Today is the last day of Miss Malaprop’s school holidays, and as the hours have ticked by I have found myself thinking about that old song by The Doors:
Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing or find a new town...
It’s been an unusual holiday, to say the least, and many of our activities were circumscribed by the date on which Miss Malaprop herself could receive her first Pfizer shot. Our casual joys have been destroyed by this pandemic — or, more accurately, by the choices I have made to keep my children as safe as I can, the best way I know how. After all, keeping them safe is my main job.
We’re doing our best to go on playing, because there’s absolutely no point in finding a new town when we are completely in love with where we live. We are incredibly lucky to live a short walk from the beach, and heading down there whenever the mood strikes us has kept an element of spontaneity in our otherwise contained lives.
The ocean is where I feel most at peace at the moment.
In a world that seems to be almost permanently tainted by anxiety, the sea is where I am free.
Floating in saltwater is one of the most calming and beautiful experiences I know of: my muscles relax more deeply and my mind quiets more quickly than when I am anywhere else.
And even though this has been a strange summer, I suspect some of my memories of being in the water in the past few weeks with my girls will endure.
In which the Thrify Fictionista abandons her usual carefully considered annual Top 5 posts and crams all her thoughts about the things she has read, watched and listened to during 2021into one hot mess of a post entirely appropriate for the year that was…
Folks, I am so grateful for the gift of literacy. To be able to read — and hence escape between the pages of a book — is one of my life’s true delights, a pleasure that has only been heightened by being part of a protracted historical event. So, as of now, I’m putting on my positive pants and dismissing any further mentions of that pesky Pandemic in this post, and presenting to you in an order as yet unknown to me with the things I loved most this year. Books, TV shows, movies, songs and various bits of ephemera that caught my attention, held it, and made me feel. Because FEELING is what it’s all about, my friends.
I’m going to kick things off by recommending Craig Silvey’s book Honeybee, which just so happened to be the first book I read in 2021. It’s brilliant. So much so, I wondered whether I would read anything as good for the rest of the year (spoiler alert — I did, so please read on). Honeybee made me laugh, cry, shake my fist in both rage and triumph. I absolutely loved it, and reckon you should get a copy for yourself. Pronto.
Another summer holiday read I thoroughly enjoyed was Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip. In addition to having a cracking storyline following the main protagonist, Kerry Salter, and generations of her First Nations family, this story is dramatic and darkly comic. I may have found it even more engaging because the country where the tale is set (despite focusing on a fictional town called Durrongo) reminded me strongly of a part of northern NSW where I spent a lot of summers during my childhood.
Shortly after reading these, I got stuck into watching Narcos on Netflix. I was very late to the party, I know, but after watching Pedro Pascal in The Mandalorian I was keen to see what he could do without a helmet on and was not disappointed. Wagner Moura did a brilliant job of portraying Pablo Escobar and (being a non-Spanish speaker) I was not troubled by the fact that he apparently wasn’t so great at nailing the Medellín accent. Watching Narcos was an edge-of-your-seat ride combining politics, risky and highly illegal business, insurgents, excess and corruption, ever-present danger, families and cartels, the Colombian jungle, and a few blokes who were trying to stop the whole cocaine trade in its tracks, and I loved it.
By the time Lockdown rolled around again (I think it was the third one for us — the one that went for 17 weeks?), our whole family was looking for something to escape into, and when we weren’t snort-laughing watching back episodes of Travel Guides, which we also watched to take in scenery of anywhere but our own backyard, we got right into The Mysterious Benedict Society on Disney Plus. This was a show the entire family enjoyed, and the fact that a new episode dropped only once a week gave Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop a taste of what life was like for The Bloke and I when we were kids in the days before streaming services. We’re all looking forward to Season Two!
Speaking of second seasons, we also used up quite a few tissues earlier in the year watching Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds on ABC iView, which also prompted Marvel Girl to develop an app for older Australians with some of her classmates for a Praxis project at school. The entire family loved the show and The Bloke and I were really proud when Marvel Girl and her mates took out the top gong for the project it inspired.
During lockdown I also embarked up on a Couch to 5km project that was curtailed only by us having to pack up and move house, but heading out on a run gave me the opportunity to listen to tunes. Not surprisingly, the music I’ve been listening to this year has been far more gentle than I would normally go for. I got into things like:
Running Red Lights by the Avalanches, Rivers Cuomo, Pink Siifu
Balenciaga by New West
Strange Girl by Laura Marling
Smile by Valerie June
Move by Flight Facilities, DRAMA
I also delved back into some oldies but goodies like The Wallflowers’ One Headlight, Funkadelic’s Can You Get to That and U2’s I Will Follow. Troubled times call for familiar favourites.
On the reading front, I got through those seventeen long weeks with the help of Hilary Mantel and hertruly remarkable trilogy of Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies (both of which I re-read) and The Mirror and the Light. I am in awe of Mantel’s writing: sometimes her words were so beautifully, perfectly chosen that I would have to mark my place in whichever of the gorgeous hardbacks I was currently reading with the jewel-toned ribbon bound into the cover and simply close my eyes. Then I would go back and read the passage again and sigh (often quite audibly), and would then find myself hoping that one day I, too, will be able to write so succintly, so eloquently, so precisely, and also to elicit such feeling. Because — as I said earlier — it’s all about the FEELING, folks.
I had a similar reaction to reading Ed Ayres’ book Whole Notes, which is truly and utterly a MUST READ for any music lover. Unusually for me, I have embarked upon a second reading of this volume, which is part “call to instruments” and part memoir of becoming a trans man aged 50 (better late than never, as Ed says). Same goes for the brilliant Trent Dalton’s book Love Stories — but as any regular readers of this blog will know, the Thrifty Fictionista is a massive fan of Dalton’s work and it did not come as a surprise to me that I found myself wanting to stretch Love Stories out for as looooooong as I could, trying to make it last — it was that good.
Sigh, again.
What else did I enjoy this year? I binged all three seasons of Medici on SBS On Demand and found myself going down various Florentine themed rabbitholes on the interwebs for quite some time afterwards. Filmwise, I got a bit of a kick out of the 2020 movie Rose Island (or, in the original Italian, L’incredibile storia dell’Isola delle Rose), and I also enjoyed Hugh Grant in The Gentlemen.
The Bloke and I decided it was high time we introduced the kids to Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, and so far we’ve watched Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. I suspect Spectre will be on the menu soon (if my offspring are not devouring more episodes of Gilmore Girls, which they have recently discovered and have many questions about — including what a video store was — thereby making The Bloke and I feel somewhat antiquated, if not ancient). We also made the kids watch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which looks massively dated but the jokes still hold up, for the most part. I tried to get them into watching Lupin (which I loved) but it only piqued the interest of the Paris-loving Marvel Girl, and failed to grab Miss Malaprop. That said, we all thoroughly enjoyed Hawkeye.
There are a couple of other things I don’t think I could have got through 2021 without — like watching episodies of 30 Rock on Stan, because sometimes all you really need is 20 minutes of madness and mayhem from Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey to lift your spirits. In a year where internet shopping has taken on a life of its own, I am still eyeing off a T shirt reading “Royal Tampa Academy of Dramatic Tricks” in honour of Jenna Maroney’s alma mater, but I ended up settling for a 3 pack of Silent Theory T shirts instead (the Lucy style is great and the quality is top notch, in case you’re asking). Another internet purchase I loved? A drink bottle from Target that has the hours of the day printed down the side so I know where my water intake should be up to when. But I digress…
What else? What else did the Thrifty Fictionista love? Well, towards the end of the year I got right into reading Dave Grohl’s book The Storyteller, which inspired our New Year’s Eve feast of Kentucky Fried Chicken and French Champagne. And I finished up the year reading Hannah Kent’s Devotion, Sarah Winman’s Still Life, Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock and Anne Enright’s Actress — all of which were great, and made for a solid finish to a rather troublesome year.
And so, friends, here endeth the Thrifty Fictionista’s cultural ramblings through the year that was. I would love to hear what you watched, listened to and read during the past year than made it more bearable for you and yours. I hope you find some solace or joy in what I enjoyed.
Hey folks…how are you all doing riding the Christmas Crazy Train?
The year is drawing to a close, and here in Antipodes that means we’re nearing the end of the school year too. Some kids have already finished, though mine don’t have their last day until next week.
For me, this week’s stops on the Crazy Train include/d a wedding (congratulations again to the blissfully happy couple), a presentation day for Miss Malaprop (who took out her class English award — hooray!) and The Bloke’s Office Christmas party. It’s been great celebrating milestones and achievements, virtually and occasionally in person. Despite being an introvert, I have genuinely enjoyed greeting familiar faces I’ve not seen since Lockdown ended and meeting new people, too.
It might just be me, but it feels like being in Lockdown for 17 weeks straight actually made my local community stronger. More connected. Definitely happier to see each other. And even far more likely to strike up a conversation with a total stranger (especially if it’s outdoors).
And I like it!
Not this year!
It could be that we’re getting better at reading each others’ facial expressions over the tops of face masks. Maybe we’re being forced to notice what other people are truly telling us when we look into their eyes. Or we may be more likely to talk about the things that really matter to us, being far more well acquainted with what they are having been denied them for so long.
Perhaps it’s premature (particularly given what happened here on the Northern Beaches last year), but I can honestly say I’m looking forward to Christmas, to seeing family and friends. I’ve ordered the Christmas ham and we’ve even sampled some of the local butcher’s turkey and cranberry sausages — and we don’t mind if we do that again, either!
December 2021 feels very different, not only because we are living in a rental property while our house is being rebuilt, but also because we’re making do without our usual utterly ridiculous colour themed profusion of baubles, lights, wreaths and other decorations. I’ve caught myself enjoying the simplicity of being able to walk around the house without crashing into festive ornaments (or, more accurately, obsessively rearranging them if someone has dared to move them).
So true…
The Christmas Crazy Train I used to ride made so many stops they made me dizzy. This year, with inspiration from one of my favourite writers, Trent Dalton, I am allowing my cheeseball heart to guide me — to figure out what’s really going to make me happy while keeping me and my family safe. If I can’t realistically fit something in, I’m allocating time for it in the New Year, because time is what I want to spend with people, particularly when we were unable to do that for so long.
And so, as I prepare for next week’s stops on the Christmas Crazy Train, which include a livestream of Marvel Girl’s presentation day and various other festivities, I’m letting that cheeseball heart open up and feel light.
They’re part of the holy trinity of things that make me whole: words, music, food.
These three things anchor my life, colour my world and fuel my existence. They allow me to express myself more meaningfully, feel more deeply, and to live more completely.
But, as The Bloke will tell you (and as he has even more frequently told me), sometimes I use words too much.
Especially with our children.
And, truth be told, I don’t always use my words in a pleasant way…but in more of a drawn out, repetitive nag.
Sometimes they even come out as a rant.
Or a tirade.
Or a garbled stream of complaints and admonishments.
My children are reaching the age when they either don’t need me so much any more, or when they firmly believe they don’t need me at all (and could I please leave them alone and perhaps also shut the door on my way out while I’m at it).
As you can well imagine, once you’ve thrown a bunch of elevated hormone levels into the mix, a politely phrased and modulated request to perform the most perfunctory of household tasks (the musical eqivalent of which would be Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending) can produce such unexpectedly snarling, snarky response (think Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Heads Will Roll turned up to at least 11) that I frequently and ever-so-immaturely find myself retaliating in kind.
Sigh.
Things came to a head for me last week (though, fortunately, heads did not actually roll) after an especially super-charged exchange with my elder child, and I did what any self-respecting woman in her mid-forties does, if she still can: I called my mother for advice.
And a bit of a cry.
OK — it was a lot of a cry.
Who says we ever finish growing up?
Except we generally do grow up, and sometimes our mums aren’t always there to listen or helps us find the answers, or to guide us gently to the truth at the heart of the matter — which probably has something to do with the fact that you’ve managed to nurture your child to this point, and now they have reached the stage of their existence where they have to complete that same process you guided them through all over again, for themselves. And that you’ve given them a safe place in which to express themselves and to try out all the wildly different versions of their new, expanding sense of self.
The real question, I suspect, is not about growing up or finishing anything at all.
Because — naturally, serendipitously — once I’d processed the truth bombs dropped by my teenager and the truth pearls bestowed by my mother, I happened to open a book and there was a quote from Rumi which stopped my breath:
And you, when will you begin that long journey into yourself?
When indeed?
And so, that’s what I’m doing.
I’ve chosen to be quiet, and to witness my reactions from within. I’m not asking my children to do things any more — they’ve heard my requests thousands upon thousands of times, and they know what my expectations are.
And when my expectations are not met, I am applying what I call Silent Theory. Not a frosty, passive agressive silence, but a moment of taking a breath and stilling the response which would have so quickly come to my lips and spilled out as sound the split second after my children didn’t do exactly what I wanted them to.
Who, I now wonder, was the child?
It’s extraordinary what you discover in the space between, if you choose to begin that long journey into yourself.
After over 100 days in Lockdown, I am fortunate to count myself among the double-vaxxed who can now go about all sorts of business here in my little corner of the Great Southern Land.
But BEFORE Lockdown ended — ironically, inconveniently — we had to move house.
The past three weeks have been a blur of repeated strenuous activity: packing, sorting, carting, unpacking, crying.
Well, that’s not strictly true…I only cried when after more than ten hours on the phone to offshore call centres, I begged the universe to resolve my NBN and internet connectivity issuses, and a man named Cosmos (I know, unbelievable coincidence) finally agreed that I did indeed have a problem beyond my capability to solve and that a technician would be sent to our new abode…THAT was when I cried, and I have to admit it was the gulpy, messy kind of crying that only gets done when you’re really at the end of your rope.
Anyhoo, all that aside, we’re in. We’ve done it. And now we’re ready for the next exciting chapter in our lives, of knocking down our old house and rebuilding our dream home.
I made so many lists…
I feel incredibly fortunate, I really do.
But in all honesty, I’m mostly just tired.
I consider myself a pretty organised person, but the past three weeks have stretched me to the limits of my powers — and today is the first day that I am taking a much needed (and probably well deserved?!) break. I’m taking time to reflect, to acknowledge the enormity of what has just happened and is about to happen, and to consider some well-learned lessons.
Basically, the main takeaway I have from moving house (which, for the record, I have done more than a dozen times including twice overseas), is that you just have to keep going, and not stop until it’s done. It’s chop wood, carry water over and over again. And this time around, we had a steep driveway and several steep flights of stairs added into the mix.
But now it’s done! Because we kept going, chopping wood, carrying water, and didn’t stop.
Until today, which is — thank the old gods and the new — full of blue skies and sunshine, and space to do whatever we please.
And it’s really, truly good.
Mind yourselves,
BJx
Time to do absolutely nothing, if only for a few minutes…
I’m sitting by the window in my bedroom, feeling the breeze and enjoying the blue skies and sunshine. Rain is forecast for most of the week, though we’ve been fortunate to have had a run of wonderful weather lately.
This Lockdown business doesn’t get any easier, does it?
The restrictions keep tightening — necessarily, in my view — and the days we’ve spent with the same people inside the same four walls keep increasing.
But the days are getting longer, too, and warmer. Yesterday Marvel Girl said she smelled a hint of summer in the air, and I suspect she was right.
Yesterday was a good day.
No working or schooling from home. No phonecalls. No Zoom.
We walked down to the netball courts near home, found a vacant hoop and played two on two for a while. Turns out that in addition to having a height advantage The Bloke and I still make a good team when it comes to ball sports. There was plenty of sledging and silliness and we laughed a lot while working up a sweat, then wandered home again.
Later in the evening, The Bloke pulled out the portable firepit we had planned to use on a camping holiday that got cancelled way back at the beginning of Lockdown. We gathered around it, filling it with dry sticks from the back yard and firewood from the servo down the road, and got a crackling blaze going. Soon we had salmon cooking over the flames, and then sat eating from plates laden with fish and salad and rice.
The moon rose, full and white, serene and wondrous.
We saw the International Space Station fly past.
We roasted marshmallows in the embers, ate popcorn and answered a steady stream of trivia questions from Miss Malaprop.
We played music: Christine and the Queens, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Wallflowers, Flight Facilities, Quincy Jones.
And then we tumbled into bed — tired, smoky and happy.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write when most of the people you know are experiencing exactly the same thing as you are. For me it’s the same four walls, the same family members, the same walk to the surf club and back — just to check the entire Pacific Ocean hasn’t mysteriously disappeared overnight.
The Bloke, knowing full well that I am generally the family member who jollies everyone else along, deadpanned that I should embrace gratitude during Lockdown.
Pfffft…
Then again, he has a point, and I do know I am indeed fortunate.
I am fully vaccinated, and The Bloke not far behind me (though the kids are yet to have a vaccine approved for them).
I am gainfully employed (though my work is being frequently interrupted by helping my children with home schooling).
I am happily married (though my anniversary present to The Bloke this year was booking in his second Pfizer shot).
You see the recurring theme, I’m sure — especially if you have a child in Year 5 and have been working through number patterns and algebra problems with them.
Yes, but —
For every upside, it seems there is an inevitable downside.
Sick of the same four walls?
I’m trying to go back to the things I have learned from tapping away at the keys in this, my little patch of cyberspace. I’m looking for moments of delight. I’m attempting to put into practice the Divine Qualities I began exploring at the beginning of this year. That said, I also freely admit I have uncharacteristically shelved my project to continue looking into them throughout 2021: if past Lockdown experiences taught me anything, it’s that it’s OK to let go of things if it they are adding pressure to my existence rather than relieving it.
As a family, we’re trying to do things together that make us laugh — like watching old episodes of Travel Guides, which not only lets us explore the world from the comfort or our armchairs, but also has us simultaneously giggling and cringing at the antics of the various participants. For example, we watched the South African episode last night, and while we were in hysterics at some of the commentary during the safari portion of the show, we were downright mystified that some of the travel guides had never heard of Nelson Mandela?
There it is again. Yes, but —
You see my dilemma?
I suspect I am not alone in this predicament, and that many parents across the Northern Beaches, across Sydney, and across Australia are, too.
So taking The Bloke’s advice to heart this time, I have challenged myself to come up with a list (in no particular order) of some of the things that I am purely grateful for — no ifs, no buts, no strings attached.
Baked potatoes and pumpkin. Baked lasagne. Baked apple and rhubarb crumble. Baked anything, really.
A reliable internet connection, Netflix and Spotify.
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy (specifically) and fiction (generally).
Piping hot tea, coffee and showers.
Words, and being able to read them, speak them, write them and wield them.
I suppose, given that in a few weeks it will be fifteen years since we tied the knot, I should add The Bloke to the list too — if only so I can publicly proclaim that I do take his advice from time to time. (Pun deliberate, and Dad-joke worthy.)
Lockdown Day 1, and the Thrifty Fictionista has once again taken to her bed.
Not because I’m sick, not because I’m occasionally inclined towards melodrama, but because it’s vaguely cold out — meaning it’s fine and sunny and not the slightest bit windy, but the temperature has dipped below 20 degrees Celcius, which is regarded quite decidedly as ugg boot weather in my part of the Antipodes. We’re not wimps, really we’re not…
Besides, now that Greater Sydney has been placed into Lockdown (again) there is literally no chance anyone is going to come knocking on our door, so there’s nothing to stop me from typing away on my trusty laptop under the cover of my delightfully warm doona. The Bloke and the kids are down the other end of the house, and given we are going to be trapped together for the next thirteen days none of them is feeling the need to interrupt me (yet). I even have a hot cup of peppermint tea on my bedside table, though that did require me to give one of my two TBR piles a bit of a shove so it would fit. TBR, for the uninitiated, stands for “To Be Read”, which is both a sacred and dreadful practice of stacking large quantities of books you plan to read on your bedside table, the precipitous nature of which may or may not impede your spouse’s ability to successfully procure clothing from their side of the wardrobe.
Lockdown level annoyed…
At the top of the nearer TBR pile is a biography of Rudolf Nureyev I dived into after writing my last post, the reading of which I have been interspersing with bellyflops into romance novels of dubious quality (not usually a genre I pay the slightest bit of attention to, but every now and then my brain craves a book that is the mental equivalent of chewing gum).
In my defence, my brain probably does deserve a bit of a break. A large chunk of my morning (in between moaning about being in Lockdown again) was spent rescheduling the holiday we had planned to take next week, cancelling the cat sitter, and working out how to make my elder daughter’s 13th birthday next week feel less like she’s spending in Long Bay Jail?
I only meant to read one…
Apologies — am just back from a spot of online shopping; I had to throw out my favourite pair of blue jeans the other day due to the development of a hole in an unmentionable place, and since I can’t go to the Mall or anywhere else for the next two weeks, needs must. I suspect this digression may also enlighten you, dear reader, to the state of my mind at the moment and why I am resorting to reading trashy romances. It’s like a tin of worms in there, folks. Or maybe a bag of fleas?
Anyhooooo….the Thrifty Fictionista, currently warm and toasty but evidently sporting the attention span of a gnat, has now finally recalled the real reason she began tapping away at her keyboard on this fine, sunny, slightly cold but doona-covered afternoon: if you’re boxed in, the best solution is a box set.
YASS QUEEN! It worked for me last time we were in Lockdown (or was it the time before that?), when I cracked through an enormous box set of Sarah J Maas fantasy novels, tomes weighty enough to anchor the QE2 in Sydney Harbour…were it not for the fact that we have closed our international borders indefinitely and the mere sighting of a cruise ship off the coast is likely to send most Sydneysiders into a panic faster than you can say “Ruby Princess”…
Quality lockdown reading…
This time the box set I have chosen is Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. I suspect I’ve already read the first two (the ones that both won the Booker Prize) a long time ago, and the third one — well, it’s as gigantic as the others, and I am looking forward to reading all three. At its best, historical fiction is immersive, and what better time than Lockdown to lose yourself in another time and (hopefully not plague-ridden) place?
And we’re not really all expected to clean our houses from top to bottom all over again are we?
I’ve been trying to write this post for weeks, trying to find the words for my next exploration of the Divine Qualities from the Bhagavad Gita. Various things have happened around me recently, however, that have resulted in me struggling to find the right words, and have also necessitated me applying a trigger warning to this post for anyone impacted by suicide.
Ahimsa translates most simply as non-violence but resonates with much deeper meaning, embodying the premise that since every living being contains the spark of divine energy, if you hurt any other living being you also hurt yourself. Mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita and many other ancient texts from the subcontinent, it is one of the core values adhered and aspired to by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.
I would argue Ahimsa is a quality worth embracing by anyone and everyone, regardless of your religious or spiritual persuasion. You don’t have to be Gandhi to know that actively respecting all living beings is a worthy goal. Choosing a non-violent path is, in my view, a no brainer. Simply put: no one gets hurt.
Recent events in my life have, however, made me wonder — what of non-violence with ourselves?
A couple of weeks ago I was, unfortunately, confronted by the death of someone who had reached such a depth of despair that they no longer recognised the spark of divinity within themselves. This person was a complete stranger to me, but by choosing to end their life outside my workplace they have become someone I have had to find a way — some way, any way — to understand.
I know, in general terms, what they did and where they did it.
I definitely don’t know why they did.
I don’t even know their name.
But I do know that their actions have had unintended consequences — not all of them positive — on me and on those who work with me and around me and, against the odds, I am doing my best to see all of these through the lens of gratitude.
I’m grateful for the woman who works next door to me, for stopping me from going into my office and seeing something I would not be able to unsee, and for giving me a much needed hug after I had dealt with the police and paramedics.
I’m grateful for my boss, who — despite being directly impacted herself — has not only been flexible with my work hours, but has also been someone I can talk to and make sense of this tragedy with.
I’m grateful for my children’s music teacher, who knew what happened and that I didn’t want to tell my kids, and who made music lessons that afternoon as normal as possible even as I sat, trying not to fall to pieces, on her sofa.
I am grateful for my mother, who has let me get every last emotion and reaction off my chest in response to this awful event, and who didn’t need me to explain how difficult this experience was for me because we lost a beloved member of our own family member exactly the same way.
I’m grateful for my husband, who has patiently borne with me as I’ve navigated the flashbacks and other PTSD symptoms that have inevitably arisen over the past few weeks, and who has encouraged me to rest when I’ve needed to, paticularly when hypervigilance has amped up and overwhelmed me.
Life is precious.
So precious.
Nothing is more important than nourishing the spark of the divine within us, and of encouraging to burn that fire to burn brightly within those around us.
And even when we struggle — really struggle — to get on with people, it is essential that we make an effort to find a way to silently say Namaste and acknowledge the divinity within them, even if we can’t see it for all the world.
Be gentle with yourselves and each other, friends.
I’m not quite sure what it is about April, but it can’t be a coincidence that around Easter each year, many of my intentions end up becoming just that: intentions, not actions. I’ve written about it before, the irony being that in April three years ago, I’d even selected “Intention” as my Word of the Month. Perhaps it’s because the autumn school holidays often fall in April down here in the Great Southern Land, and many of my regular routines go out the window. Or maybe it’s simply because after keeping all the balls in the air for the duration of a ten week term, I’m well and truly ready to let them drop.
Regardless of the reason, as the years go by I am finding it far easier to forgive myself when my intentions do not manifest themselves into fullblown technicolour actions. So when I realised it had been over a month since I had last posted here — despite my intention to examine a Divine Quality from the Bhagavad Gita every two weeks — I was not particularly fazed. Rather than stressing about it (which I probably…no, let’s make that DEFINITELY…would have done in the past), my response recently has been far more Imma let dat go…
And believe me, folks, my new approach is a far more liberating and wholesome response than the riot of mental chatter and self-chastisement that I would have engaged in previously. Not only have I decided that fretting over something I haven’t done is not worth my time or effort, but I’ve also elected not to try to make up for my shortcomings. Yes, I had planned to look into a couple more Divine Qualities — I think they were meant to be Religious Rites (and seriously, when it comes to those, you do you), and Self-discipline (which I generally have in spades, though once again I appreciate the irony of the timing), but now?
Nup. Not gonna.
“Simples,” as those funny meerkats on the TV would say.
Which brings me, without fuss, to the Divine Quality I am going to look at — Straighforwardness.
Oh, you didn’t get those posts done? So what. Move on. What’s the next Divine Quality?
STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS.
I know, right?
Delicious irony, yet again.
It’s a bit like Fearlessness, the Divine Quality that inspired this whole dive into the Vedas. Straightforwardness is a quality I really did not expect to find on the list. I mean, growing up Catholic I knew that there was a Saint for just about everything — Saint Vitus for sore throats, Saint Florian for chimneysweeps, even an Egyptian hermit called Saint Anthony the Abbot who is apparently the patron saint of pizza makers, fire fighters and pigs.
St Anthony the Abbot and a…pig…
But a Patron Saint of Straightforwardness?
Nup. Not ever.
How good would it be, though, if straightforwardness was heralded as a virtue more often? How amazing would it be if politicians gave straightforward answers? If the pundits explained things simply? If my children actually acknowledged, up front, that they were not going to clean their rooms?
Maybe it’s because I’ve never been backward in coming forward that I find straightforwardness so appealing as a Divine Quality. Honestly, the fact that the Bhagavad Gita suggests that being straighforward brings you closer to the divine truly tickles my fancy. It’s so…practical.
Just tell it like it is, and walk your talk, and you’ll be on the path to divinity? That’s awesome! Bring it on.
Because life is messy.
Regarless of our intentions — good, bad, indifferent — I suspect life will ALWAYS be messy. Probably at least twenty seven kinds of messy all at once, if I’m honest.
So if you ever feel like you’re hurtling towards the abyss, or you find yourself mimicking a meercat in a cravat and ruby-coloured crushed velvet dressing gown, or (even worse) you end up hunched on a riverbank an in ill-fitting robe beside a pig, try a little straightforwardness.
Blue Jai: 