beginnings and endings and the whole shebang in between

What a year it's been this 2008. I find it so hard to try and characterise something so big and varied as a whole year, to describe its flavour, to chart its beautiful curves. Maybe like a landscape it's best described at different scales - the mountain or river that stands out, some opposites that catch the eye (tall! short! wet! dry!), the scale of the view right in front of you (it lays out like this, rolls like this, is green, is brown) and the view of the peering scientist looking for how things bounce off each other, what begets what, the view of the artist talking all in rapture about light and shade and movement and grandeur, the view of the bespectacled mypoic dirt lover talking about mites and worms and spores and all things small. This year was a year of exploring boundaries for me - boundaries of my self, where I end and what I do starts, limits to energy and willpower, and falling off the edge of the map of coping.

Falling off the map
The last few months of this year have become a landscape that map makers might call 'having a breakdown from work related stress and taking 2 months off to recover' or perhaps the less clinical 'feeling a bit stressed and needing some time off', but anyone who lives in the territory would know that there is nuance and detail beyond description that fills in the space of this landscape. What has been interesting (now is interesting, now I am further afield and can look back and see it) about these past few months (and this is the sweeping past in the aeroplane looking down view, I'm sure I'll write the 'on foot and coming to and entering into the terrain' account later) is how all consuming it was. Strange to be so totally engrossed in just this thing of having time off and trying to look after myself so I would feel better. No achievements, no working towards any other goals than that, no objectives. Just to recuperate. I never realised how it felt to have your body pull rank and say 'enough! I'm taking the reigns!' and have your chattering, thinking, angsting mind overriden.

For almost a month I felt like all I could do was curl up in a ball and rest - or some low key variant on that - like going to the library, like watching hours and hours of old television shows on dvd (2 full seasons of 21 jump street, 2 seasons of sea change, 1 season of hamish mcbeth, without any real sense of irony, just gratitude for the hour they gave me of something to do that didn't make me think, and the way it absorbed me into someone else's - ableit fictional- life and made me feel like I'd done something with my day). I also worked on tidying my bedroom (an abject failure of a project you could say seeing as it still looks like someone is trying to cram a bookstore, a vintage clothes shop, a craft workshop and arts space into the scant space left by a queen size bed in a modest sized room, but hey, that''s share housing in the city for you). The tidying my bedroom project was good because it involved lots of tangible, physical tasks which offered immediate satisfaction, and seemed to symbolise a movement towards order and future potential. I went through my old suitcases of fabrics and sorted and ironed and folded them. I spent at least a whole day doing this, maybe two. I was thorough and slow. I went through old paperwork and shredded anything easy that was out of date and no longer relevant. I went through old cards and letters and not only sorted them and recycled some but bought ribbon and bundled them into piles by person and carefully nestled them into a wooden box (which they now mostly all fit in to). Each of these took days, spread over weeks. It was a completely different timezone - not of 'how much can I squeeze into a day?' but 'I will just do things, something every day, and be kind to myself along the way'.

I made a little motto of 'just do one good thing a day for yourself' to give myself a sense of structure, and to take the pressure off having to sort everything out. Using this rule, it meant having had a long bath in the afternoon made the day a full and productive time. Watching Jump Street was like taking some kind of therapeutic balsm, I laid on the couch and soaked in it. Later as I started to feel better, the one good thing might have been having coffee with a friend, or doing more on the bedroom project, or planting a plant for the garden. The theme was restorative, healing. At first I was a bit confused with the fact that I still had energy to do things - abundant energy some days - and could could interesting meals or rearrange the pot plants, or dig the compost, or cut up old clothes for fabric, or bake cookies; and that worried me. Was I really sick? Did I deserve time off? If I had enough energy to cook quinoa surely I should be at work? Fortunately I had enough people around me saying 'take your time to get better, don't rush it' and (especially insightful I thought given my personality / overanalyitical and self critical tendancies) 'don't worry about the right way to do this, just do whatever you need to feel better'. Later I read a book that had a chapter on burnout and the author was talking about how creativity is a sure fire antidote to burnout - it exercises a different part of the brain to the part you've been overworking, and helps restore your energy. I personally found that to be very true. I didn't go to the studio though. I didn't write (except the occcasional dream in my journal, or the day I wrote approximately 50 million affirmations in crayon and stuck them around my room). I didn't make plans for the future. I didn't think about work or look for other jobs. I didn't email. It was the long dark afternoon on the couch of the soul.

But feeling better (100%? Not sure. Not sure what 100% is or whether I was there anytime recently before I took the time off). More self-protective. More wary of work. Thinking up ways to change the structure / balance of my day job and other interests. More willing to consider leaving and trying something else if I find I can't make it work in a way that makes me feel happy and healthy. Going back part time in january. Will be interesting to see how that goes.

The natives are friendly

Friends have been super dooper important to my this year especially in the last few months when it would have been easy to feel like a bit of a loser and worry that my whole life had fallen in a heap. As it turns out my whole life didn't fall in a heap, just a bit of it. And maybe it didn't have such great foundations and the structure was unsound anyway. So many many thanks (in no particular order and noting that not all these folk visit here, but just for thoroughness, and apols for sounding like a gushing oscar winner) to Amberguity and Mr G who were very cool around da house and handled tears and bad dvds and strange cooking exploits without batting an eyelid, to Miss Snapdragon for many leisurely coffees at my favourite pokey local cafes and rambling chats about all the big things, to Mr S.Bleu for book lending, book talking and japanese cooking, to MerriRisa for outings and dinners and lending her lovely toddler for 'small child therapy' sessions (aka babysitting), C-Chan for the music and never laughing when I haven't heard of them. Further from home friends were important to with big thanks to B-Sharp for the phone calls and postcards from half a world away, Mmermaidgrrrl and Little Mister for being home away from home, Guitar Boy for staying in touch all the way from Radelaide, Rayon Vert for the visit earlier in the year, Tree Boy for taking me to some beautiful places here and in Melbourne, Betty Sue for the inner west pre work coffees, pot plants, and staying in touch post move, Chez for the fun winter trip to the festival, Mountain Spice for being a great mate and sending the cutest little cards to stay in touch, various work maties for staying in contact and prof. Smart for checking in and lending me great books. And family too - my mum, aunty and Grandma in particular have been very supportive and encouraging.

God.

My agent.

All the people at MGM.


Did you bring the guide?

Read quite a bit over the year. Novels, self-help books, books on gardening, feng shui and skirt making. Essays. Dime a dozen mysteries. Kids books. Graphic novels. Now I have my happy typey fingers back and my mind is making snappy sentences I will write some review over here on Booklub Blog in the New Year.

We lost some of our party and gained some along the way

Babies born and some growing ready to be born this year. An old friend (we haven't been in touch for years) died last week, I found out through being invited to his wake on a social networking site. Surreal. I hope he was happy and surrounded by friends and family.

The view from here

I'm looking forward to:
- Christmas festivities - having a few this year, a rolling Christmas, with different folk in different places. My housemates put decorations up - we even have something glittery and silver on our door. Ever so cute.
- Visitors - Catching up with Bsharp when she's in town, and Betty Sue too.
- The New year and all it's fresh start symbolism. Diaries, calanders, making plans.
- Music - Jan and feb look chock full of great live music and I plan to go see some of it.
- Creative projects - dreaming up all sorts of fun creative projects for 2009. Finishing my zine series, continuing with the urban art project with M, C and J. Printing one-off T-shirts, new fabric designs, sewing, maybe learning to paint in oils. I plan to exhibit and sell stuff this year as well as cooking up a few more collaborative projects - stay tuned. let me know if you want to play.
- Seeing what work looks like now - fresh perspective, what shape will it take in my life, what of my 'career' - where to next?
- Writing - back on here, and exploring other places to put words too.
- Summer - sun and water and skin - a great season don't you think?

Hope everyone has a great summer (winter for the northern hemisphere folk). Thanks for sharing an interesting year with me.