eksercize 24

The feelings of summer

1. putting on a wet cossie, because it hasn't had time to dry since your last swim.

2. taking off your cossie and handfuls of sand hitting the floor

3. Gritty Sand - underfoot, between your toes, inside the bed, in the car, clagged around the lid of the block-out, inside your bag, in your scalp, inside your ears

4. that slightly tight, weathered feeling of your skin after you lost track of time with your friends and accidentally spent too much time out in the sun, without topping up the block out.

5. The smell of cestrum nocturnum - night-flowering jasmin

6. the confusion of a grumbling tummy telling you it's dinner time, when it's still so bright, surely it's only afternoon?

exesighs 23

Christmas day.
1pm. There is a heavy police presence on "Australia's most famous beach". The beach is barricaded and fluoro yellow security guards at each gate are checking bags and confiscating booze. The no-alcohol rule is strictly enforced today. The sand is evenly spread with groups on picnic blankets. More heads wear santa hats than not. They're mostly young people. It's fair to assume they're mostly backpackers. Even the surf life savers are wearing funny christmas hats. I don't see many of them. They seem to be in inverse proportion to law enforcement today. I guess they figure no-one's likely to do anything silly.

It's cold. Backpackers lie on their towels in the traditional tanning pose but they're fully clothed. So they're probably just sleeping off hangovers.
Up on the street, are countless small groups of police, just walking around; making their presence felt. The local school is seconded for the day as the police car parking lot. The Plain clothes police are easy to spot too. The clue is the 2-way radio hanging off the belt.
On the beach, and up here, everyone is very well behaved. The atmosphere is so relaxed and cheerful that the security seems like overkill.


11pm. The main street is blocked-off by police and barricades. An ambulance is wailing towards the cordon. Perhaps the overkill has become necessary after all. The drunken misbehaviour, that was expected, has become true.

Boxing Day.
9am. Whatever it was, did not make the news this morning. Last word in the press: "last night a police spokesman said there had been no arrests, and the day had passed without incident."

So - whatever the 'incident', it was not newsworthy.

Photos: Sahlan Hayes

Yearly Roundup

As 2007 ends i'll observe the custom and take a retrospective look over the past year.
But i'll go back a little farther.

In many ways it's been an extraordinary 18 months of experiencing things and doing things for the first time ever. [Some firsts include many subset firsts, indented below].

I experienced true grief
Lost a very close (dare i say my best) friend
Suffered from anxiety and felt an almost indefinable and
    terrible fear i'd never know before
wept deeply and openly in public places
Went to pub trivia
Went into a Hyperbaric chamber (several times)
Sold stuff on ebay
Lived without a car for 6 months
Took the ferry to work
Went to the art gallery 'After Hours'
Visited China
Visited Costa Rica
        Rappelled thru high mountains
        Saw iguanas, capuchin monkeys and other wildlife up close
Visited Nevada
Went to Burning Man
        Camped in a desert
        breathed, ate, drank, absorbed, slept in, wore, saw the
                fine soft playa dust
        hugged random strangers
        took part in a group monkey chant
        witnessed enormous, shocking explosions, and large, mesmerising
                fires as various constructions went up in flames
        saw a double/triple rainbow perfectly complete from end to end
        travelled on a vegetable oil powered "stoner" bus
Skied in Lake Tahoe
Took a day trip skiiing - from Munich to the resort and back by dinner time - with K who i'd also never skiied with before
Cycled to Caringbah. My first long bike ride, alone.
Cycled to Wollongong. Then did it again 12 months later.
        Cycled intercity
        Cycled a really long way - ie for more than a couple of hours
Saw Tori Amos live, up close (front row)
Saw and heard speak the Dalai Lama, up close (4th row)
Raised my very own kitten, alone.
Rehearsed, worked and developed over months with choreographer and performed the piece 3 times.
        Performed in a Dirty Feet Season
Performed in a Fondue Set show - danced, hoofed and sang
Performed (hoofed) with the Fondue Set
Performed at the SDC end of year show
Volunteer Marshalled at a fund-raiser walkathon
Started a blog
Hosted a gathering of a dozen or more and tested the limits of my flat. It's roomier than it seems.
Took meditation classes and started truly regular practice
Joined a Mah Jong group

and they're just the things i can remember, and that are worth mentioning.

x s ii 22

For various reasons I missed my morning mediation twice last week. Other things getting in the way.
It's only then that you realise how much difference it makes.

On the second morning, as I cycled to work, those nagging voices started up again. The fretting ones that get bogged down in unhappy memories, in a past that cannot be changed, but trying to change it anyway. They go further and further down bad paths. Then they jump into a non existent future, imagining me having unpleasant conversations with the MD. Conversations that i think will be necessary, even tho they make me feel icky, and i know they'll never actually take place.

Lucky for me, i catch my mind doing this - as i'm pedalling and starting to feel more and more gnarly, and remembering how noticeably more irritable i was yesterday in the face of the end of year stress.

The solution is to meditate now. As i commute.
Sound dangerous to you?

Well, I ask. What's more dangerous? To be cycling in morning traffic, with one's mind miles away in the past and the future? Or to be cycling with one's mind focussed only on the very immediate present?
On that old bolt that could hurt my tyres if i don't steer around it.
On that red rav4 that i know is going to cut in front of me to make a left hand turn.
Seeing the shape and colour of the clouds in the sky above that shows very little risk of rain.
Monitoring the rhythm of my breathing, noting it should be going in through the nose, not the mouth. (hack hack)
Noting that police car stopped up ahead at the red light i often sneak through....

It's not the same as a proper 20 minute sit. But it certainly helped.

ecksesyz 21

invisiblility part 2

Powers of invisibility are all very well.
But i seem to have lost control of them.
I'm invisible now when i don't want to be.
Visible when i'd rather be invisible.
Like that day in that bloody meeting when i suddenly wished to disappear, to not be seen, to not be there.

On a drive home last week, not one but two separate cars pulled out in front of me. I swerved to miss the first one - who started to pull out, then tricked me by sort of stopping, as if they'd seen me, but then just kept on coming. 10 or so minutes later, with this new expectation, I saw the next one coming and braked in time. So the powers of invisibility now extend to my car as well.

I blame the holiday season. Lots of silliness on the roads.

One morning, while cycling to work i suddenly felt a presence behind then beside me. A huge people-mover brushed my elbow as it passed, so close that i could hardly comprehend. It was all over in seconds. I waved an arm at the behemoth's tail as it gained speed and i mouthed something along the lines "WTF".
Bewildering. I was in a lane that no car should have been in, unless it had illegally failed to make a left turn at the lights. I had been in that lane for quite some time. It wasn't as if i'd just appeared there. So there's no way i was invisible. I can only think the driver had turned her attention to something else in the car - her mobile phone in her handbag; perhaps she was scrabbling around under the passenger seat for something.

I kept cycling, heading down hill and gaining speed.
Up ahead i saw the people-mover swerve, across my bike lane, and into a random parking space.
Wow - she really is driving BADLY today.
As i sped past i turned and saw her face through her window, waving frantic hand signals at me, mouthing words.
Too late i realised she'd stopped for me - to apologise, or make excuses.
Too late, i was well past, gaining downhill momentum.
I imagine she was completely freaked out by what she'd nearly done.
If i'd been just a little closer to the centre of the road.....

I trust there's one more driver on the road who is now very aware of cyclists.

Note that I was wearing a fluorescent cycling shirt, in a dedicated bicycle lane, in broad daylight.
Yet still invisible.

excise 20

lately i like to tell people i feel like i'm living in the twilight zone.
Probably a terrible description of something i can't quite describe.

I've stepped outside and am observing my life..

Friday-itis.
i potter around the house in the morning, getting ready for work, finding things to do, to delay me from heading to the office.
As i cycle closer to the building i sense the unreality of everything in my life.
In one sense i feel more grounded and whole than ever. Aware of who i am. But there's nothing to anchor me to this life. No motivation.
I'm heading to a job that in someways i like - it has certain freedoms, i like my colleagues. But It's like as old shoe that's not even comfortable any more. Or a relationship that's long since lost its reason or magic, but you're so entrenched in it, it's formed so much of what defines your life and history, that you can't just walk out on it.
As if this thing i'm holding onto is the only thing between me and nothingness. And yet it is practically nothing.
I have little emotional investment in it. I'm treading water there. There's nothing to sink my teeth into or be passionate about.
It's as if it's only fear of having nothing to replace it that is the sole motivation for turning up there every day.
That, and the investment i've put in over the years. The hours and energy and brain power. Would i just be throwing that investment down the drain? Is this really worth chucking out? Does it have potential? Do i have the energy to find its potential?

I feel burned out. I believe a lot of people are feeling this at the end of 2007. Seems i'm not the only one who's had a hard year and is counting the minutes til the xmas holidays start.
But beneath that is the fear of the depth of this burn-out.
I'm afraid that if i stop i'll lose my grip on the real world and will drop out entirely. Like i did after my uni-burn out. Those rudderless, wasted years. That i'm still paying for now. This capacity in me for extreme workaholism, and then extreme depletion and apathy dangles like a threat.
it's like in that film The Bed Sitting Room, about post nuclear holocaust England. For their safety, everyone must "keep moving!"
Or that woody allen quip about sharks. "It has to constantly move forward or it dies."
Except he was talking about relationships. In my case it's me, it's life, or what western culture defines as normal life.

Something terrible will happen if I stop.

The job used to be huge part of my life. It defined me. Now it's not.
But i still hold that memory and the contradiction of what was and what is, is a problem.
Sometime my job is a downright an inconvenience.
A necessary source of income that gets in the way of all my other little projects.
And that's not like me.

But anyway, how real is this other life outside of work?

My life has felt ungrounded and strange and surreal for so long now.
This anchorless-ness. Nothing to root me in the normal day to day of life. The things that other normal people do.
I have my habits and hobbies and pleasures. I get up and do things. But i often don't really know why. Except it's better than NOT doing anything.
I'm not about to take to my bed and never get up.
Maybe the urge to entertain/distract myself - to not be bored - is my sole motivation.
It's bizarre.
Where is this all going?
Why can't i just take a leap and dare to sample that nothingness?
Why do i cling to something that's half dead to me now. As i try each day to resuscitate it. Somedays trying harder than others.

And yet i'm not unhappy. I am possibly more peaceful in myself than i've ever been.
Maybe this is a part of the process of learning and wisdom.
To finally see thru the facade, past the unreality of all these surface things, preconceptions and conditioned ideas.
It stops me getting caught up in silly things and being upset by the unimportant.
And it's somewhat terrifying.

These are strange days.

exesise 19

men are odd.
you ask them to tell you about their emotions and they tell you what they're thinking. In all sincerity. As if they can't tell the difference.

Examples.

Male Number One is going thru a bit of personal upheaval - what i'd call an emotional experience. I ask him how he feels about it.
"Confused" he says.
Confused? Isn't confusion a state of mind, rather than an emotion?

Man Number Two's niece is very ill in hospital.
How does her sister feel about all this, i ask.
"She doesn't want her sister to die."
I am in some way shocked by the obviousness of the statement. If the situation weren't so serious i'd say "Well Der. No-one wants her sister to die. Tell me something i don't know."
And so i am left to infer, from this factual statement about her thoughts, that she feels all the unhappy emotions things you'd obviously expect one to feel in this circumstance.
What else could she possibly be feeling?
Maybe therefore his answer was fair.
Ask a stupid question...

But i'm not here to defend these men.
Maybe it's a deflecting mechanism - to avoid having to face up to emoshuns. Maybe it's simply an inevitable function of how their brains are wired up.
And is it only men? Have i just not noticed women doing it?