clouds and sunday musings

Eccstatic clouds up here today, right now - lit up amazingly.
So, last week, turned 30 (as did Aunty B who is hanging in groovy Rio for carnivale) - oooh... actually no big deal, the day arrived and then slid away, lubricated with cake from my fave bakery, well wishes and towards the end, nice red wine and great dinner with friends. Did not succumb to wrinkle cream (thanks Betty Sue for reassurance and reality check!), and suspect I wont be tempted again. Kind of amusingly think that someone out here should be going au naturale just to balance the hysteria around ageing in our culture, not to mention the delusional faith in the cosmetic industry to actually be more than hopes and fears in a jar. So that's me. Mind you, have started wearing liquid eyeliner ago go the last few weeks - so apparently I don't mind using the colouring-in pencils kind of cosmetics stuff. Suspect the liquid eyelines is some barely subconscious gesture of sexy gypsy expressiveness in the face of recent return to 925 office world. Something about all that quiet tasteful office furniture just makes me want to get loud and louche, wear jingly accessories and fishnets, too much eye makeup and unbrushed hair, sing very loudly at my desk, and tell crude jokes at the lunch table. I call it an appropriate balancing of the corporate culture. Others might call it loopy. Fortunately (for my coworkers, for my employment status) I don't act out on every impulse, maybe just a few at a time, in homeopathically small measures.

Very much enjoying a quiet weekend at home. Tidying up and making a mess again.
Hanging out with the cat. Did some ironing (had to iron some of my prints, so though what the hey, do the clothes as well). Was very satisfying and now have neat row of funky tops for next week. Have ink up my arm from painting stint.

Yesterday went all Mrs Dalloway* (except that my day ended differently to hers!) and strolled around town saying hi to people I bumped into at the supermarket and on the main street. Tried to soak up a week's worth of slow wandering vibe and of connecting with where I live and of enjoying the sky while a storm rolled in. Yes, you can see the transition to full time work is not going seamlessly here!! A diferent pace, very different experience.

This week will be a busy one- as well as day job I have two clases to give in the evenings. First is the 4th week in the 8 wk evening college course I'm doing in printmaking. This one is going really well, last week we had heaps of fun, and just yesterday I organised for a space for the students to put their fave pieces of work up on display for a week. Plus the class is reallly getting into my 'experimental' groove and enjoyed some of the techniques I shared with them last time, even ones I've made up myself. They don't even seem to care that I haven't really exhibited and don't have any actual qualifications in art.

The other one is the first in a series of 2 wkshops on printmaking for a community cultural development project linked to some local environmental issues / themes, and an iconic local species - the Giant Dragonfly. That one will be interesting as will be working with mad keen bush regenerators and local activists. We will be tying in environmental info with basic printmaking techniques, and working towards working with wood, and printing on fabric. We plan to make prayer flags and display them around town at times that are significant for the life cycle of the dragonfly, which is actually endangered, and very vulnerable to any changes to groundwater / clearing of hanging swamps. Fortunately am distracted by new project at work which landed on my lap Friday and the very act of getting there sometime before lunchtime each day, so do not have inclination or extra energy to fret about the new printmaking wkshop and the fact that it is new ground for me - instead will just have it appear, and let it be a happy surprise.

Feel reallly glad that I am finding ways to tie together some of my areas of interest in a way that earns money and other people think make sense. The whole science and art thing sometimes feel like two estranged relatives - like I keep in contact with them both but they don't speak to each other. Like I have to stick up for each of them to the other, like I can't enjoy both of their company in the same place at the same time. Of course I am feeling anxious about the new job because it is so greedy of my time and so 'head' - the head part I actually love, and nerdily dream of publishing papers and making little diagrams to describe theory, but I also see taking away time from my more 'heart' pursuits. And as ever, I wonder about my authentic voice, and whether I am doing the day job because it is what I want to do (and want to do more than anything else) or whether it is doing something safe and useful which means I don't have to deal with the fact that maybe I might be a dreamer and want to do something really inward and quiet and private as a living. The day job might be just progressive enough to let me pretend I'm not really doing it for a steady income and superannuation and paid holiday leave and a good coffee machine - and predictability, stability, respectability. People** are so satisfied to hear that you are working in a consultancy, or in research - yes, all very above board and understandable, very responsible to work full time and do all the other responsible, sensible things that go with that. This career which lets me be 'taken seriously', allows me to have opinion which is validated by position and experience, to be seen as credible and worldly and clever.

But me? Am I happy to settle in to a career that is like a sensible joining of the dots of past and future? I almost do it as a ruse, as a blanket covering two chairs to make a cubby houseunderneath for me to hide in and have a private self. This is what my day job is for me - both something in and of itself, and also a disguise. But what if the disguise is so big and lumbering and takes so much energy to maintain that there is no time to play in the cubby house made from its frame? What then was the point?

Had a rich and gratifying conversation early one morning last wk on the train with a woman I met through a friend of a friend living up here. She is a community health nurse and is also studying painting, struggling with wanting to be useful and the fact that she loves her job in a women's health clinic but also really wants to just be painting. We laughed somewhat painfully at the paradox of living in a society in which you can easily make money flipping burgers hating every second of it, but to do what you love is often seen as financial suicide. Marvelled at the judgement of people who proclaim that to do art is selfish, to not have children is selfish, to do things that nourish your deepest self is selfish... and yet in this strange time and place there is no similar judgement on greed. To work just for material gain and not share that with others is not selfish - it's being successful. She has a friend who is becoming a nun, and she had to laugh when her dad said of the friend 'isn't that selfish?', at the thought of this person denouncing all material possessions and devoting her life to conscious living: every thought, word and deed carefully observed - even dedicating life to virtue is seen as selfish.

But what was my point? Not sure if I actually had one. Sorry. Self-indulgent rave (as if indulging ourelves is such a terrible thing).

Anyway, time to slip in a quick call to my grandma and get ready for the week ahead.

Pod boy really is very cute. Big wide 'I just got back from OS' eyes. He may be coupled up, hard to tell without very see through questioning. Hoping I don't accidentally ask him out. Possibly not good office etiquette. Think I flirted with him at lunch on Friday - then later was unchatty out of fear of overt over chattiness and nurturing my possible crush. Then again I am finding just about everyone in the office attractive - it's all that integrity, sparkling switched on sustainability brains, competence with macros and databases or pizazzz in social research, cheery friendliness, outdoorsy tans or rare tropical orchid pallor... Maybe I just get my 'wow you rock i really respect you' and 'wow you rock I want to shag you' responses mixed up in my mind. perhaps those synapses are quite close by?



*Virginia Wolf, 1925
** People? Which people? Who are the people whose reactions I second guess and pander to?