I cycle from home to the inner city through fields of scents; and try to name them:
sea salt
warm asphalt
wattle
exhaust
cigarette smoke
urine
just-mown grass
dirt
unnameable
the cosmetics department
deep fried food
air conditioning
industrial adhesive
Darryl Lea candy
commercial cleaning fluid
trees
my mother's perfume
diesel
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Overheards
What do people talk about when they're out and about at the start of the day? This morning's overheards have a thematic trend - the personal, the psyche, the inner self; and it's interesting timing as I've spent last night and this morning talking to my sister about mindfulness and other inner workings.
A young man to his female friend on the footpath outside the post office, is talking about his feelings.
A guy setting up a cafe is telling his colleague something about his own personal space, and the thoughts/feelings around that.
A woman is talking into a mobile phone (to a child by the sounds of it) about "docking them $10" but the talk is less about the admin, and more about how she's checking that this is okay and that she's not the sort of person to go over and over things and not keep reminding people.
One woman at the pool is talking earnestly to another about either psychology or spirituality when I overhear a phrase about the emergence of the angel character and the devil character.
The brain innately seeks patterns - even where there are none. I know these were coincidences, but I enjoy them anyway.
A young man to his female friend on the footpath outside the post office, is talking about his feelings.
A guy setting up a cafe is telling his colleague something about his own personal space, and the thoughts/feelings around that.
A woman is talking into a mobile phone (to a child by the sounds of it) about "docking them $10" but the talk is less about the admin, and more about how she's checking that this is okay and that she's not the sort of person to go over and over things and not keep reminding people.
One woman at the pool is talking earnestly to another about either psychology or spirituality when I overhear a phrase about the emergence of the angel character and the devil character.
The brain innately seeks patterns - even where there are none. I know these were coincidences, but I enjoy them anyway.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The Removalists
There's something very sad about the scene being played out in the street outside my window.
My first impression was of yet another pile of old, broken up furniture, dumped up on that particular bit of nature strip where people continually leave junk they no longer want. Over the years on that bit of grass, I've seen old computer monitors, clothes, a vacuum cleaner, assorted mugs, sofas, chairs, scary stained blankets, and recently a box of china and glass which at least had a nice sign saying "Please help yourself." I don't know why this has become an unofficial dumping ground, but it happens all over the city - and all over other cities too I suspect. When did it become OK to just leave your rubbish out on the street for other people to deal with? When did we stop taking stuff to the tip, or going to the trouble of putting it in a rubbish bin? I partly welcome it, in the face of the global environmental crisis. Surely it's better to share and recycle goods - one man's junk is another's treasure - than to just dispose of it, add to the landfill and buy something new. But kerbside dumping is lazy and careless. At least go to the effort of having a boot sale or garage sale?
Today's pile however, is way more substantial than usual. It's more like the contents of an entire house. Like an eviction has taken place. It's spilled over onto the road. There's a whole mattress. Bookshelves. Rugs. Mixed in with small personal effects. That a truck is parked right beside it, is no coincidence.
I look out from time to time watching the story. Two young guys are loading up the truck. To make it all fit, they're breaking up the furniture, compacting it all, reducing what was once someone's home to complete rubbish, firewood, spare parts. They are rubbish men, not removalists.
While on the phone I look out the window to see what's causing the sudden noise. The guys are in the opposite apartment, top floor, just chucking stuff out the window. An empty cardboard box lands in the garden. I guess it's a whole lot easier and quicker than carrying the stuff down the stairs, and clearly no-one cares if it gets damaged before being squished onto the truck.
Now, back out on the footpath, they're loading in the old chrome chairs. An oil filled heater. A black garbage back of unknown contents. A white plastic chair is being snapped in half, to save space in the truck now filled to the top. A brittle, discoloured window blind is rolled up and wedged in. The footpath is nearly empty.
It's the bundles of clothes tied up in a bed sheet that really make me wonder. I consider the possible circumstances that would make someone leave an apartment and leave all their belongings behind. None of the options are not sad. Eviction. Illness. Deportation. Incarceration. Death.
And it's even sadder that the owner, wherever they have gone, has apparently no friends or family to take care of their belongings. These guys, who, I can only guess, are total strangers - contractors with a truck - are just trashing everything.
The truck is full now, they're strapping it up and driving away. I watch the truck, its wire cage crammed full of useless junk, turn the corner and exit, stage right, leaving the footpath and nature strip empty and clear once again.
It's like the owner has been erased from the world.
My first impression was of yet another pile of old, broken up furniture, dumped up on that particular bit of nature strip where people continually leave junk they no longer want. Over the years on that bit of grass, I've seen old computer monitors, clothes, a vacuum cleaner, assorted mugs, sofas, chairs, scary stained blankets, and recently a box of china and glass which at least had a nice sign saying "Please help yourself." I don't know why this has become an unofficial dumping ground, but it happens all over the city - and all over other cities too I suspect. When did it become OK to just leave your rubbish out on the street for other people to deal with? When did we stop taking stuff to the tip, or going to the trouble of putting it in a rubbish bin? I partly welcome it, in the face of the global environmental crisis. Surely it's better to share and recycle goods - one man's junk is another's treasure - than to just dispose of it, add to the landfill and buy something new. But kerbside dumping is lazy and careless. At least go to the effort of having a boot sale or garage sale?
Today's pile however, is way more substantial than usual. It's more like the contents of an entire house. Like an eviction has taken place. It's spilled over onto the road. There's a whole mattress. Bookshelves. Rugs. Mixed in with small personal effects. That a truck is parked right beside it, is no coincidence.
I look out from time to time watching the story. Two young guys are loading up the truck. To make it all fit, they're breaking up the furniture, compacting it all, reducing what was once someone's home to complete rubbish, firewood, spare parts. They are rubbish men, not removalists.
While on the phone I look out the window to see what's causing the sudden noise. The guys are in the opposite apartment, top floor, just chucking stuff out the window. An empty cardboard box lands in the garden. I guess it's a whole lot easier and quicker than carrying the stuff down the stairs, and clearly no-one cares if it gets damaged before being squished onto the truck.
Now, back out on the footpath, they're loading in the old chrome chairs. An oil filled heater. A black garbage back of unknown contents. A white plastic chair is being snapped in half, to save space in the truck now filled to the top. A brittle, discoloured window blind is rolled up and wedged in. The footpath is nearly empty.
It's the bundles of clothes tied up in a bed sheet that really make me wonder. I consider the possible circumstances that would make someone leave an apartment and leave all their belongings behind. None of the options are not sad. Eviction. Illness. Deportation. Incarceration. Death.
And it's even sadder that the owner, wherever they have gone, has apparently no friends or family to take care of their belongings. These guys, who, I can only guess, are total strangers - contractors with a truck - are just trashing everything.
The truck is full now, they're strapping it up and driving away. I watch the truck, its wire cage crammed full of useless junk, turn the corner and exit, stage right, leaving the footpath and nature strip empty and clear once again.
It's like the owner has been erased from the world.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Surprising Flyer
Received this nice flyer in my letterbox recently.
Note the important message at the bottom.
Note the important message at the bottom.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Insomnia
3.45am
She is woken with a shock by the loud noise of a car alarm. Sustained, unbroken, the car horn blares and blares and blares without end.
3.50am
Lying awake, unable to ignore the annoying noise. Wonders how long before the battery is drained. "Please, please let it be soon."
4.07am
Great battery. Noise still strong and steady. She thinks:
"Might just have to kill myself."
and wonders why the car's owner doesn't DO something.
4.16am
Attempting zen. Tells herself to embrace the noise; let it to fall back into the landscape of the night's usual sounds and lull her off to sleep.
4.19am
FAIL. The noise pushes through the night, on a bee-line to her ears.
4.28am
"Am ready to go down and take to the car with a crowbar," she thinks.
"Lucky I don't own a crow bar."
4.43 am
Wondering why she doesn't have the number for the local police stuck to her fridge like sensible people do. She only knows 000, but this isn't technically an emergency. Anyway, someone else will have surely called them by now.
5.21am
Deleriously tired. Perhaps the wind is blowing the noise in another direction. Is sure she'll fall asleep soon -- eventually --"
8.44 am
She makes a phone call: "I'm going to be late for work. Got a flat battery."
She is woken with a shock by the loud noise of a car alarm. Sustained, unbroken, the car horn blares and blares and blares without end.
3.50am
Lying awake, unable to ignore the annoying noise. Wonders how long before the battery is drained. "Please, please let it be soon."
4.07am
Great battery. Noise still strong and steady. She thinks:
"Might just have to kill myself."
and wonders why the car's owner doesn't DO something.
4.16am
Attempting zen. Tells herself to embrace the noise; let it to fall back into the landscape of the night's usual sounds and lull her off to sleep.
4.19am
FAIL. The noise pushes through the night, on a bee-line to her ears.
4.28am
"Am ready to go down and take to the car with a crowbar," she thinks.
"Lucky I don't own a crow bar."
4.43 am
Wondering why she doesn't have the number for the local police stuck to her fridge like sensible people do. She only knows 000, but this isn't technically an emergency. Anyway, someone else will have surely called them by now.
5.21am
Deleriously tired. Perhaps the wind is blowing the noise in another direction. Is sure she'll fall asleep soon -- eventually --"
8.44 am
She makes a phone call: "I'm going to be late for work. Got a flat battery."
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Unwelcome Guest
I have a new guest. Uninvited, unwelcome, she just sort of slipped in before I could notice, and made herself at home. I didn't put up a sign, or place an ad. I didn't change my lifestyle, offer any enticement, so why has she just turned up like this. And I can't see that I'm doing anything to encourage her to stay, yet, here she is, getting all comfy and settled right in for life. There's no budging her by the looks of it.
This visitor doesn't bother me all the time, but in yoga for example, during shoulder-stand she pokes out over my waistband, annoyingly, in a taunting kind of way, as if she knows in this posture I'm forced to stare right at her and she really wants to be noticed. She doesn't get on at all well with a lot of my wardrobe.
I just don't like her, and I can't get used to this new living arrangement.
But apparently I'm going to have to.....
I looked online and read about an inescapable phenomenon of midlife: "redistribution of body fat". "Fat migrates away from the buttocks and thighs and begins to accumulate around the belly -- all without gaining a pound, eating more or exercising less."
The horror.
I guess, human beings being so adaptable by nature, that as times goes on it's inevitable that I'll get used to the changes around here. And one day I'll probably even forget what it was like before she came.
This visitor doesn't bother me all the time, but in yoga for example, during shoulder-stand she pokes out over my waistband, annoyingly, in a taunting kind of way, as if she knows in this posture I'm forced to stare right at her and she really wants to be noticed. She doesn't get on at all well with a lot of my wardrobe.
I just don't like her, and I can't get used to this new living arrangement.
But apparently I'm going to have to.....
I looked online and read about an inescapable phenomenon of midlife: "redistribution of body fat". "Fat migrates away from the buttocks and thighs and begins to accumulate around the belly -- all without gaining a pound, eating more or exercising less."
The horror.
I guess, human beings being so adaptable by nature, that as times goes on it's inevitable that I'll get used to the changes around here. And one day I'll probably even forget what it was like before she came.
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