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".

 

Resolve

Yesterday a friend reminded me of my blog, so I came back to visit. 

This archive of blog posts is like an adventure through the wilds of my psyche, my sometimes anxious and often distorted mind. It is a trip through the seeking and questioning, advising and anxsting, through joy and my endless confusion. 

The blog tells one story of a lot of years riding blind on the rough, dark, circular route of the shame train.  

New Year's Day is a classic date for goal setting and resolutions. 

Yeah  ... nah. This year I just want to roll with life and see where it goes. 

The engine has pulled into the 2017 station and I am disembarking sans baggage. 

The New Year arrives and my web feeds race past with memes and goals and resolutions, screeching and blaring out announcements through the loudspeaker of 'should':

Eat this. Make this. Work this. Plan this. Wear this. Lose this. Say this. 

You gotta do more, you gotta be more you gotta get more, you gotta have more.

And never forget that your fundaments are flawed so fix yourself, fix yourself, fix yourself...

  

Enough ... enough. Fuck it ... enough. 

 

Silence the soul bashing screeches and blares. For me, its time to look in the mirror and say:

"I am ok."

My life is not a fantasy, it is a reality and its ok. Actually, it is grouse. 

I am fat, but I am phat. 

A bit dishevelled, a bit broke and neck deep in the motherload of love-and-family-mess I am, and I would rather be here than anywhere. 

I don't know which train I want to get on next.
But truckloads of opportunities are arriving and departing all the time.  Turns out, they had been queuing up at the self-doubt barrier the whole time, waiting for the wall to come down. 

It is unnecessary to endlessly travel around the same circle of demented track and mourn the tragic loss of hours and tears to anxiety and self-decimation. Plenty of other trips to take. 

2017 is a mystery ticket to life. I am gonna jump on board, relax, look out the window and just see what happens.

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
 

Your measure

What is your worth?
A life - a heart, a mind, a soul,... a smile, a whisper.

Are you here to be weighed and measured and attributed a final value amount?

Do you direct debit your subscription to the daily posts of the meritocrats who sell you the equation - worth=wealth, at a price you don't know you are paying?

And is your faith in the zealots who preach the noise that worth rises and falls with the number on a scale? As the numbers rise do you feel your worthlessness weighing you down in loathing and lovelessness?

Are you extroverted, sales-driven, devotees of the cult of personality singing upbeat hallelujahs more value-laden than the quiet-loving shy boy, demanding nothing, in his world of ideas and dreams? Whose genius exists in a wry twist of the lip, not picked up by tests and assessments and so easily obscured in the ceaseless pings and bleats, notifications and alerts.

And what of thought? Idle thought. Of ideas and dreams? Are they to be deemed, to be measured in applicable potential commercialisation, profit and outcomes? Are the only merits those that are measurable?

Work=worth
Wealth=worth
Fame=worth
And the wealth of likes and followers and attentions and validations=
Are these our concrete measures of our value? Our KPIs?

Your face your waist your handbag your shoes your bike your house your means this brand that brand paleo fasting cleansing detoxifying - do these value add to your net?

Have you worked and accumulated and ticked enough boxes to attain sufficient 'worthy'?

What are we selling down the river of measurability?
Art, language, history, music -ideas for their own sake? How do we convert these to measurable outcomes, to their dollar weight to prove that they are worthy of holding on to?

Is a child's education just a funnel towards greater worthiness? Its benefits only those that can be scaled and measured and standardised. Producing job-market fodder for a future workplace whose parameters are beyond prediction.

How do you measure the worth of a teacher whose eyes and soul whispers to a child 'I see you and I understand you.' What value can be statistically assessed and estimated for a community around your child educating them and telling them 'who you are is all you need to be.'

I am worth weary.
It is an illusion, a construction, a fabrication.
You exist as do I.
There is only value in that.

To be. To breathe. To feel.
That heartsong moment of connection in love and spirit.

A perfect melody drifting from a child at their work.
A breeze-drifting lace-leaf, yellowed by the season, twisting its dance by my window.
A bubble of laughter, unsupressible, exploding through your nostrils and filling the library-silence with cackle.


I seek a renaissance of self-determination and the worthless pursuit of joy for its own sake.

My measure. My love. My life.

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.

 

 

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.

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.

Happy 2013!

Passion, love, laughter and fun, may this  new year overflow with it.

Happy 2013!

Pretty

A friend sent this to me today. I think its a treasure. I am putting it here because I want to save it. I want to keep it somewhere safe. Somewhere where I can stumble across it when my daughter is 13-ish, so that I can play it to her in the hope that maybe one day she will get it.

Garden

Spring draws me out of doors and into the garden. The promise of blooms and growth lure me outside to stand, arms crossed, in deep meditation, staring, staring at the flora.

My gaze, having rested intent on a yellow-centered daisy, self-sown, now shifts to scan the fairy magnolia's lilac blossoms, searching, as if all the answers to life's questions are certain to flit past.

We stand, me and my folded arms. We are alert and poised - ready to pounce when enlightenment inevitably alights on the pretty petals.

Idle parenting

I just read this and am now converted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/familyadvice/3355719/Idle-parenting-means-happy-children.html

When I became a parent I became so bloody uptight and anxious and earnest and so, so boring. I know that it wasn't compulsory but nice and earnest and martyr-y just seemed to go with the territory, with the role of 'the good mother'.

It hasn't done me or the kids many favours, I'm generally irritable and my kids are not confident and secure and living their own lives, but spend half the time stuck to me like 'shit on a blanket' as my potty-mouthed aunt would say.

It's time to chill the fuck out and have a good time. Leave the kids alone to become themselves. Who's with me?

Read

This week the lurgy was rife chez Smith. A nasty, chesty cough laid the luthier and I very low. But good things come from everything and my ills gave me a day in bed alone, so I took the opportunity to read a book.

I caught sight of this particular book last Sunday in our local bookstore. The cover photographs of shoes, vegies and a weatherboard house looked somehow familiar. Then the author's name drew my attention and I cried out in delight 'Look Soph, it's a book by the lady who delivers our vegies.' Sophie was fairly non-plussed, but I was well-chuffed to be leaving the store with a copy of 'A Story of Seven Summers' by Hilary Burden.

On my sick day the book was a welcome distraction. It drew me in like a warm hug and snuggled under my new doona cover, I devoured Hilary's memoir so voraciously that I didn't notice the morning slip away until I turned, sadly the final page, left wanting more.

I could describe Hilary's tale here, her move from being a single woman living a glamorous life creating new magazines in London, to building a beautiful life on the island. And I could tell you how she moved to a Nuns' house in Karoola (one of the most beautiful places on Earth) and, with her gorgeous island-discovered love, Barn, created a business sourcing and delivering incredible local produce to lucky people like me. I could also mention all the local island producers who benefit so much from their work. But I will leave the details for you to discover in the book, because you must read it. You must.

You know how some books change you? You read them and the message they give you stays with you and becomes a filter for your way of thinking. This book was not like that. This story did not change me, but did something much more profound that will certainly stay with me for a long time. This book made me more certain of who I truly am.

You see, what I took from this book is that bravery, the courage to follow your heart and instincts, even when they fly in the face of convention or of your own past desires and behavior is essential to making a great life for yourself. As is the courage to open up to possibilities and to back yourself all the way that you know what you need to do and that you can make your dreams a reality.

Hilary and her partner,Barn, have created an enviable life. They have created a stunning simple life where work, family, love, passions and life-at-large are intertwined. They are not separate states, one having to be put on hold, in order to attend to the others.

That is what I hope for. The connection of passions and work that don't detract from family but are just an extension of it, of me . 'A Story of Seven Summers' reminded me that this way of being may take some hard work, but that it is totally possible.

Hilary's words reminded me of all the things I love about this small island - its beauty and it's possibilities. and that there are many people who have lived huge lives around the globe and have returned, with all their stories and experiences, for the love of the lifestyle Tasmania can provide.

Hilary Burden's 'A Story of Seven Summers' brought me to tears, in a good way. It certainly made me feel better. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

After a full, yes, I said it, a FULL night's sleep, this morning is looking pretty darn rosie! I'm not saying its the first in 11 and a half years, but damn, it feels like it.

Not only a full night of sleep was had, but when I woke up I was in bed alone. Luxury! I lay in the grey light listening to living room rumbles and the 'Yo Gabba Gabba' theme tune, meditating and recalling my whacky dream.

I dreamt that we lived at work and my computer and phone had been stolen. We raced off to find them and as we drove the environment changed from suburban Launceston to a tropical coastline with us riding scooters on roads curving between jungle and the turquoise sea. I was a bit sad to have lost the photos of the kids on the computer, but apart from that, in the tropical sunshine, I couldn't care less.

Hmmm, there something in that for all of us.

Happy Saturday to you!!!

Diamond

Craft on

We had our first Launny Brown Owls get together on Saturday. We haven't met for a millenia. Jobs, kids and winter hibernation were allowed to get in the way. It was a modest gathering but seeing people make awesome stuff again, has inspired me to get my craft on again.

Today I went patch crazy!!!

What do you reckon? Stitched by hand with love.