Category: being

No snappy title

After leaving work sick on Wednesday, I felt much better by Thursday, deteriorated Friday, and now, for the first time in my life have lost my voice. Like, actually, cannot make a recognisable audible sound.

We went to Al Ain for the day and night yesterday to catch up with some friends we made on a weekend away in Fujeirah. It was great and, despite my increasing, sick-induced sense of disengagement from the world, I just loved sitting around and chatting about lots and none at all.

Eldest boy is now running a sharp temperature which is his thing. His other thing is trying his very, very best to soldier on. He would much rather be well than sick. ‘I still feel fantastic,’ he said when woke up this morning, ‘it’s just that I usually feel more than fantastic.’ That’s the kind of lad he is.

I spent the night sharing the big bed with the lads while the mister got to sleep on the trundle bed. In this arrangement, we were both losers, and our buffet breakfast (included in the price of the hotel) was a rather more subdued affair than a buffet breakfast would normally be.

None of which is what I intended to tell you today, but honestly, I feel like rubbish, and I have lost my voice in every sense of the phrase.

The photo is just to help liven things up

From al ain

This photo has little to do with yesterday or today or even tomorrow. It’s not even a metaphor (at least not an intentional one). I took it about one year ago, from the top of Jebel Hafeet. Apparently, on a clear day, you can see forever.

Today I feel terrible. Quite unwell. Deep inside my glands and in my bones and whatever it is in my lower back which makes me feel this way when I do not feel well.

I made it safely to and from Dubai yesterday, and I parked at Ibn Battuta Mall. It was 50 dhms each way from there to the office and back, but it was worth it for a person like me.

The training was excellent, and the people I met were inspiring. But I didn’t stay for the dinner, because I felt gradually worse and worse all day until, by 4 oçlock, I couldn’t stand any more voices in my head.

Look back on anger

The football being persisently unavailable on the television, the mister and I began discussing me. More particularly, we began discussing me and the progress of my manuscript.

On my part, I was trying to understand why I have so little to show for all that time when I had not much to do but write, and now, all of a sudden, when I have just an hour or so a day things are coming together.

On his part, he couldn’t suggest a better topic of conversation so had to run with mine.

I was sort of moaning about having to go back to work this morning (our weekend is Friday and Saturday and for obvious reasons, we don’t get an Easter long weekend). More precisely, I was moaning that my writing time was already at an end. Why did I not have this drive and momentum last year when the only thing I had to do with my time was write?

The mister was very good about not rolling his eyes, although he let it be known that the conversation was only allowed to take a limited amount of his remaining weekend.

The coincidence of my gaining a job and writing momentum at the same time is not wholly inexplicable. For one thing, having a job has given me a structure that I did not have before. The mister thinks I have created an environment of ‘urgency’. Knowing the time is limited means I do not waste the time (though it does not completely wipe away the question of whether I can possibly work full time and finish a manuscript – the answer to that question is still some time away). For another, having a job has made me feel better about myself and I’m less inclined to flop on the couch feeling directionless and otherwise woe-is-me.

And, on top of everything else, I think maybe I was just not ready to write. Last year, I did manage to get the wordcount on my manuscript up pretty high – very high indeed – but the moment, I am enjoying putting red lines through a great number of those words because my, there are some angry bitter words in there.

There is a greater sense of calm this year. Not only in my words, but in the act of writing itself. I am writing with focus and direction and a sense of purpose that has nothing to do with being right or wronged.

This is not to say that I will take all of the anger out, nor is to pretend that all was rosy in my fair land. Only that I am enjoying writing about being angry, knowing that I’m not.

Looking back on anger is a most lightening feeling indeed.

Watershed

It was our intention to be away for definitely two years, but expecting ourselves to stay away longer. Like at least three, possibly four.

But two years, definitely, for sure.

Then, as you know, things turned pear-shaped, went arse-up, generally soured and I started to see things a little differently. I still wanted to make the two years, I didn’t want to run away again, I wanted to give things a chance.

I had to develop some good coping strategies. One of those strategies was to start taking things in smaller chunks. I’ll get to June, I said to the mister and see how I feel after my trip. Made that. I’ll stay til Christmas, I told the mister and see how it goes from there. Got there, still going okay. Came back from the Christmas trip, things had changed a little. Plus the weather was freaking glorious, and the lawn in our courtyard took root. Okay, I said to the mister, the March school break.

Then I got my job, and all of a sudden things were easier. I am going to be extraordinarily sad to say goodbye to my job when the time comes. In fact, if I were living anywhere else, I would probably never leave that job. It is my dream job, and not only that, the people I work with are wonderful.

Nonetheless, for me, this is not a city of permanent livability and the only reason I know I can stay is because I know that I will go. It is the future makes the now seem possible.

The problem with this state of mind is that my brain is constantly looking ahead. In my mind, I make calculations…how many months, how many weeks, even, one time, how many days. The future is a good place to think and to dream about, but it is not a place to live.

If I’m just going to spend my time dreaming of the time when this time will be the past, then I should just pack up now. Passing time by wishing it away is not time well spent.

So, I am trying very hard to do that whole living in the now. There is nothing more important than the thing you are doing now. The past is gone, the future is yet to come, only the now is here. And so on. I am trying to concentrate on getting my book written, enjoying my job, watching my children laugh. When I feel my heart race in anticipation of what might be, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and bring myself back to now.

Oh, dear…if we get to June and I start quoting Elizabeth Gilbert at you, you will tap me on the shoulder, take me into a quiet corner and have a word with me, won’t you?

Liveblogging the South Australian election

I intended to follow up my original liveblog of the 2006 South Australian election with a liveblog of this year’s election. But then, thanks to twitter I have discovered that Amber Petty is running the live blog on The Advertiser adelaidenow website.

WHAT THE FUCK?

I am too depressed to speak. Here in Abu Dhabi, I’m listening to the 891 livestream, but apparently they’ll be having Alexander Downer on soon, so I’ll have to turn it off.