A short break in Tasmania

Last week was so very intense – all the problems with Phillip vs his father, trying to get all of my work ready for a hectic run of thirteen labs before I get more than a few days in the office again in mid-June, plus a dog lecture, a short week (Holy week), a candle to paint for St Paul’s East Kew, stewarding at Bulla on Good Friday morning, a rash promise made to the kids to have homemade pizzas on Saturday afternoon, and flying to Hobart on Easter day. Dumb week, now I come to look at it calmly. There was no time for any reflection the whole way through.

So Sunday came, and Sarah drove us to the airport at about 7am. We flew out just a few minutes late and arrived in Hobart at around 10am after an uneventful flight. Linda’s ex-ex picked us up, and we drove to Lauderdale for brunch – really nice Florentine eggs with smoked salmon (Tasmanian, of course), then to her ‘farmhouse’ on 3 acres. Brenda’s new love (Ann) was up at Great Lake with her family, so we drove up there to get Ann. It was nice to go and see some spectacular scenery, and on the way back we stopped for a drink and light supper at a very pretty hotel in some random town in the countryside. We got back around 9pm and sat and talked until nearly midnight. They let me talk a lot about my coming out and why it didn’t work with Tony, and why I can’t forgive myself for some things, and maybe never will. I think they were very patient with me.

Yesterday arrived with a barbecued breakfast from Brenda (very nice), and then a trip to a flea market. Linda enjoyed herself, and the girls bought a heap of ferns for the garden. From there we went to Salmon Ponds (near New Norfolk) and had a crepe lunch (mine was salmon and camembert… it was really good) and wandered around the trout ponds, feeding the fish and taking some scenery shots, and some romantic ones of Brenda and Ann. Then it was twilight, and we went to an antique shop in New Norfolk, and stayed there until dark. Brenda bought a fire surround. I saw stuff I grew up with – some that I only threw out last year – being sold, not for a lot of money, but for more than I thought it would be worth. For example, my little Aristone record player (that I gave to Phillip, instead of throwing out) - $145!! And the old icecream tin that Mum kept buttons in for .. well, for all my life, the yellow one with the red dancing elephant “Jumbo” - $12. Yep, $12 for an empty, old, tin. My coronation hand-me-downs – about $30-40 each! There were some pieces that were worth more, and some that were less than I thought. A Victorian travel writing desk was at the flea market for about $70, and had a nice inlaid top, needed to be French polished, but the main thing wrong was that it was missing the level wood panels inside (the ones for writing on…), then I saw one at the antique shop. The case was in worse condition, but it was complete - $300!! I didn’t get anything, although if I thought I had space at home I could have bought several things quite happily. Strangely, they only had one piece of carnival glass in the whole massive shop. There were three at the market, two were good, but not cheap, the other was a good price, but not very nice.

We were going to have nachos for dinner when we got back, but no one felt like eating, so we lit a fire, and looked at the day’s photographs. I gave copies to Ann and Brenda, we had a drink or two, and I went to bed around 11:30.

Today we had the day to ourselves. Brenda had to work today, and Ann was going back to her house. So we slept in a bit, and headed off around 11:15. We planned a breakfast at Fritto Misto (where we had brunch on Sunday), and thought we’d decide where to go from there. Unfortunately it was shut, so we kept driving in a random kind of undecided trip into town. We parked near the corner of two main streets (Barrack and Liverpool), marked it on the map and walked. We had a coffee in the mall, then to my great joy we found the Lark Distillery and had lunch there. I did the tasting (four of their whiskies for $7.50 – really good value), and a ploughmans platter of Tasmanian cheeses, crackers, bread, salami, olives, and pickled onions. Linda had two glasses of a local beer (some sort of pilsener – she said she liked it). Over lunch I checked my bank account and found that I had been paid…so I had FUN. I bought a bottle of the Lark whiskey, some of their Bush Liqueur made with local Pepperberries (for Brenda), a bottle of their whiskey liqueur and the three sample bottles of peppercorn gin and vodka and the single malt (for Anne). Then we walked over and looked at the Sea Shepherd ship that was docked (the ‘Steve Irwin’). We gave them a donation, then walked back through town to the car. I got us lost. It took longer than it should have.

We left Hobart at about 3pm, and used the satnav to get back to Lauderdale, pretty uneventfully. Back here we’ve just vegged; I’ve been writing, and Linda’s been reading old newspapers (not interesting-old, just last weekend-old). When Brenda gets back from work (any time now) we are going to Ann’s house, then I believe we are having fish and chips on the beach somewhere.

It has been a nice few days. I’m getting the chance to download now. I haven’t spoken to Phillip for a few days, so I should call this evening. Tomorrow I have to wash and straighten my hair, and read my notes for Thursday. So I want to finish the writing I wanted to do today. This was the first blog to be caught up. Next I’m writing my lab accreditation blog – this time about mechanisms for keeping up with reading, I think. My dog blog will cover last week’s lecture from Andrew Burt, and I have to send the link to some people, too. Enough now. Time to do what needs to be done next.

Re: hi

Hiya Dani

That's done it. I'm crying. Tony is being an absolute shit - Phillip is ....not well. He really is doing his best, but stuff just doesn't work for him. All the things I should have done years ago (you know, actually leave him before he really stuffed the kids lives) &c are haunting me big time. He [kindly??] offered Phillip a room in his new place when Phillip became unwell last November - when I realised that clear conversations about whether he would want to live with me again (Phillip, not Tony) were pretty meaningless when he became ill, and my home was now too small to offer anything to him.

I did actually hope that since Tony was now [by his reckoning] "well" and working [5 days per fortnight] and that he is now a trained 'mental health peer support worker' ... that he would be a help to Phillip and that being with family would be better for him than a share house.

Did I get that wrong!!! And this is Everest-wrong compared to earlier Mt Buller-wrongs [looks big, but not really].

Tony wanted him there so that he could have rent on the room and supplement his income. So as Phillip got worse and was less able to negotiate Centrelink, Tony became more and more difficult about wanting the money... money that I know Phillip didn't have. So he started staying at a mate's near my place (on the couch) and coming to my place for meals. It took me a little while to work it out, I'm ashamed to say. So he wasn't costing Tony anything except for space to keep his bed, desk, clothes and about half a dozen boxes of assorted stuff. Then last week - just before Phillip's birthday [Tony has such exquisite timing, doesn't he?] he told Phillip that he has to pay for STORAGE!! So now all of Phillip's stuff is either in my ceiling or my garage, and he is still sleeping on the couch at his mates. I said I wanted him to stay at my place, but he won't. I think it feels worse to sleep on the couch at your own mother's than at a friend's...

Tony took him out for dinner for his birthday [4 days late - on the actual day Tony told him to get his stuff out before he owes even more for storing another week], and on the doorstep of Phillip's favourite restaurant asked if he'd rather the cheap one up the road, and then when going over the menu asked if he wanted rice OR naan with the meal. It's possible that these were meant to be some kind of levity, but Phillip is way past the joke and it was just so unnecessary.

I feel devastated, and angry, and guilty, and useless. I try not to vent on Twitter 'cos Sarah is on it, and I just can't bring myself to bitch about him in her hearing. That tweet was when the whole thing was just too much for me.

Now I'm at work and I'm on the downhill run to 12 or so assesssments that I'm doing in a fairly short period of time. On the upside, the preparation is pretty intense, and once I start and get into the flow I can shut out most of my emotional crap. On the downside, all it takes is a phone call...

Sorry to dump like this...

So.

How are you?

feeling strange and empty

I've had a really good morning at work, and yesterday was very productive too. 'Good' as in 'got lots done and got through blockages', not as in 'fun': but that's ok.

I feel strange - odd - not lacking anything, but as though I'm finding space in me. I have a compulsion to find things to fill the space. For so long my life has consisted of limping from one crisis to another - and I admit that I created some of these by taking on more than I should. I've been through these 'empty' cycles before, and each time I've run around finding things to fill my time, and tried everything until I've imploded. Then I pull back out of everything (including life) feeling fragile and dispersed and slowly, incompletely, recover. This time it's different because I think I have insight, and can see it coming. Winter times are not to be avoided just because there is an apparent emptiness around - this is the time for hidden regeneration, for letting the pain in the world around blow over. In the past I've tried to build sad little shelters out of busyness to shield me from the emptiness - but when the time changed, I couldn't escape the clinging, cloying busyness and by the time I was in the glare of the summer sun, I couldn't stand being cluttered, subsumed and dragged down by everything. Too late, and unseasonally, I would bury myself and try to recover, but summer is for connections, and autumn is for harvest, trying to enter the dark before its time only lessens the value of the true dark, and mocks the needs of the time.

So where am I now? I think this is still autumn - I am still harvesting the proceeds of the last phase of my life, and I must allow myself to fall silent when the harvest is finished. I must allow some mundane time into my life, and be in it for it's own sake. Soon enough I'll have to start tending the next new growth of my life. Now it's time to finish the harvest - prune away the last of my old life, and gently melt into the rhythm of the mundane. Allow some predictability to protect me while my mind recovers and rebuilds after the assaults of recent years.

The last 4 years - the end with Tony, the separation, the redecorating of the old house, the sale, the purchase, the move, the new relationship, the renovations, the jobs (3 new ones in that time) - have been intense, always looking 3-6 weeks ahead, never time to be in the present, never time to contemplate 'next', no time to deconstruct the past. Now I have time to rest as my life's autumn coincides this time with the calendar. I'm looking forward to winter. It looks like desolation from the outside, but for me it will be about recovery, restoration and the prospect of renewal, maybe not in the calendric spring, but in my own, uncertain in timing, but certain to come.

Sunday night reflection

I now have three 'still evolving' blogs - this one that is (for all intents) hidden, one for lab accreditation as I try to position myself for wherever it is that I go next in my career, and the third for me to collate my dog training notes and revision.

I still have to make a new dog website - and I still have several dogs to rehome. The bathroom is under way, and we may even have it sorted within couple of weeks. I think my life may be finally settling out... and I wonder if that is something I can cope with. My whole life since I married has been a complicated dance around what I should versus what I want to do, and at every step I have failed, miserably failed, and tried to hold to the belief that I am happy inside myself. No. Happy is not the right word. I don't think I've been 'happy' for ... I don't remember a time that I thought was happy that I can still recall in that way. He destroyed every recollection of happiness in those years.

Now I stare into the face of a future without having a picture of what I could be, and I am afraid. I need to be careful that I don't just fill my time out of fear of going forward into nothing. I can see that my years ahead may not be so long as those behind, and there are so many things I still want to do, so much I am capable of that I will never get to try.

I think that all of my life I was a lesbian, I just didn't have any courage or luck. One or the other. Some days I think I was weak, others that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have found a love and it is so much kinder and gentler than any I've known before, I am lucky beyond my expectation. This love is what I was born for, and it is what I craved all of my life until she found me. Will the next part of my life be so blessed? Was the pain in my 19-43 years all down to living .... maybe not actually a lie, but .... a life not fully lived? a half-life, in the twilight of who I could have been?

The only other thing I have truly been all of my life is a writer. Since I was a child I have written poetry and framed elaborate tales of adventure, romance, tragedy... for great tracts of my life I lived in these stories instead of in the half-truth of my reality. I think it's time for me to write.

I am not going to say that I must finish this or that before beginning, rather, when it is time to start I'll make a new blog, a private one, and I shall begin. When it is time.

I don't know what the content will be, or whether it shall ever be published, but I will be a writer. A lesbian writer. And going forward into an unmapped future I vow to live my life fully - no longer in the twilight of my true self, but in the glare of ... the full moon.

That's probably enough for now...

Just so tired and unfocussed

Why am I here? I actually like whole bits of this job, but I can't focus, I can't settle to it. I feel as though I'm trying to find more interesting and engaging things all the time - like a bower bird always looking for a shinier bit of anything. It tires me, and I know it would be best for me to stick out at least 2 years here, maybe even 3, but ... I struggle to commit myself for that long to a job.

The fact that I am currently very, very tired is not helping.

Got some files out of my shelves this morning, now on to finish some quality manuals...

But I only got one finished... still it was the most urgent one...

more later

I discovered Twitter, and then the fires came...

Last Friday I was off work for the day, and thought I'd finally find out what 'twitter' is. I got a login, poked around a bit, couldn't find a single person I knew, but found the ABC news feeds - I set up my twitter to follow all 5 or 6 of them. However, I didn't think I'd bother much with twitter because I couldn't see how it applied to me ...

Fast forward 24 hours to Saturday.

It was about 45C, the wind was raising clouds of topsoil - and it was obvious that if a spark went anywhere then there would be a serious fire... I was in Bendigo, (came through the Marong Road about an hour before that one started) driving around with my Mum and my partner, and then dropped Mum off, and back to Melbourne. I had my car radio on ABC Melbourne (774) in case a fire started in the Macedon-Kyneton corridor. The fact that radio 774 had suspended regular programming to cover the fires and the alerts gave me a bit of a headsup - it could be as bad as feared... I heard the urgent threat alerts about Kilmore, and how worried people were about the expected wind change.

When I got home I checked twitter. That's when I stopped following all of the ABC feeds except 774 and Melbourne news (I only kept Melbourne news 'cos I'm a bit parochial - they didn't add anything).

Then I found @cfa-updates and between those two feeds, my world changed. Suddenly I had a real window into what was happening. I could see how bad is was going to be, how serious the current situation AT THAT MOMENT really was. I called my mother in Dunolly (50 km from Bendigo) and the TV up there had finally started reporting Horsham properly, but she wasn't aware of the seriousness of either Bendigo or Kilmore fires (my parents are on the edge of a state forest and I'm still worried about them).

We went out for dinner - only gone two hours - and when we got back I went straight back on to twitter. I could find no other source of real-time information without adding to the pressure on the official DSE and CFA sites. I was glued to my computer for hours. People started asking ME (and seriously, I'm noone) what was going on with the fires. Why? Because I knew what was going on. Why didn't the news broadcasts? Why didn't commercial radio keep up with this? There were actually people around on Sunday morning who didn't know how bad it really had got because their whole media world is commercial and it just took them way too long.

I have found a few twits (I don't know - what do you call people who 'tweet/twitter'?) whom I am following - and some of them are interesting. @cfa_updates and @774melbourne both deserve recognition for the incredible work they have put in. And the rest of the media (including the other ABC news twitters) need a kick ITA. I think this is the shape of information flow to come, and I am in awe of the potential.

Just a few days ago I logged on to twitter.com and couldn't quite see the point, now I'm a card carrying fan.

If you join twitter, let me know who you are!

Cheers