Where to start?

I recently watched the movie Julie and Julia. I have wanted to watch it for ages because I am a total sucker for food/foodie/chef movies, but Meryl Streep, urgh! I know, I know, so many love her and her acting ability but she grates on me and so, I generally forego movies in which she stars. Hence it taking me years to take the plunge, and yes she completely grated on me but the other main characters completely made up for that annoyance. My major takeaway was that like Julie, I need a deadline, an absolute, a way to be accountable rather than just a commitment to myself.

So here I am making a commitment not just to myself but to you my readers. Five blog posts a week for fifty two weeks. Two hundred and sixty posts taking us all the way to June 21, 2024.

For those of you that know me well, you are accustomed to my “easily distracted by shiny things” persona and my ability to say yes to so many things which unfortunately eventually means saying no to myself and my priorities. Off late though I have been very focused on moving one of my dreams forward, following the map I had planned out, so yay finally some consistency! However, the other dream that feels a little less tangible, mostly because of my lack of confidence, has been allowed to fall by the wayside. Apparently, I just don’t have time for writing. Well perhaps if I stopped saying yes to others I would have plenty of time. And honestly, when I do give time to follow this passion everything else in my life sings. I love it with every fibre of my being.

The main pre-cursor to this epiphany though, is that again I find myself stopped in my tracks with an out of the blue health issue that has me not able to work, simply resting and healing. And as often happens in moments like this we are forced to look at how we got here, what needs to change and how to step into the next best version of ourselves. And simply put, the next best version of me includes writing; not just habit changing but life changing and dream fulfilling.

The ridiculous thing is that I have been writing for many many years, children’s stories, adult novels and teen novellas, all of which bar two remain unfinished sitting in my writing folder. I have allowed life to get in the way and my fear of not being good enough to relegate them to a folder on a computer with a back up copy stored away from harm. So in addition to my five blog posts a week for the next 52 weeks, I will also be pulling out and dusting off the relegated writings. Not sure yet where I will start but perhaps it should be as simple as start with the one closest to completion.

Here on my blog expect to read about all manner of things, grandchildren, food, community, parenting oh and did I mention food. My love affair with food has been long standing. I had the privilege of spending my formative years frequenting the kitchens of my friends in multicultural Melbourne. The aromas and taste of foods from Italy, Greece and Malta are engrained in my cells. I look forward to sharing some of those stories with you all. Day one complete. Catch you all tomorrow.

Have you ever had an experience where you attend a meeting with certain ideas of the milieu, the possible hurdles and ultimately what would likely be achieved, only to walk away with so much more than you had bargained for in the best possible way? I have been lucky enough to experience exactly that more than once in my professional and personal life, but there is one stand out meeting that has been running through my head the last couple of days.

The meeting was with a member of the Executive team of a smallish organisation. I came to the meeting in a volunteer capacity to work on the wording of some policies and procedures. Circumstances were changing for the organisation and it was imperative that the P & P reflected those changes, so I was asked to look at the wording with a fresh set of eyes. I had seen the work of this team member and I was incredibly impressed with her attention to detail and extensive knowledge. She fulfilled her role with incredible professionality and expertise. I did not know much about her personally other than we had a few mutual friends.

This organisation was of the caliber that welcomed collaboration and had a mantra of “what can we do better and how can we better understand”, nevertheless, I was expecting to encounter resistance to an outsider trawling through what could be considered sensitive documents. To say my idea was inaccurate would be a poor description of what I actually experienced. I was treated with genuine respect for my opinion and also my time and when I attempted to be gentle and diplomatic, albeit productively critical, the response was please don’t hold any punches I won’t take offence. Perhaps that doesn’t seem amazing, but I have to say I have rarely seen this kind of respect for an outsider especially when dealing with sensitive issues. And yet this seems to be the norm for this organisation and it was clearly the way this team member operated. Each time I remember this experience, I am humbly reminded that assumptions have no place in any of our relationships.

In the process of a brief hello and howdy do, Sonny (not her real name) and I both made comments that were perhaps a little risky for this particular time in the history of the world. Did they just slip out or was there a “safe place” vibe that we both felt? Eager to get to the task at hand we jumped head long into the documents and managed to get through them quicker than expected, giving us time for a good old chin wag. Unexpectedly, we both aired some pretty raw feelings of isolation, hopelessness and betrayal. Those words conjure up visions of a really heavy conversation but in reality we both walked away feeling lighter and more connected. It was so incredibly freeing to speak openly with a kindred spirit. And whilst we didn’t have answers for all of our concerns we could take comfort in the fact there was true understanding and many shared experiences. One epiphany for both of us was that for all the months of feeling alone and isolated, there had been likeminded people sitting equally as silent and alone just next door. And that for me was the moment I realised I needed to “do something” that would connect people and bring those feeling isolated into the community. And I will get to that story another time.

I have titled this piece A Beautiful Soul because I wanted to speak to the beauty that was Sonny. Whilst I cannot tell you her story as it is not mine to tell, I can tell you what I observed and felt that day. She had this incredibly humble, grounded confidence that I would have to say is not something I encounter regularly. In the midst of extreme turmoil, Sonny managed to hold her poise, her grounded confidence in action so to speak. She modeled incredible generosity of spirit and the ability to trust, even though the world and indeed her workplace were pushing people to be afraid of colleagues, friends and family. Her straight up honesty was a breath of fresh air and the absence of judgement was mind blowing. I use the term modeled but really Sonny was the embodiment of a mindset that saw the world and her occupants through a pure lens.

It seems crazy to think we covered so much ground in such a short period of time but our conversation flowed so freely. Thoughts that Sonny shared had my brain ticking about my view of the world, my actions or lack thereof and the way I parent and grandparent. After months of feeling helpless and isolated, a weight had been lifted and the cloud that had shadowed my path was gone. I was inspired to step back into my own strengths because “one drop truly does raise the sea”. I had purpose and knew the actions I needed to take.

As I drove home from the meeting my brain did the usual of slipping straight into overdrive. I took a long, deep breath and in that moment of calm I felt an immense sense of awe for this one person that was Sonny. Her being and our one conversation had transformed my head and heart in the most profound way. I found myself wondering if it was simply the opportunity to connect with a kindred spirit after such a long time of isolation or was it in fact because of a connection with such a beacon of humility and grace. I settled into a heart of gratitude! This was a connection that was so needed and it was made with a human deeply beautiful, deeply grounded and sobrilliantly light.

Last night I made a commitment to myself: one piece of writing per day. I already had the content for my first piece so I was good to go.

I got out of bed this morning and jumped straight into mapping my day, if I don’t plan then life just happens and I find myself at the end of the day with only a few of my tasks completed. By the time my young adult son was up I had already completed more than an hour of sourdough baking prep and I was in flow.

“Are we going for a swim?” he asks and normally the answer is straight up yes but I was in the zone so I wasn’t sure. After looking at the timing of everything yep there was definitely a window with enough time for a swim. This decision alone is significant for me. Whilst I have always loved swimming, my preferred water has always been a swimming pool, rivers and the ocean were a source of fear for me and sand, well don’t get me started ……. it gets into everything! So here I was choosing to jump out of my “zone” and go to the beach for a swim at 6:30am. There is a whole other story here …perhaps tomorrow.

Today, I had my day perfectly mapped out; phone calls would be made around the timing of sourdough, running the first test on a different dough I haven’t made before, writing up my baking notes and writing my piece for the day. All was going well, I was on the phone when something caught my eye …… there was a snake on the stairs in my house! Wait, what? No I didn’t get that wrong; THERE WAS A SNAKE ON THE STEPS IN MY HOUSE! Unless you are a snake lover I am sure you can imagine the words out of my mouth. My son who was sitting three metres away from it couldn’t figure out why I had just lost the plot and my daughter and her two year old were just about to walk up behind it. What on earth!!

The concise version; four phone calls later we had it confirmed that loopy was a non venomous green tree snake, who by the way was brown and yellow not green, and the only snake catcher in town today would be over pronto.

We did all the right things …..blocked all the possible escape routes into rooms with a thousand hidey holes and opened the big wide front door so he could easily escape. But before the catcher could arrive Mr Loopy had a better idea…… the wall cavity of the bathroom sliding door was the perfect spot to get away from these noisy crazy bi-peds. Try as he might the catcher could not extricate loopy without knocking a hole in the wall and so I opted to go the gentle route and wait for Mr Loopy to leave of his own accord. At one point we thought calling the catcher out a second time would bring results because Bob Loopy as he was now called, was actually lying on top of the door with his coils across the door tracks. Nope! This little guy was sneaky, he had actually weaved his way through some holes and as the catcher gently pulled he puffed up making it impossible to proceed without harming him.

I am seriously not a fan of snakes, they really do give me the heeby jeebies, but I have to acknowledge I possibly manifested this visitor ……. the old saying be careful what you wish for…… I had been complaining about the cute little geckos that ran around my house at night, they make such a mess! No really, they are very messy creatures. It is likely Mr Loopy came in chasing one of said Geckos and it turns out he was doing the environment a huge favour, those messy gecko’s are actually imports and therefore a pest.

So tonight I will be attempting to sleep knowing Mr Loopy is still hanging around, although apparently, he is not nocturnal so the chances are he is sleeping too! Oh and yes I managed to make the sourdough ready for baking tomorrow, even though it was hard to focus on anything other than the spot where loopy was hanging out. Wish me luck! I imagine all manner of interesting snaky dreams will be my lot tonight. 🙂

I, along with countless other Australians are again in lockdown and under heavy restrictions. Schools have had to scramble to deliver online learning, people have been told to down tools and the only open businesses are those of an essential nature.

The fear campaign has gone into overdrive and people are truly scared; scared of not having enough income to feed their family, scared of the virus, scared of going out in public, scared they will be fined for not wearing a mask, scared their children will fall into depression, scared they will be forced to have a vaccine they don’t want to have, scared of their neighbour, scared of no longer having freedom of movement, scared to speak their truth, scared they will crack under the pressure of their job, scared their business will go bust. It would take two pages of writing to cover all of the concerns I have heard.

We are seeing and hearing quite frequently the need to look after yourself and stay safe. The intonation here is, obey the rules, get tested regularly and get vaccinated. Where is the information about how to stay healthy both physically and mentally? It is so sadly scarce!

In my business I have the opportunity to connect with hundreds of people from many and varied backgrounds and after the overwhelming sense of fear the one thing that is so clear is that there is no safe space for the non subscribers to speak. Those that subscribe to the current narrative are free to talk openly about their concerns but for those that do not, they talk in whispers and have the added fear of being harassed and “hated on”.

Under this kind of can we say fascist rule, it is easy to forget how important community is because protecting oneself becomes all too consuming. May I humbly implore you to stay connected to community; call your friends and extended family, have virtual gatherings or if you are in a place where you can meet outdoors then meet outdoors every day. If you have friends that live alone organise compassionate basket drops, phone calls, online gatherings. If you know people that are considered essential workers check in with them, I have borne witness to many working under extremely stressful conditions. If you are one of the many, and yes we are many, that do not subscribe to the narrative, then seek out your fellow compatriots and debrief.

Above all look for the joy and the opportunity to help someone even if the only thing you have to offer is a smile. Get your feet out into the grass, perhaps wait until the frost goes or perhaps not because popping your bare toes in the frost will trigger a good dose of thermogenesis. Hug a tree…….. I know it sounds very seventies but seriously don’t knock it until you try it! Notice that every morning the sun rises and you have the incredible opportunity to “do life” better or differently than yesterday. If you are struggling reach out, you are not alone!

The government may currently be dictating when and how we work, when and how we shop, when and how we socialise and how we manage our health but they have no control over how we “show up” , how we see other people and how we respond to others. Every human being on this planet is just that, a human being first and foremost with hopes, dreams and fears. If we can all remember that of each other then when will be inviting more kind, caring and considerate behaviour. We will prevail not because of the rules and vaccinations but because we have and always will have control over how we see others and how we respond.

I have consciously not written anything about the current worldwide state of affairs, there was already way too much noise out there! But this morning I had an experience that gave me the avenue and voice from a slightly different perspective.

I was walking through the supermarket when a public service announcement came over the speaker and it immediately took me back. The tone, the rhythm, the words and the message were frighteningly similar to a movie I watched many years ago with my young children.

My children are all grown now, definitely past the stage of watching and listening to their favourite show, movie and music over and over ad nauseam. That period of time in parenting where you find yourself reciting whole slabs of movies, humming a children’s song and often talking in the voice of the favourite character of your 3/4 year old. Some movies and songs for that matter, you recite with joy as the lines are funny and can be adopted to any given situation, others are more like that irritating and annoying ear worm.

This morning I was transported back to a movie that I remember fondly for the characters, a simple story told well and a pertinent and significant message that young minds need to know. As I am writing and thinking about this movie, another movie pops into my head with a line that speaks volumes.

It has been happening for many years now and many have been unaware because it was subtle and hidden, but the current worldwide madness, and yes I call it madness based on the notion of madness being described as ‘wildly excited’, has given rise to brash and blatant acts ill thought out and delivered in a manner that played to peoples fears. No this is not a piece about a conspiracy nor am I wishing to make light of the significance of a pandemic.

I believe that our attention has been diverted in a way that does not help us move forward but rather keeps people in a state of fear and possible ignorance due to the fact that as a society we have for the most part, adopted a specialist mentality. Whilst specialisation is beneficial in so many ways there is a natural fall out that is less helpful. This natural fallout is that we generally choose to reduce our knowledge and skill across a broad range of topics, after all why learn that skill or obtain that knowledge when one can simply ask or employ the services of a specialist or expert?

On the surface, it may seem like no big deal, however each little skill or piece of knowledge we no longer ‘need’ is a little piece of personal power that we give away, a reduction in our ability to have a say so to speak. Quickly we adopt the attitude of, I am not an expert therefore my opinion or thoughts are not as valid or important or even correct. This my friends is a slippery slope to helplessness.

I hear the cries of “we can’t all be experts on all things” and that is absolutely true, but we can have some knowledge and a clear and competent ability to research and use that acquired knowledge to reason. And it is the loss of ability to reason that is disempowering so many.

So what has been bothering me about the current madness and why was a simple public service announcement so concerning?

The age of experts has given rise to two situations; the one above where a portion of our population have willingly given away the power to make informed rational choices relying only on the advice from the experts, and the second a culture pervading our political representatives and people in positions of authority that they alone have the answers and ‘the people’ should simply do as they are advised (or perhaps more accurately ‘told), no questions asked.

The ramifications of this are wide and varied and significantly too vast to tackle in one short piece of writing. I will focus only on the concern I had with the public announcement.

The announcement was to remind the shoppers about the importance of ‘social distancing’ with directions of ‘how to’ and then closing with a statement along the lines, we do this because we care for each other. At this point I imagine some of you reading this will be shouting that I am making small of something so big and significant and that we are lucky to not have the catastrophic problems other countries have had, and I will say this, I am not here to argue the science or discredit the policies put in place by governments. I am humbly suggesting that we have been warned many times over by some of histories greatest minds to stay vigilant and in possession of our agency; the ability to have pre reflective and introspective consciousness of ones own actions.

The movie that I was drawn back to was Wall E. If you haven’t watched it I suggest you do, it is definitely a bit of fun but hopefully on watching it you will perhaps see what I am writing about. In a nutshell, humans had devastated Mother Earth with their incessant wastefulness and inability to see the impact they were having, primarily because they were constantly being fed information that they need not worry as ‘BNL’ had it all in hand. And when it became evident they didn’t have it all in hand, there was still no need to worry because ‘BNL’ had a solution; they had massive spaceships at the ready to transport the whole population to outer space and everything you could ever want would be at your fingertips. Slowly and surely the people became totally reliant on all that was on offer. Bit by bit their individuality and ability to think, see and reason was lost; messages like “Why walk when you can move around on this hover chair, why eat when all you need is in this drink”. Rather than review the whole movie allow me to draw some comparisons. The messages were all passed on in a manner that one would associate with a situation where you were trying to talk a person ‘down off the ledge’, calm, kind, understanding and suggestive, a manner that made people feel safe and secure. And it was exactly that kind of message that I heard in the supermarket.

So here we are in this current madness, the tv screens, social media, radio, places of work, supermarkets, parks, playgrounds and places of worship (for so many a place of safety and respite) were all displaying messages to invoke fear and suspicion of our neighbours. The result of course was that people became very afraid and yes suspicious of their neighbours. Even our youngest children were being given messages of fear. I am sad to say I have had several conversations with my four year old grandson about fear of the virus, fear of dirty hands and fear of people coughing or sneezing. This is a mantra being drummed into him at pre-school.

Then came the messages of never fear the experts are here and if you do exactly as we tell you, all will be well. Closely followed by, don’t become complacent as that will lead to further trouble and of course if you had just followed our instructions we wouldn’t have the current “second wave” And now we have messages of the new normal bought to you by your friendly powers that be because we care for you and we know you care for each other.

The similarity to the situation and themes in Wall E, Robots 1984, THX1138 or a Handmaidens Tale is a little too close to home.

I could go on, well in fact I did but then decided this was not ever meant to be a 5000 word essay.

My message is simple: Think! And in thinking remain open to all sides of the argument, all possibilities, then with one hundred percent confidence use your agency as it was always intended to be used.

This morning as I stared, body aching into the beautiful rising sun, I was filled with gratitude.

Yesterday started on an exciting note: Two of the three fires around us were declared OUT with the third fire merely on Patrol. Yay! We have had “fire stress” since way back in the first week of November, when our youngest son was stuck at a property in the middle of a significant and fast moving fire. He is 14 and full of adventure so it didn’t phase him at the time, but once he was out and safe the enormity of it did hit him. Anyway, I digress. It was a huge relief that two of the fires were out and surely with the amount of rain that had fallen over the past 48 hours and with what was predicted to fall today, it would only a matter of time before they declared the third fire ‘Out’. Our “Go bags” could be unpacked, photos put back in their place and precious books back on the shelf. Such an incredible relief!

We were expecting to have a day with our grand kiddies and in the process of preparing for little hands getting into things they shouldn’t, I noticed a dark mark on the carpet in my bedroom. I walked over and three metres from the window, squelch, squelch, squelch. I went to the window and wiped it to get a better look. Oh dear! Our front yard was no longer a 3 year olds version of heaven, aka full of puddles, it now resembled a raging flood creek and water was bubbling into our bedroom. The rest of the day and into the evening was spent redirecting water, clearing channels to help water flow away from the house and mopping up our floor.

The mopping up felt futile; we kept ‘Vaxing’ up water and emptying the 50 litre bucket but it just didn’t seem to be making a difference. We couldn’t keep this up all day, we needed to somehow slow down the flow of water. After much manoeuvring, we managed to create a bit of a dam to reduce the depth of the water against the house. So now we could wait 15 minutes between each Vax episode. It was 4pm and we had been at this since 10:30 in the morning. At one point there was so much water that our outside “dry area” had 3 inches of water flowing into it. I decided to make a mad dash to find those 2 bags of sand that were waiting to be poured into a paved area; one was sitting up at the paving and the other in the garden shed being guarded by a healthy red back spider. I had been wading through water deeper than my ankle and now I had to try and get down the slippery slope without going head over turkey. I managed to get to the door safely no sliding down the muddy hill, phew! Success! Those two bags were the perfect size.

Back inside and standing in front of the heater, I lamented the days when each of us had a full length Driazabone. My current wet weather gear had kept my torso dry but my shoulders and legs were wet and very cold. Time for something warmer to wear, squelch! Oh no! It seems the water was invading along the back wall as well. We have a very large bedroom (that also doubles as my sewing room) that expands from the front of the house to the back and forms the western wall. I did a much more careful look and sure enough, there was water coming in along every external wall. Really the only part of the room that was dry, was a small patch from the middle of the room towards the internal wall. More than three quarters of the room was wet and most of our furniture was now sitting in water.

So here I am at the end of today trying to get this post finished. I am tired and everything aches but I have an immense sense of gratitude. I am grateful that we had the Vax on hand so that instead of our furniture sitting in ankle deep water it was less than an inch. I am grateful that for the past three months I have been on a weight training regime to build the kind of muscle I had when I was much younger, so for all of yesterday and today I was able to easily lift those 50litre buckets and old antique wardrobes and dressers. I am grateful that I had my wonderful husband by my side. I am grateful that I witnessed our scorched and weary Mother Nature breathe a sigh of relief. I am grateful that we live in a house that has been able to accommodate us moving almost everything out of our room and into other spaces including setting up a temporary bedroom in our double sized lounge room. I am grateful that as I write this, all of the fires that have surrounded us are now declared ‘Out’.

For the past twelve months I have developed the habit of keeping a daily gratitude journal. Whilst there have been moments of frustration and even exacerbation, the past two days have absolutely demonstrated that when you have an attitude of gratitude, you can find the positive in even the most trying circumstances.