Author: vrendes

Music, Memory and Manners

On the spur of the moment, I bought myself a ticket the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. I have been in Canberra for just over a year and so far, have attended four concerts. Having access to more cultural events was one of my reasons for moving to the city. So why wasn’t I getting out more?

I am happy with my own company, but when it comes to going out, I still subscribe to the outdated notion that I need to go with a friend. What a ridiculous idea! Sure, it would be nice to talk about the concert, but during the recital we’d be sitting next to each other in silence. Would I enjoy the music more because I know the person sitting next to me? Of course not! So, I decided to drop this limiting belief and go anyway.

The concert consisted of a Bach symphony in G minor followed by the Mozart piano concerto ‘Jeunehomme’, with Kristian Bezuidenhout on Fortepiano. In Baroque music, I’m much more used to the sound of a Harpsichord, so it was interesting to listen to the Fortepiano which is more like the piano we know today but with a much softer, less sustained tone. Bezuidenhout’s playing was magical. Unfortunately, the man in front of me was tall and bobbed his head this way and that, making it hard for me to watch the action on stage. I felt sorry for the people behind me who must have watched his head go one way, mine the other, to get a glimpse.

There were two children behind me with their mother. I am guessing they were between 8 and 11 years old. Neither could wait for the interval to get some food. Poor kids! Afterwards, the boy, bored with the event, was hoping the concert would end after each piece. His sister was much quieter. It reminded me of taking my daughter to concerts when she was little, but she was much more engaged. Maybe that was because we started taking her from about the age of three and she was a compliant child. At that age, she sat on one of our laps, listened to the music for the first half and fell asleep after intermission. I wasn’t concerned about the children behind me – they only spoke between the pieces when people were clapping.

After the interval, the orchestra played the Violin Concerto No.5 in A major, ‘Turkish’. Gottfried von der Goltz was truly mesmerising on violin. I thought about my daughter, who also learned to play violin. I would have loved her to become a violinist but while she had the aptitude, she didn’t have the application. She pursued it for a couple of years at university but never quite seriously. At the time, I was a little disappointed. Now, I see that her interests have evolved and what she does pursue, she does with passion and full-hearted commitment. All these thoughts went through my mind as I listened. I also considered how lucky I am to have my daughter nearby. Had she become a violinist, she would most likely be overseas by now.

It is hard for a casual connoisseur to concentrate on only the music for over two hours. My mind went to many places during the evening. One place I wished my mind hadn’t turned to, was feeling annoyed with a man two rows in front of me. He not only arrived late but scrolled on his phone for the entire performance. No matter how much I told myself that I had no control over the situation, it kept annoying me. I tried to tilt my head so I couldn’t see the screen, but the phone kept lighting up. I felt sorry for the people sitting either side of him. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t ask him to put it away. It made me wonder why we seem to have traded manners, which are about the way we behave towards others, for the right of the individual to do as they please. Dear Lord, I’m beginning to sound self-righteous!

The end of the concert caught me by surprise. I must have drifted off a little. It had all been quite pleasant except for the mobile phone man. We streamed out of the concert hall, most people well past their sixties, judging by the number of grey heads. I felt like a youngster in comparison. Walking to the car I thought how easy and enjoyable the evening had been. From now on, I am fully embracing my independence.

When Your Body Says No

By mid-morning on Friday, I knew the blistering headache was here to stay. I kept pretending—a sip of water, a bite to eat, a can of Coke. Nothing worked. Then, by mid-afternoon, I wanted to get home as quickly as I could and by mid-evening I was in bed, bilious and head pounding. A migraine.

I haven’t had an attack as bad as this one for a long time. Since discovering Maxalt, I have been able to stave off the worst attacks. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a script with me and no tablets at home. During the worst of the pain, I tried to ‘ride the wave’. It wasn’t working. No matter how much I tried to relax, do yogic breathing or take my mind of it, the pain was unbearable. I had forgotten about this level of pain and how it had affected most of my adult life until about 10 years ago. Once or twice a week I would drive back from work, unable to turn my head. Once home, I crawled into bed and waited for my husband to arrive so he could make dinner and look after our daughter. This was how we lived our lives.

I had hoped not to pass on the migraine gene. Unfortunately, my daughter suffers from them as much as I used to. I texted her as the pain surged to a new level and she arrived with medication in hand, a sleeping pill and a cold compress for my head. I lay there as she tidied my kitchen and waited for the medication to take effect. I was incredibly thankful but couldn’t help but wonder about my declining years. Will it be her fate to look after me in twenty years’ time? It’s not what would ever want.

As far as migraine sufferers go, I am relatively lucky. Mine usually don’t last for longer than a day and I function well by the next morning. Not this time. For the past two days I have felt like there’s sludge moving through my body. I have a slight headache, stiff neck, back and hips, no energy and brain fog. Every plan I had for this weekend had to be shelved. This was going to be the weekend when I worked on projects, went out and did a thorough clean. All I managed to do is walk the dog, read a little and write a few words.

Tomorrow is Monday and I’ll be back at work. To be on top of my game, I need to relax, let go of the weekend’s frustrations and go to bed early. To stop feeling overwhelmed, I have compartmentalised my to do list. Some things will have to wait until mid-week, others until next weekend and the rest can go on the long finger or drop off the list altogether. Health isn’t just a priority—it’s the foundation for everything else. And this weekend, my body made sure I remembered that.

The Old Lady’s Silent Farewell

The other night, an enormous moth came into my study. Each of the dark brown wings had a blue ‘eye’, no doubt to intimidate a predator. I saw it settle on a window and watched awhile. I ought to get a large glass to capture and release it on the balcony, I thought. Then, momentarily distracted, I forgot all about the moth.

A week later, I found it dead on the table near the window. Even in death, it looked majestic. I felt guilty that I hadn’t remembered to release it and hoped it had a chance to mate and produce another generation of Southern Old Lady Moths. What an odd name for such a stunning moth!

Once I found out its name, I was curious to learn more. It is such a human trait. Naming something makes us feel more connected to it. So, I did a little research. Southern Old Lady Moths can be found where there are acacia trees, and we have plenty of them in the nature reserve across the road. Their caterpillars feast on wattle leaves and can grow up to 6cm. Their heads and feet are orange, just like the underside of the moth I found.

Once they emerge from their chrysalis, the moths are nocturnal. During the day they hibernate in small, out-of-the-way spaces, sometimes even in houses and garages. During these times, the moths remain perfectly still. This was what I was hoping for when I found the moth on the table, but I quickly realised this was not the case.

I felt responsible for its demise. I wished I had remembered to take it out when I first noticed it. Now, in death, I had the opportunity to observe it closely. I marvelled at its markings and its orange underside and head. Then, belatedly, I placed it in a pot plant on the balcony. Though I had forgotten it in life, I gave it a place in death. Here it will either provide food for a bird or turn to compost, completing its cycle of life.

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.

Messy Pages and Plot Twists: Journaling, Cinema and the Creative Spark

A couple of years ago, I revisited the Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way. I have kept journals on and off for the past 30 years and certainly consistently over the past 8-10 years. As Julia suggests, I write 3 pages each day, but I rarely get to do this in the morning. My pages are completed as part of my evening routine.

There is nothing earth shattering within the hundreds of pages I have written. They are mainly trivial recollections of the day with the occasional piece of insight. No historian will ever want to read it. I miss most of the important things that have happened on the world stage. Instead, I concentrate on the minutia of my life. Still, I keep writing and find it a comforting daily exercise.

While I write my blogs on the computer, my journals are all handwritten. I use a fountain pen because I love the feel of the nib as it glides across the paper. My writing is both messy and ‘ample’ as someone once said. I prefer a medium nib that lets the ink flow like my words tumbling out onto the paper. Sometimes I get the first part of a word on paper and part of the next. My hand can’t keep up with my thoughts. But that’s OK too. Nobody will read this, not even me. I have boxes of journals under the stairs which would make good kindling for my funeral pyre.

But writing the three or so pages daily is only part of Julia Cameron’s routine. Another practice she advocates is the artist date. She points out that this is one of the hardest to keep. We create all sorts of reasons why we can’t make time for ourselves. I had forgotten about this until last week. I realized that I had not been out anywhere for weeks, except the shops and my customary dog walk. Something had to change.

On a hot day there’s nothing better than escaping to the airconditioned comfort of a cinema. My favourite place is the Palace Electric in Acton which also hosts various film festivals. There were several films to choose from. I decided on ‘Conclave’ which was a drama centred on the election of a new pope. I was surprised as to how many people were in the audience. I presumed it would only be Catholics or those who had an affiliation with Catholicism who would find the film interesting. It seems it had a much broader appeal. The intrigues and machinations reminded me of ‘The Name of the Rose’, at a smaller scale. The acting was superb, but the characters mainly depicted nationalistic stereotypes. Nevertheless, the film took me on a pleasant cinematic ride. It had one of the best plot twists I never saw coming at the end.

After the movie, I thought about why Julia Cameron advocates the Artist’s date. Yes, there’s the usual ‘you need to fill your cup’ first type answer, but I sensed that there was more. I thought about the experience of walking into the foyer, smelling the popcorn, watching people mingling at the bar, wondering whether I should get a glass of wine (I didn’t), then walking into the dark cavern of the cinema itself. I had to find the row, the seat number, wonder whether people were going to sit next to me. Then when more people arrived, I had to practise equanimity as the talked and talked right through the ads. I hoped they’d stop once the film started, and they did. Then the feeling of watching a film on a big screen, the clarity and immediacy of it. Finally, leaving the theatre and listening to snippets of people’s conversations about the film. The experience brought me into the world and out of my head where I had been stuck for days. A writer has to experience things and Julia Cameron invites us to do just that. Or as Hemingway put it ever so eloquently – ‘In order to write about life first you must live it.’

Ringing Bells and Deepening Breaths: A Practice in Presence

Breathing, such a simple act. An involuntary function of the body that stays with us from the moment we come into this world to the moment we leave it. So why is it so hard to for us to master?

Like many people I know, my breath is shallow unless I pay attention to it. When I consciously think about it, my breathing slows and moves to my belly. At the same time, my shoulders drop, and I feel calmer after just two or three rounds. I am not meditating, just paying attention while I go about my daily tasks. Yet I don’t remember to do this simple exercise often enough.

Today I heard Jonathan Fields talk about the importance of breathwork. He starts his mornings with taking some inbreaths and then exhaling just a little longer. As he repeats this, the breaths naturally get longer, and the exhalation is also lengthened. This has the effect of calming his mind and starting the day feeling at ease. I think this is a worthwhile routine to incorporate into my morning.

The scientific reason why this works is that stress puts the sympathetic nervous system in charge, which activates the ‘fight or flight’ response. On the other hand, when we breathe deeply, we engage the parasympathetic nervous system which slows the heart rate and makes us feel relaxed. As our breath is always available to us, we can use it to help us regulate emotions.

I was reminded of something I always do when I hear bells ring. I stop and breathe consciously until I can’t hear them anymore. In Eastern meditation practices, the bell is always a reminder to return to the breath. This practice was easy to incorporate into my daily life in Europe where church bells often chime on the quarter hour. When I was teaching in a small town in Switzerland, the bells were always there to help me come back to my breath during the day. It made me present to that moment with my students. I miss hearing them in Australia.

So today, I set a gentle sounding timer for each hour of the day, reminding myself to consciously breathe, drop my shoulders and to move my body. I spend too much time in front of my computer and am unaware of the tension I hold. Now, I have an external reminder to bring me back to the physicality of my body and my breath. As Thich Nhat Hanh said ever so simply, ‘breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I smile.’

A High-End Wrap for a Low-Key Lunch

Packing a simple cheese sandwich should have been the easiest part of my day. At the Airbnb where I was staying, I had all the ingredients in a small bar fridge. Once assembled, I looked everywhere for a scrap of paper or cling wrap for my sandwich. Apart from toilet paper, there was nothing even vaguely suitable. While potentially amusing, I couldn’t face the toilet paper option. It reminded me too much of Barry Humphries eating a tin of pea soup out of an airsick bag on a flight to London. Funny but deeply disturbing.

I decided to opt for a more pedestrian alternative. While out for dinner, I went into a Lebanese corner shop which had a good selection of essentials. I walked down the aisle which sold every variety of dried pulses known to humankind and kept my eye out for cling wrap, foil or sandwich bags. I reached the back of the shop and was about to turn back empty handed, when I noticed both cling wrap and aluminium foil on the bottom shelf. Success! All I had to do was choose between them.

As I leant down, I noticed a much smaller packet of aluminium foil than the one I usually bought. I only wanted to wrap a sandwich, so I thought it’d be more economical to buy the smaller one. I was aghast when the cashier charged me $10. Highway robbery I thought, but dutifully paid the amount.

Back at the Airbnb, I made my sandwich for the next day. Opening the Aluminium foil, I was surprised to find it had perforated lines at regular intervals for easy separation. These were roughly the size of toilet paper squares. Perhaps, I should have stuck with my original choice of wrapping, I thought. It certainly would have been much cheaper. Then, I noticed small pin-pricked holes in concentric circles on each of the sheets. Moreover, the foil was quite thick, much thicker than the stuff I had at home. Clearly not meant for a sanga wrapper!

Suspicious, I began to Google the mysterious foil. Nothing on the box gave a clue as to its intended use. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Finally, it occurred to me to take a photo to see if Google lens could assist. And there it was:

‘Discover the ultimate hookah experience with the AHG Premium Shisha Foil Roll.’

I was about to wrap my sandwich in premium shisha foil!

Four sheets were ample for the job. Best of all, I could reuse the foil again and again. The stuff proved indestructible. Yet now that I’m back home, I find the cheaper foil much easier to use. And, as an added bonus, I don’t have to explain myself in the lunchroom the next day.