It's midnight. Wide awake and thinking.
Still ruminating on the transformation thing.
I realise this is a current bugbear, a bee in my beret, a splinter in the big toe of my life. I believe I have become a little complacent about certain things, become a bit of a hermit this last year.
Change is required but what?
How about a list then.
-spontaneity
-whimsy
-fancy
Well, yes those three are obvious.
-fun
-frippery
-frolicsome things
Those too.
-moonlight and stargazing.
Now we're getting somewhere.
-music: where ya been?
oh yeah. live.
-wining
-dining . . . . .
-love
Someone light a cigar I think she's got it.
Well whaddya know. That old nugget.
Who'da guessed?
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Listing
Having just read through the last few posts, I feel a burst of happy-go-lucky is required.
Let's see.
(a list)
1. My tax refund enters my bank account on friday - woohoo!
2. I am in a position to replace my current car with something more a. comfortable, b. reliable, c. economical.
3. Change is something that can be relied upon.
4. I'm waiting on news which could be very good.
5. Results for my dissertation have arrived and could not be better.
6. After a character-building year, my character is an edifice.
7. Plans are afoot for a day at the spa.
There, that feels better.
Call me Pollyanna.
Let's see.
(a list)
1. My tax refund enters my bank account on friday - woohoo!
2. I am in a position to replace my current car with something more a. comfortable, b. reliable, c. economical.
3. Change is something that can be relied upon.
4. I'm waiting on news which could be very good.
5. Results for my dissertation have arrived and could not be better.
6. After a character-building year, my character is an edifice.
7. Plans are afoot for a day at the spa.
There, that feels better.
Call me Pollyanna.
Quiet desperation
I am in need of a change. A big one.
In lieu of a holiday that is. Apparently it's as good as.
I am being rendered uninteresting by the immense structure of my days.
My strategy, you see, for motherhood, until now, has been routines, routines, routines. This was a necessary adjustment from my previous life as a fancy-free, responsibility-phobic night owl musician. The pendulum has swung entirely the other way, and seems to be stuck.
I have now become an early riser whose day is charted weeks before it dawns.
Holy sh*t, you can see my problem.
Where is the middle ground?
I have always been a touch extreme, I admit.
New year's resolutions are thus formulating.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Dreaming of a . . .
I confess to an inner humbug when it comes to Christmas. Back in the fargone glory days of childfree wandering, I tended to ignore this celebration if I could, usually working on the day (music) thereby ensuring a provided lunch, money in the pocket, and another Christmas side-stepped. I don't know what it is - well I do, but I won't go into it here. Suffice to say, it's not my favourite time of year.
Now with an eight year old child, the humbug is kept on a tight leash as I do my best to make her experience magical. And despite myself, I have, in the last few years, quite enjoyed it too. Wonders never ceasing etc.
Last night we put up the tree and decorated, and then had the switching on of the lights which we toasted with lime sodas clinking with loads of ice. And it occurred to me that what I'd REALLY like is a white Christmas.
Next year.
My father now lives in Europe. Don't know why I didn't think of it before.
Now there's something that would wipe the smirk off this humbug's face.
Now with an eight year old child, the humbug is kept on a tight leash as I do my best to make her experience magical. And despite myself, I have, in the last few years, quite enjoyed it too. Wonders never ceasing etc.
Last night we put up the tree and decorated, and then had the switching on of the lights which we toasted with lime sodas clinking with loads of ice. And it occurred to me that what I'd REALLY like is a white Christmas.
Next year.
My father now lives in Europe. Don't know why I didn't think of it before.
Now there's something that would wipe the smirk off this humbug's face.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Transformation
I'm thinking about transformations. Something I'm fascinated with; the human capacity to transform. The drunks who get sober, the large who shrink themselves, the slobs who get fit, the dowdy who scrub up into swans, the houses groaning with junk which, decluttered, become places of solace.
It is that last one that I'm preoccupied with at present. My home, while not groaning with junk, is grumbling a bit at the quantity of books I have encouraged it to swallow over the six years I've been here. I just keep buying book shelves at garage sales to accommodate the screeds of words that it is my compulsion to consume.
The problem is that there has never been a plan as to the placing of these shelves, or the ordering of the books. I now have shelves everywhere and anywhere they'll fit, filled with books in the order they were bought, or read. A few months ago I bought a very large, and much needed old wooden shelf at a garage sale, which had been converted from a cupboard, and as I stood gazing in satisfaction at it, smug with the knowledge that the latest piles would now have a home, the owner said, 'and I'll throw in the books too, if you like.' How could I resist? There was Le Petit Prince, various guide books to Paris, and novels by Dickens, Miller and of course E.
So, you see. I have a problem. And this is only part of it.
I am in the midst of transformation of a kind. The spaces of my house are being rearranged according to the type of things we (my daughter and I) are working on at present. She is doing a lot of dance practice, and so therefore needs uncluttered space in which to do this, while I am spending a lot of time at the computer and (quelle surprise!) reading.
I am shrinking down the art area, which consists of a long table atop which are gathered an easel, tubes of paint and a variety of paintbrushes, a stack of w/colour paper at the ready and our art diaries (mine and hers). Next to it against the wall are frames, sketches and works in progress. This all takes up a considerable amount of space and neither of us has spent much time there in the last 6 months so, it goes. To make way for her dancing, and perhaps another book shelf. It won't disappear altogether, and will be accessible but it will be put away to make way for the new, the people we have become.
As for the many musical instruments that we have hanging around: the piano, 2 guitars, a violin, a djembe drum, a ukelele, various percussion and an antique piano accordian, these will be worked around. You never know when the urge may take you.
So, for the next few months, the Christmas season, in fact, I will be preoccupied with cataloguing, with space, with the question of who I am now as opposed to who I was last year. All in preparation for New Year's when I shall begin the wishing. Dreaming of the who I'd like to be this year.
You know me, I like a good wish. It's the way all tranformation begins.
It is that last one that I'm preoccupied with at present. My home, while not groaning with junk, is grumbling a bit at the quantity of books I have encouraged it to swallow over the six years I've been here. I just keep buying book shelves at garage sales to accommodate the screeds of words that it is my compulsion to consume.
The problem is that there has never been a plan as to the placing of these shelves, or the ordering of the books. I now have shelves everywhere and anywhere they'll fit, filled with books in the order they were bought, or read. A few months ago I bought a very large, and much needed old wooden shelf at a garage sale, which had been converted from a cupboard, and as I stood gazing in satisfaction at it, smug with the knowledge that the latest piles would now have a home, the owner said, 'and I'll throw in the books too, if you like.' How could I resist? There was Le Petit Prince, various guide books to Paris, and novels by Dickens, Miller and of course E.
So, you see. I have a problem. And this is only part of it.
I am in the midst of transformation of a kind. The spaces of my house are being rearranged according to the type of things we (my daughter and I) are working on at present. She is doing a lot of dance practice, and so therefore needs uncluttered space in which to do this, while I am spending a lot of time at the computer and (quelle surprise!) reading.
I am shrinking down the art area, which consists of a long table atop which are gathered an easel, tubes of paint and a variety of paintbrushes, a stack of w/colour paper at the ready and our art diaries (mine and hers). Next to it against the wall are frames, sketches and works in progress. This all takes up a considerable amount of space and neither of us has spent much time there in the last 6 months so, it goes. To make way for her dancing, and perhaps another book shelf. It won't disappear altogether, and will be accessible but it will be put away to make way for the new, the people we have become.
As for the many musical instruments that we have hanging around: the piano, 2 guitars, a violin, a djembe drum, a ukelele, various percussion and an antique piano accordian, these will be worked around. You never know when the urge may take you.
So, for the next few months, the Christmas season, in fact, I will be preoccupied with cataloguing, with space, with the question of who I am now as opposed to who I was last year. All in preparation for New Year's when I shall begin the wishing. Dreaming of the who I'd like to be this year.
You know me, I like a good wish. It's the way all tranformation begins.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
What I missed Vince for.
Have just been out of town, accompanying my daughter to a Ballroom dance competition. She (only 8) had a great time and took out a few trophies too, slick little hip swinging chacha sweetheart that she is, but, as for me, her highly strung, bookish, grave-wandering maman, I fear I haven't the heart, or indeed the claws, for the competiton that plays out around the edges of the floor.
Oh, E. I'd rather run with the bulls in Pamplona.
Oh, E. I'd rather run with the bulls in Pamplona.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Summer
It's starting to heat up. Summer is bearing down and I, as ever, am not really prepared. Not ready for the clouds of mosquitoes and the profusion in the garden which will grow wild through the wet if I let it. Not ready for the humidity and the endless hours of light, or for the approaching hysteria that is the commercial side of Christmas.
I do look forward to the sunsets, though, the intensity of the colours at this time of year. I wish for some good storms too. We'll put up our feet on the patio and watch the lightening claw across the sky, shout over the rain that 'IT'S REALLY CLOSE!' as the thunder claps overhead.
I look forward to putting the cotton net up over my bed, and crawling into my own little world at night, just like I did as a child. Then, the summers brought fireflies too. Lying in bed after lights out I would gaze enraptured at these magical little creatures as sleep drooped my eyelids and the fans whirred.
Everything was a possibility.
The heat just seems hotter now than it did then. There's not as much magic hanging in the air.
Que sera, it's not all gloom.
There is champagne, after all.
I do look forward to the sunsets, though, the intensity of the colours at this time of year. I wish for some good storms too. We'll put up our feet on the patio and watch the lightening claw across the sky, shout over the rain that 'IT'S REALLY CLOSE!' as the thunder claps overhead.
I look forward to putting the cotton net up over my bed, and crawling into my own little world at night, just like I did as a child. Then, the summers brought fireflies too. Lying in bed after lights out I would gaze enraptured at these magical little creatures as sleep drooped my eyelids and the fans whirred.
Everything was a possibility.
The heat just seems hotter now than it did then. There's not as much magic hanging in the air.
Que sera, it's not all gloom.
There is champagne, after all.
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