Author: vrendes

Back in class

I haven’t taught a class of children in a while as I now work mainly with teachers. But as part of the government’s Covid response plan, I was called upon to teach in a primary school for a couple of days. I was both nervous and excited, just like I used to be when summer holidays were coming to an end.

I arrived at a beautiful small country school where the principal greeted me warmly and accompanied me to my class. ‘The class teacher is at home in isolation. This class has had a series of teachers all week and we couldn’t find any casuals at all for today and tomorrow,’ she explained. This is never great for young children and even worse when there is a child with special needs in the class. The principal was especially concerned about a child who didn’t deal well with change and really needed structure and consistency. It was at that point, that I decided to follow the teacher’s routine as closely as I could and not deviate too far from her plan. It was more important to keep the class settled than to trial some ideas I have been working on in my role as a literacy specialist. 

A young boy greeted us at the door. ‘Are you going to be our teacher?’ he asked. He couldn’t see my smile under my mask, so I answered, ‘Yes, and I’m going to be here tomorrow too!’  Together, we entered the classroom. He asked enthusiastically whether he could put up a visual timetable for me and proceeded to go through the hundreds of little cards until he found the right ones for the day. I could see that if I played my cards right, he would become my ally and helper. Within a few minutes we became firm friends, and he was as good as gold for the two days that I had him.

The rest of the class arrived, all eager, wondering who this new person was. It is a hard gig being a casual teacher and it isn’t one I thought I would like. The kids, however, were very well-mannered and keen to show me how their class worked. Of course, it didn’t take long for some of the children to see how far they could push a ‘newbie’ but all I needed to do was to look sternly in their direction or make a stop sign with my hand for the message to get through. My behaviour management bag of tricks came flooding back – stand in silence and wait for the class to settle, count backwards from five, use clapping rhythms and stand in close proximity to a child. It all worked like a charm.

On Friday, I was asked to choose two children for assembly awards. It was a difficult choice to make. This was to be their first assembly together as a group since some of the Covid restrictions had been lifted. The excitement was palpable as they stood for the national anthem and said one of the most heartfelt Acknowledgements of Country I have ever heard. A teacher had clearly worked very hard to come up with a meaningful Acknowledgement in child friendly language. I stood straight and tall, proud to be part of this community, even if only for two days. It confirmed, once again, my staunch support of public education.  

I even enjoyed going out on playground duty again. Within a couple of minutes, I tied a shoelace, something I haven’t done for quite some time. There is so much to learn about the culture of a school out in the playground. At this school, there were painted markers on the trees to indicate how far students could safely climb. They were even allowed to build ‘bases’ out of fallen branches and twigs. What a refreshing idea! I remembered working at a Sydney school where the large playground lacked even the barest vegetation and climbing anything was strictly prohibited. There was no playground equipment (too dangerous), no shade (a branch may fall from a tree) and out of sheer boredom kids found their way into all sorts of mischief.

I admit I was dreading the sport session on Friday. It really isn’t my strong suit. As it turned out, the children were good humoured about an activity I had chosen and then suggested a game they called ‘castles’ which was clearly much more fun. They taught me the rules and off they went, organising themselves. I did have to intervene occasionally as the game became too intense, but mostly they had it all under control.

Friday afternoon came quickly. I waved the kids goodbye as they ran into their parent’s arms or waited for the bus to arrive. I recalled what it was like when I had to leave my class in the hands of a casual. The good ones cleaned up, marked their work, and left me a nice note. The others left the room in a mess with a stack of marking for me to complete. I wanted this teacher to have a positive experience when she came back. So, I returned to the class, marked the books and homework, and wrote a friendly note.  

I love my job as a Literacy Specialist but sadly, in the past two years, I haven’t spent nearly enough time in schools. It is always a great privilege to observe how different classrooms operate and see firsthand the pressures that teachers face daily. In my position, I encourage teachers to question what they do and promote a change in pedagogy, if required. I may suggest trialling new ways of working based on the latest evidence. Yet there is often little support to allow this to happen in a busy workplace with no additional staffing resources. Spending a couple of days in the classroom brought home some of those pressures. I have nothing but respect for teachers who work hard each day and often late into the night not to mention weekends. I honour their commitment to the children they teach, often at the expense of their own families. For this and many other reasons, I was glad to be able to help a school, and by extension a teacher, in need.

Unravelled

My partially completed project

Patience is a virtue, but it isn’t one of mine. I’m impatient with anything that doesn’t move swiftly: queues, customer service, furniture assembly and meetings are at the top of my list. Waiting to be served I fidget or jingle keys, but when I catch myself, I offer a fake smile not to appear rude. Yet within me, a war is raging. I’ve learnt to stop, observe, and breathe. While this helps, it doesn’t stop the impatience rising the next time I am triggered.

It’s not a character trait I’m proud of. I worry that with the build up of pressure the cork with pop and the banshee will be released. The handful of people who have come face to face with this unbridled demon will attest to its horror. I’m impatient with almost everything, but most of all I am impatient with my own shortcomings. Yet there are situations where I act completely out of character and display the patience of Job.

Take a shamble of tangled wool for instance. Without the slightest hint of irritation, I search for the end of the yarn and slowly begin to trace the strand through one loop after another to set it free. I don’t tug or pull, display no frustration, just a clear focused mind to get the job done. I don’t profess to understand this inconsistency of my personality. I just see it as one of my more likeable quirks.  

I have learnt to unravel wool early. When a jumper became too small, my mother would unpick it. I had to sit, arms outstretched, shoulder width apart for the yarn to be wound around them. This helped to unkink the wool. I was told to stay still, keep the tension tight until the last strand was passed to me. I then laid the wool down carefully and began to roll it into balls, so my mother could knit me a new garment.

All this came to mind this morning when I was greeted with yarn from one end of the lounge to the other. I looked at the culprit but recognised it was my fault. I should have known. My dog finds wool irresistible, and in the past, I have found dismembered skeins winding through the kitchen and out the doggie door, as if attempting a futile escape.

I felt irritation rise as I picked up my latest project from the floor. Luckily, it was still attached to the mangled skein. It took some time to find the loose end. Slowly, I began to wind the wool over three middle fingers on my left hand. I wondered at that moment how many people would still know how to turn this mess into a ball, ready to start again. I prised the tightly wound strands from my fingers and began winding the wool vertically, making a small cross. Then, moving the fledgling ball a quarter of a turn to the left, I wound on more wool, moved the ball another quarter of a turn and repeated the process.  Eventually, a perfect sphere of wool emerged. This ball had to be passed through the many twisted loops it encountered, one after the other until it arrived back at the last stitch of a completed row ready for the real work to commence.

The secret to unravelling tangled wool is to loosen the knots one by one until there is space for the ball to pass through. This may sound easy but requires considerable patience. It occurred to me that this process is a template for unravelling any messy situation. The key is gentle prodding, teasing, and pulling at the knotty problem, this way and that, to allow enough space for a solution to emerge. Even the smallest gap allows the golden thread to pass through until the next blockage is encountered. Then, it is a matter of repeating the process until there is enough leeway for the resolution to be able to surface. Slowly but surely, the gentle art of unravelling creates the space to solve even the curliest of problems.

My half-completed blanket is now safe atop a chest of drawers. The crochet hook awaits my hands. This project is going to take longer than I expected. Much longer. Yet I don’t mind. I marvel at my inexplicable patience and wonder what I can learn from this experience. Maybe it is as simple this: Whatever unravels in my day has a thread I can follow. If I can find the patience to approach the task with an artisan’s sensibility, I don’t have tie myself into a Gordian knot.

Mosaics

Recently, I completed a mosaic tray, a bright little piece to give me cheer. As grief strikes, and I am once again drawn to mosaics to make sense of my world – piece by piece, working at ground level, only understanding what emerges from a distance. I am keen to start a major piece, one that will absorb me within it. It is slowly taking shape in my mind and one day will emerge in fullness to adorn my home. It will, once more, be a testament of love.

Mosaics are time consuming. From drawing the pattern, through to cutting or smashing tiles and then finding the pieces that fit together, it is a labour intensive process. Not every fragment fits neatly, and there are always pieces left over. I never discard these, as they may become invaluable in a future project.

In some ways, mosaics are similar to jigsaw puzzles. You always have to find the fitting piece for the picture to emerge. You also need concentration, turning the piece this way and that to see if it works here or there. Tile cutters can help with nibbling away at a piece which is too big but glass tiles easily shatter, which makes the process a painstaking exercise.

While smalti glass is my preferred medium, I also like working with bright ceramic tiles. Smashing these with a hammer can be therapeutic. It is ironic that a perfectly good tile has to be broken to be reassembled in new ways for a picture to reveal itself. No wonder I am always drawn to mosaics when life has dealt me a blow. At first, I am in free-fall and then, crashing to the ground, I lie broken, contemplating the pieces, wondering how they will fit back together in a new life I will fashion.

There are pieces I will always keep, pieces I discard, and slowly a picture emerges, full of new possibilities and promise of beauty. These pieces are ephemeral, their existence attested by words and sometimes not even that. They are elusive, passing through my mind, waiting for my next move in their reassembly. Is it any wonder I am drawn to mosaics? Holding a tile, I can feel its shape in my hands and my eyes can see the image emerge. I like that I am working with something concrete that has both contour and weight.

The tray I have made is simple and naïve. It suits the season and my mood. The childlike simplicity allows me to play for a while and contemplate what will come next. Within it is the promise of growth. It allows for something larger and considered to emerge in my mind.

And it will, when the time is right.

Aphantasia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/Q8SnmF33gpBNtpYWLMx806/aphantasia-what-its-like-when-you-cant-recall-mental-images-in-your-mind

Aphantasia is a pleasant-sounding condition except that it isn’t. It refers to the inability to make mental images. If you close your eyes and can picture your bedroom, you are part of the 98% of the population who can create mental images at will. I belong to the other two percent.

When I close my eyes, I see black. I am unable to call to mind my daughter’s face, my house or even what I am wearing. This also feeds into my inability to recognise faces, especially of people I don’t know very well. I make up for it by smiling and never using people’s names. I have had many a conversation with people who clearly know a lot about me while I remember nothing about them.

Professor Adam Zeman who coined the term aphantasia, described it as a “fascinating variation in human experience.” This may be true for an academic looking in dispassionately, but it isn’t how I feel about it. I experience it as a loss; a door shut to a world I would love to inhabit. Imagine not being able to recall the face of your parents, people you love, loved ones who have died. Without a photograph, I am lost.

Strangely enough, I dream in technicolour, and it is the only time I can see loved ones in my mind’s eye. I do wonder why I can access images in my sleep but not when I am awake. I even will myself to dream about a lover I miss, just to see his face once more. It never works. My subconscious is random access only.

I first realised I had no mental images when a friend at high school showed me a piece of art she had created. I couldn’t work it out. ‘This is what I imagine the inside of my mouth looks like when I am kissing,’ she ventured. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, confounded. She patiently explained the range of images that went through her head, while I saw nothing but black.

In my twenties I went to ‘relaxation classes’. I became increasingly frustrated when the instructor said, ‘Close your eyes. Now imagine walking along a sandy beach. Waves are gently lapping at your feet and there is a cool breeze caressing your face.’ While I love beaches, I can’t form an image of the sea, nor can I hear seagulls or feel the sand under my toes. These exercises served only to make me feel frustrated and tense – not the intended outcome of the class! When I tried to explain my problem, I was told to try harder. That’s like telling a blind person to look more carefully next time.

Aphantasia does have its funny moments though. Once I called home for a recipe I wanted to pass on to a friend. ‘It is in the red ring binder on the right-hand side of the page’, I said confidently. It wasn’t. The folder was blue, and recipe wasn’t where I thought it was. Then there are times when people ask me to describe what something looked like. I just stare blankly, and they inevitably get frustrated with what they perceive is my lack of attention. I sincerely hope I will never be called up as a witness in a court of law.

Since my memory has no pictures at all; everything is stored in words. I am always amused when people tell me that my writing is vivid and that they can see exactly what I am describing. I wish I could. For me, words evoke feelings and that is what I get out of reading a descriptive passage or a well-written novel. I have no idea what the character may look like but I am invested in their personality or how they react to situations. Sadly, I forget a lot of what I have read but I always remember the feeling I had when reading the book.

As it is with many long-term conditions, the brain learns to compensate. Mine has allowed me to gain a rich vocabulary to make up for my non-existent visual memory. I love words, playing with them and rolling their sounds around in my mouth. I will search endlessly for an appropriate synonym, checking nuances before choosing the right phrase, for I paint pictures with words for others to see. I just wish, for once, I too could have access to this miracle of the mind.

Memories of love

My father in the early 1940’s – he would have been 99 on Feb 4, 2022

My father was a good-looking, debonair man. He flirted with ease and knew how to flatter women. He liked telling stories of his youth’s exploits. For him, women represented a source of fascination, conquest, and pleasure. The exception was Agnes, his first wife.

Throughout my childhood, a slightly tattered, black and white photograph of Agnes leant on a mirror in my father’s heavily draped room. She was a slender woman with shoulder length wavy hair who was destined to have her smile set for posterity. The photo was taken in Budapest, sometime in the late 1940’s.

I would look at this picture for hours and wished she had been my mother. Instead, Agnes died of TB. Penicillin could have saved her, if only the drug had been available in post-war Hungary. In the picture she is in her early twenties, full of life and pregnant with her first child.

Agnes was the only woman who had rejected my father’s advances. I don’t think she was playing hard to get, she just wasn’t interested in his games. They fell in love, married, and started their life together in a city that lay in ruins. In their short life together, she doted on him. Whatever wish passed his lips, she would try to fulfil. My father recounted a story of craving doughnuts in the middle of the night. Agnes got out of bed to make yeast dough so he could have his favourite jam-filled, fried doughnuts for breakfast. I wished I could have had a mother like her. And he did too.

She fell pregnant and they were looking forward to starting a family. Agnes loved the feel of the child growing within her but developed a persistent, blood speckled cough. Doctors confirmed the worst but only to my father. He set about trying to get penicillin from the West. Relatives who had emigrated were begged to help. None did. The cough persisted and she grew weaker. It became clear that she would not see out the pregnancy. The doctors enlisted my father to persuade Agnes to abort the child they both longed for. I don’t think my father ever forgave himself for that treachery. Agnes couldn’t understand why he was so adamant but yielded to his wish. This may have extended her life by a few short weeks.

My father described his anguish when she died. He walked out of the hospital and straight into oncoming traffic. He didn’t notice the screeching cars or people yelling at him. It is hard to know how he went on with his life. He had lost his son and his wife within a few short weeks of each other. No-one would ever be able to fill that emptiness. Only drinking somewhat numbed his pain.

My father died a long time ago and Agnes is suspended in an eternal autumn day. She is a hand-me-down memory, a two-dimensional figure etched on brittle, glossy paper. Yet I think of her more than I do of my father. Or maybe I think of my father as I struggle to be the woman he wanted me to become. Agnes is the looking glass, the flawless woman, the perfect mother, the ideal lover, the unattainable Madonna. The mother I never had. The mother I still strive to be.

Zoe

Zoë and her bunny

‘No, she’s not a groodle, or a cavoodle, she’s a standard poodle,’ I explain patiently as someone stops to enquire about Zoë’s breed. ‘I always thought poodles were small dogs,’ is the usual reply. I sigh, go into detail about the different poodle sizes and temperaments before concluding that the standards are the best poodles by far. They are.

I have had minis and even a rescue toy poodle. Except for one of the minis, none of the other dogs have come even close to the intelligence, elegance, and devotion of the standard. Zoë is not a lap dog nor is she particularly cuddly, but she is constantly by my side without getting under my feet. If I’m working in the kitchen, she leans into me. It is her way to claim me as her own. Her bark would deter most people from entering the house, but she is friendly with strangers, as long as I am relaxed in their presence. She is the perfect companion.

Zoë is well known around the village. People may not remember my name, but they know hers. If we stop at the corner store for milk, she is often rewarded with a piece of bacon from the proprietor. Children come and pat her and visiting tourists stop to have a chat. Zoë knows how to wheedle her way into most hearts.

One of her endearing qualities is her love of toy bunnies. Whenever I bring a new squeaky animal into the house, Zoë leaps with joy and plays for hours, biting obsessively until she finds the squeak she is looking for. We then play a game of fetch which will be repeated every morning until the squeak dies and it is time for a new bunny. She is like a young child at Christmas taking her toy to bed and protectively putting a paw over it. Her devotion to her bunny melts my heart.

A less endearing quality is her love of chasing real bunnies. Selective deafness is a well-honed skill and when she sees a rabbit, no amount of calling, cajoling, or yelling will stop her. She is off through the thick scrub but she ain’t never caught a rabbit…  What she does come back with is a coat full of burrs which take the best part of an afternoon to remove – one by one, tugging them loose from her woolly coat. Zoë is never sorry for her disobedience; she always returns with her tongue out, eyes sparkling and tail wagging. It is hard to stay annoyed with such a display of exultation.

You can see standard poodles are hardly lounge lizards. While they don’t need a huge amount of exercise, they do love a good run. They will chase balls, their favourite human, and of course other animals. I have seen Zoë keep up with kelpies and border collies at the dog park. There’s an elegance to her run, a regal poise, and a graceful stretch of the legs as she flies through the air, ears flapping behind her. Out on a field, she is cheeky and playful, bursting with energy and joie de vivre. Poodles are quintessentially effervescent party animals. They are a pure joy to watch when playing with other dogs.

I never have to worry about doggy smells in the house, nor are there any dog hairs to sweep. As poodles don’t shed, even people with allergies can safely own one. They are clean dogs but do require regular clipping. If you don’t, before long, they will resemble your favourite reggae singer without any of the musical talent. I don’t recommend home haircuts; dog clipping is much more complicated than you think. It is well worth the money to employ a groomer every six to eight weeks. Zoë isn’t ever coiffured to resemble topiary at Versailles. After a trim, she simply looks like a well-heeled, short haired dog.

I can’t imagine my life without Zoë. I never feel lonely with her in the house, and she motivates me to go for long walks which are good for us both. Zoë can read my mood and responds accordingly. I would go so far as to claim that she has more EQ than most people. I have often thought, she would make a great therapy dog. But then, I believe that every dog has the capacity to be a therapy dog. Zoë just happens to be mine.

Meditation upon my daughter

Sydney, 1996

I wrote this 26 years ago when my daughter, Ella was 9 weeks old. As her birthday approaches, I thought it a fitting tribute to her. It also is a fitting tribute to Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Zen Buddhist monk, who passed away today, aged 95. I wrote this piece to read at the Lotus Bud Sangha in Sydney all those years ago.

There is nothing like having a little baby to look after to bring you back to the present. Her thoughts and actions are fixed in the present moment; this moment and this moment alone is all that matters. Show her a new object and she will delight in it, seeing it with a freshness we cannot conceive. Shot it to her the next day and the freshness remains – she is able to look at it as if for the first time, even the twentieth time. She delights in the small things in life. A breeze on her cheek can make her face light up and smile. It is a fleeting moment, but she enjoys it fully, unencumbered by ‘rational’ thought. She does not have to think ‘present moment, wonderful moment’ to meditate upon it. She does it automatically – without words, without thought coming between herself and the here and now.

She is not aware that she is a separate entity. The notion of ‘I’ and ‘me’ are alien to her. She is part of me and part of the rest of the world around her. She is part of space and knows no boundaries. Where she ‘stops’ and otherness ‘begins’ is something she will learn over a long period of time. At this moment, she truly ‘inter-is’. As she grows, she will have to learn other ways of seeing herself and the world. She will move from being a creature who fully feels connected with her surroundings to one who becomes increasingly egocentric. She will recognise familiar objects and no longer see them as if for the first time and she will develop a sense of a past and the knowledge of a future. Her ability to stay in the present will diminish accordingly. In the meantime, however, she is teaching me to look deeper at everything around me. As for my part, I hope someday to encourage her to see things with that same freshness she now takes for granted.

My daughter has taught me very quickly to be mindful of breath. In the past when I have tried the mindfulness of breathing meditation, I knew intellectually that breath equals life, but I never felt it the way I do now. My daughter was born limp and blue, her heartbeat the only sign of life. She was quickly suctioned and given oxygen. With that first breath her existence in the outside world started. Her life will go on as long as she keeps breathing. Is it any wonder that I regularly check her breath? I now see that meditating upon the breath is not simply a device to concentrate on something that is common to us all. Nor is it just a physiological phenomenon which can usefully be employed for relaxation. Meditating upon the breath is nothing short of meditating upon the sanctity of life itself. I now not only understand but feel why it is such a powerful meditation.

These past nine weeks have flown. Every day brings something brand new. While with adults we feel that there is a constant, that people ‘don’t change’ at least outwardly, with my daughter I realise that all of us grow and are forever changing. The baby I held in my arms three weeks ago isn’t the same baby I am holding now and yet clearly, she is! I am learning to enjoy paradox and I am learning to keep my mind open so that I can observe the world with the freshness she has brought into my life.

The ubiquity of Gifs

Gifs are a universal language that everyone understands. Who hasn’t sent a Gif to cheer up a friend or posted a funny reaction? With the click of a button, we can appear to engage with the world without any real effort.

There is no doubt that Gifs are wildly popular. A staggering seven billion Gifs are sent around the world daily. That is just under the estimated population of the world which currently stands at around 7.8 billion. Facebook, Instagram and text messages act as conduits through which Gifs jetset around the globe. As a product, Gifs are not short of a market.

The auto-play loop of a Gif is hypnotic. Perfectly sensible people watch cats walk backwards only to fall off cupboards. Repeatedly. I admit, there is something mesmerising about these images, but I fail to see how this recycled humour can be considered generative or funny once seen for the fiftieth time.

Gifs are said to enliven a message. There is nuance to a Gif that an emoji can’t capture. Popular culture is referenced in novel ways to get a message across. We can choose to raise a glass using the iconic scene from the Great Gatsby where Leonardo DiCaprio’s raises his Champagne glass. It allows us to be part of a mass experience while at the same time feeling as if the image represents us personally. Of course, Leonardo has nothing in common with our lives, but we can pretend to have some deep affinity with him by sending a drunken message to a friend at two in the morning.

Not everyone can be a master of repartee. It takes time and effort to come back with a witty remark or pun. A Gif eliminates this dilemma. Even a child can find an image that is apt and funny, even if hackneyed. This can be seen as a great leveller or even a democratisation of the conversation where everyone can take part. However, I wonder whether the conversation is worth having if all we do is regurgitate viral clichés.

There is a lot of cultural appropriation that goes on. Notice how many black faces there are in Gifs compared to other media. Is this a move towards equality or another form of subjugation? Black men are often portrayed as sex symbols or comic figures. Search for older women and you get the eccentric wrinkled faces wearing outlandish clothes. These women are not a celebration of age, instead they are used to ridicule. I am not comfortable with these portrayals; however benign they may seem.

Gifs are popular because they fit so easily into our frantic lifestyles. We can multitask, message several people at the same time as we work on a report. It just takes a click and we have sent a quick response. Easy, right? Yet we can waste precious time trawling for the perfect Gif.  Especially if there is something at stake. We want it to get to the heart of our message, to show exactly what we mean. I wonder whether our communication wouldn’t be clearer and more personal if we spent that time looking for the perfect word instead. After all, there are over 170,000 to choose from in the English language.

Diary Obsession

Each year, I spend countless hours hunting for the perfect diary, and for most of my adult life, each diary has disappointed. I’ve tried them all: A4 and palm sized, a page to a day and a week to an opening, dated and undated, horizontal and vertical, a page with notes, to-do lists, calls to make, and shopping lists. I’ve created my own using Day Timers, Debden and Filofax. I have ordered ridiculously expensive diaries from the States and Canada, and this year, I’ve gone Japanese with a Hobonichi diary.

I admire people who year in, year out, order the same page a day diary and find it adequate for their needs. For me, this diary has never worked. I need to keep my appointments apart from the many lists I inevitably keep. I don’t like my to-dos to morph into one large messy list which is visually overwhelming in a diary format. And I really can’t be bothered rewriting lists. The result is that I inevitably come up with a new system at the beginning of the year which I follow for no more than a month. If I am lucky. Then, the expensive diary sits on my desk, glaring at me for a year while I look back at it with remorse. I am finally relieved of feelings of inadequacy at the end of December, when I throw the thing in the bin and begin to scroll the internet rabbit warren for a new, improved model. In fact, the only diaries I have kept are from my twenties. Each year, I bought a Tasmanian Wilderness diary with Peter Dombrovskis’ sublime photos. I wrote down when essays were due and the odd appointment. That was all I needed.

Does this mean that I have been doomed to a life of disorganisation since my twenties? Well, no. Over the years I have found what works for me and what doesn’t. A single notebook or diary can’t do it all. The following is the best system I have been able to cobble together so far.

I carry with me a distinctive notebook where I keep a Master List of everything I want to get done. This is a random collection of things ranging from books I’d like to read through to reminders that the cat needs booster shots. Then, a small number of items from this list is transferred to my daily tasks.

At work, I use the calendar function in Outlook and that works well for appointments and time blocking for projects. I keep a paper to-do list each day and have experimented online with Trello which uses the Kanban flow principle (an interesting way to keep track of work if you would like to follow it up). At home, I have a daily to-do list which I cross off with a highlighter. I get the same satisfaction as crossing out items with a black texta but this way I can see what I have achieved. For appointments in 2022, I intend to use my small Hobonichi diary which fits into my handbag. I only ever use a pencil to jot down appointments as a change in plans is inevitable. This is a habit I have kept up for years, both for diaries and address books.

I am not saying this is the best way to do things. Far from it. All I can go on is what hasn’t worked in the past and what has. We are idiosyncratic creatures. What works for one person may or may not work for the next. And what works now, may not work later. In the end it is all trial and error until we find something that works – at least for a while.

I’ll let you know if the Hobonichi survives into February.

10 worthy New Year’s resolutions

  1. Be grateful. ‘The root of joy is gratefulness… It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.’ – Brother David Steindl-Rast, my inspiration (gratitude.org).
  2. Say ‘thank you’ for everything; the good and the bad. As Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) said, ‘If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.’
  3. Be generous. ‘Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever.’- Margaret Cho, comedian.
  4. Stand up to injustice.  Martin Luther King Jr., amongst others said, ‘No one is free until we are all free.’ This quote makes us realise that we are all diminished by injustice, not just the person or people who experience it firsthand.
  5. Be aware of the deep interconnections we share. Our lives are linked at every level, from the air we breathe to the planet we inhabit as well as the way we treat each other. Olympian Hannah Teter expressed this clearly when she said, ‘The earth is one big, interconnected entity. If you hurt a piece, you hurt the whole. If you hurt the people, you hurt the environment.’
  6. Be aware of your biases; we all have them!  I quote Tara Moss, ‘We must all acknowledge our unconscious biases, and listen with less bias when women, and others who are marginalised, speak out. A lot of change is possible by just acknowledging unconscious bias – that exhaustively documented but unpleasant reality many would rather ignore – and listening with less bias and acting on what we then learn.’ Or as Oscar Wilde put it, ‘whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.’
  7. Notice beauty. Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor who went on to become a well-respected neurologist and psychiatrist said: ‘As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before.’ If people can find beauty while in the worst possible surroundings, so can we. Maya Angelou put it brilliantly, ‘Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away.’
  8. Make time for art and play. Albert Einstein famously said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’ Give it the space to bloom.
  9. Slow down. Kirsten Gillibrand (Democratic Senator) had this to say about rushing: ‘The biggest mistakes I’ve ever made are when I’ve been rushed. If I’m overwhelmed, I slow down. It’s more effective.’ It reminds me how Gandhi on a very busy day exclaimed, ‘I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.’ We would all benefit from slowing down.
  10. Find the humour amongst it all – it will stand you in good stead. The last word goes to the inimitable Joan Rivers. ‘Never be afraid to laugh at yourself; after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.’