Aging

I remember being surprised - often - at the age of my parents or how long they'd been married. My dad did the same job from the time we moved to that town until he retired. Every morning at 6.30 am he filled a flask with sweet black tea, made plum jam sandwiches and left for work by 7.00 am. Every morning before he left for work he'd come in and wake me and my sisters and tell us to get ready for school. He'd leave bowls for cereal on the kitchen table and sandwiches in smelly tupperware containers sitting beside them. Every afternoon at 4.05 pm he'd come home.

That sameness was comfortable and reassuring but I think it allowed me to ignore the passing of time. It was a shock when he retired and I realised he was 60. I hadn't expected that, even though I'd grown up and married and had a child, he would be getting older too.

I still have the small pine table we had in the kitchen as I was growing up. I look at that table and can almost see me and my sisters sitting underneath it. One would grab the jar of peanut paste, another the jar of vegemite and another the jar of honey. The fourth would get teaspoons and we'd sit under the table and scoop portions from each jar to lick off our spoons. I can remember the sound of 'ssh, Dad's coming' floating around the room, punctuated by the sound of Dad's slippers flopping on the floor, coming closer, stopping just inside the kitchen. We could see up to his knees. We always figured if we couldn't see Dad's face, he wouldn't be able to see us!

He never once let on that he knew we were there.

Time waits for no man

I'm not sure who said that but at times in my life it becomes my catch cry. It came to mind again when I read the blog of a friend and he was commenting on the structure of time. Read his blog (and my comment) here.

I love that sort of philosophical discussion. It's so circular.

We start at a point of pondering and think and talk out along tangents and around corners and eventually end up at almost exactly the same place we began. It's wonderful. You achieve almost nothing but you feel as if your brain has had an incredible workout and suddently you're capable of flexing quite impressive mental muscles. To what purpose I'm not quite sure!

Memory and the way it's linked to time fascinates me. I have three sisters and at times (not so often the older we get) we all get together and talk usually ends up at some point in our childhood. We all were born of the same parents, lived in the same house, ostensibly had the same upbringing but we all remember exactly the same things totally differently.

At some point my family were on holiday in a small country town in western Queensland. It's desert out there. All dry, sinking bull dust (very fine grey sand, like talc) and masses of magnificent wild flowers when it rains (that usually happens every 7-12 years in the spring). It must have been January 1973 because I had not long turned 12. I have no idea how long we were there although my younger sister could tell me to the day. I remember it being so hot that the thermometer (that went to 120oF) sitting inside the house in front of the air cooler blew the mercury out the top. I have memories of dust storms that coated the entire inside of the house with 1/2 inch of dust - and that's with all the windows and doors closed and towels stuffed around the cracks. My eyes stung and my lungs felt clogged for days afterwards. I remember going for long walks with my younger sister and hiding under a bridge to sneak cigarettes. For the life of me, though, except for one fishing expedition, I can't remember my older sisters being there at all.

Does that mean that at the times they weren't there (for me) they didn't exist in that moment of time? If I didn't notice them, were they even there? Or was I the one not there for that time? Is time perception? Just as memory appears to be?

And immediately I'm struck by the absolute arrogance of my remarks. I'm a human being so therefore the world and everything connected to it revolves around my perceptions of it. Just like it does in my real life.

Yeah, sure.

As if I didn't have enough to do

It's been two months since I've had time to add to this blog and now I'm planning to start a new one. As if I'm not already busy enough!

The new blog is for a university course I'm completing this year. I'm quite excited about the possibilities - as long as I can find out how to do the things I want to do. My task this week is to discover if I can add to the metadata for my current blogs to make them easier to find. I also have to write a couple of analytical reflections on various topics. Oddly enough I really enjoy doing that sort of thing - it's just time consuming.

I guess I'll just have to make sure I'm organised to fit it all in.

Good intentions and all that

I had a couple of brilliant weeks. I wrote three chapters for my current book and I critiqued three chapters on a book a past student has written. I spent a day making inroads into the mess I call my office (my desk is still nearly a foot deep but the rest is sort of organised). I read a really interesting biography on our current Prime Minister and began (again) to read Henry David Thoreau's "Walden". (I'm looking for an essay he wrote on ants - parallels in social structure.) I also brought my painting equipment upstairs with every intention of finishing the painting of the upstairs landing.

That's as far as I've got. My writing dwindled to a stop last Friday. I'm about 1/4 into chapter 27, the last stage of a particular Rite, know what I want this chapter to convey and 'look' like but can't find the words to make it sound like it isn't 'and then this happened, and then they did that...'. Everything has flowed on from that. If my writing isn't going well, every other aspect of my life suffers as well. In a way I like it - it shows just how important writing is to me and the impact it has. I also don't like it - if my writing isn't going (it doesn't even need to go well, just keep moving) nothing else is and I get irritated if I don't accomplish something (anything) every day.

Knowing I wasn't going to write anything worth keeping, I gave myself this week off to not worry about it. Consequently I've written copious notes and consolidated exactly what I want to happen in the next scene after the one I'm stuck in. I'm ready to write again.

The only problem with that is I'm committed socially for the entire weekend and I have to start work again on Monday. Work officially starts next Thursday but I have so much to do I'll need to start on Monday and work long days to get everything ready for the beginning of the new term. That's the end of my holiday. I'm loathe to pick up the reigns of control and organisation just yet - I've been enjoying just floating along, doing as I please the way I've been doing since Christmas.

Things could go one of two ways. I could just throw my hands in the air and forget about it, or I could see it as a challenge and work so hard next week I get everything done for work and still do some writing. I've been getting restless the last couple of days - bored with doing nothing. Of course that doesn't mean I don't still like the lack of direction and decision-making - I do. And I still have tomorrow morning before the round of social activities take over.

Making Christmas Work

In recent years, Christmas has become a trial for my family - well, at least for me to be with my family. We've been going through the motions but there wasn't much of the spirit of Christmas left in it for me.

My father died just before Christmas 17 years ago. I know it sounds a long time but when you miss someone it isn't long at all. Five years ago my nephew died just a couple of days before Christmas. In fact, that year my daughter and I lost three who were very close to us, just before Christmas. And Christmas still isn't what I think it's supposed to be. The pain of grief revisits each time and the sparkle has gone.

This year I decided I wanted to get away from the family completely, just to see if I could enjoy that time of year at all. There was one restriction: I didn't want to spend the time away from my daughter. That lead to another restriction: she didn't want to spend the time away from the extended family! You guessed it. We all went away - at least the ones who could make it.

I didn't get my wish to get away from the family but at least we got away from familiar surroundings. We went to a resort and walked on the beach, kayaked and sailed on the lake, 'played' tennis (what we do with a tennis racquet and ball isn't recognisable as any game) and generally ate far too much. We did the Christmas gift thing, watched Christmas DVDs and played board games. We didn't spend the whole three days in each others' pockets; there was space and time to do our own thing. Having said that, I think we spent more time together in those three days than we have in recent years combined.

It was good. Going away allowed me to connect with my family again for a significant period of time. It allowed me to leave the sad memories behind for a while and enjoy the moment for what it was. I'd like to do it again and will start negotiations early in the new year. At this point I have no expectations. It might not come off the way it did this year, but I'll float the idea and see what everyone else thinks.

A cruise sounds fun.

The rat race

I've always tried to avoid the classical 'rat race'. I can't see the point in spending an entire life time rushing from one meeting to another and only having enough time at home to eat, shower and sleep - and sometimes not even eat. But I've found that living in the city engenders it's own kind of race.

Everything here is FAST. Decisions have to be made quickly, arrangements have to be made early, lots of things have to be done in a short amount of time. I always feel busy, and those times I'm not busy I look for something to do that keeps me busy until the next series of processes are put in place. I'm afraid I'm losing my ability to relax. And I'm afraid that loss will mean a loss of something inside me. I won't be the same person anymore.

Not all of this is a bad thing. I love the way my mind is stretched when I'm working on three or four projects at once. I love juggling things when it's busy like that.

But I also love just sitting and watching the world go by. I can sit at a window and watch the trees on the mountain sway with the breezes for hours and never feel bored. I can close my eyes and listen to the magpies welcome the morning and the kookaburras warn others from their territory and breathe the peace of the world into my soul. Unfortunately those moments are getting shorter and a longer time passes between them.

I remember reading Henry David Thoreau years ago. I found his writing style stilted and boring but the images he created and the passion he felt for nature have stayed with me. The older I get the more I think about it.

I long to move to a simpler time. Don't get me wrong: I still want electricity, internet and reliable plumbing, but I yearn for a closer connection to nature. I want to be somewhere that I can't hear traffic noises 24 hours a day, somewhere my neighbours are far enough away that they can have visitors and I can't hear every word of their conversation. I could calm my mind and let it wander where it will. I could nurture my imagination and forget the demands of everyday living, just for a little while.

Focus fatigue

I hadn't realised it had been so long since my last entry. My last entry coincided with some health problems and then the rush to catch up on my assignments for uni as well as everything for school. I felt like I was trying to juggle a dozen balls at once - and I can't juggle!

I've spent the last week avoiding any work I need to do and contacting people I haven't seen since I began studying at the beginning of the year - trying to see everyone before Christmas. It'll be a busy and social couple of weeks. But it's not enough. I need to do something with my mind as well.

I've been thinking about 'focus' lately. What is it that allows people to focus on one thing exclusively and what is it that prevents some people focusing on anything at all. I've slipped into the latter in the last couple of weeks - pretty much since I submitted my last assignment for the year. I've written 1000 words for a chapter of the book I'm currently writing and haven't been able to think past that. I need to finish the chapter before tomorrow evening. I also have a journal article I need to write but my brain feels like it's fog-bound. All slushy and slow-wading.

And yet - I went for a job interview last week. I walked in feeling foggy and was given a scenario and 20 mins to respond to it. For that 20 minutes and the 1-1/2 hours of the interview, my brain worked at what felt like lightning speed. My solution was topical, relevant and organised. It dealt with the situation both linearly and laterally, viewing the situation from three different points of view. I could even put a time estimate on implementation. I walked out of the interview on a mental high. My brain had been exercised and I felt more awake than I had for most of the week.

But within an hour it was gone. I was back to the marshy fog, unable to focus on anything for more than a few minutes and that only partially. I've checked my diet - it has a huge influence on my moods. I've been eating lots of green leafy veges, lots of red and blue fruit and veges (good for concentration) and staying away from sugar (always makes me depressed). So that's not it.

Maybe I just have to force myself through it. Perhaps I should just treat it like a spider's web encountered on an evening walk and push through, wiping the sticky threads away as I go. I'll do that today, but first .... did I mention I'm a master procrastinator? .... I think I'll have a half-hour nap. I could always tell myself it's thinking time - an opportunity to get the next scene set in my mind so I can write it before lunch!