Wheee! It's Friday!!!

It's warming up again after a cold snap. The legs of my dog disappearing around the corner as he went off to explore the latest smell gave me a jolt of joy this morning, when I saw it out my window. Almost sharp. The joy jolts come fast some days. They come despite any tears I may or may not be crying. It is a mystery. I am becoming myself.

I have been pondering how far I have come over the last year. When I look back to this time last year there were great big bags of hanging on by my teeth. These days, even though life is unbelievably painful at times, conversely it is unbelievably beautiful, I feel like I have consolidated so much in myself. Hard work. I don't feel capable of doing masses of hard physical work even though I want to. But I will never stop doing internal hard work until the day I day. The pay rate is very low but the dividends very high. This past year has been a lot about boundary setting for me - within and without. It is a lovely feeling, having boundaries. It is a lovely feeling having pieces of paper with rather badly executed paint dabblings on them. The two are linked.

My writer's group is putting together an anthology. After much to-ing and fro-ing by myself, my story is in there, with some adjustments. I could just swim in the feeling of being an interloper if I wanted to, but I am so tired of those spaces. I feel like an interloper because I haven't written any fiction for over a year, and indeed am starting to redefine myself to myself as more a poet than a fiction writer ~ at least at this stage of my life. Maybe this time next year the block will have broken but I am done with trying to fight through it. It ain't gonna budge that way. But defining myself as a poet (feel like an interloper there, too, but you know) is probably why one of my poems has managed to find its way into the anthology also. Funny. From thinking that I wasn't going to put anything in there at all, and the struggle that went on about that, now I have two things in there. While the left hand is doing one thing, the right hand is doing another.

We hold ourselves back so much, and blame everybody else for it. Yes, often other people are the beginnings of why we are holding ourselves back. They have taught us to do so. And entering into the murky spaces of learning to undo those knots is just about the most uncomfortable feeling I have ever experienced. But what happens when the you inside you is yelling for expression? Then you have an equal race of sorts. The dynamics of others holding you back, the dynamics of yourself urging you forward. I have great faith in listening to my own inner whatever-it-is. It has held me in good stead for a lot of years. It is very wise. Now I see the outward expression of that listening on pieces of paper badly executed, floating around my house.

We had to write our bios for the anthology, which I just pantently hated doing. I wanted to have, "Sue S hates writing these bio things" but that got howled down. Instead I have decided on "Sue S is enjoying messing with clay and paint, and the joy of playing badly." Which actually feels like a positive thing to me, considering my inner perfectionist has not let me play at all for a long time because it couldn't stand me not producing anything perfect. But maybe that doesn't come across in a one sentence bio. I don't know. Whatever I write will feel pretentious, I'm sure. Sometimes I wonder if it is going to take longer to perfect the bio than it did to perfect the story but I am just amazed that I have a story in an anthology at all. And feeling like an interloper is just one of those nobby stupid little things that I say to myself because I am scared shitless about having a story in an anthology and I am scared to be creative because I am scared of how goddamn powerful I am.

My art therapist said to me the other week something about how maybe writing fiction was just too energetic for me, and that I am choosing to do creative things which better fit my stamina levels. Well, like, duh. At least, duh for me now that I have consciously turned my mind to it but did I create that linkage before she said it? No, not really. Which is funny because it's so bloody obvious. But I am never surprised anymore at how patently obvious things can appear not obvious at all to us until we are ready to see them. It's like having little presents to unwrap along the way, if you're willing to accept the humblefyingness of knowing how little you truly do see. Which of course is part of the game, because when you put that little coat on, you get to see whole swathes of shitloads of good stuff, mereckons.

This life is just a bit of a spin-out, methinks. And yes it is painful but even that is bearable. At least, now. I am just celebrating reaching new levels of healing, and of openness to myself, and of allowing myself to be myself, and of setting boundaries, and of meeting new people, and of doing scary things but doing them anyway, and of not doing other scary things because I realise that I don't really want to do them, and of sitting still when I feel both ways about certain things, and of throwing my desires out into the wind and leaving them there, and of growing deeper and further into my own self, and of knowing that I don't want to be anybody else except me. And of knowing that other people may not be feeling the same way, but revelling in the knowing that this does not negate my own happiness any more than my sadness and despair negates anybody else's happiness. And wow. That feels so good. I don't need to hide my happiness and joy under a bushel, because as far as it is in your own power to effect your own happiness and joy, I have done the work I need to do by going into the dark places. And this is a paragraph that is far too big. And it may appear to be blowing my own trumpet. But that is only by the warped standards of this world, and I don't really give a fuck what that has to say about anything much at all, really.

Anyway, that is the end of this post. I just wanted to blather about the sunshine.

Pic: micky mb

Spring plans

This last week has really brought it home to me how little stamina and endurance I have physically. I collapsed on Saturday night in post-match exhaustion, while people younger and older than me partied hard and fast into the night. I had one bourbon and coke and was asleep by 9.30!!

Not that I am interested in that whole going out and getting smashed deal anymore (my liver withers at the thought), but it's not every day your team wins an unexpected premiership, and surely one evening out of my life I could have stayed out till 10 o'clock and had three drinks? Surely?

My life is so different these days to what it used to be before I got sick. Slower, quieter. Which is okay, you know? I think I needed to be slower and quieter, so it's a good thing. But still, I feel so out of the loop compared to the people I see around me. Compared to them I feel like some kind of crazy invalid who needs to live her life in Nana Nap mode, you know? I can't believe people who have children and work full time - how on earth do they do it? But still, living life in Nana Nap mode feels right to me now. Fosters poetry :) Living on slower speed is an addiction that you very quickly adapt to.

I can relate to people who have had cancer and things like that who are getting back on the road to recovery. It feels rather daunting. I am able to work, but 20 hours a week is enough at the moment. Able to exercise, except anything harder than walking and I feel trepidation. Able to vaguely keep my house in order, if you ignore the dust bunnies and the piles of clothes and the piles of dishes and the four foot weeds growing out the back and the shower only being cleaned once every six weeks at best.

I am a bit disappointed that I haven't gained greater stamina since I have been well, but unfortunately that doesn't come handed down from on high. You have to build it up. And so, with Spring sprung, I am coming to the realisation that the idea rolling around in my head of getting some sort of v-e-r-y slow-starting endurance training going is maybe a timely one. Which means some sort of glutamine from the health food shop. Which means dusting off my bike, pumping up the completely flat tyres, and going for a ride. It also means going swimming, which means wearing bathers in public, but I cannot worry too much about such things :)

It's scary, the thought of doing those two physical things, even though I enjoy both of them. And even though swimming equates to saunas if I choose the right place, and saunas rock. One of my favourite sauna memories is of the one in Footscray. When I entered the husky wooden box, behold, a black man sitting in his bathers with his eyes closed. The sweat all standing out in individual droplets all over his body ...

Sorry, got carried away there for a minute :) Where was I? Yes. Hmm. Stamina. I know how tough it is to build up your endurance. I'm fighting against some irrational part of me, the part that spent most of those 6+ years I was ill having to learn what it meant personally to pace myself. Now the goalposts have changed again and I will have learn what it means personally to pace myself now I am well and reasonably healthy. The irrational part is fearful that I will somehow overdo it and crash. Even though crashing is not something that has happened to me for quite a few years. But it's still there, the irrationality, the fear. Nothing for it but to just accept its existence and work around it, I guess.

So, this is my plan cooking up slowly in my head for Spring. It feels a bit daunting. But then so do many things new.

I am also seriously considering taking a pottery class. It's one of those things that feels like I desperately want to do it but a lot of that desire is subconscious or repressed or something. I don't know if that makes sense, but all I know is that I have a renewed appreciation for the fact that I can be hanging out dribbling to do something but keep ignoring it. And pottery classes is something I've been hanging out dribbling to do for years and years, and not just because of wraithily imprinted romantic Patrick Swayze visions :)

(Sheesh, I sound a bit man-mad, don't I? Black men in saunas, Patrick Swayze. But it's just an eye thing, you know? Happy to look, but not interested in touching. Because that's the third thing I am looking forward to revelling in this Spring and Summer, my own singleness. It's taken a while, but the thought of anything else is a total turn-off to me right now.)

How about you? Has the change in seasons thrown up some new plans or ideas that you are considering, new areas to walk into, new things that are swirling around in your head and congealing into something, some new door you're thinking, "Hmm, should I?"

Spring Equinox Friday Five

Seen over at Abbey of the Arts, I join in this meme with a southern hemispherean twist. Reading Christine's list almost made me yearn for Autumn except for the fact that Winter follows Autumn and I've just ridden that ride and don't wanna ride no moh. I am so sick of having to wear clothing to bed.

So here are my Five Favourite Things About Spring:

A fragrance
The breeze coming in through open doors and windows. Granted, at my house it is not so delicious a breeze as the ones further away from the city. I live in an area that has a few factories round about, and sometimes the wind brings with it unpleasantries that require the closing of doors and windows. But I look forward with pleasure to warmer weather, to driving with my car windows all the way down as I wind my way up to the top of Mount Dandenong this coming Monday. One day, maybe, hopefully, possibly, I would like to experience the Dandenong Ranges breezes on a more permanent basis.

A colour
Oh, where do I start? I guess one of them would be the startling bright yellowness of the wattle that is in bloom along the edges of the Maribyrnong. But I can't stop at one, so here are a few more. The blue of the beach, of course, of water and sky, which I shall venture out to again with Lester now the weather is warming. His vocation concerns the beach and a tennis ball. The subtle hues of native flowering shrubs and bushes. My silver sandals, cheaply made and destined to only last this extra season before they disintegrate.

An item of clothing
Actually, an item of clothing removed - shoes. I love going barefoot. Nothing speaks freedom to me so much as the touch of the soles of my feet on the earth.

An activity
Walking my dog in the evenings after coming home from work. I don't get home till 6.30 and it's been dark for months and months. With every passing day, the light is shining a few minutes longer. In two weeks' time daylight savings will begin and suddenly, boom, I get to return to the routine I love of ending the working day with a stroll with Puppily Duppily sniffing stuff. I love the rhythm, the soothing regularity. I watched Tim Rogers, lead singer for You Am I talking this week about how he is a walker, that he walks to keep the anxiety at bay and fuel the creativity at the same time, a win/win situation where all his song lyrics come to him. I love the things that occur to me as I walk. I love the perspective that comes.

A special day
It's called Grand Final Day and it's next Saturday afternoon, the last game of the year to determine who wins the Aussie Rules flag. It's always special. There's always tons of barbecues and stuff going on which I decline to attend a lot of the time because this is serious, dammit! Attend Grand Final barbecues and you get blow-ins who only watch one game a year and who persist in talking shit all the way through the game :) I prefer to maintain control and watch it at home.

Although this year, I prefer infinitely to actually be at the game itself because presumably, after tonight, my team will be playing in its first Grand Final for 17 years. And I will very quickly throw aside all of my dearly held principles for the opportunity to see it with my own eyes :) Heh :)

Sydenham, Springtime

I forget that the term 'Spring Fever' is not just a literary term. I feel flushed. Slightly manic. I haven't had it this bad for years. All of a sudden. Spring impaled itself into my senses right on the dot of 1 September. The Spring fever keeps bubbling out my ears. I'm sad for my northern hemispherean compatriots that their Summer has ended, but I have earned this Spring :)

Tonight when I got on the train I couldn't help smiling, at my book, which wasn't funny, at a woman nearby who had the most expressive face. She was obviously doing some heavy-duty thinking - something I have been unable to do for the past two days. The heavy duty thinking showed itself all over her face. She kept lifting her eyes up so her forehead would wrinkle. Her mouth would pout, her mouth would turn itself onto one side like a cartoon mouth, so that her nose would twitch. It was so full on. I think she might have an answer for the Middle East peace crisis.

Me, I can't focus for too long on much. My eyes kept being drawn to that woman and beyond her, to the older woman wearing a long black imitation leather jacket and carrying a large potted plant. It spilled itself over the sides of the pot in rapturous applause. I don't know what it was, but it was green and light green and it lustred up the carriage. Next to me, a young Asian man held a bunch of lilliums, a gift in plastic cellophane, so young that none of them had opened to tell me their colours.

The woman with the rapturous plant got off at West Footscray. When I got off at the next stop along, the sky was darkening but not dark, not like it has been for months and months on end whenever I arrive on the platform. Tonight it was an aching colour of deep blue velvet violet, like the Vicks Vaporub jar. My tree, in the parking lot next door - the tree I love with my eyes four times a week, was budding new foliage for the first time. It felt the way it feels when you listen to a new song on the second listen and know you're going to love this song so much that you take a mental snapshot of how it felt in your relationship at the very beginning :)

I'm so afevered there's nothing for it but to go and do some cleaning. I have a new CD to listen to (Ohio, Over the Rhine) and oh, it all feels so rich I think I'll just eat the air for dinner (which is good, 'cause there's no clean plates left).

Do thoughts go on the breeze?

(Edit: Reading it back, this post makes very little sense :) Oh well :)

Because sometimes I wonder how it is that today I can think of HR Puffnstuff and then read about that show on another blog, completely separate (except the common link was Erin, Tyler, and Katherine Gunn, actually). I was playing Apples 2 Apples before (everyone welcome to join) and was wondering whether HR PuffnStuff could be my answer for the word 'chthonic' (the name of the game in A2A is to give a noun for an adjective supplied by the winner of the last round. It's quite fun, actually :)

Chthonic means "of the underworld" and yes, okay, I must admit my answer seems a bit ridiculous now, but it was just one of those passing thoughts through my head, you know? (Sheesh, looking at your thoughts when you don't edit them or repress them - it's a bit scary, isn't it?) I remember that show but not ridiculously so. I just know he was a dragon or something and so I thought he might live underground.) Then over at Tyler's, Mike brought it up. How strange, dont you think?

I didn't think that more than one person would have been thinking about that show on one day. How many people do you reckon are thinking about HR Puffnstuff right now? 1000? 10,000? That seems a bit excessive to me, even with the world's population. Many people in Botswana have never seen that show :)

See, these are the things I ponder, the answers I want to know. Dear God, you know. How many?

Maybe thoughts travel on the ether and they stick to people in their heads. Maybe when I thought of that show while I was on Apples 2 Apples, Erin or Tyler or KG were the carrier for the Puff n Stuff thoughts. And they caught it, and it went into their heads, and then it spilled out and Mike caught it. Do you think?

No, I'm not stoned. I'm drunk on Spring :) I hung washing out this afternoon, the first lot of washing for the season. There's something about hanging washing. Of all the dullishly dull rancid houseworking tasks, that is the one that gives me the most pleasure. I like smelling the clothes off the line. Mmm. Sunshiney goodness. I think that might hearken back to the days when I had CFS, and to accomplish anything at all in one day was amazing, and so I always felt like doing the washing was some accomplishment I could handle. Weird.

Sunshine. Oooh. I feel all whee! whee! whee! crazy woop woop woop woop. I'm glad it's Spring. Spring equals cleaning. Which is a good thing, because I need basically every surface of every thing I own cleaned. Everything! Every bloody damned thing.

But that's okay. Tomorrow. In the meantime, I am going on an artist date in my loungeroom with a movie and some Pods (the edible ones, not the ones that opened up on stage - or didn't, as the case may be - for Spinal Tap).



PS: Do you remember the yip yips off Sesame Street? I LOVED these guys!