and contented myself with the pumpkin soup, which was excellent.

It was very obviously a tourist bus day. Every company tells their mob to eat at Miss Marples, which they dutifully do, then run around a Sassafras in the 90-120 minutes given to them to find the epitome of a Sassafras souvenir. Will it be raspberry jam? A tea cup from Tea Leaves? Woollens? A plush flying possum? whatever it is, it must be packed and if a size to go on the bus.

We trooped in and out of every shop, skittering between rain showers, and increasing cold. Fog lingered in the folds of the hills.

I can’t wear wool, but I do like stroking it, so I searched for skeins to buy and knit with over the winter. I didn’t see any. I suspect I’ll have to head to Healesville for that.

I got back into my car around 2.30pm, and drove slowly down the mountain, heater on, and Joan Anderson’s A YEAR BY THE SEA chattering quietly.

A happy, if chilly, day.

The Daily Blog experiment a photo from the vaults

Black Summer bushfire fundraiser, early 2020, before the COVID lockdowns.

Ah, the summer eastern Australia caught fire, and our then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, aka ScoMo or Scummo, lied to Parliament about work-related travel, and instead fucked off to Hawaii with his family.

“I don’t hold a hose,” he justified.

Meanwhile, photos emerged of previous PM Tony Abbott(loathed him too, but at least he pitched in) fighting the fires as part of the Country Fire Authority.

A Melbourne dancer and crafter decided to raise money to help the Firies out. She put on a fundraiser, and I said “Sure, I’ll help out.”

I decided to fulfil a long-held dream to dance to The Goodies’ theme music. I ordered a tshirt and it arrived the day before. I raced to get it cropped, and elastic sewn into the new hem.

A friend’s daughter cut me a fringed hippie waist coat a la Bill Oddie. I figured my glasses would represent Graeme Garden. And, well, my vaguely pageboy hair would do for Tim Brooke-Taylor.

At the last minute, I decided to add a beard, and my local hairdresser trimmed a faux beard and moustache to look like Bill.

I slunk onto the stage, veil covering my face, then revealed myself to a huge WTAF from the audience. About half the audience were old enough to get the references.

It was all of 2.13 minutes, and some of the best fun I’ve had as a dancer.

You can see the limitation of my left shoulder before my 2022 shoulder joint replacement.

The Daily Blog experiment – what do you want to see?

Now, I’m happily chugging along, writing about whatever occurs to me on the day. But, you, dear audience – what do you want? What brings you here?

Do you want more on mental health?

Photos from the vaults and the stories attached?

The Daily Blog experiment – a photo from the vaults

In early 2008, I had The Big Breakdown fueled by being dumped by XP, and the death of my mother. After MasteryGirl got me out of Box Hill hospital and fed me wholefoods for some weeks, and my new meds had started to settle in, she asked if I wanted to go to a free workshop with her.

Sure, I said. I was in the early stages of my Year of Yes. I was starting to say yes to outings, opportunities, and experiences. So yes, I’d go to this workshop.

I can’t remember who ran the workshop, but I remember it was two hours along and it was partially about manifestation, and focussing on what we wanted.

He asked us to choose an area of our lives. MasteryGirl chose business. I chose the lack of a primary relationship. I no longer wanted XP back, not really, but I also wasn’t ready to date quite yet.

The facilitator asked us to list 20 things we didn’t want in our area of interest. Because knowing what you don’t want is much easier than articulating what you do want. We had five minutes. It was easy. With my ex-husband, ex-bastard, and XP(ex-partner) in mind, I could easily list 20 things I didn’t want.

We then had to partner up with someone, and take 10 minutes each to turn each negative into a positive. Ah, a little harder, and it required thought to say what the opposites of ‘unemployed’ and ‘obsessively workaholic’ might be.

I got my new list of 20. I took the list home, and transcribed it into my journal. However, I decided to go one further. I got poster paper, and textas/markers and made a poster. It went up on my bedroom wardrobe door. It was a constant reminder to me of what I wanted, and not to settle for less.

It became quite the tourist attraction. I was hanging out with a group of ‘sad singles’. Some of us had met through DragonMan’s bad movie nights. And others were extended friendships from those people. The women in the group liked to look at my poster and discuss what might be on their List of 20. The men in the group liked to check the poster out, too. Responses ranged from: “You want a lot” to “I don’t measure up”.

I taught this manifestation technique to some friends, one of whom specified big hands in a new partner, and I believe she now still married to her second husband, who has big hands.

I still use the technique for getting clear on particular topics, but I have never again gone as far as making a poster and putting it up in the toilet or in the kitchen or on a wardrobe door. I know myself – being repartnered was the absolute highest value I had, and nothing has matched that since. Mind you, with partnership being handled(currently married, and ongoing marriage counselling helping, we guess), it’s likely time I turned this technique loose on my writing life, and one project at a time.

The Daily Blog experiment- the LOW down

I haven’t felt quite right since my 2 day experiment with Strattera meds for ADHD sent me on an express train downwards into a depressive episode.

I feel low. Not the super low of my pre-anti depressant circa 2008, but enough so that I notice it. Certainly a holding pattern low from pre-TMS.

I’ve tried sunshine, walks, dance, outings, quiet, and time with my grandkids. Nope, still low.

I tried going to see the retro band The Herberts this afternoon. Sort of a ‘sweat my prayers’ situation. I just could not get into it. I felt heavy and lumpen – full of concrete and grey gravel.

I’m home again now, in my pj’s and trying to settle enough to get a book out and have a read.

Tomorrow will be my first chance to make some calls, book an appointment with my doctor to perhaps moot another bout of TMS.

I do wish doctors and psychiatrists would fully read up on meds before handing them out. Like, is there a big red sign saying ‘May affect mood’? If so, perhaps don’t prescribe them to people with a mood disorder.

It’s not hard, bozos.

The Daily Blog experiment – Yellowed Memory

I have spent a convoluted morning unpacking, reading, posting to Instagram and Facebook, reading, attempting to write poetry, reading, and generally feeling flat and as creative as a brown dwarf star(not at all, a burnt out thing).

Somehow, all this has lead me to what is either an appalling memory,

dissociation,

or alienation from my own writing.

Because there’s fewer short stories, I can usually trace my inspiration, my intention, and the general plot, even from scraps. But not always. Oh, it’s not the “I dreamed an amazing story, woke up, wrote some notes, went back to sleep. And when I woke up in the morning, the note said: ‘the black glove, Tim, American politics’.”

I usually have some slight memory of writing a story. Usually.

Poetry – well, we’re in much dicier territory. There’s A LOT of them. Many’s the time I’ve turned to my support worker and said: “What the actual fuck? What the hell is this about? Why? Who? When?”

Now, when I enter my ‘flow state’ I have no consciousness of time, body needs, anything around me. It’s pointless me playing music. I don’t hear it. I often don’t feel my feet falling asleep. My poor bladder has to fend for itself. I’m told this is hyperfixation. It may well be. I have the ADHD badge.

Later, I will not have any memory of what I’ve written, nor be able to recognise it later. Channeling? It’s been suggested. But if so, the dead poet using me is also keen on dinosaurs, space, fabric, tarot, science fiction, and dance.

I don’t know if I just have a shite memory, but if so, why do I remember everything about Bentleigh in the 70’s, and Carrum Downs in the 80’s and early 90’s, but not my own work?

Do I dissociate when I write? It doesn’t feel like it. I never have a sense that I am sitting in the back of my own head while something or someone else looks out of my eyes. That’s a very definite state and I know if I’m doing that.

Is it alienation? Do I not, on some level, want to own my work?

I honestly don’t know. This morning as I wrestled with The Giant Blah Feeling of ‘nothing to say’, suddenly there appeared on the page a quite decent little poem that I didn’t know was in me. It was about a small moment, or series of moments with XP. Nothing exciting, but it still needed saying. And I didn’t know that until I came back to myself and saw the page.

I like the idea that I enter an altered state between the worlds, and make magic.

The Daily Blog – bucket list item #70

On my bucket list is it’sm #70: ride on an electric scooter.

Right place, right time. I’m visiting my daughter and grandkids in Queensland. My son-in-law, CarMan, is home this week from his FIFO(Fly In Fly Out) job as a mechanic and truck driver at the mines in Mackay. He has an electric scooter. Last night he plugged it in.

This afternoon I donned my granddaughter’s bike helmet and CarMan showed how to put it on the lowest gear. Button on the left, press, do a bit of scoot to kick off, and I wobbled down the street.

After a couple of goes up and down the street, including an “OMG, I’m in the bushes!”, I got brave enough to ride around the block. Then CarMan turned it up to second gear, and I zapped around the block again.

My hair actually streamed back a little, and my dress hem flapped. I felt so speedy and smart, and…well…scooty.

I was a bit wobbly the whole way, but I did it.

The urge to go faster was on me, and took me right back to my first ever solo drive in a car. I dared, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, press the accelerator up to 70kmph, just for a few hundred metres. I felt wild and scared then. And now.

I knew if I fell, I’d abraid badly. I have enough problems with my 60 year old arm skin thinning. One scratch and it inflames and starts to tears. So while I had the need for speed, I hopped off, and let my grandson have a ride.

I couldn’t stop smiling. I did it. I rode on a scooter.

Yay me. Bucket list item achieved!

The Daily Blog experiment – idea generation

The funny thing is, I can remember how I generated perhaps 20% of my poems, maybe 50% of my stories, and 90% of my articles.

The articles are easy. When I was a columnist for NOVA magazine, I’d get a list of the themes of the month way ahead of time, and then I’d have a two week lead time each month to offer up a new article.

Often, the theme would be something as vague as ‘light’, ‘foundations’, or ‘comfort’. As long I was 1000 words long, vaguely amusing, vaguely new age, and vaguely speaking to the theme, I could write what I liked. (As long as I didn’t get all meta and writing about writing.)

Sometimes, my initial thought was what went with. I’d been hot air ballooning the month before ‘light’ so I could write about the dawn light coming through the clouds.

Foundations though….my mum’s foundation garments of huge bra, Bonds Cottontail undies, and panti-girdle were not going to do the trick.

Sometimes it took some desperate intention setting and a trip to St Andrew’s bush market. “Between now, 8am, and when I get home, I will see something that inspires today’s article.”

I had to do some desperate intention setting that today I would generate an idea for the 5th module of Season of the Wolf: the Hulder and the search for extraterrestrial flora.

I haven’t done all the reading. I missed last week’s discussion of the reading. I’m currently in Queensland visiting my daughter and three grandkids. I haven’t turned my mind to the topic at hand.

I did take a half hour walk today, which usually lets my mind wander. It obligingly did so. A few days before, I saw a notification that Australian nature writer Inga Simpson was giving a writing workshop. I can’t attend, but thought of her brought her novels NEST, and WHERE THE TREES WERE. The latter got me thinking about arborglyphs – symbols carved into indigenous Australian trees. Most have been cut down and destroyed during land grabs by white fellas. Those preserved in museums have mysteriously gone missing in collections (let’s not admit that this land remains unceded).

Arborglyphs x Scandinavian huldra = today’s poem about immigration, hybridisation, integration, and in the background is land rights.

I can’t post any of it here, due to me wanting to sell first publication rights, but I thought you’d like to know about the cross-pollination that happens in my brain.

Oh go on then, here’s a Scribbly snippet.

The Daily Blog experiment – Australia Zoo

Even though it wasn’t on my bucket list, I ticked off a bucket list item, yesterday. (And yes, I know it’s not a daily blog if it’s not daily, but I’m with my grandkids, so shut up). Australia Zoo.

ThirtiesGirl and her family have been Queenslanders for five years. While I secretly hope they will come to their senses and move back to Victoria so I can get weekly grandkids doses, I know they love the Sunshine Coast lifestyle. I have to say, it’s enticing. Warmer weather, slower life. I’d have moved already if it wasn’t for my parenting-caring-guardian responsibilities with ThirtiesPerson. Who DOES NOT WANT TO MOVE NORTH, THANKS.

Here are: PizzaBoy, myself, Miss J, Logie B, and Super C.

We hit the ground running with an early soccer game for Logie B, then off to the zoo.

Cheetahs, tigers, and lemurs, oh my!

I haven’t been to any zoo in years, so it was good to get amongst wild animals again, and see some up close that I’d never seen before. The lemurs are just as cute as you think they are. Those long fluffy tails – why can I not have one of my own. And if you’ve ever thought something similar, go read ‘The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party’ by Robert Silverberg. I don’t care how that story turns out, I still want a lemur tail of my own.

As you can see, it rained. Welcome to northern Australia and monsoon season. It was still warm, but the lemurs and many other animals were moving towards their heated shelters. And yet, we humans were waking around, buying up cheap plastic ponchos. (@Australia Zoo, how do you justify the plastic ponchos when you’re all about reducing plastic use in the world, especially one-use plastic?)

The giraffes, zebras, and rhinos live together in a large communal enclosure. This giraffe seemed to be going out of his way to bug this zebra, continually breathing on, nibbling, licking and nudging. I guess your older brother can be from another species, and you can bug him like the brat you are.

The croc show in the Crocoseum was headed up by Bindi Irwin’s husband, and two young women. This pale croc is called Casper, and ‘always brings 110%’. Must’ve been a slow day, because he shlumped around. Then again, this show must be a bit like a sushi train. If you don’t fancy the rats and chickens today, meh, because you’ll have another opportunity in a few days.

Even so, I cheered and yelled ‘Crikey!’ with the best of them.

Super C and I kept commenting on the ‘excellent bin chicken show’, whenever some wild ibis landed and poked around. “This is what I flew north to see,” I told him.

“I moved here for this!” he replied.

And I don’t care what species these snakes actually are. Miss J and I called them the Stacks On snakes.

By the end of the day, we were all chilly, and worn out, so home to dry couches, soft blankets, and down time on iPads.

I’m really happy to have had this day with my family, and to have made some new memories.