Writing lessons.

April 27, 2016 / kategresham / 8 Comments

It’s staring me in the face.

After months of not writing no matter how much I beat myself up, promise myself I’ll do it tomorrow, set unrealistic goals and timetables …

Something shifts.

Finally.

I’ll never write if I keep going the way I am.

I have done almost no writing for? twelve months? longer? I can’t blame anyone; No one has stopped me; there are always plenty of excuses and reasons.

I’m feeling discontented and dissatisfied. In the back of my mind there’s the niggling thought “Is this all my life is to be?” The day-to-day of life- friends, conversations, visits, gardening, reading … all those things that make up our lives.

Too busy? Then stop!

I don’t write to make money, to be famous or to be published. I write because it satisfies something within me. I feel complete, content, grounded; when I don’t write I’m discontented and miserable, my life has less meaning, I’m purposeless. Sitting at my computer – writing, pondering, researching, reading – I feel focussed, centred, content. Clicking that button to “publish” gives me such satisfaction and finding a comment on a post or a “like” has me leaping for joy.

Joy!

I have been trying to fit my writing time in around all the other things that happen. It worked sort of, when I lived here by myself because not so many other things happened. I did have lots of time to myself. But with another person in the house there’s always a conversation, something interesting one of us has just seen or read or heard, or work to be done, or shopping to be sorted or dinner or … then there’s the friendships that have developed and I want to nurture and enjoy … then there’s “being” time and …so many things.

If I want to write, if I want to blog regularly, if I want to keep learning and pushing the boundaries, then I must do more than commit. I must act and practise. And that means, setting aside the time. I don’t work full-time so I have flexibility. I can take my diary each week and block out my working times. And I can act so that nothing takes those times away. There’s plenty of time for other things. For more than twelve months I have acted on the assumption that I could fit writing in. After I’d been out for lunch, after we planned the garden, after I went to the gym, after the housework … then I would write or I could have an early dinner and write in the evening.

Jobs!

Guess what? It hasn’t happened. It hasn’t worked. Not for a very long time.

I’ve been thinking about giving up – you know those moments of “common sense” when you preach the “face the facts and be realistic” lectures. Or could I hold the dream without doing anything much? Live with the vagueness of I’d do it tomorrow, or when I felt like it or when I had some space or ..? That’s how I lived for many years. One day when I have more time, one day when I’m better, one day… I have a house full of one days. One day I’ll use that wool, one day I’ll get back to the piano, one day I’ll go kayaking, one day I’ll garden, one day I’ll…

(Some of those one days won’t happen- more truths to face, to grieve and to accept, but that’s another story.)

I have read all the writers who say essentially the same thing: Writing has to be your job. You have to sit at your writing space for those prescribed hours. It is a discipline and it’s hard work. It requires commitment.

You can have what you want, but you can’t have everything.

I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

This morning, the final piece slid into place. Something shifted in me.

If I’m serious about it then writing must come first and that means making choices. There will be times when I have to say no. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? The challenge is to take myself seriously as a writer. And that’s the hard bit. I might have to acknowledge some of my dreams and if I do, then I might have to do something about them. And that scares me, throws me right up against myself, my fears and my lack of self- belief. I remember my tutor saying at my first ever writing workshop: “You must begin calling yourself a writer. If you write regularly, even if no one else ever sees it, even if you have no plans for publishing, then you are a writer.” Oh how difficult it was, when people asked me what I was doing, to say “I’m writing.” At the moment, if someone asks me what I’m doing, my answer is vague, because I feel ashamed. If people ask for my blog details I don’t want to give them, I’m ashamed of how little I’ve done and how neglected it is.

How did this get finally get home to me?

My friend was travelling home and it was an opportunity to spend time with him. I’d love it. But I’d just returned from a few days in Melbourne, last month a few days’ holiday and yesterday I spent most of the day at the beach. Yes, they’re wonderful things to do, yes it’s good to relax and have fun and yes they’re all necessary …

I saw what I was doing and how I was continuing to sabotage myself. At some point I must say “No”, make a choice. Remember – you can have what you want but you can’t have everything.

I met my friend and we had a lovely time, but I haven’t forgotten. Let’s see how I go.

What I’d like to do today.

February 4, 2016 / kategresham / 2 Comments

I’m ready to start. Had a good sleep. Drunk some coffee. Head bouncing with ideas and possibilities: “I could…”

Get out my “today” book. New page. Heading:

ready to start.

“What I’d like to do today” (recognising that after I’ve slept well I’m likely to attempt the impossible- all the things I’ve been wanting to do but have been too tired or too busy or …)

See my Uncle in the Nursing Home and my Book Club friend who lives alone and is unwell.
write and publish a post.
go to the gym, swim and use the steam room
sort out my study
write thank you cards
fold and put away the washing
organise my diary, plan and book the trip to Canberra
wander around my local shopping centre and window shop
visit Greenpatch nursery and buy some vegie plants
garden- weed under the deck and pot up some plants
make some phone calls
…

That’s only the beginning and it’s already midday.

Years ago I experienced one of those rare moments of insight that lead to self understanding: I was- completely, hopelessly, totally- unrealistic about time. It came about like this:

My current man (boyfriend? lover? partner? my significant other? never quite know what to call them) was organising a conference and ferrying delegates from the airport. I was to pick up one international arrival. I suggested to him that we have dinner en route. Well! He looked at me as if were crazy- “Dinner!” he said. “Where’s the time to have dinner?”

It was one of those optical illusion moments for me. You know the ones, where the vases turn into a profile or… I have personal moments like that, when a set of facts transform into something else. I looked at my watch- thirty minutes to the airport, fifty to the accommodation, home for me, back to the airport for him… an impossibility, absolutely no spare time. Whatever was I thinking of?

a swan and a squirrel- an optical illusion.

A light went on. This was why I could sometimes be late, didn’t get things done and kept running out of time… it was because I was so completely, totally unrealistic about time. (And about money, maybe the two go together.) I believe there is an unlimited amount, or at the least, much, much more than there is in actuality. And so I run into trouble.

Since that moment, if I’m functioning well, before I need to be somewhere I will sit down and work backwards:

if I need to be there by two o’clock then-

it will take me forty minutes of travel, thirty minutes to shower and dress, fifteen minutes to organise the things I need to take, that adds up to eighty five minutes. I must start getting ready, then, by half past twelve.

Sound over organised? Frankly unbelievable? You can do all that without even thinking?

It’s the only way I can be sure of being on time and even then my head will sometimes do its optical illusion trick and I’ll switch the appointment time with when I need to leave. Oh dear!

You will appreciate that I remain ever grateful to that particular man for his shocked reaction to my simple “we could have dinner.” If he’d said calmly that he didn’t think so, I may never have reached this level of self awareness and I could be back in that land of rushing, being late, wondering why I never get things done….instead of being calm, organised, accomplished, poised…(if only!

Today? Well, I realised the list- just a beginning mind, was possibly a little long…

Feed the kookaburras!

Ah the rhythm of life, is a powerful beat,

September 26, 2015 / kategresham / 16 Comments

I could call it hibernation. Or I could call it lying fallow. But I won’t come at sterile. Sterile suggests permanence and that is unacceptable. Maybe hibernation? Lying fallow? Perhaps dormant would be better? It is after all just passed the Spring Equinox here down South and Spring is all about new life, regrowth, renewal and waking up. Not that we have much Spring bursting forth, our winter doesn’t get cold enough. (Wish it did!) However, having said that, today and yesterday it’s been cold and rainy. Very cold and rainy, sometimes windy.

Spring?

Two years ago, this time, we had heatwaves and a raging out-of-control bushfire down the road. People were evacuated onto the local beach. A friend’s adored dog was staying in a dog resort (kennel, but he doesn’t much like the term!) near the fires. The owner refused to evacuate because of his responsibility to the animals in his care. All were safe, but Ollie came home with kennel cough and security issues. I’d been told always how gentle Ollie was, a gentle giant, the family baby. Imagine when I visited having not yet met Ollie, and a huge Doberman leapt across the room, barking (VERY loudly), stopping about one centimetre (mouth open HUGE teeth) from my hand. I kept remarkably still considering the circumstances, although, considering the circumstances stillness was perhaps the only option. Didn’t step any further for several minutes, lunch postponed. Kennel cough? Security issues? Or simply a dog with a mean streak?

Back to the lying dormant/ in hibernation/ Springtime and the rhythm of life… Sometimes, it just doesn’t happen. No matter how much I remind myself of my values and my priorities. No matter how much re-focussing and positive visualisation I practise. No matter how much I beat myself up or promise myself treats or try sensory deprivation or… just no chocolate, it doesn’t happen.

Creativity, or let’s say my creativity disappeared for a while here. There are reasons. And there are many excuses. And sometimes/often life gets in the way. And maybe I’m not committed enough or… I don’t know. If I knew, then it wouldn’t happen, would it?

I’ll give you an example of my life here in this quiet little town. I’ve just returned from walking out to the kitchen to pour the cup of tea I’d made a few sentences back. Sitting on the back of the chair , gazing into the kitchen, singing his little heart out, was one of the butcher birds. Feathers all wet, rain coming down, how could I not take the time to feed him? The resident magpie, currently feeding babies, zoomed in. More feeding. By now the tea’s cold and the writing? well, who knows! I could go out and check the mail but the neighbourhood cats who are constantly hungry will mill about. Do you know how difficult it is not to feed begging animals? Or am I easily distracted?

A begging and hungry cat.

Back to the rhythm of life which at heart is my excuse for a long silence. I don’t understand it. The more I try to control it the more unsuccessful I am. It’s all a mystery.

However, the new roses sprout more leaves every day. I picked the first sugar snap peas yesterday. The rocket is seeding in the lawn as well as the gardens. The kitchen table has vases of poppies and sweet peas.

I’ve been asking myself what I would want to do most if I knew I had a limited time left for living.

Making gardens, being with the people I love… Simple things, sitting at the beach, floating on the water, watching for whales… what really matters? What haven’t I done?

What really matters for you?

Thank you Oliver Sacks.

March 10, 2015March 21, 2015 / kategresham / Leave a comment

I’ve just read the article published in the New York Times on the 19th of February where Oliver Sacks announced that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. (My Own Life.) It’s a beautiful piece of writing- moving and provocative, hopeful and inspiring. But then, hasn’t Oliver Sacks always been challenging, moving, inspirational?

Oliver Sacks, Professor of Neurology at New York University.

Oliver Sacks

I first heard of Oliver Sacks when “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat” was published- an account of his work as a neurologist with patients living with difficult and rare conditions, such as Tourette’s Syndrome, Autism and Parkinsonism. Amazing stories about the resilience, courage and resourcefulness of these people, examples of our capacity to change and adapt. I knew little about such conditions, so this book was eye-opening.

“Awakenings” is probably his other most well known work. It’s an account of his work with a group of patients suffering sleeping sickness, years after there had been a pandemic of the disease. He was able to wake them, briefly. A sad and amazing story- later made into a movie starring Robert de Niro and Robin Williams.

His article begins

“A month ago I felt that I was in good, even robust, health. At 81, I still swim 1.6 kilometres a day. But my luck has run out….now I am face to face with dying”.

He continues

“It is up to me to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can….”

I could take that statement as the way I want to live my whole life.

And…

“Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well)…..

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have given much and I have been given something in return;…

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

Please, I beg you to read the article. Like me, you will be moved, challenged and inspired. What I would say if I received this diagnosis? What would I want for the time remaining me? How would I feel? How would I sum up my life?

How would you sum up your life? What would you want for the time remaining to you?

What better than to be able to say

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have given much and I have been given something in return…above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking anima, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

The Great co-housing adventure continues.

December 30, 2014 / kategresham / 8 Comments

Boxes and furniture put wherever they would fit.

The front porch after the removalists left.

Perhaps there’s a reason why Wendell Berry’s statement “Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire” caught my eye this morning.

But I would never be relieved to see my house catch fire and while I know we have too much we are looking forward to sorting and simplifying.

I want to show you our home as it is today, after the removalists have brought everything, right at the beginning. I want you to share this adventure of co-housing and community with us, the creating of the home, the evolving garden, our own journeys, the shared journey, the challenges we face, the successes, the life – our own, the house, the garden, the community, this valley and neighbourhood.

When you see these photos it might cross your mind that there’s quite a lot… and I’d agree, but there are mitigating circumstances. And here’s the background.

I am more able to understand nowadays the devastating effect chronic insomnia, illness and continual exhaustion have had on my life. The more I understand the more accepting and compassionate toward myself I am. As I become less tired and have fewer external demands I’m experiencing the contrast between a life chronically exhausted and a life less so.

No wonder I have spent years reading mainly escapist literature. No wonder I have started so many wonderful books only to put them down because I couldn’t concentrate. No wonder I have such a long list of things I want to do when…

There are flowers by the door- not all is chaos.

I have just spent my longest period ever in a full-time permanent job. This was interrupted by severe and long illnesses, but…with a secure wage I experienced the joy of buying a spacious light-filled house – three bedrooms, two bathrooms. And then I enjoyed filling it up- such pleasure in having enough linen for guests, buying quality saucepans, a dinner set, crystal glasses, furniture that wasn’t just cast-offs and the indulgence of books and books and books (and yes, clothes and more clothes). I remember feeling I was a proper adult when I bought myself a new and beautiful fridge…and then a washing machine. I could look after myself, I could be independent, strong and capable. So empowering. But illness, Chronic Fatigue and exhaustion meant that I couldn’t keep up with the sorting and clearing out and throwing away…it’s all come with me.

Angela, my co-houser, moved to the UK eight years ago, for a planned long-term stay. Her possessions- furniture, linen, books, kitchen…all went into long-term storage. The move didn’t work out. Angie arrived back in Australia- heartbroken, homeless, jobless, broke…but not friendless.

This is Angela’s bedroom. Wait until it’s painted and organized!

When she found work her choice was to house-sit, furniture and possessions staying in storage. A move into a small unit meant there was no space to retrieve her belongings. After several years, my dominoes all fell perfectly and we bought this house. I moved… and all my stuff. Angela remained living and working in the city, but was finally able to move her long-term stored things to this house. (Imagine her delight in seeing much cherished possessions again! ) We stacked everything somewhere- we are talking two households here and neither were minimalist. And this house has no garage or external storage space.

At last Angela has reached the moment when she can leave her current work, uproot herself from the city and move to her home in this small, beautiful, rural valley. Today, the unit has has been packed up and all the contents are now here, Angie is yet to arrive. As Max says “Let the show begin!”

Share our adventure!

One of my kookaburras yesterday.

(And I thought this post was going to be all photos! Silly me.)

The Great co-housing adventure begins!

December 6, 2014 / kategresham / 4 Comments

(Or, as Max says in “Where the Wild Things Are”, “Let the show begin!”)

Well, it’s almost begun. Angie, my co-houser hasn’t arrived yet, but all her things are here. (Well, except the clothes and things she needs for the next few weeks.)

Here’s some of the background to this adventure.

Angie and I have been friends for forty years. More than friends, she’s part of my family. We have cared for each other, slept on the floor at each other’s homes when we’ve been homeless. She’s the person I have phoned in the middle of the night, after I have phoned for an ambulance. Over the years we have guarded each other’s back, when trouble was stalking.

We’re often single. Careers and security have not been our primary aims. So we haven’t reached middle age, financially secure and affluent. ( Most of the time we realise how very secure and how richly abundant we are in so many other ways.) For many reasons we have chosen to buy a home together.

There are so many reasons. I am passionate about the necessity to create community and build a safe and loving space where we can belong and have that absolute sense of trust. I love the Wendell Berry poem which says “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

to give my presence, my aim

I want home to be that place of unconditional love, total trust and safety…the place where I know I can be completely vulnerable… and I’m not thinking only of these four walls here and of Angie and myself. I am committed to building a larger community and helping to create such a space for others.

With Angie here, I can relax. There’s someone else to share all the jobs. There’s someone who loves and supports me through thick and thin. There’s someone who will give me space and silence and solitude whenever I need it. There’s someone to provide that rare and special feedback that will enable us each to grow and blunt our sharp edges, to point out when we have been less than the best we can be. There’s someone to laugh and play with, to have fun. So much, so much to be so very grateful for.

The garden will be started- finally! The house will be painted. (I HATE THE COLOURS!) Together we will practise living frugally and sustainably and we’ll be better at it, because we’ll have each other to prop up our resolve when we fall into lust and wanting. (We both love things- books, paintings, beautiful objects… and I adore clothes. I fall into lust and wanting very easily.) We have more than enough.

(And you thought this was going to be easy, Angela!)

Life in the moment!

I said to Ange the other day: “Thank God you will finally be here!!! We can paint and garden and start a market stall and go to the gym regularly and get fit and have picnics at the beach and invite people for meals and sort out boxes of stuff and get started on that photographic project and you can begin building and making and maybe we’ll have some hens and we’ll sit about and read and have a glass of wine together and cups of tea and…(I stopped for a breath)”.

Angie: “I’ve been looking forward to resting and doing nothing much for a while!”

(Silly girl!)

Garden Diary

August 12, 2014 / kategresham / 3 Comments

Yet again, I’m forced to acknowledge that I can’t do everything. Does this mean that yet again I need to let go some things I want to do?

One of my highest priorities is to live simply and sustainably. This includes having a beautiful and productive garden. Gardening is always one of my highest priorities. It grounds and renews me and brings me quiet joy.

a sad plant

A move to a new home and environment? Start the garden! But here I am, more than a year later and the garden is almost untouched . The weeds are still there, old plants cry out for pruning, there’s lots of potting to do, plants I bought last week are languishing, unplanted. And there’s a whole new garden to develop.

Whenever I’m outside I end up feeling disheartened, overwhelmed and frustrated.

What can I do? I can judge myself, become highly critical and end up with no gardening done feeling thoroughly miserable. Or, I can choose to practise self-acceptance and self-compassion with no judgement. To do this I must first accept that I cannot do the impossible; to start this garden from where it is now, is just too big a task for me. So I stop thinking I will.

So here’s what I shall do: I have settled on a plan, after much deliberation; we shall create no-dig gardens, or lasagne gardening; growing on top of the ground by building up layers. This soil is too hard and too degraded to attempt to dig. And to begin with, we shall have beds where there is now lawn, leaving some lawn around each bed.

the beginnings at Tarbuck

I can’t do this. I don’t even make an attempt. It’s too big for me, even if I practise doing it “a bucket at a time. ”

So this week I shall find a gardener who will plant fruit trees and set up the garden beds. I have two sources to go to for information. I’ll ask my same sources if they know where I can buy old railway sleepers for my garden edges. If I can’t get any, then I shall order treated pine. I will talk to the garden suppliers to decide if I will order garden soil and compost at the same time. That will depend on whether I can begin to move it myself, slowly, “a bucket at a time”, to build up the beds. I need the beds started to get me over the first hurdle. Once the beds are in place and some initial layering is done, I’m going to try hay bale gardening. That way, I can start growing some vegetables before the beds are set up fully- I do know that it will take me time to set

a new bed

them up. And as the bales break down they will become part of the process.

You see, this will be my second spring here and still I won’t have sweet peas, poppies, cornflowers, delphiniums, forget-me-nots, lupins, irises, daffodils, jonquils, anemones and all the other joys of a spring garden. For a second year we may not have the pleasure and sheer delight of extravagantly beautiful, fragrant roses; fruit trees take several years to bear fruit. I want to go out to my garden and pick that night’s dinner. For too many years I have not had the things I consider to be essential I don’t have years to wait. Housman talked of having only fifty years left to see the cherry hung with snow. I sure don’t have fifty years.

bluebells in Spring at Tarbuck

What have I learnt? To accept, yet again, that I am not superwoman and I can’t do everything. That I am prone to self-judgement and am still learning to be kind to myself. That I remain a work in progress. That, surprise, surprise, I’m still not perfect.

More prosaically, I realize that I have needed to live here for a time before I could clarify what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. And that plans take time to develop. Patience! There will be enough time! If I live each moment fully, that moment will be enough. When the flowers are blooming, Kathryn, remember to appreciate them. Drink in their beauty, share them, fill your house with them. And always, keep your hands in the earth. It’s the Amish who say that we are closest to God when we have our hands in the soil.

a Spring bouquet

Regrets or Letting go.

June 25, 2014 / kategresham / 5 Comments

Writing101. Daily Prompt: Groundhog Day. If you could relive the past week, would you? Would you change anything?

I read this and hear Frank Sinatra singing “Regrets, I’ve had a few…”

but I also hear Edith Piaf “Je no regretted rien…”

Would I want to relive the week? No, but I do want to learn from it.

These two singers represent two extremes of looking back. My mind turned to regret. It’s too easy to look back with regret and from there to judge ourselves harshly. It’s a long way from self acceptance.

But how do we learn if we don’t look back on the past? And how do we do that if we don’t examine the past critically? I know from working in schools how important it is that children learn to accept responsibility for their actions and to accept responsibility for the consequences. It seems to me that it’s crucial to distinguish between regret and accepting responsibility, learning from our actions and moving on.

I’m in the fortunate position of not working full-time and so am in the process of changing old patterns and making choices in this new set of circumstances.

Now, I have clear priorities and I know the things that matter to me. Do I always do these things? Do my days fit my imagined ideal? No, of course not. I’m human and therefore I am not perfect.

I’m really good at making lists.

In the last twelve months I’ve spent a lot of time recovering and settling, reflecting and dreaming, making lists and not doing what’s on them,…and yes, I’ve fallen into times of self – criticism,those moments of “I should have…” One of the lessons I keep on learning is to trust and accept myself, whatever state I’m in, to get rid of judgement. I don’t find that easy. Perhaps it’s another human paradox that we must balance acceptance with change, that is, changing the habits and patterns that no longer serve us.

I’m learning that if I leave exercising until late in the day, I probably won’t do it. I’m trying things out- when’s the best time to write? How do I juggle the cleaning, the cooking…all the demands that maintain one’s life? How do I manage what must be done with what I most want to do?

The best way for me to discover what works best is to look over the past week and reflect on it. When did I do the most significant things? What worked? When did time slip away from me? Benjamin Franklin used to start the day with the question “What good can I do today?” and end it with “What good have I done today?”

Let the day go.

My gut feel is that as I spend time in the evening being grateful, then the shape of the days will come.

Relive the week? Relive the past? No thank you! But reflect on it? Yes. Learn from it? Yes.

And never give up, never give up, never give up.

Rick Hanson has great things to say about regret and gratitude.

I’d really like to know what you think.

An Ordinary Day

May 20, 2014 / kategresham / Leave a comment

Well, maybe not so ordinary. I’ve just spent almost three weeks relieving in a local school library, and when I work all my routines go out the window. All I do is go to work, come home and get ready for the next day. So now I’ve finished that block I’m focused on writing, publishing some posts, exercising, practicing mindfulness… AND tidying, cleaning, vacuuming, gardening… catching up on long overdue paperwork….

You get the idea. I had breakfast sitting in the sun on the front verandah, making lists, with all my different colured textas and pens. Arrows, asterisks, underlinings, highlightings….What would be the best use of my time? How can I make sure I get the most important things done? What are the priorities?

Eventually I decide that I’ll feel best if my home is clean and tidy; chaos is unsettling and clean floors are a pleasure. Somehow, deciding this gives me permission to just get on and stop worrying about wasting time.

the calm of clouds in a blue sky.

It’s a beautiful day. Sunny, warm, still, blue; small clouds decorate the sky. This town is set in a ring of hills, but not buried in a valley. It has the best skyscapes and since I’ve been here I keep driving out of town to take sky photos.

There’s washing on the line. I’ve finally planted the struggling peppermint geranium cutting – it may still survive. It’s been sitting in water on the window sill for?? weeks? months? and I’ve kept promising myself that I’ll plant it today, but then, there’s always those priorities… But now, it’s planted!

the pleasure of washing, drying in the sun.

I’ve sprayed the aphids on the roses with soapy water. And I’ve sat in the sun drinking cups of tea, chatting with my neighbours. I confess, I’ve also spent some time gazing at the sky, watching birds, checking out the way the gum looks against the blue of the sky… in other words, daydreaming and simply being glad I’m alive.

The vacuuming isn’t done, nor is the house tidy but I feel relaxed and happy. Of course the question still remains: how do I manage to do what needs to be done and also those things that are the most important? I read other writers who juggle the demands of caring for a child while earning a living as full-time writers. I am in awe of their discipline. I’ve recently read a TED blog about a woman who was bed-ridden with chronic pain and chose to work as a TED translator during that time. There are plenty of role models of people who achieve in spite of the odds.