And work?

There's heaps of the work story I haven't written about yet, maybe because it's been talked out of me, in various forums and because, maybe like (I can only imagine it is like when) having a baby, when you suddenly find all your most intimate bodily processes become something for dinnertime conversations with almost strangers, and your private parts become public parts, and bits of yourself you previously wouldn't show anyone unless they'd bought you dinner and whispered sweet nothings you find yourself whipping out to any new medico who joins the team and expresses professional interest - when you have a bit of a meltdown at work, suddenly all your private experiences of work and your feelings of stress and your inner thoughts about situations come right out in the open and get talked about, and poked at and spread wide open at meetings. After a while you (although very much appreciating the help and support of people around you and the need for experts to help steer you through it) long to have conversations where you talk about something else, and where your private bits can stay private, and where you can, just for a bit, put it all to one side and enjoy the other aspects of who you are. Only the metaphor is obviously crap because I didn't birth a child, just my own squawking self demanding to be heard and cared for. Which is something.

So a brief, abridged and moderately exposed but underwear still on version goes like this:

So, yes, work. Going back was hard. My desk pot plants had died because no-one had watered them; I almost turned around and left without unpacking my bag when I saw that. My first day was awful - awkward and shit. I couldn't wait to get out of there. Cried a bit that week. Good thing was seeing a vocational psychologist for the first time (who knew they existed? Wish I had, about 8 months ago...)

The second week was better. But still a bit awkward. Needed lots of time to myself. Found having social plans as well as work very stressful. Too much in the way of logistics, too many variables, too exhausting.

The third week (last) was actually good. I felt in good spirits. I felt less awkward being in the office, I actually did some project work, I saw friends. Not only did I have quite a bit of social stuff on (including people coming over for dinner to our pace a few nights in a row) but I enjoyed it.

There's still quite a bit of stuff to work out, and in a few weeks when the work ramps up (lots of projects go quiet this time of year) I wonder how I'll choose what I'll work on (juggling breadth and depth; diversity vs specialision has been an issue in the past), but at least heaps of issues are out on the (grey laminex) table, and I feel supported to work them out. Am also a bit wary still of my own health and state of mind, I guess like recovering from anything (think strained back or something) there is that tension between beginning to feel better and thinking 'phhht - that was then, this is now, I am fine, never felt better I can do everything just fine' and thinking ' I am still in the process of getting through something, I have reduced capacity, I am taking it easy, I have to be careful and look for the warning signs'. I am trying to be realistic and careful but open to being wowed by speedy return to full capacity. Wanting to be 'back to normal' and be treated like being 'back to normal' but also knowing that I need to be patient with myself and deal with the fact that I might not yet be, and rushing things might be counterproductive. Tricky balance.

I do know that I really do not want to back in the space I was in last year, where I was extremely stressed and anxious about work (my workload, my ability to deliver, the quality of the work) and at the same time so exhausted and burnt out from the past few years that I lost perspective about its place in my life had no boundaries in place about what was a reasonable amount of work, or a reasonable incursion into my non-work life, or a reasonable amount of stress to feel and sustain. All of that, I don't want again. So if that means I have to go slow with training wheels and feel like a bit of a dork for a while, c'est le vie. And if it means ongoing work on the structural / institutional arrangements for me at work (workload, diversity of projects, support) and at the same time the inner workings stuff (boundaries, assertiveness, perfectionism, self esteem) then so be it. Better to learn this later in life than not at all, huh? Goddess knows I'm trying!

Put your feet up love

Oooh had lots to tell you over the weekend but by this time am fairly worn out and quite ready to curl up in bed and finish my book (cheesy mystery - don't ask).

I painted my toenails scarlet tonight, after giving my feet a little bath in a small foot sized tub of hot water, in the loungeroom, and a little scrub, and a bit of a massage. Very hot water. So hot I had to have my feet rest on the edges of the tub and just flirt with getting in there, one little periodic toe dip, until the water was cool enough for a full foot plunge. The anticipation was great though, these weary footsies had a busy weekend, and today propelled me around a house, pitching in to help clean it for a friend of a friend moving. Think skirting boards and door knobs and light switches. Think bathroom.

Friday my feet took me off to see Kristen Hirsch of Throwing Muses fame, for a spoken word gig as part of the festival then home via Chinese New Year markets.

Saturday my poor feet endured outdoor picnics in the heat and later were squished into gorgeous but pinchy heels (I know, but I do it so rarely) and tottled up stairs and to and fro bars.

On Sunday my feet had a restful start to the day as I had a relaxed and lovely lunch with A and J and their new bub but got a work out when I walked up to the main road to find a bus, got distracted by great Vietnamese grocery, remembered I'd forgotten my camera, backtracked, retracked, caught bus and then meandered from bus stop home.

They'll sleep well tonight.




PS posted some old bits and pieces from a month last year - nestled them in with the other bits and pieces of that period - though the librarian in me (note there is actually no librarian in me) was a bit scandalised that I would backdate a posting, even if the material clearly came from then and was meant to go up then. Is it like totally wrong to mess with the blog time space continuum?

Show me the Monet

So Monet looks like a big grumpy bear. Who knew? Who knew the man that painted sublime pastel landscapes infused with light, light, light would look like a grumpy Walt Whitman brandishing a squint and a paint palette. I know this now because I got to stare at a wall sized reproduction of a black and white photo of the man in his studio, as I stood in line for wine and snacks at the Art Gallery of NSW, which is currently hosting an impressionist exhibition – Monet and various support acts. There is also a video here.

I went with a friend, Mountainspice, who lives a fair way away, whose partner kindly spotted an event in the paper that he thought she might like, and cut it out for her. It was fun going out with her in the city without her kids, felt like teenagers rushing to catch the train to get there on time.

It was hot. Hot and humid.

Even though I stood perfectly still and didn’t otherwise feel hot, a small droplet of perspiration ran slowly down my back as I stood in the main open area of the gallery watching the speakers we’d come to see. In a very crowded room. So busy that the cloak checker said ‘we don’t have room for bags!’ and gestured impatiently at crammed lockers as if it was an absurd and unreasonable request when I tried to check one in.

Then again it was hot.

Nice to see so many people in a gallery. My friend suggested it was probably close to a thousand there for the talk. I didn’t count but she might be right. Hundreds at least. And not just any hundreds but hundreds who have turned up to see cute, earnest, frank and clever greenies talk. Bless them. Bob Brown and Peter Cundell. For those who don’t know, Bob Brown is a Green Senator here in Australia, and Peter Cundell a television personality from a well known gardening show, as well as a peace activist, gardener and general well loved personality. I reckon Peter is half of the colourful and kind old couple you’d have loved to have living next door when you were a kid – who would serve you iced tea in the garden and tell you tales of the old days, and let you dig or hold squirmy handfuls of earthworms and probably send you home with a few lemons or a bunch of camellias for your mum. Bob is the man you’d secretly like to marry if he wasn’t partnered up, gay and likely too cleanly historico-political and slightly forestly ascetic for your indulgent lazy pop culture city ways. Robust, resilient, warm guys with integrity and passion. Men you’d be proud to have as a friend or relative, who you’d trust to make good, balanced, and humane decisions. Who you’d let housesit, or lend your favourite book to.

Even if it was hot and we were standing up the back because we only just got there on time.

Of course the upshot of hearing two speakers, standing up, after a day at work and a rush to get there was that at the end we both needed a little sit down, and found ourselves at the bar/café for a little refreshment. The upshot of which was that we found ourselves still there gas bagging as the gallery came to a close, and the security guards came around giving people five minute pack up and start leaving now please warnings. The upshot of which was I didn’t see Monet. Except on the wall, in a photo. I certainly didn’t get to see his waterlilies. But it is open a few more days, maybe I’ll go back and try again in the day time I'd also like to see Half Light, an exhibibtion of Aboriginal artists using photography for portraits.

Also – Mountainspice wanted me to tell you that she got horrible blisters. New shoes I think.

Big in Japan

Bob talked about the successive periods of cosmological, geological, biological and psychological evolution that has resulted in humans being where they are right now, in this place and time, with the (to our knowledge) unique position of being aware of the impacts we make and being able to change them. He talked about trees and politics but generally what we spoke about was the big times we face and how really, we are at a fork in the road between me-culture and materialism on the one hand, and caring about all other people on the planet and other living beings too. And you know, like really how can we possibly explain to our great grandkids that we knew what needed doing but that really it was all just a bit too hard politically, and inconvenient to do it so we chose to spend money on arms but let kids starve to death; and squander the earth’s resources and head for overshoot instead (my paraphrasing). He talked about joy, and connection with the wild living planet, and of being inspired by nature (like Monet) and seeing the whole picture in a microcosm, and of looking for the light in the gloom.

I sighed a big sigh of happy sad relief when I heard him talk, and did lots of that quiet small nodding that you get at these events. I thought ‘I wish I could call you up for pep talks when I need reminding of all the things I care about’. I thought ‘you are just like Obama but for the trees too’. I thought ‘I really need to leave myself some post it notes at work that say “why do I bother? Because people don’t have clean water and we are still logging old growth forests and if India and China consume like we do we’ll need three more planets.” so that I remember and don’t let myself slide in to the day to day drearies of specific project gripes or petty ego stuff or general career malaise and uncertainty’.

Listening to him I felt like a revolutionary, a vessel for cultural change, a visionary in a small but keen sea of fellow visiony folk – not just an office drone with flaring doubts about her to do list system, mild and lingering doubts about her inability to specialise in a discipline and intermittent doubts about her choice of office footwear or hair style. I realise now that it’s so important to reconnect to that when your initial wide eyed wonder and zest for change-making, your single-minded ‘I want to help save the world’ fervour gets perhaps a little dusty after a decade of report writing and admin and committees and circular decision making and the random vagaries of end of year budget decisions and realising how slow deep change is, and how hard our world views are to see let alone explain to others or rethink. Plus postmodernism and doubt – always being able to see the other side to things. Plus fear of being branded a shallow un-nuanced uni-dimensional radical. Plus fear of being a so tied to any movement that you can be criticised along with it. All of these mediocrities and hypocrisies cloud the view and obscure the beautiful, inspiring panorama you climbed to see in the first place, leaving you kicking at the rubbish on the path instead and muttering cranky things.

Peter talked about his childhood and of art and colour and train rides and carrots. He was cute. He got more laughs.

They were both so positive, I think this was the most striking thing about them as two people who have had their share of setbacks and hardship along the way, but have stayed true to themselves. Which Monet was said to have done too, given that his work was apparently (so Bob tells me) derided horribly by the local European art scene (until he was big in Japan and the USA, and they figured maybe they were missing something), yet he preserved with his unique vision, and kept working despite going against the grain of what was popular.

Welcome to the world little one!

A big welcome to Angel and Mr J's gorgeous little fellow. Loved the squinty eyed newborn photo and looking forward to meeting him in the flesh soon.

Reverbelicious

Harking back to a list made last year (“vebelicious”), here is a new one:

- Smiling about my housemates and I listening to a completely arse DVD of karaoke tunes tonight which I wishfully borrowed because I thought I might knuckle down and practice some and then have some standards on hand next time I find myself in a karaoke den. Smiling at our monotone, grave, spoken word versions of Britney ‘round the kitchen. Ooops we did it again.

- Reading a lot of half finished po faced tomes and big toothed American self cheer books at present. If you stirred them all together I’m sure they’d make: ‘Women from divorced parents who don’t know what they’re doing but who take risks and get what they want anyway, and analyse their dreams accurately, even though they want to do everything at once, and go the way of the samuri and artist, and in a very zen way, with sparkly chakras and great body image thanks to Goddess incantations and Mercury in Aquarius.” Maybe they’re like medication – you’re not meant to take them all at once or they get mixed up and can create strange side effects?

- Listening to animals fucking or fighting or squabbling or raising children – I can’t tell which- out the loungeoom window. Squeaky noises of possums/flyingfoxes/rats. Errm, some zoologist I turned out to be. that was a HECS debt well spent.
- Knitting not a single thing. Far too hot for fluffy threads against fingers.

- Dancing was a surprise benefit of following Miss E’s edict of ‘less work and more spontaneity for 2009’ and tagging along with BSharp to an Eastside party last week after dinner in the city. In the end it was feeling all huddly and chilly with that beachside breeze that got me up and boogying. Hats off to Biz who was channelling his new found condor with some excellent poncho flapping moves.

- Wearing a silly dark low eyebrow skating fringe. My new hat- bought from a surf shop no less. Who ever knew I would even go into a surf shop let alone hanker after an item of apparel from one. I always thought that’s what cities were for- not having to go into surf shops.

- Cooking mixed seed polenta with white bean stew. (Yes made this one up – add pumpkin seeds, sesame and sun flower seeds to the cooked polenta before spreading on baking trays and baking. Oh also – handy hint – bake for 15 then grill (‘broil’ I believe is the correct American term) on hot for about the same. Seriously, otherwise you never get that good golden brown top.

- Walking briskly along the water front of a morning. Running a bit. Being grateful of a good sports bra. Thinking of my heart and making it stronger. Admiring tanned sweaty joggers with swollen biceps and serious faces / serious biceps and swollen faces.

- Sleeping rather fitfully thanks to lone mosquitoes taking aim at any exposed bits and droning at menacingly.

- Returning to the office. Returning to a vast expanse of grey laminex, a to do list, project updates, my own messy files, my potplants dead from neglect, my ambitions, my confusions, my self doubt, my new pot plants sent as a welcome back present from my mum, my frustrations, to consensus building and ruminating, to group process, to squeaky clean do-good nicely educated wide eyed graduate cheer (ooh harsh), to comparisons, to not knowing how I fit, to having to be told what my value is, and not always really believing it. To threads. To areas of work. To change. To hopefulness. To ideas. To all pretending like sitting at a desk all day is normal and not a kind of performance we do to get fed, even if we like it somewhat.

- Watching next door’s dog come up to the fence and snuffle her nose through the hole, whereby I pat it and she licks my hand, and wag tails and I talk icecream-high sweet inane and encouraging things to her about digging and what she’s doing and being a good dog. As if the neighbours can’t hear me. As if it’s a private conversation. As if it’s actually a conversation.

- Loving my new Ikea desk lamp. Olive green and curious looking.

- Writing less. But gradually more.

- Resolving to be open to new relationships. To opening up. To trust people more. To at the same time be responsibly and consistently and appropriately protective of myself, my time, my space. To be ok with saying no. To be ok with saying yes.

- Wondering, generally.