The waiting game

The waiting game. It’s a game we play all our lives for millions of different reasons and it’s a game when the result can never be predicted.

Trying to get pregnant. The crippled-with-fear-every-second wait until the date of your expected period comes and goes, followed by the agonising two minute wait to see if there are two lines on the pregnancy test purchased in terrified excitement that morning.

Expectant mothers play the waiting game to welcome a new life into the world. The books tell us 280 days or 40 weeks, but head into any maternity hospital in the world and it will show you that it can be anywhere from 21 to 42 weeks. And, if you have been there, who can forget the anxiety as you wait to hear your baby make it’s first sound and hear the medical staff tell you that your child is healthy.

Life is the ultimate waiting game.

We wait for meals, we wait for sunrise, we wait for phone calls, we wait for sunsets, we wait for news, we wait for trains, trams, buses, aeroplanes, friends, family, television programs, heating, cooling, taxis, ubers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, service, coffee, new teeth, loosing teeth, children to take their first step, children to say their first word, people to stop talking, rain to fall, rain to stop, the sun to come out, the heat to be over, the cold weather to arrive, the spring, the roses to bloom, the full moon, the computer to boot up, the light to come on, the shower to be the right temperature, the microwave to beep, the traffic lights to change, the cars to move, the Bulldogs to win a premiership, the first kiss, the first love, the first alcoholic drink, the engagement proposal, the wedding, the honeymoon, the romantic dinners, the fight to be over, the ‘please’, the ‘thank you’, the honesty, the understanding, the lemons to ripen on the tree, the tide to turn, the fish to bite, the fire to catch, the candle to melt, the hurt to pass, the smoke to clear, the exam to be over, the plaster to set, the starting pistol, the wound to heal, the results to be announced, the bleeding to stop, the bad haircut to grow out, the shift to be over, the battery to run out, the weekend, the extra kilo to be gone, the holiday to begin………………….

But the most unpredictable of all the waiting games is our life expectancy. There are those who never get the chance to take a breath in this world and those who continue to breathe until they have breathed longer than everyone they know.

It’s Russian Roulette. One day there is going to be a bullet in the barrel and that’s it…….. your waiting game with life is over. And nobody, not even you, knows when that day will come and what form the bullet will take.

So we play the game. We spin the barrel on the pistol.

We are the game.

I’m thinking

The urge, the need, to write has begun to make its presence felt. A continual niggle in the far recesses of my sense of self.

I can see words leap into my frontal lobe and then just as quickly dash away behind a semi-translucent fabric. Complete sentences, entire trains of thought, there for the briefest of moments before they are lost………possibly………(probably) forever.

Dare I stop to trap these dialogues? Can they be caught? Or are they meant to tease me and tempt me and frustrate me because I have been pulled away from my writing for so long?

So many things vie for my attention. Each one of them require time and dedication that eat away the minutes of the day. Yet none of them can be scheduled. My mind does not work that way. I cannot be prescriptive and set aside blocks of time to specific tasks. Certainly not those that require creativity.

There is always something that is neglected. Tonight it is the pile of dishes in the sink. It is a small sacrifice. My need to press the keyboard into life was far more important than a frypan and a sink of hot, soapy water.

 

 

2018: The year in review.

December 31, 2018. At midnight tonight we begin a new year on the Gregorian Calendar. Watch as we struggle for weeks to remember what year it is. There will be errors aplenty as the unthinking end their written or typed dates with an eight instead of a nine.

I can hear the cursing now. (I will be one of the cursing)

Humans get all excited at this time of the year. Suddenly people are filled with an almost demonic fervour as they plan their year ahead. Pledges and promises abound. Sales of Nicorette patches increase in preparation for the annual quit-athons. Gyms employ extra staff to cater for the influx of the overweight and obese who have promised themselves a healthier life beginning January 1. Holidays are planned. Budgets are drafted. Relationships are evaluated.

Good intentions are thrown around like confetti at a wedding. But like confetti at a wedding, very few of these good intentions land where they are expected. So many of them end up stuck in a tree, drowning in a pool of water or being caught by the wind to drift off into the ether, never to be seen again.

I stopped making promises and resolutions years ago. Such nonsense only adds extra pressure on an already pressured mind. Not to mention the sense of failure and disappointment when you find yourself unable to live up to your high ambitions. Fuck that.

I now let things happen. And things are happening.

2018 has been another amazing year for me. The amazement began in 2017 and has continued unabated. I have discovered so much about who I am as a person and who are the people who are important to me. I know what I want from the world around me, and more importantly, what I don’t want.

My life is a whirl-pooling mosaic of people and experiences that has opened my eyes to the wonders of living the life I want to live rather than the one that is ‘expected’ of me. Not saying that I’m going to suddenly go all vegan and stop shaving my legs, rather I am going to do the things that make ME happy.

At the end of the day you are only responsible for ensuring your own happiness. You can, and will, only make yourself unhappy trying to make other people happy.

2018 has been a social year, a working year, a new website year, a discovery year, a year when I didn’t give a shit about Xmas. It was also a year that raced by me and where I struggled to find a balance with all the activities I had on.

Not that I am making any promises, but I am going to try to be very careful with how I fill my calendar in 2019. I have to find time for working, friends and family, photography work, photography excursions, socialising and relaxing. (And let’s not forget the BIG holiday planned for later in the year)

Yet another thing I learned over the last twelve months……….. I can’t do it all.

True friends will understand if you have to say “No” sometimes. (Saying no is when you learn who your true friends are.)

This New Year’s Eve is going to be one hell of a lot quieter that the last since my dance-partner in crime is holidaying in Italy with his boyfriend. A BBQ in my clean and tidy pergola, underneath the fairy lights, on my new chairs is just what the season has ordered. Though, truly, I don’t think there will ever be a New Year’s to top last year. Can’t be repeated, can’t be replicated.

I’m not excited or enthused enough to shout it with glee, but I wish myself and my loved ones a very happy 2019.

Stay safe, stay happy, stay smiling.

 

So this is Xmas……….

T’was the night before the night before Xmas and I finally decided that I should make some token of effort for the festive season. It has been one of those years where the days have flashed by at warp-speed and my brain has only shifted into third gear. Therefore, my brain thinks that it is only August but the calendar tells me that tomorrow morning is Xmas Day.

I’m just not feeling it.

I have done the usual Xmas things purely because they are expected of me rather than me wanting to do them. I have baked the shortbread, I have worn the Xmas hat at work, I have attended the Xmas functions and events, I have written the annual Xmas card letter (as yet unposted) and I have wished people Merry Xmas………. but I’m not ‘feeling it’.

It’s not that I am in a depressed state of mind. On the contrary, I couldn’t be in a better head-space. To say that life is good would be an understatement of incredible proportions. Life IS good. I just don’t really care for Xmas this year.

Perhaps being out working and/or socialising and not being home has a lot to do with things. Why spend hours setting up and decorating a tree and the house if you’re not home to see it? #1 son is barely home to see Xmas decorations either and he didn’t offer help to set things up. No..I tell a lie…he did ‘offer’ he just never followed through with his offer.

However, be it an attack of the Xmas guilts, a sense that I was missing something or a feeling that if I decorated I might start to feel somewhat more festive, last night I made an effort and put up a few decorations before watching ‘Love Actually’ while I did the ironing. Not the big tree. I wavered but I didn’t totally surrender to the silliness!!

Tonight I will continue the saga of the ironing basket whilst watching Carols By Candlelight and don’t be surprised if you hear a rumour that I sang along. Who knows? By tomorrow I might be feeling all come over with Xmas cheer.

I doubt it, but Xmas is the time for miracles.

 

Worn out

If you’ve seen the wonderful new movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” you may remember a little quote from Mary and Freddie’s perfect reply:

“You’re burning the candle at both ends,”

“Yes, but the glow is so divine!”

The glow is divine, but eventually all the wax is gone and there is nothing left.

I have been burning the candle at both ends. I’ve probably even broken the candle in half and have been burning both pieces at both ends. This week I, and the universe, realised that there was almost nothing left to burn and I was shown signs that I needed to take time out for me. Time to stop and be still.

I was noticing that I was simply ‘functioning’ in my day to day life. I’m not one to simply ‘function’. I participate. However, I think I had been participating in life to a point where there was too much participating and there was no time to stop either physically or mentally.

Circumstances (aka The Universe) intervened this week and plans that had been made were suddenly cancelled and plans that are usually made were not possible to be scheduled. I sensed that the universe was doing this on purpose. The universe was looking out for me. The old me would have ignored the signs and tried to cram things into the empty spaces in my calendar. The wiser me read the signs and agreed with the universe. It was time to take a breath.

I can’t remember the last time I sat on the couch and watched a DVD. You know, really just sat on the couch, not stood in front of the couch doing the ironing………..but I did just that on Thursday and Friday nights. Me, in my pyjamas, with the dogs and a cup of tea. Bliss.

The house was so still and quiet yesterday. No music, no TV, no phone calls, the street outside was quiet. The peace of the quiet was soothing. I hadn’t realised how jarred my senses were until they were allowed to rest.

There was something I was meant to go to in the late afternoon. I had RSVP’d in the affirmative, but by 3pm I knew that I didn’t want to leave the sanctuary of my home. Not only that I didn’t want to , but that I couldn’t and I shouldn’t. I knew in my soul that going out into the world yesterday would destroy the inner peace that was returning to me.

I needed to hibernate and re-centre. I needed to be selfish and look after me before my body forced me to stop, and I know from past experience that my body can be a right forceful bitch when she has something to say.

If you were to ask me what I did yesterday I couldn’t tell you. The hours between waking up and climbing into bed hold no thoughts of significance. But it doesn’t matter one iota. All I know is that I woke up this morning feeling more refreshed and alive than I have in a very long time.

I think I will make time for myself more often. I think we all should

Self-portrait

The self-portrait; as distinct from the ‘selfie’.

A sign of narcissism? An inflated ego? A shout to the world “Look at me!”? Or something else?

I was at the Geelong Art Gallery yesterday to have a look at the Archibald Prize contestants and winners and I was amazed at the number of self-portraits. Initially, I thought nothing of it, but as I prepared an album to share on Facebook a thought came to me and I feel the need to flesh this thought out a bit more.

The self-portrait. It takes a lot of courage to see yourself honestly and convey your true self.

As a model/sitter for a painter or photographer you can only hope that the artist does you justice and conveys back to you an image that you find pleasing. But what happens when you are your own model?

All of a sudden you are required to look at who you are. To see the reflection of the person you show to the rest of the world. You have to look beyond the exterior and see into your eyes. What do they say? Do they tell the story of a content and happy individual? Are years of doubt and depression indelibly etched into the pigment of your iris? Are the eyes looking back at you from the mirror filled with anger or love or compassion or hate?

Has your skin really aged that way? When did you start to develop those lines and pigmentation that you so despised in your mother and father? Surely you were going to look after yourself better than them. ‘Slip, Slop, Slap’ and all the potions and cremes that the advertising industry can guilt you into buying so that you will retain your youthful glow.

Where did that bump come from? That isn’t the body you thought you had. The body you imagine is taller. The body you dream in has grace and elegance. The body you fantasise you have looks incredible naked. Who is this?! Why is there not a thigh-gap? Where is that six-pack abdomen? My goodness….are they man-boobs? Have those toes always looked like claws?

Before you can paint or photograph yourself you have to accept yourself.

Is there anything more confronting than that?

 

 

 

 

Pushing the boulder back up the hill

I have never been so busy or happy yet I feel as thought I am trying to push a massive boulder back up a hill.

I made a conscious decision to make today about me. But not to pamper myself. On the contrary, today is about spending time cleaning up stuff . Email stuff. Photo stuff. Paperwork stuff.

Which is how I find myself still sitting at my computer at 3:45pm in my pyjamas and I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface of the stuff I need to do. There is so much stuff to do. Stuff. Stuff. STUFF!!!!

Maybe I should have written a list. Written it on the whiteboard…… or on an empty envelope……… or a piece of paper. The mental whiteboard has so much written on its surface that the words and tasks have begun to jumble.

A list on a physical surface would have given me something I could put lines through as each task is completed.

Have I completed anything today?

 

Putting it in perspective

Yesterday I had a birthday. Suddenly I am no longer 50. I am now 51.

I began to think about how I felt about being 51 and I wasn’t sure that I liked it. Fifty is such a statement age. “I am 50.”  I owned it.

Now I’m fifty……….one.

I would have to say that my year of being fifty was the best year of my life. As my best and dearest friend said to me as she came to grips with her own fiftieth birthday (I am paraphrasing here as I didn’t record her exact words); “I feel like a fine wine that has been put away till it was ready. And now it’s time to drink it and enjoy.”

By god, did I open my ‘matured’ bottle of wine and drink. I drank with gusto. So much so that the hangover of my excessive exuberance is still pervading my life. I don’t want the joy of the last twelve months to end. There is no reason that it should end, or even diminish, other than my attitude to life changing and I can’t see that happening.

My reticence at turning 51 was put into perspective though when I began to edit the photos from a birthday I was asked to shoot a week ago. The birthday girl was 100.

100

A woman who was born at the end of one world war, who has lived through another world war, a depression, seen a man land on the moon, witnessed the development of worldwide communication through phones and the internet, seen the eradication of polio and is a mother, grandmother and now a great-grandmother…….

I’ll bet my bottom dollar she didn’t flinch when she turned 51.

With that I vow to keep the momentum of the past twelve months going.

I’m 51!!!

Time

There are too few seconds in a minute

not enough minutes in an hour

never enough hours in a day

scarcely enough days in the week

never enough weeks in a month

too few months in a year.

 

All I wanted was for 2018 to go a little bit slower than 2017 but instead it is racing along at breakneck speed. I have so many things I am trying to accomplish and achieve that I am losing my mind as quickly as I am losing the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months.

Tonight I stopped to take a breath. It is only a short breath, but a breath it is. I haven’t managed to slow the passing of time or add extra seconds to the upcoming few minutes, however I can feel the rotation of my thoughts reduce speed momentarily.

 

 

Who are you?

Who is this person reflected back at me from the mirror?

I do not recognise you.

Where is the face full of doubt and uncertainty that I know so well?

When did that sense of inadequacy disappear?

When did your eyes begin to show this self-confidence?

What has enabled you to wash away the countenance of fear?

I do not recognise you.

But I think I like you.

Can you share with me your secret?

Is there a story that should be told?

Who are you?