Orange, the Dutch, Toilets and Possums

If it was on today, I would be ready to go here without needing to get changed.

See?

Most likely a hideously garish combination of a darker orange top on top of a lighter orange skirt, my outfit is finished off with a pair of cruddy old beige ugg boots.  I just simply cannot get enough of orange today.

Today is the first break I've had for four weeks from taking antifungals.  The latest effort to bugger off the candida.  I don't think I've quite finished with it yet but I am happy for the break because it's been making me grossly irritable, anxious and life-tired. Thank goodness for molybdenum, that's all I can say.

For some reason, feeling little lighter in my being translates into the necessity for much orangeness ... putting me in solidarity with the Dutch.

Orange is a maligned colour.  I love orange.  Today, I am the ambassador for orange.

And now I feel like some poffertjes.  Which I've never had but see the sign for them regularly at the Ferntree Gully Market.  Only I can't have them, because they're wheat, and my body has told me incessantly and regularly that it really does better without wheat, thanks very much, at least in the meantime.

~

I cleaned up the toilet rolls that were piled up next to the toilet the other day.  Yes, I'm a slob.  But it's also very true that when my energy goes downhill I put off the things that are absolutely necessary to do.  Apparently taking the toilet roll out and putting it in the recycle bin in the kitchen is one of those things.

Sixteen rolls.  I'm impressed despite myself.



~

Continuing on with the toilet theme, the possum broke on through to the other side.

It is still occasionally sleeping in the hole in the wall which the cockies so kindly created.

But it's obviously not the most ideal of circumstances.  Too squishy and noisy.  As evidenced by the fact that it has busted its foot through the ensuite wall.

Days go by with nothing poking through, and then you get up in the morning to go to the loo and there it is.

A little bit of nature, brought right into the dunny.

Happy Friday and Saturday, y'alls.

Seeing Australia

I fell in love a little last night with a painting.  Tom Roberts's Mosman's Bay.

I saw this painting last night on the first episode of a TV show called The Art of Australia (you can watch it here on iView for a couple of weeks). 

The show was an interesting example of how where you come from colours where you are.  So many of the early painters in Australia painted it as if it was England, whereas Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton were two artists who had grown up in the country, and who could see its beauty.

It's true that after the deep greens of England, parts of Australia would have appeared washed out in their colours ... unless you were in the deep rusty orange-reds and sky blues of the outback, with its backdrop of trees and shrubs whose greens verged from olive to lime.  Australia's light must have been excessively harsh to northeners.  Hard to see anything beyond the harshness of a landscape they had yet to learn to read.

To be able to see what is in front of you is like a turning of the lens.  Bring the land itself into focus and the colour starts appearing everywhere.  Like Vegemite, some of the land is an acquired taste.  It hides itself away until suddenly its beauty springs into view.

Expectations

For some reason, my landlord honoured my request for new curtains in the kitchen. What was hanging there before today were some black vertical blinds from the 1980's. I kept expecting the Perfect Match theme to start up every time I came through the door.

Now, I am a very visual person. When I imagine something in the future, I can't help but to visualise it. Rehearse it, if you will. Which, if you listen to pop or sports psychology, is a good thing to do. Your mind, they say, does not know the difference between what is actually being experienced and what is being imagined. Thusly, it is good to visualise yourself in certain situations, especially those that cause some consternation or that you aren't particularly adept in. Rehearsal for the future, you know? Rehearse yourself kicking goals in the football game, or taking criticism, or having written and finished a piece for publication, or whatever. I do believe this works and I practise it. Often.

However, visualising what curtains you imagine your landlord is going to be putting up is a different sort of thing entirely. You can visualise all you want, but The Secret will not deliver your desires into your landlord's head. When the selection criteria is out of your control but you still hold a picture of your landlord getting curtains you will like, then it becomes expectations rather than visualisations :)

My landlord arrived as I was about to leave for work. I do quite trust N; he is an ethical person and so I wasn't too qualmish about going off and leaving him in my house to hang some curtains. I presume he didn't go through my undies drawer or, even worse, the dirty clothes basket, but you never quite know, do you? The most normal looking people are sociopaths and psychopaths after all. You don't spend two years transcribing police interviews without realising that there are seriously whacked people out there. And so how would I know whether my landlord has a secret desire to chop people up or have sex with beasties or go through his tenant's smalls?

(Gee, that paragraph took a rather dark turn, didn't it! I was babbling about curtains and then suddenly bang, shove you into a drear and debilitating "the psychos are amongst us" swamp. Sorry 'bout that. Here, have a towel. Come back to the fabric fireside and get warm (hopefully it's a flame retardant fabric fireside or we might be in trouble :)

So yes, I went off to work with barely a qualm about my landlord being alone in my house. When he was living here in the other house on the property, I fed his cat while he was away for the weekend. And I didn't go through his stuff. So I hope he returned the favour.

Actually, I'm really not seriously concerned about him going through my undies, whatever their state. (Hell, part of me would probably welcome the thought of someone looking at my undies). What I am really concerned about was whether he checked inside the shower. Because that thing is sort of overdue for a clean, and I would have hated the 30 centimetre high stack of accumulated black goo falling out on him if he did open the door to have a squiz. Even though he would have deserved it.

So anyway. I come home this evening and there the new curtains are hung up. And I realise, as soon as I see them, that what I really envisaged were the curtains Jane has hanging up in her lounge room and dining room. Lovely, well made, good fabric. The most beautiful delicate creamy yellow sort of colour that are just the perfect offset on her warm cream walls. Sort of the warm yellowey colour that this blog's text background area is right now (which, if you're reading this blog anytime after Winter will probably not make much sense seeing the background will not be the lovely warm yellowey cream it is now :)

So that's what I had in my head, I realise now. Because what I am seeing in front of me is rather different. I dunno, maybe they looked good in the packet at Spotlight. Maybe they were on special. Maybe they looked different in the light of the shop. But now, in the (admitted) darkness of my kitchen, they look akin to a couple of hessian sacks. Of a nondescript grey or brown colour. Something public transport designers would put on their bus or train seats.

Nice bloke, my landlord, but I think he might be colourblind :)

You tell yourself a lime green thought

But firstly, the centre is colourless. Uncolour. A pinprick and a well. You swim in it and push on it until either something must give or you must get rid of all your mirrors so you're not reminded how ugly you feel. This uncolour clouds everything so you feel like it is pointless to get your hair cut, or to look in the eyes of another.

The next layer out is lime green and as you shower in your shame and cleansing you tell yourself a lime green thought of truth. Your words to yourself have so much power that they jolt you. You wonder about that.

You have never been so aware before of the life and death wells at the same time. The stakes feel higher somehow. There is a creative idea, a thing, that is asking you to follow it down. Do you have the courage to follow it down? You remind yourself that you don't much mind if it goes out to a gentle red thread that miscarries itself out into the air. You don't think it's the end result so much as it is the following through and seeing something come out of you that is the thing here. It scares you, this potential to birth something.

You tell yourself a lime green thought about the uncolour. It is a paradox to think that once you step onto the lime green turf that you would do anything but run away from looking back, but it is from here that you can see its truth. Not so much what it is saying to you about yourself but why it is saying it. This is the diving board, and you jump and it is yellow for a second or two.

You tell yourself lime green thoughts that face away from the uncolour and it feels the way it would if you were in a large room of white tiles with the reflections from water bouncing off the walls, creating further colour, further light.

The dope plant has begun budding. It is a symbol to you of the path you could take, the easier path of death. You would have many lime green thoughts here, it is true. But you know you cannot do this right now, not in this time, maybe not ever, but certainly once or twice before never occurs and you give the buds away to some fortunate friend. If you stayed in this place for very long, it would tie one of your toes to the bedpost. What you need is to be on your hands and knees, grunting, sweating, birthing, saying, "I can't do this."

You think that you will follow the lime green thoughts for no other reason than that they bubble whiteness into you and you are bored flatlining with grey matte finishes.

Autumn Leaves

Abbey of the Arts has a great blog and great commenters. Here is a comment, about autumn leaves, from Kigen:

The new vibrant hues are the “original nature” so to speak of the leaf. The green leaf in spring is actually a masking of that original color by the influx of chlorophyll. When the chlorophyll is no longer secreted in autumn we see the true colors of the leaf.

That just rocks my socks, dear reader. Almost makes me jealous that many people are in the throes of autumn. Almost, but not really. I'll sit where I am, thanks very much, where the light is stretching out, trying to finger midnight.

This past winter though was the easiest one I have had for years. Every year that passes and my health improves, it is becoming easier to bear. Certainly it went faster than other years. My art therapist loves winter, lives on Mount Dandenong which is always 5 degrees colder than where I am, and often rainy and dark. She likes the inwardness, appreciates the closeness, the upswing in creativity that comes for her at that time of year. For me, having such disordered circadian rhythms, I need the overabundance of summer light to truly feel alive and most energetic. Perhaps as I regain more energy I shall revere it less. But summer will always spell freedom to me personally. And yet, listening to Maggie's take on the darkest of months, I think I am beginning to enter into a bit more of an appreciation for the mystery of death, the undergroundedness of it, you know? In a world where the true colour of leaves are those that swell our hearts in autumn, everything shifts.

So my appreciation for winter has renewed somewhat, our standoff diminished a point or two. I think listening to Maggie whilst in the midst of the environment of the Dandenong Ranges once a fortnight has done something to alter that. The mystery is on display there in a way it cannot be in the suburbs. I feel, in my bones, one day I shall live there. I was up that way last night, actually, at Ruby's Lounge in Belgrave, seeing some live music. It was great; there is something about listening to music fresh out of the oven that does something calming to my soul. Plants my feet further into the earth somehow.

So I sit here paying homage to autumn and winter when its almost summer. What is wrong with me? I guess I just have a renewed appreciation for everything belonging, you know? All the seasons speak to us in different ways. Now, autumn will speak to me even louder than it already does. Our true natures on display most when living next door to the season of death, the melancholy and fear that can overwhelm if we miss the redemptive beauty existing even in death. My freedom in summer can be diminished if I contemplate the inevitable onrush of winter, the gradual slide down into diminished hours. But I want to embrace it all, because it all matters. It all matters in a world where everything, love and life and melancholia and death, have been enfolded in the arms of grace. Surely in such a space we can all learn to straddle the redemption of the dark.

Pic: from the garden and camera of Kentster

Pink is for boys girls

In the early part of the 20th century, pink was a masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty.

In the 1940s, the societal norm inverted so that pink became appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys. Many attribute this to Germans imprisoned on accusations of homosexuality being forced to wear a pink triangle symbol by the Nazi Party.

A graphic history of the colour pink - Colourlovers.com

Test your colour iq

Doing this is strangely comforting and relaxing to me :) Am I weird? I don't know anyone who gets off on colour the way I do.

Test Your Color IQ

color breathing

color wheel
Originally uploaded by Lorenzo T. (where's my free time?!?)

"Light is colour and colour is light. There are no actual colours in the world around us - only the waves, of varying lengths, which constitute light. These waves are absorbed and reflected by everything that light hits. The reflected waves enter our eyes, activating the rod and cone cells situated at the back of the eye, on the retina. These then transmit the light-triggered signals, via the optic nerve, to the visual centre at the back of the brain. It is only when this has occurred that we "see" colour.

Pauline Wills - Colour Therapy: Exercises and Inspirations for Well-Being


Last night I drew swirly things with pencils. This makes me happy. The swirly things are often nature-derived - seed pods and dramatic black swirly vines, and leaves and stuff. They're not always green, although I can float off on a deep mossy green. Last night's swirls were blue and orange.

I imagined, as I sat in my blue chair, that I was breathing in colour. Deep, relaxing blue, breathed deep into my lungs and out into my body. Then, to balance, its complementary colour, orange, opposite on the colour wheel, the colour of joy. Breathe in orange, breathe it out into my body.

I wore my long red coat today, the one I scored from the op shop for 11 bucks. Red is one of those colours, so vibrant and passionate, that also can rouse anger. Contrasted against the grey skies, it aroused my heart.

Red and grey look great together. The grey clouds totally covered the sky today on my way to work. I rejoiced that this didn't cause a corresponding upswing of my immune system as it's so often done in bleak years past. Grey skies are gonna clear up. They are still rather oppressive but I got to admire the fluffiness in them - never threatening rain, just threatening boredom. Grey is quite boring on its own (why so many cubicles in so many offices - grey? My cubicle walls are crimson. But they are just masquerading).

Today Palmo at work was wearing crimson. Agnes was wearing lime green. The colour of wonderful things that are probably in Kent's garden. Whenever I wear lime green people say, "Oh, that's your colour. You should wear it more often." Lime green is the colour of spring and wearing it in winter is a defying of death. And a defying of your eyes to read this on-screen. Sorry about that.

Today an Indian woman wore sari pants and a sari scarf of magenta, interwoven with gold thread. Sometimes I see a colour and I fall into it and fall into it and I come out the other end swimming on the air.

I stood at the station waiting for my train, and grabbed the thread of an idea and pulled, just a bit. Grabbed a couple of envelopes in my bag and began frantically writing on them, from Flagstaff to West Footscray, all up and down the sides of my bank statement and my telephone bill warning pending telephone closure (I don't care. I'm getting Skype).

I felt flushed, warm, pink. A few people were looking at me. This happens when I am excited. People pick up a change in your energy, I'm sure. It's more than smiles playing around mouths that cause us to look at one person over another, more than simply attractiveness or non-attractiveness. The people that interest us the most are the ones bubbling over with enthusiasm.

I am most enthusiastic when bubbling over with the beginnings of a story because I feel like the story is in touch with something else that knows all the good secrets in the world and will whisper them to me if I stop and rest. And having the beginnings of a story bubbling over in me makes me feel rich the way a big bank balance or power or prestige never could.

One day I will have the beginnings of a story and it will be about a colour and it will just be all too much. I will be overwhelmed and burst into tears and will be put away somewhere where the walls are padded blue.

And as they medicate me, I shall repeat like a mantra, shall scrawl it on the blue walls in indigo pen: The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most" (John Ruskin)

"Come now and let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow."