Lacking Time & Motivation

Last week I started teaching again and instantly I regretted not having done more with my 12 months leave. Not because I didn't enjoy my classes, I did. I just became hyper-aware of how busy I'm going to be in the coming weeks and how little else I'll be able to get done. It's amazing how easy it was in my time off in 2011 to forget what the time demands of a teaching load are like.

In order to try to alleviate my guilt, I thought I'd try to focus on what I did get done and what I might still be able to do. There's no doubt I achieved some things in 2011 but I'd like to still spend time on things other than school this year as well. So, how do I manage to fit in time for writing, gardening, cooking etc when I feel exhausted at the end of the school day? Any and all suggestions are gratefully accepted.

I think to begin with I'm going to look at breaking things down into smaller tasks - let's face it, I don't have half a day to puddle in the garden anymore or a whole day on the balcony reading and rewriting a short story. But even before I think about how to fit more writing (and other things) in, I'm going to try to find places to submit the work I've already written.

I'll keep you all posted...

Gratuitous Gratitude

I have wonderful friends, a supportive and loving family, a ridiculously happy marriage, and a stunning home. But I worry that sometimes I don't appreciated my good fortune for the wonderful things in my life.

When I was a young teenager I began to get a real understanding of the inequalities in the world. I had grown up with images of hardship, poverty & hunger like those from reports of famine in Ethiopia but there was a particular watershed moment for me when a television news program showed footage of orphaned children in an institution in Romania. Quite literally, the politics of the country had abandoned and was killing these children--Ceausescu's regime had refused to admit that there was HIV in the country and these kids were HIV positive. One image of an emancipated child has stayed with me all of my life. I decided then that it wasn't 'fair' that my life was so easy simply because of the family, socio-economic group and country that was mine through the happy accident of being born into it. I didn't earn it, it just was. I didn't think at the time to be grateful for what I have, instead I was indignant and angry at what other did not have.

Then a few years ago I was explaining a dilemma we had to a friend of mine. My partner and I had planned a trip overseas at the end of the year and we were very excited about it but the predicament was that my partner wasn't working. If he didn't find work, we would have serious trouble being able to afford the holiday but if he did find a long term position, he wouldn't be eligible for leave by the time the trip came up. The friend I was talking to (let's call him Greg) said,

"You'll be okay, you two always fall on your feet."

Greg's observation has stayed with me because it wasn't until then that I really looked at just how lucky I have been. Of course, my partner got a six month contract so that we had the funds for the holiday but none of the hassles of having to get time off for our trip.

It's dumb luck really but I'm grateful. And I made a conscious decision to firstly realise how fortunate I am and secondly to be more grateful for the really quite amazing life that I have.

Today I had further cause to review my thoughts on gratitude. On my way home, I pulled over for a hitch-hiker. The woman explained that she was trying to get to her son's place to see him but the buses were running so infrequently that she decided to see if anyone would stop. She asked if I could just drop her at the corner of her son's street a little way along the road so she could walk up to her son's house. I wasn't in a hurry and said I'd drop her right there. At this offer she started to cry.

It made me think again about how lucky I am and that perhaps we sometimes take kindnesses shown to us for granted. It was an offer I made in an offhand way, driving two minutes out of my way to make sure she wasn't trudging uphill in the heat of the afternoon and yet she cried. How little kindness must have been showed to this woman in her life that such an offer produced tears of gratitude? It's a reminder to be thankful but maybe it's a reminder to be kind as well. There's always something to grumble about but I want to remember to be grateful for the good stuff because there's plenty of that around too.

And then there's being thankful for silliness of 'The Gratitude Experiment' from The Huffington Post which is linked to the title of this post...

Smiling

And around my neck could be a flaming Christmas wreath,

And I’d be smiling under, smiling underneath.

Ani DiFranco

In the past week I’ve become highly aware of things that make me involuntarily smile. Of course, there are the usual things like seeing someone you love; a child doing something cute; or something that tickles your sense of humour. And then there’s icecream and chocolate (Or does that come under “seeing someone you love”?) But other things too make me grin like a goon, often to myself.

I’ve become aware of these other things that make me smile—ones that don’t necessarily make a lot of sense if you think about the fact that we smile (and produce a myriad other facial expressions) primarily as a mode of communication.

While watering my vegetable and herb garden two days ago I noticed that I couldn’t help smiling whenever I turned to face a plot of dwarf sunflowers growing there. Unlike the other plants in the garden, some of which I’m very proud of, the sunflowers give me a feeling of pure joy which has very little to do with feelings of achievement in growing them because they weren’t exactly a challenge. The seed of these sunflowers were a gift from a friend who is now living interstate and whom I miss terribly so, if anything, they should have prompted a feeling of sorrow but the beauty and colour of the sunflowers overcame anything negative and made me smile to myself, hose in hand.

My involuntary smiling at the sunflowers made me more aware of what can produce these smiles and feelings of joy so last night as I was driving home from Melbourne and had come over the Dividing Range into some wetter air I saw a rainbow and it made me smile. The day before I had seen a hot air balloon and it too had made me smile.

SOURCE: http://www.portalegypt.com/en/hot-air-balloon/

These things are interesting things to smile at but I think it comes down to how I feel about them. I’ve never been ballooning and I’m not sure that I’m particularly keen to go (although if someone offered me a ride, I wouldn’t say no) but I like the ‘idea’ of hot air balloons—there’s a certain romance to them. And the rainbow? Well, that’s probably a hangover from childhood and the fascination I had with them then. It wasn’t silly stories about pots of gold that caught my imagination, I just liked the colours.

SOURCE: http://rainbow-whirl.blogspot.com/

So, in the interest of smiling more often, I’ve planted more sunflowers in and around my garden and I’m going to keep an eye out for hot air balloons and rainbows.

What makes you smile?

"Geek" is the new "Cool".

When I was in school they hadn’t even invented “geek” yet, those who fitted the bill (and I did) were referred to as “nerds” (and I was). And it was most definitely an insult. I was the studious type who followed rules, used manners and didn’t swear so the best I could hope for was when Michelle Rippingale said of me, “Debra’s kind of a nerd but she’s okay.”

Michelle followed up this initial comment with the affirmation, “Besides, it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch.” These words transfixed me because the idea of being mysterious far surpassed the reality of the fact that I was, indeed, up to nothing at all. It was the edgy kids, like Michelle, who were “cool.” A nerd could never hope for that kind of acceptance, it only happened in movies like Grease and Can’t Buy Me Love. Films that I devoured, as any nerd would, savouring for 90 minutes the fictional world where the whole high school ecosystem could be unraveled and somebody like me could get the guy and be gorgeous and/or sickeningly popular by the end of it.

Welcome, the internet, new information technology, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and the social structure of being a teenager doesn’t seem quite so hierarchical anymore. Of course, this perspective could be due to the dulling effect of viewing the system from the outside but the structure seems less rigid and the lower castes of “nerd” and “geek” have been somewhat elevated to “IT nerd” and “computer geek” where their sought-after knowledge and skills imbues them with an importance and acceptance that nerds of my time could never have hoped for. But it’s not limited to IT either, this new perspective on nerds has established itself in mainstream television too. Take, for example, Matthew Gray Gubler’s character of Dr Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds or Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. In my nerdy days, all we had was the annoyance of Steve Urkel who was designed to make us all cringe. The interesting difference between the nerdy heroes of the likes of Grease and Can’t Buy Me Love and the newer television manifestations, is that these modern-day nerds are also cool in their own right without having to change or pretend to be anything else.

When I went away to university, I broke away from the labels that had been assigned to me in high school. I shook off the dowdy cloak of nerd-dom and put on the cheesecloth and op-shop fashion of the broke environmental studies student. The luxury of going to university where I knew nobody and nobody knew me was that I could re-invent myself to my heart’s content. I was careful about it too—I tried to be honest with myself and others without being pigeonholed into a stereotype I wasn’t comfortable with. I was still pigeonholed, of course, but at least it was into a pigeonhole of (vaguely) my own choosing.

The luxury of age is that these days I don’t feel tied to or hampered by the labels, past or present, no matter how bad they may have seemed in my youth. I’m quite happy to be a nerd or a geek—although nobody could really accuse me of being an IT nerd, I did write the first draft of this post by hand, with a fountain pen. How old-school nerd is that?

Strawbs

I wrote the story below while I was in Edinburgh last year and the post I was writing about my garden reminded me of it so I thought I would put it up.

__________

Strawbs

When Blue come back from the big smoke, ‘e was getting’ ‘round with a stick up ‘is arse. Mick said it was a pity it wasna sticka dynamite, we coulda really given ‘im a blast an’ it woulda served the snotty bastard right.

Blue ‘ad some big ideas these days, kept talkin’ ‘bout change. “Agricultural reform” ‘e called it as if ‘e gave it a big enough name, it’d make ‘im more important. That’s when ‘e decided we should all go organic. Mick misunderstood and got all huffy thinkin’ Blue had gone all queer and poofter on us,

“Wot-the-fuck did they do-ta-ya in th’ bloody city? Wotaya talkin’ ‘bout that kind of thing in the pub for? Me beer’ll bloody go flat, mate,” he tried ta laugh away ‘is shock.

“Nah, ya dozy bastard,” said Blue, “or-gan-ic, growin’ stuff without fertilisers and sprays. It’s big bucks in the city grocers.”

“Ah, sure,” Mick calmed down a bit, “but who’s gunna go ‘round and catch all the bloody locusts by hand? And howaya meanta grow anythin’ if you can’t spray for the little fuckers?”

But Blue ‘ad ‘is big plans and some’ow convinced ‘is old man ta let ‘im try a crop in the back block. Mick and me hadta laugh, we couldn’t help pitcha-in’ Blue out there in ‘is singlet and strides collectin’ up locusts to save ‘is precious patcha strawbs grown ‘orgasmically’ as Mick like ta say.

The things unseen.

I read this post by Claire Askew, who I met when I was studying at a summer program in Edinburgh last year and she was writing in response to this post by Harry Giles, a writerly colleague of hers. I decided it was time to ‘fess up myself and ‘out’ my demons in the interest of a healthier, happier and more honest world.

Since, well forever really, I have suffered back pain which results from a malformation of the L5 vertebrae. This is something I don’t like to talk about and generally have dealt with quietly for my whole adult life (the scoliosis caused by the dodgy vertebrae was diagnosed when I was 16 years old). Towards the end of 2009, the pain started getting much worse and was beginning to impact on my life – by which I mean, I could no longer walk for the length of a block without pain, and a lot of it. This increase in pain coincided with my grandfather’s diagnosis with cancer and I found myself in a particularly bad place.

I had suffered from depression and anxiety before; had sought some counseling at the insistence of my fantastic partner; and had made some changes in my life. When I think about it now, I have possibly always been anxious, even as a child and particularly in relation to being thought ‘good’ or being liked by others. While I was depressed and suffering anxiety attacks, I didn’t sleep well and I lost interest in things I generally liked to do, like going out and seeing the people who are dear to me; and talking to friends and family on the phone. During the night I would regularly wake, short of breath and with my heart fluttering far too fast for what should be resting. I would sometimes wake up Nic and tell him I was scared, he initially asked, ‘Of what?’ but I generally couldn’t come up with an answer. But not having a thing to be afraid of didn’t make the fear any less.

So when the sleeplessness; inability to make decisions; dread of speaking on the phone; horror of being responsible for anything; and panic attacks started up this time, I knew I needed to do something about it. It took me just as long to find the courage to act, though, because we had moved and I was not yet completely comfortable with my new doctor. I also didn’t feel that I knew anybody well enough to ask for advice regarding medical professionals and mental illness.

My work was always tough, but coping with it became even tougher. Eventually I went to the doctor and to his introductory question of, ‘What brings you in today?’ I burst into tears. I knew there was something wrong but I felt really stupid and didn’t really want to admit that I wasn’t coping. The one thing I was clinging to was that I was shocked and upset by my grandfather’s illness and by the fact that he was going to die – but I felt stupid for this too. I recall trying to explain to the doctor that I felt that I was being ridiculous for being floored by the fact that Pa wasn’t immortal, I mean, what was I thinking? The man was ninety-two years old and it had never occurred to me before that he wasn’t going to be around forever.

Of course, it wasn’t just Pa, or just the daily back pain, or just stress from work but they all played a role and had an impact. This time, I spent much longer in counseling sessions and made some rather big changes, not so much to my life but to the way I think. I have acknowledged just how much time and energy I expend trying to make sure everyone likes me and thinks I’m a good person. And when I say everyone, I mean even people I don’t like. I’m trying to keep things like that in perspective these days and focus my energy on making sure that I think I’m a good person and that I like me (it’s not as easy as it might seem).

In keeping with the posts by Claire and Harry here are my lists of things that make me scared and anxious and things that make me feel safe:

Scared

being judged

confrontation (even if I’m not involved)

making decisions (in tough times, this can even include what to have for dinner)

thinking that I will lose people I love

submitting my writing

trying to make new friends

talking on the phone

running late

being unsure about a new situation eg turning up to a reading for the first time

being part of a reading

people who treat me as inferior (because I generally believe them)

Safe

Nic & being held by him

home

study (the noun & the verb)

making a new friend who I can talk to without effort

writing stories

reading

getting something finished

I think Harry and Clare have started something amazing with their honesty & I challenge others to speak up as well. Write your own post or comment on one of the others.

Speak Now

I know, I know. It's been ages! I'm a terrible blogger and I don't deserve you. What if I buy you a pony* to make up for it?

In the meantime, I do have some exciting news. A little while ago I wrote a guest blog for Same Same about how disgusted I am that we are still having the debate about legally recognising same-sex marriage. They printed it then it caught the attention of Victor Marsh who is editing a collection of thoughts on Australian Marriage Equality. Victor asked to include my piece and it has made it through the publisher's cut & I'm in. For more info about the book, you can go to the blog which is also linked to the title of this post.

The Melbourne launch is on the 30th October at 2pm in Hares & Hyenas Bookshop, Johnson St, Fitzroy. I'd love to see you there.

Cheers,
Deb
*All ponies mentioned in this post are fictional.