Month: February 2025

Aching for Attention

Recently, my body has been telling me to pay attention through aches, pains and annoying niggles. The message is clear; take heed, you are more than the mind and your thoughts. The physical form is just as important, ignore it at your own peril.

I have suffered from migraines for most of my life and they have often come about when I have pushed myself to the limit. Things like forgetting to eat lunch, sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, not getting enough sleep are just a few ways I have abused my body and while it faithfully keeps going for a long time, eventually it tells me to stop. Usually, it does so in a not-so-subtle way. That’s because it knows that only a sledgehammer will stop me.

I often find wild bruises on my legs or dried blood on my arm, and I have no idea how I acquired these. I brush off minor cuts or bumps as inconveniences only to discover later that they weren’t so minor after all. I am not proud of this. It comes from an attitude of considering my body as an inconvenience that I carry around with me. I see it as a limiting factor in what I try to achieve. So, I ignore it as much as I can instead of working with it or giving it the care it needs. If I am honest, it has been a lifetime of neglect.

The last week has been particularly tough on my body. I stupidly wore high heels to work on a ten-hour day when I had to run from one building to the next and greet people in an official capacity. By the end of the day, I was hobbling back to the car, in pain and exhausted. That night, I slept 12 hours. My body said ‘enough’.

I woke with a headache this morning and instead of reaching for pain killers, I reached for water. You’re learning, I thought. My body felt stiff, aching all over even after my morning shower. I looked at my to do list and promptly closed my diary. It could wait. Instead of pushing myself to get the next thing done and crossed off, I walked my dog to the local café, enjoyed a coffee and decided to honour my body with a massage.

After forty-five minutes of pleasure and pain, I thanked the Chinese masseuse and floated out onto the street. Colours seemed brighter as did my mood. Back home I approached chores with more energy and decided others could wait. I took the dog for another long walk and met up with some of the regulars in the park. Looking up at cotton ball clouds, I watched their shapes change. I noticed a colony of ants build a nest on the side of the path and I realised I was pain free and happy. All I needed was a little self-care and acknowledgment of my body.

Weekends: The Gift of Time Well-Spent

I’m back at work after two glorious months off. While I was still working diligently on my own projects, the days and weeks had a different rhythm. Often, it was difficult to tell which day was which, as the weeks rolled into each other. There’s a deliciousness about feeling that we are outside of time, but it also has its downsides. Like forgetting about business hours for example and realising that others work on a different set of assumptions about working hours.

Now that I am back in the Monday to Friday world of work, weekends have a special quality to them. I can sleep in, read a book, go to the market and walk my dog at a more leisurely pace than during the week. This morning, I took my dog Zoë to the local café, wrote in my journal, drank my latté and shared a freshly baked croissant with her. Bliss.

Walking back, I took my time and noticed the small things that go unnoticed when on a deadline. Like the slight breeze that caressed my bare arms ever so gently. Entering a copse of trees, I saw the shadow of the leaves dancing on the path beneath my feet. I stopped to watch this shimmer of shadow and light – a performance dedicated to the spectator who chose to notice its exquisite beauty.

Back home I performed all the mundane duties that accumulated during the week. I didn’t grumble or delay, I completed them with a sense of joy that comes from being truly present to miracle of life and all it has to offer. Or as Eckhart Tolle put it,’Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is.’

What Do You Mean I Have a Criminal Record?

A couple of days before Christmas I went to my letter box, expecting to find some lovely cards from friends near and far. Yes, there couple, but there was also an official government letter. I was curious. I had just paid my rates, and I was sure I hadn’t been speeding or handling my phone in the car. What could it be? When I opened it, I could make no sense of the contents. It was from the Magistrates court, informing me that my ‘case’ had been before the court, and I hadn’t attended the hearing. I was clueless. What case? Was this some hoax or an elaborate scam? I leafed through the pages to see why I had been summoned. There was a fine and court costs totalling roughly $700. What for? I still couldn’t work it out. Finally, I on the last page, the offence: a parking fine with no further information.

I called the court. Yes, they had a record of the court case, no, they couldn’t tell me anything else. Contact Access Canberra. Onto my next call.

‘Can you tell me the infringement number?’

‘No, because I never received one.’

‘Your name please?  Vehicle registration?’

‘Sorry, we can’t find any infringement relating to that vehicle or under your name. Try the police. Their infringement notices don’t come through to us.’

The police had no record, so I contacted the court again. I was put through to a different department to a woman who had access to more information than the person I had encountered earlier.

‘A yes, it is a parking fine issued by the Australian National University (ANU) on February 7, 2024.’

I suppose I could have been there, but I certainly hadn’t received a notice of the fine, nor a reminder, let alone a summons to attend court.  At this point I realised I had entered Kafka’s ‘Trial’. As he said, ‘The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.’ Yes, this made perfect sense under the circumstances. Where to next? The ANU parking office of course!

‘We have photographic evidence of the parking ticket on the vehicle.’

That’s when the penny dropped. ‘My daughter attends ANU. She must have borrowed my car, received the parking fine and then forgot all about it,’ I mused.

‘Very common,’ replied the woman on the other end of the phone. I suggest you ring the court and ask for a form to have the matter put aside.’

I thanked her and made yet another call to the court…

An operator at the court advised in dulcet tones that unlike other jurisdictions in Australia, the Australian Capital Territory regarded unpaid parking fines a criminal matter once it came before the court. I was incredulous. A criminal record for an unpaid parking fine of which I had no idea and no letter of demand? Once again Kafka came to rescue to try and make sense of my situation.

‘But I’m not guilty,’ said K. ‘there’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.’

‘That is true,’ said the priest ‘but that is how the guilty speak.’

I downloaded the form to appeal the conviction. Besides my name, there was no part of the form I could have completed without legal advice. I was required to state ‘briefly, but specifically, grounds relied upon and the questions of law to be raised.’

I am a literate person with a high level of education, yet I could not complete the form. I had to call someone with legal training who was able to find me the specific law, including clauses and subclauses, we would have to rely on. My daughter completed the form, and I paid $102 to appeal the judgment.

As a teacher who needs a police clearance every 3 years, I am at the mercy of the judge to quash the conviction. It could also affect which countries I can enter and whether I get stopped at the border when leaving or entering Australia. While I think this will make a funny dinner anecdote in the future, I am also appalled at how easy it is to get caught up on the wrong side of the law. If I didn’t have the contacts I have, didn’t have the money to appeal, was illiterate or a dozen other handicaps that could derail the appeal process, I could wind up with a criminal record for life.  As dramatic as it sounds, I could even get a jail sentence for being unable to pay the fine which keeps increasing with every wrong turn.

So, cross your fingers for me on February 17, when I go to court to have my appeal heard. If I don’t succeed, I’ll sing a verse of Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ and walk out. For those of you too young to get the reference, there’s always YouTube.

Finding My Place: Returning to School After Six Years Away

This week, I returned to work in a primary school in a supernumerary capacity. For the past six years, I have been working for the Department of Education as a literacy leader. Now, I am back, ready to assist a school in whatever way I can.

The campus is large, and it will no doubt take me some time to find where everything is located. The number of staff is daunting – so many people and many of them newbies like me. I hope they will all wear their name tags for quite a while. During staff development days, we address each other by our first names. Once the students are back, I will have to relearn the names so I can address them more formally.

Those of us who were new watched at a more leisurely pace, knowing that soon, we too would be caught up in the whirlwind once our roles became clear. I found myself in that liminal space where I was both there and not quite there at the same time. It is an odd space to inhabit.

Yet it all felt so familiar. Finding the office, the staff room, a desk. Signing on, looking for accustomed procedures and then making myself useful in whatever way I could. The teachers were friendly and kind. It makes such a difference to be welcomed and made to feel that I belong.

My role will become clear in time, and I will make use of this opportunity to learn and grow. My hope is that I can stay a while and that I am not moved on too quickly. It takes time to establish trusting relationships and make a difference in an organisation. Because in the end, what truly matters is this: to leave a mark, to uplift teachers, and to shape the lives of the students they teach.