Jack of all trades ...

Zaha Hadid 

Further to last post's contemplations on Clarity, I have discovered many things.

Post-post I went out in search of wisdom. The desire to have one crystal-clear image of what I was to do and be, was tightening my ribs like a concrete straightjacket.  The internal nego-mantra kept brain-circling in every quiet moment  "If I could just see what it looks like. If I could just get a picture of what it is, then it will all come together." (I have read A LOT of self-help and strategic planning shizz, so apparently envisioning your outcome is critical to success. Everybody says so.)

So I went to a psychic. Of course, I did.
She was brilliant.

Wisdom from the psychic-with-the-spiritual-name in no particular order:

• Bring your energy back in from all the people who are leeching it (I don't think she actually said leeching, but I like the dramatic effect of the word and its parasitical inferences) 
• Be grounded
• Listen to your own wisdom
• She had me imagine I was talking to my dad. 'He' told me to let go of fear and take a risk.
• She also commented that just because I am good at stuff doesn't mean it's my calling 
• And she clearly said to me "Let go of the desire to know what it's all going to be and go with the flow".

I can't say I give a tinkling toss whether she was genuinely psychic or not. I wafted out of there like the mother of a toddler leaving a day spa to have a coffee alone before heading back to motherhood. Like any good psychic or psychologist, she had made me feel better about the existential crisis I was experiencing and had offered the illusion of control.  And she gave me a big hug at the end.

So, there I was feeling a little less desperate and a bit happier to sit with my messy mind. But still, the desire for 'an answer' was limiting my breath. Like some religious revelation, I knew it was going to come at me, the big shazaam. Unfortunately, the universe had gone all tight ass with the revelations, and no vision was forthcoming.

Next, I went to a business coach, also with a spiritual name, who is nothing less than human spun-gold. 

She asked me lots of hard questions. Like "What do you want?" and "How does (insert various scenarios and ideas) make you feel". I squirmed around in my comfortable chair, shifting and itching, from sitting arms crossed and legs outstretched, to head in hands and elbows on knees. All the time doing lots of fast-talking without ever finishing a sentence or entirely forming an idea.  

"It's all so, so ... messy." I gacked out like a hairball from a cat. 

And that beautiful, gilded spirit-woman gently asked me this:

"So look at your mess", gesturing in big circles at the circular mat in an invitation to visualise it,  "How does it make you feel when you resist this mess when you just want to tidy its messiness." 

Then she looked up at me and laughed "Look at your body language."

I was as close to the foetal position as the comfortable chair would allow. 

Resisting the mess, I felt tight, thick on the chest. Short of breath. Panicked.  Like when the kids were small, and the housework got so rank you stopped people from visiting wanting no witness to your weet-bix-encrusted shame. 

"Now take a minute" she guides gently, "And see how you feel when you stop resisting the mess. When you can sit with it and accept it."

I tried it on. Squirmed. Exhaled and Answered:

"I feel ... relieved and excited, like the mess is where the gold is, and how it is full of possibilities."

Checking myself, I saw that my body had moved into power pose, hands together gently in between relaxed knees, shoulders soft, heart open.

My life is a messy scramble, just like the Secret Language of Birthdays predicted ( Th ebook tells me I was born on the 'day of the Scrambler'). In accepting the mess, I could drop the shame, stop fighting it and enjoy it. 

An insightful friend quizzed me late on Saturday night about my Clarity post, her bullshit-o-meter clearly registering high levels in the immediate area - "but wouldn't you just be bored doing the same thing forever?"

Yes, my wise and insightful friend, I bloody well would. 

As much as I fight it, I will always be far more Margaret Olley than Zaha Hadid.

So you see I actually have discovered many things. Like did you know that the full saying goes:

"Jack of all trades, master of none is oftentimes better than master of one".

 

Hello, Gorgeous!

Today I am going to write the words "Hello, Gorgeous!" on my mirror and let it be the first and last thing I say to myself every day.

Fuck self-hatred. 
It is the prison gates of my own making, stopping all progress on the superhighway to where I want to be.
These days I can even see the vision of my destination through its bastard blockade. 
It is the only thing barring my way forward and I am the only thing holding it in place.

Today I am grasping the iron with both hands and I will cast it down,
to present myself to life with a visceral, heart strong - "Ta -dah!"

Then I will step over the gate and keep on walking.



What is the first thing you are going to say to yourself today?
When I see you I will say "Hello, Gorgeous!"


Thank you for the inspiration and generosity I have so gratefully received this week:

Christine Storm: Chrysalis Business Consulting
Perfect PItch : Natasha Cica and Rosalie Martin

and Elizabeth Gilbert

Things I have learnt from Musical Theatre #1: the hardest working kids in town

Five months of my recent life have been consumed and invigorated by "Evita". A local theatre company gave me a shot at performing in the ensemble of their production and it has been my making.

I like to think that this blog, while often seemingly random and themeless, is a place for me to share what I learn. Evita has been an education.

The cast was made up of around 50 people aged from 11 to 'a lady never divulges her age'. Most of the cast had a teen in their number. I'd like to share with you what I have learned about these young people.

First I would like to ask you: When was the last time you committed to something, something outside of full-time work or study and committed to it for up to 12 hours a week for 5 months? A commitment that required focus, discipline, mental, creative and physical challenges and constant connection and interaction with 50 people working as a team. When was the last time a commitment like this required a final week of 50 hours in confined space with those 50 people you have spent 12 hours a week with, plus crew, and this was on top of your full-time work/study?

And in particular, when was the last time you did all this with professionalism, commitment and focus? Striving for excellence, all the while keeping your humour and squeezing the most fun that could possibly be squeezed from every second?

(I know, right? I couldn't do it. I was stuffed. I needed days off work and a lot of naps.)

So this is what I have learnt about young people in theatre.

These young people are responsible, committed. They turned up sick. They turned up exhausted.  They were vulnerable and anxious. They were kind and caring to each other. And so bloody funny. They turned up and turned it on every day.

Parents of teens who say they want to pursue a career in theatre or music or drama, can I just say to you, encourage them. Care for them. Please don't tell them they need something sensible 'to fall back on'. Acknowledge their dedication and hard work as well as their beauty and talent.
You know, with support, they might just crack it.

Or they might not. They may get to 25, be broke and decide that they haven't made it and that its time to do something sensible. (oh my god, so many years to be sensible.). At least they would have spent their youth working their arses off, surrounded by creative, stimulating people, pushing, challenging and exposing their vulnerability every day and having a fkn good time doing it.

If they can do that, lets face it, they can do anything.

Better to try than to get to 25 having done 'the sensible thing' and being broke anyway.
Better to try than to get to 25 and feel that you lost yourself on the way.

Better to try than get to 42 and grieve for a version of life unlived.

My hat is off to you, young people of musical theatre. You are brave and bold.
Seize it, relish it, pursue it now. Being 'sensible' is highly overrated.

Parents of young people who want to pursue a career in music, theatre and the arts, please don't fear for their future. You can have faith and be so proud of them. 

They are the hardest working kids in town.

Photo courtesy of Encore Theatre Company
 

If not me, who?

Emma Watson in her recent speech to the UN - "If not me, who?If not now, when?"

What an incredible call to action and resolve from this remarkable young woman. Yesterday I listened to another young woman tell of her belief that if she has a baby it will be the death of her career. Not only that, but she would be 'letting down' all the colleagues and mentors who support her career and have invested in her.
She and the women in the room accepted this as fact.

Women are so manipulated by their desire to be competent, to 'do the right thing', to 'play nice' that they do not see power and choices, only compromises. That the value, possibilities for success and ambitions of a woman decreases when they have children is true, but that it has to be this way, is an utter lie.

I am tired of holding back, of 'playing nice' of being more concerned about appearing too aggressive, too forthright, even 'unattractive' and so reverting to holding my tongue and being meek.

I could claim my power and choose my life.

Why not?


Women suffer from their own limiting beliefs as much as by socially imposed limits. We are excellent at 'playing the game'. That 'feminism' is a negative even shameful word, is testament to that. As is the disgraceful fact that men and women in the media now actively seek to undermine her words and cause by sexualising and exposing Emma Watson

We buy the magazines.
We watch the shows and the films.
We worship celebrity.
We talk about 'thigh gap'. (What man in the world gives a rats ass about 'thigh gap')
We accept and condone the proliferation of pornography.
We accept the conventions of beauty and worthiness.
We self hate.
We fear making ourselves too big.
We apologise.
We bring each other down.
We let our daughters do the same.

I have done it all.


But we don't have to.
As citizens of the developed world we have more power than we realise.

In the west, women have gained so much. But we hold ourselves back.
We do not have to subscribe to a masculine paradigm of beauty/work/wealth=success.
We have choices.
We can influence.

Imagine a society where parenting, community, love, expression, age, care, children, art, culture, individualism and connection were valued as much as sexiness and the size of your pay check?

We can take up space.
The acceptance of limitations and polite apologies for speaking up and expressing opinion can stop.
We don't have to play that way.

This needs to happen.
For the millions of girls to be married as children.
For the millions of girls who are denied basic education.
For the millions of girls in our own countries who see no future, only welfare and abuse.
For the young men who take their own lives rather than express what they see as weakness.


We can stand firm in our own shoes.
We can hold back the polite apology.
We can refuse to be limited.

Hold each other up, men and women together.
'Be bloody, bold and resolute.'

If not us, who?
If not now, when?

Why I write

Why I Write

I write to amuse myself, to see what comes out or, as someone famous once said, 'to find out what I am really thinking'. To be quite honest, I think my thoughts are better on paper. Words stumble and fumble out of me and I lower my eyes and send out unspoken apologies when I try and speak. Writing is clearer, more strident, more ... what I really think.

I write because if I don't write I become dark and mean and bitter and twisted and frustrated and I froth at the mouth and spit fire.

I write because it puts what's inside of me on the outside of me.
Its sweet relief and gentle progress. Word therapy.

I write because I am shite at drawing and painting.
Because words are the way I paint pictures.
Words are the bomb.
Words are bombs.

Writing leaves a mark. Good writing leaves an indelible mark.
To write a picture that another person can look at and say 'Hey, hang on ... that's me!'  - now thats something.

How does my writing differ from others in my genre?

I am not sure what genre I fall into? As a blog writer I think my writing is different as it aims only to share a moment with the reader. More forthright blogs that teach or tell or have themes can be so fantastic, but my blog writing does not seek to teach or instruct in any way. I am just sharing thoughts and ideas as they come in a stream of consciousness. My only agenda is the desire to connect.


Why do I write what I do?
Last year I lost my father and I couldn't stop myself from writing about that. Its not easy to read other people's difficult emotions, I know that. But after one of my posts a woman wrote this to me "I lost my husband suddenly, inexplicably, almost six months ago. Your beautiful words here sum up exactly how I feel. Thank you." 

A few short months earlier my beloved aunt died and I couldn't stop myself writing about that. My cousins read my blog post as my aunt's eulogy. 

I wrote two posts years ago - one about restlessness and the other about presence and they struck a chord with other women. 

Thats why I write what I do. In the hope that what I express touches and connects me to someone else. That the story I am writing is not just my story and that what I write could mean something to someone I have never even met. 


What am I working on?
Today I started work on a novel - a story for young girls. In ten months time I will have a first draft in my hands. 

I write for my luthier at www.philipsmithluthier.com

I have joined a Writing group and now I call myself a 'writer', just in case its true.

And  I have invited a friend to work with me to turn this piece  into something. She has agreed to help me create a book from it, agreed to turn the words into actual pictures and I will watch her in awe.

How does your writing process work?

A recent course called "Unlocking Creativity"  taught me the discipline of short, timed bursts of writing to themes. No time to edit or proof as you go. Silence that inner critic and "Just get it out, baby, get it all out!". This process taught me a LOT.


Did you ever watch the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk where she describes the Greek concept of the muse and the Roman concept of 'genius' as a being or force separate from yourself? A force that inspires and generates the work of writers and artists? Where the inspiration works through you and is not of you? I get that. 

When I write blog posts I lie sequestered in my bed - (my favourite place in all the world) with my scruffy dog curled up like a hairy doughnut nearby.  I look out of the window, through the magnolia tree with its fairy flowers or its barren stalks and  up to that sweet little nest at its top.  I take in a great big breathe then I write ... whatever. I have been known to type a whole post on that ridiculously small keyboard on my phone. Being alone and writing relatively uninterrupted, in our tiny Smith house bursting with five people and a dog, is the most lavish luxury I have. I dream of a study, one's very own room, just like Virginia, but until then ...

This post has been written as part of a 'blog hop'. Bloggers all over the interwebs have written posts about why they write.  Thanks to Deb at Sew Craft Goodness for inviting me to participate. Part of the hop is to invite two more bloggers to participate, but I think all the bloggers I know have already been a part of it.But,if you would like to post on why you write, please leave a message in the comments and I will link you here with a photo and a bio! 

Me and Ken Burns

The luthier made a truly stunning thing - a baroque instrument, a viola da gamba. He diligently took photographs of the entire process from the rough bits of wood to final completed instrument. I gathered up the shots and made a wee film of it with iMovie. It was a fantastic process. I didn't really know what I was doing, but nutting out how to crop shots and drop in music and lengthen clips and zoom and all was really fun.  Jane Campion, eat your heart out! Well, maybe not quite yet.


What the luthier does never fails to astound me. His work is superb and sculptural and fine. This instrument, with its beautiful Baroque quirks, caught my heart. The size (smaller than a cello), shape (flat backed with sharp edges) and its extraordinary range (7-gut strings of sound, - and when they say gut, they do mean gut) and its unique, sweet feur de lys embellishment, handpainted with love by the luthier, all came together to make an incredible objet d'art. 


So, if you would like to see how to make a viol in 4 and a half minutes, please do watch this little film, cropped and edited with love by moi. 


iMovie. So good!

I do just have one question though. Why do they call that zoom-y, croppy effect "Ken Burns"? Who is this Ken Burns? Anyone?

I obviously have no idea, but his natty, zoom-y effects are quite jazzy. Thanks Ken!

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.


Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.


Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.


Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.


Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.


You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.


Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?


Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise. 

Maya Angelou

Saturday Life

 

 

I love rain on a Saturday.
Staying in bed is legit on a rainy Saturday.
My bed is my favourite place in the world and the heart of Saturday morning Smith family life. 

This morning I have lain in state, me and my tablet, while the family has moved about me. 

I wish I had set up a time lapse film of this morning. It would have gone like this:
the kids coming in and out,
two little snugglers curling up next to me to watch a video of cute dogs,
then bustling out to play,
then coming in fighting
and being chased out by their father,
the Luthier bringing in coffee,
then breakfast
and the local rag or "two minutes silence" as a friend's father dubbed it,
the dog curled up on the end of the bed,
then next to me on the Luthier's side,
then curled up beside a kid on the end again,
barking to go out,
kids loom binding together on the bed,

Killing themselves at their own jokes,

the teen guy looking through catalogues and remarking "Oooh, carpets!

- said no thirteen year old boy ever.

Now the teen is beside me watching Tripod and Doc Brown comedy videos on YouTube and the two smalls have sorted all their loom bands into colours.

And what have I been doing all this time,  I hear you ask? Well, while sitting on my flat ass, propped on pillows, shifting occasionally when my legs go to sleep and happily watching the family flow in and out and all around me, I have done some research for the Luthier's trip to Malta. And may I say, She looks alright, Malta. My Mum lived there in her teens in the 50s. Can you imagine that? 1950s frocks and hand bags, dos and shoes on a tiny picturesque rock in the middle of the Mediterranean. What a romantic adventure for a teenage girl from post-war Plymouth! Her father was in charge of the Supply office for the British Navy under Lord Mountbatten and she attended a Catholic girl's school where their uniforms were individually tailored. She tells us stories of weekends out on yachts with officers and aristocratic girls with improbable names brought back from the Raj.

"If you love culture, history, and excellent weather you’ll love living in Malta. The Mediterranean Sea, a warm and sunny climate, a peaceful lifestyle waiting to be lived–that’s what to expect if you choose to live in Malta." http://internationalliving.com/countries/malta/living-in-malta/

I just mentally moved to Malta.

The Luthier has been invited to be the Violin Maker in Residence and a Juror at the Malta International Music Competition.   One of his bows will be donated as a prize for the Violin competition. Competitors, musicians of many kinds of instruments, come from all over Europe, Asia and the US for the week. The opportunity for Phil to attend came through his profile on LinkedIn - who knew that LinkedIn would workpiece that? Exciting times!

A time lapse film of me and the Luthier packing up and heading to Malta for a week of Mediterranean-culture-soaked-bliss is my next wish. Fingers crossed for tonight's mega draw.

I don't imagine my bed would be my favourite place if I were in Malta.

This island's bedscape is now covered in toys, catalogues, a wet towel, kid's pyjamas and dressing gowns and my bedside table has collected an ex-breakfast bowl and a couple of dirty, empty coffee cups.  My teen is onto "Wicked" and Hugh Jackman-in-musical-theatre videos on his laptop  next to me now. And the dogue has returned, to curl up cat-like at my feet.

I love my bed and I love the internet - it makes my bed even better.

 

 

Something Beautiful

Sometimes you need to see something beautiful. 

'Illumination' is an exhibition of the work of Tasmanian landscape painter, Philip Wolfhagan currently showing at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in a Hobart. 

Philip's work not only illuminates but transports to the wild, Tasmanian sky, scrub and sea. His 'scapes evoke the sense that our island exists right at the edge of civilisation and our rugged Wild only just tolerates White Man's intrusion. Being in Tasmania's unforgiving Nature makes you feel that prehistory for this island was not that long ago. 

I walked into this exhibition and did not want to leave. It applied itself like a balm to my grief wounds, the soothing familiarity, the light, air and earth of this wild island was all there, like family and home.

A short film plays of Philip Wolfhagan and his work and I am seduced by the life of the artist. Walking into his studio, pulling out a huge canvas, mixing his earthy hues with beeswax, taking the pallet knife to it and letting the blues, whites, greys and blacks reveal the torrid Tasmanian sky or the turgid sea all to an orchestral soundtrack that fills his lightwashed workspace. 

Sometimes we all need to see something beautiful. Beauty to lift the spirit, to illuminate, to resonate, it is essential. 

Being the Mother of a Son

Being the mother of a son, or sons in my case, I have found, involves lots of dirt, action heroes, big collections of collectibles, a lot of video games, sports gear, food preparation and more Adam Sandler movies than I care to mention, 

It's a big job. Don't you think? To mother a son. To bring up a man. Hopefully a good man? 

Good. 'Good'. I am rolling the word around my tongue and brain. 'Good'... really? I am not sure that 'good' is my aspiration for my sons. What is 'good' anyway? 

Apparently, according to a random on WikiHow, being a 'good son' involves being nice to your siblings even though you hate them, doing all your homework, being loving towards your parents and not using bad language.

Bollocks!! 

Not 'good' then.  Particularly in view of that criteria, as I consider it an essential life lesson for my children to learn the art of contextual swearing, and am proud to say that their skills are coming along nicely.  

Anyway, my boys are better than good, my boys are gold. But they do know how to be good, which I think is very important. My boys do behave well ... at school.  At home things get a bit more loud, messy and swear-y obviously. 

It is, on one level, gratifying to know that my boys can behave well, can 'be good'.  My boys, they are not very boys-y boys. They are definitely boys, but they are quite gentle my lads, most of the time. And funny, they are really funny, by accident and on purpose. One is also intolerably messy and inclined to pick up dead animals with his bare hands and the other loves hockey and skateboards and cartooning and they dig music and dancing and are loving and kind. I think all that is good. 

We have brought our lads up to work hard and be kind, and to tread through life gently with consideration, but as we have seen all too much lately, the world, still a man's world, often doesn't play that way.  So have we really done our lads a disservice? We often watch our gentle boys railroaded by their alpha peers, particularly our eldest. He has been pushed around a bit by boys who have been encouraged 'to be boys', in that rough-and-tumble-wrestle-and-shout-playing-violent-video-games-and-calling-girls-'bitches'-kind of way. These boys leave my boys a little knocked around and a bit confused.

My first son has had to pick his way through a minefield of bullies and more alpha males in his classes and I am impressed to say he has started to figure it out. He has the gift of perseverance, my boy, dogged persistence, and he is using it to find his place in the world of boys. He is figuring out when to stand up for himself, when 'to hold 'em and when to fold 'em'.  (And did I tell you he is the lead in the school musical this year? Thought I'd just drop that in.) 

With the second son, just as if he was born with wings, he has fallen on his feet. He is in a class with lovely boys who, while they themselves are gung-ho crazy, give him no grief for sitting out of the lunchtime football tussle in favour of going to play with the Preps, as is his want.  There were a few issues with argy-bargy in the playground recently and I asked his teacher if my quiet little lad was ok, if he got caught up in the rough and tumble of his peer group? She assured me that he was very good at being clear when he didn't want to get involved in the other boys' shenanigans and that the other boys always accepted that. If only life always worked out that way. He is lucky, my lad. 

I love the gentleness of my boys and that they will review one of their little sister's drawings earnestly with  "That is beautiful, Sophie" and that Joshie has been known to brush her hair and read her a story at bedtime. I love that they get angry and scream and swear but rarely raise a hand to each other.  I love that they don't define feminine and masculine in the same way that tradition or society does. I love that they can run around, dig holes, hit balls, build stuff, be noisy and tell each other to 'get stuffed' (in the contextually appropriate moment, of course), and that they can be quiet and creative, affectionate, sweet and soft, at least some of the time. 

Sometimes, though, I wonder, should we have taught our two little men to wrestle and wrangle and be tough? Should I be concerned that my number two son, stands in the back of the soccer field during a match, ignoring the ball as he is too busy re-enacting the entire choreography from the Bellas "I Saw The Sign/Turn the Beat Around" mash up  routine from 'Pitch Perfect' while his team mates are hell bent on the ball and the goals? That in the school nursery rhyme play he wants to audition for the part of  "Jill"? Should we berate ourselves for not pushing our sons towards a more traditional masculinity so that they can mix it with the big boys when they are men? Naaaah.  I never held much respect for the 'boys wiill be boys' philosophy.  And, no matter what philosophy I hold, my boys can only be themselves. 

But its not easy for the gentle guys in a world where the alpha man (and woman) is still such a dominant force. So what have we set our sons up for? Happily, I have faith that our generation and the younger boys, like Sacha's friends, are much more accepting and comfortable with making room for difference than the generations that have gone before. But then again, I am not sure that most men aren't in fact just like my boys, pretty lovely: kind, committed men who love their families, friends and communities. Most of the men I know certainly are. But sheesh, the ones who aren't so kind sure make a lotta noise, don't they? 

There is nothing I can teach my sons about becoming a man. What I can teach them, I hope,  is how to look after themselves, how to live and love wholeheartedly and what it is to be loved wholeheartedly by their Mum, (and, of course, the right moment to use the words 'shit, bugger and douchebag'.)

My aspiration for my golden sons is not to be 'good', but to be themselves and to live their lives as they see fit. To be wholehearted men of joy, kindness, pride and passion. 

I wonder if my mother-in-law realises how lucky she is? 

Thank you to Lexi from Pottymouthmama for inviting me to join in on blogging about 'Being the mother of a son'. Other great blogs participating are:

PottyMouthMama <http://www.pottymouthmama.blogspot.com.au>

Checks and Spots <http://www.checksandspots.com/>  Kootoyoo <http://www.kootoyoo.com> Sadie and Lance http://sadieandlance.blogspot.com.au/

One Flew Over <http://www.oneflewover-oneflewover.com/> 

Pigeon Pair <http://www.pigeon-pair.com/> 

Mogantosh <http://www.mogantosh.blogspot.com.au/> 

Hugo and Elsa <http://www.hugoandelsa.com/> Gourmet Girlfriend <http://www.gourmetgirl-friend.blogspot.com.au/> 

Local Talent

This one is not to be missed.

Grand

This lovely lady arrived today. My beautiful Aunty Sue bequeathed to me my Grandmother's piano. She told me awhile ago that this was her intention. She thought we would most appreciate it, us Smiths, being a keen musical bunch. At the time, I had no idea that it would be arriving so soon.

The piano is a grand old lady. The story goes that my grandmother, Dorothy, loved a singalong and was a star whistler. She would stand by the piano and whistle to entertain her family and guests. I never met my Grandmother and I really wish I had. It's only since becoming a parent that I have realised what I missed out on, growing up grandparent-less, and how hard that must have been for my parents of 7.

My Dad always loves a singalong too and would often burst into a little Al Jolson or Johnny Mercer in a deep, warm baritone, weird, ancient songs to a little girl of the 70s. I just opened the piano stool and there they all were, hits by Bing Crosby, an Al And Johnny and old time movie hits, ageing sheet music unearthed like treasure. And in the bottom of the stool, I found this beautiful sheet music that brought a smile and a tear. The music for 'Georgia On My Mind' ... my song. Men of Sue and Dad's vintage would often break into this one when they learnt my name. And Dad (and Ray Charles) would sing this one just for me, I am sure.

Thanks Sue. It's such an grand legacy. It's an honour to have the Sutton song and spirit in the house. A grand old lady passed on from two very grand old ladies.

Great Things

Walking to Duck Reach on your own on a sunny Autumn morning.

Walking and listening to podcasts.

Finding art on a rusty door.

This speech made by David William on the Future of Creative Arts Education in Australian Universities.

This workshop given by Marcus Buckngham on Oprah. 

Spotify.

This podcast from ABC's Life Matters "The 91 Year Old Midwife'. 

The luthier's Camerata Obscura and their beautiful, sell out concert last Sunday. 

Trusting your instincts. 

Dad coming home from hospital yesterday.

Daring Greatly

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” - Teddy Roosevelt, 1910

My Auntie Sue died this morning. 

The dreaded cancer took her too soon, robbing her of the 80th birthday she would have celebrated this year. 

Sue was a woman of spirit, a woman who dared greatly. She always lived in the arena of life, always, and pulled others in there too, with her organisation and boldness, all the while telling stories and handing out faith and encouragement. 

She was a dedicated mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend, as her abundant loved ones will readily testify.

Her humour was wicked and  irreverent and she sometimes manifested a Dame Edna twang, adored and copied by my  sisters and me. She handed out whisky. dirty jokes and love in bucketfuls and her business acumen was undeniable. 

A woman who dared to divorce in the days when people didn't, to raise her sons proudly, to start a new life in a new town and build successful businesses, a woman who gave her later years to her island home, to worthy causes and as a mentor to fledglings at their beginnings. 

Her capacity for 'being there' was incredible. Throughout my father's continuing decline over the last decade, she was a rock for my mother and a regular and dependable hand to hold for my father. 

Her life story is extraordinary and ordinary . She was an Australian woman  of her time who dared to live life with gusto.

She  was full of joy and inspired joy in all of us.

Her life is to be honoured and celebrated. 

Goodbye, Auntie Sue. we will miss you. 

Luthier - Go Behind the Scenery

Keep your eye out for the Luthier's Violin No. 3 on this excellent ad selling our wee state.  How exciting to be included with icons like MONA, Cradle Mountain. David Foster and that dude with the alpaca. It fills my heart when the luthier gets a bit of love for the work he does. It took more than 300 hours of hand making passion and an incredible amount of skill to make that beautiful instrument.  A little love for the work goes a very long way.

If you can't see the YouTube screen, click in the link
http://youtu.be/eziM99bFSj0

Casual

Today I cease to be a permanent employee and become a casual employee.
This decision feels so right, I can't even begin to tell you.

I went to visit my Dad last night and, while he struggles to articulate, he made the effort to say to me "You have a business brain."
Lets hope so Dad. lets hope so.

This last week has seen family arrive from interstate and overseas, coming to see Dad after his fall and support Mum and be together. That is good.

I look at my neice and nephews and think again how time is really speeding past. A nephew we met as a boy is now a handsome young man.  The twin small boys are now school boys and world class minecraft experts. And Sophie cried when they left.

And my brother taught me about these, he has purchased a few.

Laugh?

I nearly ...

Still, even if its buying ostrich pillows that floats your boat, it really is too short not to live it just exaclty as you mean to.