run run run

turns out a blog to narrate travels and studies and extreme busy ness can be neglected because of the travel and study and extreme busy ness. A few more weeks and this too shall pass. And then I shall start crying again, like I always do when my Kodaly courses end.

weathering the storm

Not a metaphoric storm, but a literal one

Which I experienced in three different cities.

Monday in Adelaide, the storm meant rain like I’ve never seen before in this part of the country. Goldenboy normally walks home from school, but I picked him up in the car – even though he’s not water soluble. It was the heaviest rain he would have seen in his nine and a half years of life. By the time I’d walked from the car to his classroom, grabbed him and come back to the car, with an umbrella, my socks inside my shoes (as was the fashion at the time) were squishy. I came home and wrung (wrang?) them out. They were saturated, dripping with water, as if I’d soaked them in a bucket.

As I walked in this rain towards the classroom feeling soggy and miserably inconvenienced, and guilty about this because rain should be a cause of celebration in drought stricken Adelaide, children were running in the rain, squeeling with the joy of the experience.

A good reason indeed to have children in your life, to remind you about joy.

Anywho, two days later – yesterday – I flew to Sydney where the mighty storm had blown across the country collecting dust.

This meant Sydney airport didn’t open for business until around 10am and even then it had only one runway operating.

My plane was scheduled to depart Adelaide at 7am but instead left around 9.30. Snaps to Qantas, who gave all delayed passengers $10 vouchers at the airport cafes. Travelling on public transport, and a plane is no different to any other form of transport in this regard, is a great lesson in going with the flow. You can’t control very much, so life becomes rather lovely if you let go of the illusion that you can. I sat at the airport for this bonus time, thinking about how if I was on holiday I would cherish the luxury of having NOTHING TO DO EXCEPT LAZE AROUND FOR HOURS. I got a pot of tea from a cafe, care of Qantas and cultivated a holiday mentality. Well tried to.

On the plane, I was surrounded by a circus troupe of bright, young, exuberant people. Late teens, early twenties travelling to a circus convention of some sort. (I’m getting middle aged enough not to be sure at younger people’s ages.) When we circled above Sydney airport for 40 mins in the increasing turbulence, their joy kept me from throwing up and/or weeping. I guess being tumbled and tossed about midair is perfectly normal for them. The young man sitting next to me was an absolutely delightful human. (Not that we talked, I just eavesdropped to keep my mind from the horrible imaginings severe turbulence evokes.) He joked and laughed, and attended to the comfort of the young lady he was with, in an unobtrusive but sweet way. The girl this boy marries will have a good life. (His behavior reminded me of the day I decided Husband was THE ONE – but that’s another story…)

Sydney airport was even fuller of people than normal. In long queues and huddles. But the interestingness of the event – what we called in PR ‘newsworthiness’ – gave us drama and focus. And also, hmmm, some shared experience. So I listened to strangers unite in the storm and share stories about their delays, turbulent flights, destinations, life stories. More eavesdropping. I guess I’m a people listener.

Some voice over the PA said they’d never seen anything like it before in Sydney. Through the windows it looked like a very foggy day. Not red, grey. Of course inside the terminal the climate was normal. Controlled air-conditioning or heating or whatever happens at Sydney’s airport in September. Inside, the experience of the storm was about the people.

I passed the time by trying to interface with my new fangled phone, and send an email to my Brisbane lecturer. I’m a technospaz, this took a while and a degree of concentration. We were supposed to meet for rehearsal at 1.30, with our normal class at 4pm. No way I was going to be in Brisbane by 1.30. The lecturer left a message, saying given everything – I didn’t need to come. But by then I was in Sydney airport, and my plan home was from Brisbane to Adelaide. I had to keep going.

My plane from Sydney to Brisbane left around 2.30pm, over 4 hours late. And I touched down in Brisbane at 4pm – just as class was starting on the other side of Brisbane.. (Most Wednesdays I spend between an hour and an hour and a half, catching a train and then bus to Uni.) I rang my classmate to say I would catch a TAXI, and be at class as soon as I could. My lovely lecturer didn’t care for this proposal and told me not to do anything. He needed a minute to think and would call me back.

It’s school holidays in Brisbane, not Uni holidays, but most of the people in the class are school teachers, and so half the class was away. In a class of six, that means there were only two people at class. My lecturer decided on a plan. He sent these two to the airport to meet me, with instructions that we were to practice at the airport. (Snaps to my dear classmates who undertook this mission with good humour and grace.) Hmm. Does Brisbane airport have rehearsal rooms?

My two class buddies picked me up 50 minutes later and we went to a nearby shopping centre. One of those big, outlet places, that in Brisbane just like Adelaide is next to the airport. We found a cafe/tavern and sat outside. In a duststorm most people stay indoors, so we could practice without aurally inconveniencing fellow patrons. And there we sat and sang and talked and laughed for 2 hours. In the storm. Sightreading Lassus.

The flight home was more standard. My weekly classes blow my mind and are worth every minute, dollar and metric-yet-to-be-named of life energy I invest, and this week the storm made it even more of an adventure, but sentimental and cliched though it is, my heart always leaps when I arrive home and see Husband waiting for me. I don’t think home is necessarily Adelaide, home is where he is.

dozy day

Couldn’t sleep last night for an anxiety induced hyperventilation episode.

Man I need to learn to relax, or atleast travel with a paper bag.

Yesterday I had been reading about someone learning meditation – and the detached observation of physical sensation.

So last night, I tried to observe in a detached, non judgemental way, the sensations of anxiety. And found fleeting moments of relaxation, and then I’d relax being detached and immediate start hyperventilating again.

Dumb thing – there wasn’t even any reason for this. Mind you, when is there? Anxiety is useless. It doesn’t help you deal with whatever drama is facing you. Truth is I’ve probably been a hyperventilator for a lot of my life and only recently noticed. So now I need to consider how to calm down.

Last night, prior to this had an interesting chat with Shane. Who had cooked delicious dinner and given me his spare room for the night. (Many miles from home last night, with the course.) He had been on a mental boot camp of harden the fuck up, don’t whinge to me about why you can’t because of your history kind of retreat. He said, mostly people don’t do stuff, because they are scared of other people. But we don’t admit this to ourselves, instead we create a narrative based on historical and therefor conveniently unchangeable events about why we are victims of circumstance. He said when you think about why you aren’t doing something you want to do, make sure to include the word NOW in the question.
Why now, aren’t you doing thing x? (Thing x being a self actualising pursuit that you pine after but are frightened of.) And so the answer isn’t because your mother/father/principal/principle/big toe thissed or thatted or the othered during your childhood. That’s got nothing to do with now.
I liked this. Of course I’ve created my fair share of poignant and convincing sob stories for why I haven’t pursued my thing x’s.
Maybe this conversation made me anxious?

ugh

I dreamt it was swimming class, and I was put in a shark infested ocean, to encourage me to learn to swim fast.

ugh ugh ugh
what rhymes with ugh
pug slug glug and chug
all rhyme with ugh

this whole – I know I’ll drop into a graduate course in a field I’ve done 4 weeks of study in and it’ll be fine – lark is taking it’s toll. Hence the lack of posting. I’ve been too busy freaking out.

And typical freaking out irony – of course busy freaking out means not practicing enough, therefor more freaking out. etc.

Well, worst case scenario, I will have a great opportunity to learn how to face failure with grace and dignity. Character building opportunity. (if you could only meet a character building opportunity face to face, head on as it were, you’d punch em really hard eh?)

ugh.

In other news, my children have enough food to eat. (jeeze understatement they are saturated with all the material and emotional things their wee hearts could desire). I am warm and dry and not being shot at. My husband is an uxorious dish of a man. I’ve started hanging out with some wonderful women and their cute babies. So now I have babies in my life again, and friends. I’m healthy excepting being overweight, which is just a sign of what an indulged life I lead. And I’ve had a few gigs lately, the phone has rung! And I cleaned my desk.

I had thought it was a crappy piece of cheap pine furniture, badly home stained. Well, possums, amazing what it feels like with all the crap thrown out, dusted, polished, with useful items stored in purdy baskets. It’s quite lovely.

Ok off to the doctor. It’s hard to know what time to go this doctor. He normally runs an hour late, but it’s variable. he’s well worth the wait though. Because when you do see him, he takes time over you and ATTENDS to what you are saying and showing.

first Wednesday

Well I did it.
I left home at around 8am.
To catch a plane from here at 9.20.
Which flew to Melbourne, where I pottered around the airport shops. Wondered whether the mutual, polite ignoring between salespersons and me was because we all knew I buy from shops with one less zero on the price tag.
Then plane to Brisbane arrived around 2.13pm.
Caught the Brisbane airtrain to the city at 2.28 and the bus out to the Uni at 3.18.
Arrived for my 4pm class.
Surprised my classmates by being an interstate commuter.
Didn’t surprise myself by fuddling through everything badly. What the hell was I thinking? The worst was reading in the alto clef. After 30+ years of treble/bass, it’s really messing with my mind. Also I’ve stopped thinking about chords the way I used to. So I need to be a bit more rigorous. I’ve kind of become sloppy – you know a chord might be Dish, or have a D feeling. But conservatoriums like a little more drilling down than that!
Got a lift back to Brisbane city from a young classmate who apologised that his car smelt of bananas.
Airtrain back to the airport.
Plane left at 7.55pm.
Met Husband at Adelaide airport 10.15 pm.
Home around 10.40pm.

Realised the travelling will be OK. It will be whether I can stay afloat in the class or not. But I’m going to try. It’s not an intellectual kind of learning, it’s about drilling I think. So I’ve just been practicing every day. And we’ll see…

and that’s how it’s done

Bobby McFerrin

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Don’t imagine Bobby sees himself as a Kodaly teacher, but this embodies so many of the ideas. Not talking, getting everyone singing, using musical and other non verbal communication. Going from the known to the unknown, leading just enough.

hear the joy from the audience about their own musicality.

Just wonderful. What an inspiration.

last weekend

It’s the last weekend before the semester of interstate study at a level I am underqualified for.

I don’t know if it’ll be OK. Actually I’m shit scared. Is it a bad sign that the lecturer answered my question “do you think I can cope with this course” by saying “you’ll be working your backside off, but I know you like hard work”.

No I don’t. saints preserve us.

Still you know you’ve got to seize that day and bite it’s hairy arse.

Speaking of hairy. It seems like the obligatory PAMPERING of the modern woman seems to come down to hair management. I don’t understand how ME time has morphed into this, but there it is. More here, less there, OFF completely in that bit, etc. Darker, lighter, vooshier, quieter, louder, up, down and on and on.

I have neglected all aspects of this. No wonder I’m feeling unpampered. And guilty for being both an unkempt hair ball and for failing to pamper myself.

So this final hoorah of freedom, this weekend, can be a celebration of hair maintenance and an opportunity to celebrate my modern womanhood.

woot.

how did the duck cross the road?

Well, the other day I was driving along a busy road and noticed two ducks, or perhaps a duck and drake? trying to cross.

They would walk out a little into the lane, and then have to back up as a car came. Just like  human pedestrians. A lovely thought. And I wondered if they would be OK -  do ducks mummies train ducklings to look both ways?  So distracted was I by my human centric empathy for their trouble, I was really surprised when they pulled out the big guns and just flew over the traffic.

An unhuman solution.

Remember. Some things are different.

term is back

some book I was browsing in the library called something like adolescents for mummies said that taking care of 5 to 12 year olds was like a nap under palm trees on a tropical island.

That certainly sums up my school holiday, without palm trees or tropical islands, and technically gothgirl is 13.5. But the nap part was spot on.

Within about two days we became unhinged from school based routines, and everyone started going to bed circa midnight. Or remained unobtrusively and undetectably awake, engaged in post midnight activity. But I was too relaxed to worry, and pretended not to notice.

So blah to school going back. Although it is Husband who wakes up on time and gets everyone fed, dressed and out the door on time. He is a doll. Really.

Lack of organisation on my part meant I had forgotten to check, end of  last term what time my first lesson was today. So I got to work half an hour early.

To cheer up I bought socks. Stripey ones. (Technically twos.) oooh.

Turns out, a couple of weeks in to vegetarianish life, I am pretty good at vegetarian cooking. Better than meat based cooking. Wow. it’s weird to find a whole dormant skill set. Not a foodie. Don’t like cooking. Felt depressed the other day when I figured, if I’m cooking dinner until I’m 80, that’s 15695 more dinners.

Womenfolk

The womenfolk of my mother’s family marked every occasion with a nice cup of tea. Sometimes the occasion would be having a cup of tea, which would indeed become an endless tea loop. Still I think it’s a good life – an endless tea loop punctuated with assorted life happenings.

But until recently I’ve ignored my heritage and made tea by JIGGLING a tea bag in a mug of boiled water for 10 seconds.

We take our coffee seriously. For eg, Husband snortingly derides instant coffee as “gruds”. And if he’s travelling or working somewhere where folks don’t really understand software developers and is forced to drink instant he says “I’m on the gruds”. Ugly but accurate. (the phrase not the man.) There’s ritual to the coffee making at our house and it’s serious business. It’s also man’s business.

It’s ridiculous that we don’t take our tea seriously too. Especially when I consider my heritage, and the fact I composed an Opera about afternoon tea.

So I bought a tea pot.

Isn’t she beautiful. And we’ve been taking tea properly.

Although now I have an urge, I haven’t had for over 30 years.

I want a tea set! A jug, and cups and saucers. oooh.

Hmm. An ebay project. Cool.