The validation of Jorga McGuire

Jorga smiled anxiously at the screen. Its light was the only one in her room, the rest of which was all dark shadows and deep blue recessive pockets of gloomy distortion. Her brightly lit laptop screen fluoresced and accentuated the shadows under her eyes and the red, inflamed zits she'd been picking at.

"'Only14U' has winked at you" said the words on her screen. She clicked the underlined name noting the obvious intent of the name as she did so. "Only14U" obviously meaning "Only one for you". So many men made this pitiful attempt at being clever with their online screen names. She'd seen one or two screen names that had indeed, been clever, but most were vague attempts at wit and were largely seen by Jorga as somewhat childish, inane or grossly stupid! Winking via an online match-making site only meant you were indicating an interest in pursuing a potential friendship or date with another person, but even something as innocuous sounding as a "wink" began to exhibit for Jorga, a whole Pandora's Box of emotional self-mutilation.

Jorga often found herself hesitant and anxious when she received such names as 'Only14U' in her online dating service inbox. None of the inane,stupid username profiles had interested her so far. None of the cutely named, clever, sensible, adorably profiled, lovely looking men she'd sent winks to accepted her either, for that matter. Jorga was very used to having rejection replies in her inbox. She was caught in between stupidity aiming 'up' for her and her own stupidity for aiming higher than herself!

'You'd think we were over this class status via physical attractiveness factor thing by now' she mused to herself as she looked at 'only14U's' profile. As was usual in her online dating experience thus far, 'only14U' had declined to add a profile photo of himself as did so many of the men that had previously 'winked' at her. 'Probably as ugly as all hell or wanting a mistress' was Jorga's usual summation of such profiles.

Sometimes, she just sent them a polite "Thanks, but no thanks!" and at other times, if the words of the profile seemed more or less half intelligent, she would send a "I'd like a profile picture please" request. Usually, they were "as ugly as hell", at least according to her version of what "Attractive" meant.

No chemistry at all! She knew logically that to base a potential romantic relationship on two hundred and fifty words and a poorly thought out photograph - if they'd bothered with one at all - was nonsensical and arbitrary in the extreme, however, she wasn't into old, craggy, frowning, aesthetically challenged faces so much.

She knew it worked that way for her in the minds of the pretty men she winked at and who then clicked on her own profile. "As ugly as all hell!" rang in her ears as a challenge to her own vanity and sense of herself as a woman. She knew she was getting on in years and that her looks were now fading but she often felt pretty - sort of - if she wasn't looking in a mirror or at her own photograph.

She felt intelligent, witty, clever, honest, practical, romantic, sexy and adorable most of the time. It was just that her physical representation in two dimensional space continually let her down over and over again. No amount of preening and makeup, lighting or angles of head tilt in her profile pictures could disguise how ordinary and aging she really was!

With this fact in mind, she would often be plagued by a mild case of guilt when turning down, apparently, shy, aging and very ordinary men, whom she could not find attractive but were really very okay. She knew how it felt to be relegated to the dating dustbin by very physically attractive men. She felt bad on the one hand for rejecting men on the basis of how they looked and perversely gratified for being considered attractive by anyone.

When you get a "Thanks but no thanks" in your inbox after sending a 'wink' to a nice looking person with a really clever profile, you feel the jab in your self-esteem quadrant, like that very large needle into your gum at the dentist. It hurts and it can smart for a long time after, but you ignore that because you know its better to take the icky stuff now than suffer any pain, during and after. Jorga was over taking needles. Very over it!

Ordinary and utterly cool women, like herself, spending decent Documentary-on-the-tele viewing time shopping for dates online instead. It was insane! Lovely girls, looking for men who had both smarts and good looks with athletic bodies, along with an above average grasp of the English language, but getting their shy winks knocked back by these men because of what? Her face was too round? She was carrying too much weight? She was too forward? Not forward enough? She was the wrong star sign? She lived in the wrong area? Her profile too perky? Her profile too mundane? She wasn't thirty something? WHAT?

She could never find out what it was that prevented her from finding a genuinely attractive man. And then she noted what she turned down in those ordinary, average men who had winked at her profile and she listened to the subtle, silent judgments she made on the basis of their profiles. She too was mercenarily shallow enough to base her assessment of them by the words they used, if their faces were too round, they were carrying too much weight, or they were inarticulate and silly sounding. She was little interested if they seemed inordinately "dumb" even when she knew they probably were great people despite appearances. They were often too old and their profile pictures made better mug shots for Police Wanted posters than romantic lures. It begged the question as to whether these men were merely desperate or just needed some feminine guidance on personal presentation. Jorga decided it was probably both.

Staring at the screen and observing 'Only14U's' very average profile - sans profile picture - she concluded that the slave trade had not yet died. The exchange rates were different of course but this stuff was voluntary human trafficking nonetheless and therefore a romantic grand disillusionment. A meat market with a large promise of lifetime romance that only rarely delivered and then mostly to the lucky, gorgeously endowed few.

She clicked "Cancel subscription". Her anxiousness passed and her smile widened on her round, aging face. She knew she was better than any online date could guess from two hundred words. She was more intelligent than her attempts at being clever with words could convey, better looking in real life than her photo's suggested, sweeter, kinder, more warm-hearted and far, far more lovable than a page on an internet dating site could ever display. She was Jorga McGuire and that was enough.

A large weight shifted slightly, in her heart and she felt the first flutterings of her self confidence rising up again. She would meet someone...eventually.

Watching butterflies

In the strange story that is a life, you can never take too many chances on letting the butterfly of happiness rest awhile on your shoulder.

Happiness - the Butterfly - is a flighty little thing. She won't be caught in a net or trapped in an enclosure or pinned to a board. She can't do her softly, softly magic dead now can she?

Happiness - the Butterfly lands artfully where she pleases and it just so happens I can see her fluttering near my woe begotten brow and I'm breathless in anticipation for her to just alight on me and take her time to rest there on my little soul.

I once dreamed of a giant butterfly with blue wings with jeweled colours underneath. It spoke to me and asked me if I could let it "feel the cold" for just a little while. I let it rest in my hand and I took it through the Butterfly enclosure in which it lived, all warmth and wet air with nectar stations every few feet - a butterfly paradise really - and I went through the door at one end and then the second door on the other side of that wee space between doors.

The butterfly rested with wings wide open on the palm of my hand, after the humid heat of the enclosure. the cool air was a shock even to my senses, . She lay very still, and very open. I remember thinking how strange it was for a butterfly to keep its wings so open in such conditions. In my understanding, butterflies tend to close their wings to conserve their body heat in the cold. This butterfly, however, was a mystery. She wanted to feel...really feel the cold air against her wings. She needed to know what that was like and needed me to help her find out.

I was getting worried for her. She was so still, so unearthly and beautiful. I thought she had died a soft, quiet, strange death in my hand and I felt remorse that I had done such a thing to something so lovely. I turned and took her back into the enclosure.

She remained still in my hand for a few moments more. Then with a ticklish flutter, she wrested herself free from my hand and floated away on the soggy air to find a nectar station on which to re-fuel. I was amazed at how well she had recovered. And eternally pleased as well.

Later in the dream, when I was standing on the open grassy field that sloped gracefully upwards to a rolling hill towards the horizon, where the hand painted sun smiled down on the Badger and me, the butterfly returned and simply said "Thank you" to me. I knew why she said thank you. It surprised me nonetheless, that she had valued her near-death experience so much.

I've been separated now for 9 months. I think I too, have had my wings spread on the palm of God's hand feeling what it's like to be cold. I have felt the lowest of lows and the most excruciatingly lower lows than those. I survived.

And now the butterfly that is named Happiness awaits her turn to rest awhile...but only when she's ready and only on her terms. I will watch her dance about my head in the meantime.

Fractal Love

Back story - Sierpinski Triangle

The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 6

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5


"Tell me why do you draw spirals again, Ari?" His look made her close her eyes as the throbbing sensation behind them threatened ever louder.

"Because it’s the only way I can cry, Dwayne" she said simply, her eyes shut tightly, willing back the violent surge of emotional intensity behind them. Dwayne stared at them for a moment, trying to understand, then he moved forward again and crouched down to carefully poke the finished drawing in amongst the other papers inside the portfolio. Once it was inside, Ari let the flap fall and she pushed it back under her cot quickly. Dwayne continued to crouch in front of her on the bed. Ari could feel how it was making his knees and ankles, back and neck hurt. He looked at her with his brown, round eyes and excessively aquiline nose. Dwayne said nothing, but Ari could hear his emotions like the shrieking of gulls roaring in her mind. “So? Why do you need to cry, Ari?”

The shooting pain inside Ari's head began to spin like one of her spirals. It was a pinwheel of light boring into her mind, the fiery tendrils spilling outwards to burn and frazzle the edges of her thoughts. "Don't!" she breathed. Dwayne put his fingers against her forehead in the hopeful attempt to cool her mind. The cool of his hands momentarily thwarted the spinning but then it came back again, stronger and more unavoidable. She lay down on the bed. "Kill me!" she whispered.

"No." Dwayne said as quietly.

"I want to cry Dwayne. I can't. My body refuses. I feel everything inside my mind but my body can't react or respond to it. I might as well be dead."

"Bit melodramatic Ari. Even for you."

"You sound like Margot! I'm being a 'baby' now am I?"

"You are in pain. We all of us are sweetie."

"You don't know the pain I feel every moment of my life!" she retaliated raising her voice now a little.

"True, but you only get a reflection of mine, you don't feel how my knees burn that clearly, especially at night when I am trying to sleep."

"Just go D. I'll be fine." she sighed, the spinning maelstrom of pain jettisoning electrical surges of intense heat throughout her head. Dwayne left the room. She could feel the depths of his sadness for her and she ached to weep once more.

She deliberately spiralled herself inside that pinwheel in her head, immersing her sense of herself within its core, at its hub. There she imagined herself to be the spiral's nexus, the place where it began, tiny and untarnished inside the maelstrom of spinning light and heat. The pain diminished a little and she gradually drifted into her usual, fitful pattern of sleep.

To be continued… (I hope)

Satans Saturday Playground

As the state of Queensland in Australia sinks under king tides and rising flood waters and they achieve rainfall totals to break records - my corner of Australia is tinderbox dry and as of Saturday 7th Feb 2009, is burning up!

Around my own home town, a large fire that skirted the town on three sides came close to ripping through this city, flames surfing on the viciously hot and powerful winds. The temperatures in South Eastern Australia yesterday had to be experienced to be understood. Imagine a Saharan Sirocco, blasting across the desert sand at high speed with the intense heat of a blast furnace oven, scorching all in its path. For the past three weeks, we've had temperatures daily in excess of 37+ Celcius. Yesterday, temperatures reached into the high 40's Celcius. My town reached a top of 46C (114F)

The only difference between here and the Sahara right now is that we have stuff that can burn! 5000 hectares of land, three homes, the Golf club (one of the best in the state), stock, native wildlife... we are actually "lucky". Around the rest of Victoria, lives have been lost. As I write, some 20 + people have lost their lives in this terrifying war by heat and flames.

100's of houses have been lost on the outskirts of Melbourne. Over in the far South East of Melbourne, the fires still rage, threatening annihilation on whole communities.

Nothing really totally prepares us for these events. The Country Fire Authority, stretched to absolute maximum capacity has barely enough resources to cope with disasters of this magnitude. They rely, almost entirely, on the fortitude of an overburdened volunteer force, our main defensive weapon we have against the onslaught of a fire storm.

People will demand the Australian Government "do" something, of course. The Government is now fraught with an almighty conundrum. We had been promised financial packages to continue to "stimulate the economy" in light of the current economic climate. Now however, that AUD$42 Billion package may seem an appallingly short-sighted announcement given that that money is likely going to be needed to help the people of Queensland re-build after the worst flooding in living memory as well as the people who've been burned so badly in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Lives, property, land! It's easy to be numbed to the numbers, they are just not able to be seen in the mind in order to comprehend their scope.

Touted as worse than the disastrous Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983, this past two days will be yet another day marked by a name - as opposed to a date - that many will immediately identify as this moment in time when our land seared and was razed to the ground to ashes.

Phantasmic adventures over the roads of maddening distance

Dakar!

Associated with born nutcases obsessed with wheels and riding or driving them over the roughest terrain imaginable, at the fastest possible speed.

Having purchased three DVD's in recent weeks, I have been following the series called "Race to Dakar" which is one of a set of three armchair travelogues by Charley Boorman and his team of savvy adventure entrepreneurs.

The first dream was to travel east from London to New York over land on three motorcycles. That epic was filmed and became the documentary series "Long way round" and featured Charley's best mate, the affable and oddly laconic Ewan McGregor.

The third motorcyclist was the impossibly impetuous cameraman Claudio Von Planta who's presence was graciously acknowledged (which to me, was kinda new really for this type of doco - at least at the time I first saw it. Usually the camera crew is presented as utterly "invisible"). Claudio is pretty much a klutz on a motorbike - or he was in the first series it seemed - but his skills as a cameraman are super human to say the least! He captured the heart of these documentaries which told grand stories of genuine courage, survival, terror, comedy and landscape. He also showed the dynamic relationships between a group of incredible men who had such different temperaments and even louder ego's but who all cohered into a Team - Capital T. Amazing to watch this aspect really.

Then came Charley's decision to have a bash at doing the Dakar Rally. It nearly killed him...twice! He broke his collar bone just training for this gruelling event. In the event itself, just five days into the 14 day, 9000km ride, he broke bones in one hand and dislocated his thumb on the other. In sheer agony, he continued to ride another 400kms to the next bivouac and the "comfort" of his team mates. A testament to his determination to try his absolute best to succeed when he felt a "failure" at this task from practically day one!

It's gritty, dirty, romantic Boys Own Adventure Series realism of the first order. LOTS of swearing, whinging men and sand! You feel the horror and the insanity of Dakar and your admiration for the men and particularly the amazing women who do this race, sometimes many times over, suck the air out of your lungs.

Charley's, and most of the rest of the team's experience of Dakar left a slightly sour taste in their mouths. Too gruelling, expensive, life-threatening and utterly MAD to be considered worth trying again?

.....Well..... maybe!!!! Many who swear off Dakar the first time find themselves toying with the idea of trying it again not that long after they're home. It must be like some kind of dirty drug or something. One that is so insane and so addictive and which is such a "bad trip" at the time but you want it in any case because it has that kind of phantasmigorical element to it that says...

It's when you're nearly dead that you're most alive!

Alexys' game

1. So far in my life I have... learned that my mind mostly observes what I'm feeling, likes to discuss it philosophically as open source material for observation and comment. However I am actually not very good at understanding my own emotions, let alone accurately - nor often honestly - expressing them.

2. I am happy about my life because... I learn something important every single day. It morphs into my being like suds into a sponge and I keep growing into the woman I was created to be.

3. One of the worst/best experiences I have ever had was... The best worst experience I have EVER had is my team experience back in 87/88 when I was a member of Rainbow of Promise with Youth Encounter. A cataclysmic wave of growth and pain so profoundly life-changing, it was a crucible more than a 'trip overseas'.

4. I am most proud of... having given birth to two rather clever and unique human beings :)

5. I define love as... the ability to forget what I need or want because the other person is more important than me right now, and being really happy about it too! :)

6. I am grateful for... Christ.

7. I want to be best remembered for...my writings and my sense of joyous playfulness. I want to be remembered for the essence of youthfulness and sunshine.

8. Nothing makes me laugh more than... wit, irony, word play and cleverly insightful parodies.

9. If I could sum of my life in three words, I would say... Anticipation, Words, Experiential.

10. The best gift that I can give is... my courage and my hope.

11. If I was told that I only had 1 year to live, I would... move to Germany and master that bloody language properly!

Thanks Alexys. :) That was fun.

too hot to handle

too hot to think
too hot to do anything
too hot to muse
too hot to decide
too hot to sleep
too hot to play
too hot to be green
too hot to be amusing
too hot to cohere
too hot to know
too hot to gel
too hot to write
too hot to walk
too hot to run
too hot to dream
too hot to create
too hot to attend
too hot to wear stuff
too hot to game
too hot for shoes
too hot for clothes
too hot for standing
too hot for sitting
too hot for laying down
too hot for prayer
too hot for the river
too hot for birds
too hot for my cat
too hot for our house
too hot for paint
too hot for tar
too hot for concrete
too hot for trees
too hot for hades.


burning in a sea of heat so constant, it feels like I'm being broiled for serving on a fine china plate for creatures I can little comprehend.

Wednesday 28th January it was 44.5 degrees Celcius (112.10F)
Thursday 29th January it was 44.6 degrees Celcius (112.28F)
Today - Friday 30th January it is right now at AEDST of 1830 hours, 43.0 degrees Celcius (109.4F)

Next week, we are forecast to receive the following day time temperature peaks...

Saturday 31st Jan 44.0C (111.2F)
Sunday 1st Feb 40.0C (104.0F)
Monday 2nd Feb 40.0C ( " )
Tuesday 3rd Feb 39.0C (102.2F)
Wednesday 4th Feb 38.0C (100.4F)
Thursday 5th Feb 39.0C (102.2F)

...and a wonderful "cool" change will bring us back to a "pleasant" 34.0C (93.2F) on Friday next week ;)

Air conditioners have been cranked up to the max this past few days. It's highly doubtful we'll be using them by the end of next week though. If Victoria's energy requirements can't be contained and in the event of a major bushfire, I may end up being offline and incommunicado for awhile.

Is it Global Warming? Don't know! It depends on which experts you read really. My dad is doing the Salmon thing and flailing about against the main-stream current of popular opinion and emphatically declares that there is no such thing as Global Warming from CO2 emissions! It's simply "Climate Variability". Every few thousand years, the earth chucks a bit of wobbly and either has an extreme freeze or in our current case... a deep heat rub!

Any which way but cook or chill for us average mortals.

By August this coming year... I may well be posting how damn cold it is!

Millenium Gen mi

It's my birthday and I am 47 years old.

I feel right at this moment, 17 years old, giddy with the fullness of loving attention being shown to me on this my "special" day. In many ways, I do identify with the modern and current trend of youthful expression, the strange mix of youthful exuberance for self-expression and individualism. I am just on half way through a full life. What lessons will I learn from here on in? What lessons have I learned that will bring value to those who come after me?

Today, my kids have shown extraordinary generosity in their gift giving. Friends have gone way and above the call in wishing me well on this day.

Even the gang in Second Life organised a surprise birthday bash for me which blew me away as I had no inkling they were up to something! They even had a rainbow which is a portent that holds significant meaning for me spiritually and personally - and they didn't know that fact either, which of course, lends awesome power to its providence.

I've eaten enough junk food today to sink the Titanic and have thoroughly enjoyed every morsel of it.

There are hardly words to describe how I'm feeling right now. I feel buoyant, optimistic, energised and positive. I feel extraordinarily loved. Within a week, I"m sure my mood will perhaps be different - as moods often can be - but for today, for THIS now that I'm living, I feel alive with the wonder of love and potential.

Thank you God for days such as this. Thank you for the bounty undeserved, in the love of family, friends and you.

a slightly weird saturday

Well... it's not like it's anything extremely out of the ordinary as such.

I got up a bit later this morning after having HAD to get up very early to an energetic kitten (as you do! *sigh*).

But she was still driving me nuts by 8:30am so I resigned myself to getting out of bed and doing my morning "check my mail" routine on the computer here. I do live a rather sad existence, counting on mail from around the world each day *smirk*

But anyway... the upshot of it was that I was pinged left right and centre by a bunch of people in Skype and Googletalk and found it all rather frenetic and busy for someone still waking up and feeling dopey and annoyed.

It must have done me good though, because a few conversations later and I feel pretty good now. Something feels lighter and there is less drag pulling on my inner spirit.

The boys from the band are all here to rehearse now for this afternoon's gig at Northfest (a new mini festival here in my town). My JD plays the drums. They're definitely getting better at this band thing I must say...despite the rather ad hoc approach to rehearsing. Needless to say, my house can get rather loud on occasion.

I might pop along to Northfest later to check it out. I did have grand aspirations today of going shopping at the second hand clothing places for some clothes this morning and haven't managed it. I am really desperate for some new clothes, especially for wearing to work! Will get there eventually, I guess.

As of next Saturday morning, I'll be out earning extra money cleaning a home for a local family. I'm not sure how long this will last but as the goal this year is to get the kids their own computer (instead of nagging me for the use of my Preciousss), I need every cent I can scrape together.

I don't know why today feels slightly weird really. Just that there feels like there is this heavy portent in the atmosphere - an instinct that there is a change in the wind on its way perhaps. I feel as if I'm on some kind of bizarre threshold of something surprising and out of the ordinary.

Maybe I'm projecting too. I do that a lot! It's possible that this will be a rather ordinary Saturday.

Porena is leading a workshop in Second Life at Perfect Paradise Island on Imagestreaming later this evening and I'm really looking forward to it. I've only a rudimentary understanding of this tool for creative visualising, so am keen to learn more. Maybe that could be what I'm feeling right now at this midday hour... a heightened sense of something interesting on my knowledge horizon... maybe. :)

So, anyway - all things considered, it is nice to finally be in a place where my spirit feels much lighter, more joyful, less burdened by the innumerable vicissitudes that seemed to be the theme I constructed for my life in 2008. There HAS been a shift inside of me - a big one but also a quiet one too, my perspective and my outlook have definitely been adjusted and I am enjoying the process of that adjustment.

After Winter comes the Spring! See, Badger? I do understand the seasons after all :)

overwhelm good: overwhelm bad

Seems to be a big week for me.

Overwhelmed is the catchphrase of each day. My new job as a Project Worker with a Volunteer Resource Centre is taxing my brain to the hilt. I'm being thrown in "gently" by trying to absorb as much information as I can. Once January is over, and the year finally begins with the kids going back to school and volunteer groups all re-convening, my job is bound to get extremely busy. The sheer networking task I have ahead is amazing, contacting people and getting to know them and their needs with all things Volunteers! Wow! What a job this will be!

That is the Overwhelm good. I walk home each day around 1530 and I muse on the providence of being given a job that matches my skills and interests. This is the kind of work I wanted and I whisper prayers of gratitude for this chance to do something useful with my time and talents.

There is so much to learn though. Just sifting through the expectations of my position and what is required under the funding agreements with Government is quite daunting really. I only vaguely feel out of my depth, but thankfully, each hour makes me more sure that I am in the right place at last. At least for now.

The other face to the Overwhelm coin is "bad". Some weeks ago, I began a friendship with an Australian man online via Second Life. A sweet, wonderfully enticing connection with someone I really liked - and still do very much. Sadly, at least for now, that won't continue as it had. It hurts a bit and I get quite emotional about it if I think too much on it. I'd give in and re-connect but for different reasons, which I won't elaborate on here, it isn't feasible.

I already miss our conversations and the laughter. It's nice to have that "click" with a member of the opposite sex. That open camaraderie and rapport that is so easy and just flows between kindred souls... he is a terrific person and I wish him well.

Someday we may actually catch up in 'Meat Space' and enjoy a wine and a laugh. I hope so. For now though, the pinching ache of sadness lurks around looking to poke me in the heart strings and remind me of what "might" have been "if only". That may dissipate in time but nevertheless, it's always going to be a sad thing - and even a little "bad" - that some friendships just aren't easily available in the here and now.

Already, this is proving to be an interesting year! Overwhelm is good or bad or both... dealing with it is as much about "flow" as anything else. Emotional flow is not my strong suit but I'm learning as I go :) For which I am grateful.

volunteering and do I even care?

I started my new job today.

I work in an agency delivering resources and information, training and options for all sectors of the volunteer community.

My role is as a Volunteer Management Program Project Worker. A rather dry sounding mouthful for a job title really. It's more or less community development work with a focus on assisting Not-For-Profit organisations with all their volunteer resources and training.

The old days of "just" chipping in to help out are fading away. Government - at least here in Australia - are recognising the huge value volunteers make to the community and social fabric of our Aussie society. It's not only good economic sense, it's also good ethical sense. A community bonded is a community that is healthy and less likely to drain services. Volunteers are integral to that goal.

But...

Do I care enough about the concept of volunteering to do my job well?

Good question!

I have been a volunteer over the years in many different organisations and guises. When I adopt a project...I really adopt it! To the point of fanaticism sometimes. I can become so deeply entwined into a group as to be utterly consumed by it.

In recent years, I've been very cautious about becoming "too" involved for this reason. I don't really like being told what to do. I rather like bossing people about and telling them what *I* want done for the most part! At the same time, I feel so obligated to my chosen group that the burden I put on myself in meeting those self-imposed duties can literally suck my spirit dry.

Looking back, I can see a distinct pattern to my involvement in groups. Three years! Yes! Nearly everything I have ever had a strong focus for and have been passionate about has lasted for approximately three years, give or take a few months. That was rather eye-opening!

I did a rather brief and perhaps a little perfunctory muscle test on my new job today, to find out what my core "thinks" about this jobs prospects - given my poor track record in recent months with retaining employment - Answer? Three years! hahahaha

It's like it's some sort of hot wired genetic code thing in me or something. My gene for Hyper-Focus Passion Facility is set to three years max!

So back to the question. Do I CARE enough about volunteering in general to do my job well. Actually... you know what? No!

And that is a very, very good thing! It means, that just maybe, I can be a lot more impartial, less emotionally involved, less Hyper-focused and definitively less inclined to have my body, mind and soul eaten up by the Group Mind!

And that means...I could very well keep this job longer than I expect! Just maybe!

Do I care? I care enough to not want to care overly much.

Think about it.

my tenuous home

This fragile circle
holds only enough to soothe us -
there isn't much left over to grow us.

Do not sleep
Do not cry
Do not breathe unnecessary thoughts
into the ephemeral chemistry around you.

Think smaller rather than bigger
in the practical application of
bigger dreams.

Life is a Law. Law isn't life.
Be free to challenge the unnecessary.

It may well be gone tomorrow or last
one hundred thousand lifetimes more -
who cares how long - but for Now,
the miracle is that it is even here at all.

Inside the marble of water,
inside the bubble of air
you and i are sharing,
rests a canary that sings before it
stops breathing.

This planet is my tenuous home.

The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 5

Everything about Dwayne was long. His legs were long and very thin, his torso similarly long and wiry thin. His neck and even his face were long and thin. His ears looked as if the lobes had been stretched downwards, his nose was ungracefully long and very thin, the tip pointed and sharpened as a result. Only his eyes remained round enough for him to be considered reasonably human. He was a research modification in the genetics of dwarfism. By tweaking the gene responsible for shortness, The Dwayne Modification elongated out of all natural proportions to something just slightly less than a human spaghetti noodle. To watch Dwayne walk was like watching an over-long reed move through space.

When sitting on the bed beside Ari, Dwayne looked twice as long as she in his body - and thinner, if that were possible. When he stood beside her, he was a skyscraper in comparison. The pain in Dwayne's joints and muscles from the sheer force of will in keeping his length upright in space was obvious in the dark blue circles under his eyes. He lived in constant physical pain and only Ariadne could hear his silent weeping at night, in his room, in the other wing. She never mentioned it.

The pain behind her eyes throbbed a little harder. She tried to thwart the onslaught of emotional and physical mental torment this young man was permanently carrying. She could only go inside of it and immerse herself in it and simply feel it. She imagined herself one of her spirals, going down inside the cave of pain she felt emanating from Dwayne. Somehow, this process helped, especially in proximity. She was able to relieve it somewhat if they kept the current emotional levels at this keel - if they changed...she would have to spiral again and it took a lot of energy to do that.

"What's up?" she asked making small talk. Her voice was low and soft.

"Nothing much" lied Dwayne equally quietly. "Margot was a bitch to you at lunch time, again, I hear" He was somewhat overprotective of Ari and she smiled a wan smile. She knew he would have liked to make her his woman but the thought of that kind of emotional pull made Ari sick and she had always refused his more obvious advances.

"Margot is doing what Margot always does," she philosophically replied.

"Yeah. Well, she needs to keep her big blue mouth shut n’ go outside and fry some eggs in the sun on her blue-tinged arse." Dwayne mumbled ungraciously, growling these words in deep throbbing tones. He paused and then he changed the subject quickly on feeling Ariadne tense beside him. "Nice picture by the way."

She wasn't tensing so much for herself as tensing from the assault of his emotional responses toward Margot. It worried Dwayne that everything he felt, this girl could feel too on top of her own emotional state. He tried very hard to keep his emotions and status as neutral as possible even though he found incredibly draining and hard to do. He cared so much for this girl, some nights he would lay in his cot and feel the ache in his heart was stronger than the pain in his joints. He pulled these thoughts in and down to try and protect her from them.

"Stop trying to disguise what you're feeling Dwayne" Ari said softly. He relaxed and she winced "It's okay...I got it," as if his emotions were something he'd dropped and she had picked up.

She held the completed image up for both of them to see. Dwayne looked at it and then took it from her hands and got up off the cot and moved towards the door. "I don't like it D. No sense in showing it to me from a distance," said Ari, knowing his reasoning. He turned and held the top corners of the image and looked at her.

"You realise you are a genius? Don't you Ari?

She sighed and bent down, her head diving between her legs to peer under her cot. She pulled out a large portfolio of previous artworks and leaving it lay on the floor, she opened the mouth of the portfolio, dozens of art pieces encased inside, their edges appearing like the pages of a mottled book, and looked up at Dwayne.

"Just put it away Dwayne. It's over." Her words were ludicrously filled with despondency. It would require a fresh canvas to alleviate the foreboding doom she seemed to be implying under those words.

…To be continued. (I hope)

The final Gathering

My father's side of the family is "unusual". So I have been told by those in the know on these things anyway.

Dad was the eldest of six. A big loud, brusque bunch of four boys and two girls. A close-knit and cohesive family unit growing up with an extraordinary father and mother of their own during the greater part of the 20th Century.

Those six kids went on to have families of their own. I am the eldest child of this next generation. The adored, feted upon, darling first Grandchild of my beloved Grandfather Lou and my darling Grandmother Sylv.

I watched as my family grew to include a large number of gorgeous cousins. Every so often we would gather all together at Grandpa's and later, after he died, "Grandma's Place". Wonderful family get-togethers filled with argument and chatter, laughter and debate, cigar smoke and jocular teasing. The best part was the collectively sung opening grace at the beginning of each meal, our voices all blended into a unique harmony. It always stirred my soul.

When, my grandmother died some 12 years ago it seemed as if we would lose that quality of wider family that had been so incredibly grounding for me, as a child. I assumed we would all go our separate ways, the younger ones would find wives, or husbands, I would never meet. They would have children I would never know.

An Uncle and his wife changed the dynamic. They opened their home to the possibility of re-creating those noisy, wonderful, close clan gatherings of our heritage. We established, by consensus, a post New Year date, the first or second Saturday in January. It became a Clarion Call for the clan to gather. Those who could make it did, those who could not waited another year. A very few have never been able to attend for whatever reason but have always been there in Spirit.

All of us are committed to church, faith, home and family. No matter where we were in the world, the depth of connection and love between all of us transcends petty rivalries and minuscule hurts. My ex partner "Baz" attended yesterday, for to exclude him by virtue of our separation was unthinkable - even by me. Despite our own failures and pain, he is as much a member of my extended family now as he ever was and I will never begrudge him belonging to it.

Nothing is worth the expense of losing people through anger and pride, the goal is always to reconcile the differences toward peaceful agreement. My family is gifted at this and despite all their natural human flaws, the arrogant tendencies, the silly politics, there was and still is, in my family, a resonance and a quest for harmony that was stronger and more substantial than pride and willfulness.

Over the years, I have watched as, gradually, my younger cousins - predominately boys - went on to marry exquisitely beautiful women, and men with the same values, goals and faith, so that they blended into the greater unit like greased cogs in a freely moving flywheel. The family gatherings grew larger.

For ten years, my Uncle and my Aunt have prepared their home, opened their door, organised the catering, and provided the atmosphere that became known as "The Hedt Do".

A new generation of children were born. My little cousins, once removed, are so gorgeous and precious to me. I held the youngest of them in my arms yesterday. I am 46.5 years older than him, but we are connected via the blood that flows through our veins. He is no less my family, than his Father, my first cousin, and his Grandfather, my Uncle. The tree grows.

Most of these early January events have averaged between 30 and 50 people. Loud, noisy, boisterous, filled with cigar smoke, beer, excellent food and much laughter. We are all still connected through our faith, and our willingness to never become so proud, we cannot forgive the ones we are bonded to by blood.

Yesterday, was the final regular Gathering of the Clan. It is time. The family has grown so much and is spread so far and wide now. The organisation for this event was a major burden on my Aunt, in particular. The unit cohered and solidified through her efforts and others.

Now it is time for those tiny cousins, once removed, for whom I am an Ancient Person to learn a different history of their family, through their own parents. They will never fully know the Unit I grew up with, the amazing coherence of familial understanding, love, generosity that I have held in my memories and experiences. But, because their own parents hold it in their experience, maybe they will re-create it down their own family lines. Through this, the power of faith and love within family will keep spreading out into the world beyond the borders of this time and my Father's generation.

We aren't unusual in who we are...we are as anyone else... the difference, I think, was - is - that we shared a bond that went beyond blood. It was called Faith and it was - is - rock solidly entwined with love.

Thank you Pam and Brian for bringing our Clan together for all these years.

Be present at our table, Lord
Be here, and everywhere, adored
These mercies bless and grant that we
May feast in Paradise with Thee

Amen

an overwhelming responsibility?... maybe not...it depends

"There's a New Year on the Doorstep, Mother.
It's come to kill the past.."

Those are the first two lines of a poem I wrote at around age 17. I'll have to find the rest of it though as I forget most of the following lines. I don't recall it being particularly brilliant but I've always liked the rhythm of these first two lines despite that.

What did 2008 do in your life?

Did the year do anything at all? Or did you do something to your year?

I find myself "blaming" 2008, The Year, on most of the things that happened to me. Truth be told, it is me who is to blame for almost everything that has happened. We can never really know how the infinitesimal choices we make, with each and every breath, affect our long-term future, but they do I think. The fact is that Time is never at fault for the lot we have and it isn't always the hand we've been dealt with either.

Life is a series of consequences. It is physics and metaphysics, shape and shaped, by the variables of human existence. All the things we think and choose, decide and do, shape and create in the lives we live are no one's fault but our own, in the long run. If we respond with fear, anxiety, angst and pain: if we respond with gratitude, love, joy and acceptance, we are in fact, choosing the future we wish to live, even if we disagree with it.

Still, a part of me says "Bring on 2009!" I want to hurry things along in the hopeful anticipation of positive climes during the coming year. I've always been like this! I have always hoped for better things, perfect things, beautiful, wonderful, glowing, sparkling, resplendent things. And I have feared these very things too.

There is a line in Jethro Tull's classic operetta "Thick as a Brick", where the genius child poet "Little Milton" (Ian Anderson), writes in his 'Epic Poem', "God is an overwhelming responsibility." I think we do treat God like that. We treat our future like that. We treat our past and our present, if we care to notice it, like that. We expect far too much of ourselves in our response to life - and to God. We abuse the gifts of Life and Love and we presume too much power in the concepts of fate and destiny. The very things I desire, I also fear because what is perfect is never AS perfect as I'd hoped it would be. My choice! My standard! My response! My consequence! And yours too, for what I choose affects you even if I claim no responsibility for it.

It was never meant to be like this but that we made it so.

It's not the New Year that "kills" our past. It is not Time that directs our lives. It isn't even God who is defining each little step for us to tread blindly. It is our choice to kill our past and create a new future. It's the choices upon choices we make for ourselves - and in regards to each other - that creates our collective future. God may have plans for us, but he is kind enough to allow us the freedom to choose how we approach those plans and walk the path.

Where there is gratitude, acceptance, understanding, truth, hope, faith, integrity, loyalty, honour, and Love above all, within our choices, our futures, our years, become less battlegrounds and more like pockets containing useful tools for the rest of our life, and yours.

May you bring to 2009 the responses and choices that create the best tools to keep you living and loving well into the future.

The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 4

The scientists had long since dismissed such notions as fractals. It was considered boring computer science. Ariadne however, had simply begun to draw them. Her art was similar to a fractal from the very first, only a static version on paper and not on computer. Still, like the computerised visual equations, her imagery soared in and out of the perspective, giving the illusion of spirals morphing into another set of spirals. Her work appeared very much like a refined series of artistic fractal equations that could be viewed one way from afar, another way entirely up close.

She gathered up a pencil and sat at the side of the bed. Arranging the paper on the small table beside her she began to fill in a small bit of the white space left on the paper, with her exquisitely attuned artistry. The spiral represented so much for her. It was her theme. For Ari, it was the physical embodiment of tears. Into every spiral she poured the pain that was lodged behind her eyes. The final pieces meant nothing to her and once one was complete; she viewed it, emotionally discounted it and set it aside. The process alone was her release and her fuel. Without it, she felt she probably would wither and die.

The scientists had argued vociferously amongst one another about conducting experiments on this version of The Ariadne Modification. Some wanted to see how she would respond if disallowed to draw her spirals, others said that whilst this particular modification was an exception to other Ariadne's of that same crop, it was still unwarranted to spend extra public monies on such foolishness as the response of a mutant to her art.

A quiet knock at her open door barely aroused her from her process. Smiling, the young male looked at the pretty woman sitting, slightly awkwardly and twisted, on her bed intent on her craft. She felt his aura first before realising he was actually in the room. Ari felt the shot of compassion for her emanating from the very tall, very thin young male. "Oh shush Dwayne! I'm fine!" she retaliated, even though he'd not spoken.

‘The Dwayne Modification’ snickered softly, loped slowly into the room, reaching out his incredibly elongated fingers to touch the crown on her head. His gesture was his way of showing her he was trying to understand the mysteries of her intuitive mind. Sometimes it soothed Ari to have such a person attempt to reach her, other times, it was such a thunderclap of emotional intensity thrust upon her soul that it made her head pound and her whole being ache to cry. She flinched instinctively and he quickly withdrew his hand knowing the meaning of it and feeling sadder he hadn’t been able to sooth her.

Dwayne looked down and perused her artwork quietly, still not speaking. He noted the complicated effect of her spirals and yet the simplistic device she used to construct such complexity. It was amazing. Staring it for longer than he should have, he felt dizzy as if the work was drugging him in some way. He flopped down beside Ariadne on her bed and breathed out heavily.

… To be continued. (I hope)

Luhrmann's Oz and The Moving Castle

Two movies this weekend.

The first was Howls Moving Castle on SBS Television late on Friday night (26 dec 08). An award winning film in the style of Japanese Animé, this lovely little story, blending fantasy and period, captured my imagination.

There is enough in the sub-text under the basic plot to have one thinking and musing on it long after the movie is done. There are themes about the substance of the moment, the quality of life even at great age, energy, vitality, spirit, love, honour, peace and extraordinary courage under difficult circumstances. The heroine is plucky and spirited, brave and big hearted and struggles with her sense of place in the world until Love fills her heart and the focus shifts within her. The hero is beautiful, wise and strong but tends to hide his deep emotional vulnerability from the world. There is evil which must be repelled and thwarted. There is friendship, good humour, magic and forgiveness. The main theme is "Sense of Place" and where one belongs, at least for me anyway.

The second movie I saw was "Australia" by Baz Luhrmann. This movie, which will undoubtedly win some kind of award I guess, is a pretty basic story told "old-style" like the Hollywood romantic fantasy epics from the "Golden Age" of movies. The characters are painted in broad brushstrokes and are larger than life, but the story carries well and it is easy to lose yourself inside of it.

There are also sub-texts in this story, strongly led by the aboriginal cast who bring the spiritual essence to this piece of dramatic cinema. There is the pale English upper-crust heroine, plucky, brave, a little bit lost at the beginning for whom Love fills her heart and her focus shifts within. There is the crusty, emotionally reserved hero all buff and gorgeous and dripping in dirt and sexual tension. There is betrayal, death, space, colour, movement, honour, creed, the substance of the moment and the demonstration of courage under extraordinary circumstances. There is evil which must be thwarted as well as friendship, good humour, magic and forgiveness.

Luhrmann uses the potentially tacky hook of "Oz" from The Wizard of Oz, to underpin the spiritual themes of the movie. Thankfully however, the dignity of the aboriginal cast subdues what could have become a silly bit of trite word-play (Oz is our short-hand way of saying 'Oztraiyleeya'), and makes it something actually quite sweet and profound. Again, the strong theme for me was the "Sense of Place" and where we belong.

Both movies weave tapestries quite different in context and style. The stories are on the surface very different. The themes are not at their base elements. This is story-telling of the Dreaming sort; the kind of stories mankind has told his tribe for hundreds of thousands of years. We never tire of these themes because they are our own themes, the plots may all be unique but the essence that generates those plots is not. All people everywhere seek that place where they belong. All people long to have the courage to follow their heart. All people wish for love that fills their heart so that the focus shifts from within themselves.

Perhaps not ironically, both movies used the concept of air-raid bombings to underpin the drama. The violence of war is depicted in both movies in quite realistic ways. The afeared loss of the beloved being a classic and very strong element in both narratives. It surprises me as I sit here and write this just how similar these two stories actually are despite the very different styles.

How we interpret these dreams, our stories, our history, through the heroes and heroines of fantasy...is not important. What is important, is that we tell them at all.

The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 3

Unable to grieve biologically, Ari had developed other means of dissipating the pain. For Ari, the only way she could find solace was in her art. She had a theme, which she assiduously studied and built upon to the point where her designs and ideas contained the seeds of genius. This caused some consternation among the scientists on the other side of the Perspex screens. Ariadne’s work was genuinely inspirational and ethically it would be wrong not to have the world see it and marvel at it - but because she was, technically, a mutant, it wasn't considered proper to parade these Human mutant GM crops to the rest of the world. It was best if the rest of humanity didn't really know too much about the Human GM project. What to do with Ariadne's art became a serious cause for dissention and argument among the project scientists.

Ariadne returned to her room after lunch and stood at the side of her simple cot and beside table. It was littered in papers, pencils and pieces of black charcoal - a very rare commodity since burning things had been long been outlawed, damaging as it was to the thin layers of oxygenated air surrounding the planet. Fire still existed and was feared but it was usually contained in the large global parks where humans were not allowed to venture anymore. The charcoal, so coveted by the world’s artists, was from one of these parks. There was a thriving black market - a term that made people smile at the obvious irony - in the sale of stolen charcoal from the global parks. That Ariadne had been given such an illicit tool to extend her artistic theme was testament to how others, outside of her Perspex cage, viewed her work. It was also an unspoken rule that mutants, treated as they were like prized lab rats, were to be granted anything, even that which ordinary people would have struggled years to obtain.

The mutants knew their lifespan was short. They were research subjects and as much as they were feted upon and had almost every need attended to, they realised early in their growth cycle that when the research needs for their crop genes had been exhausted, their bodies were no longer required. “Re-integration” was a euphemistic term for their bodies being returned to the cellular dust from which they’d been harvested. A number of vials of blood and tissue were retained in a repository for engineering new crops of their particular kind, and then all but the healthiest mutants were euthanised, their bodies mulched and composted for adding to the soils in the plant breeding centres.

Only one avenue was available to those genetic strains of humans who did not require daily medications, or suffered undue pain or discomfort in their body. These human crops were offered the chance to crew a Light Ship that would seek new worlds to colonise in deep space. It was an enormous gamble on the chance to live a full life on another planet; to breed as normal human beings do; raise a family, develop a culture, a race, a home to call one’s own. If no such place was found in time, they simply remained in deep space until the ships energy supply dissipated and they died. Margot was a strong candidate for such a journey. She was terrified. Ariadne could feel Margot’s deeply embedded terror emanating from every fibre of her being - every night and every day. It was probably the reason Margot was so acerbic. Ariadne would never be granted the Light Ship option. She could not cry and as such required far too much medical assistance to be considered a viable option for the re-colonisation lottery. Ari was, almost, comforted by this thought.

She stood there and stared blankly at a recent artwork. It was hypnotic. Ari had drawn a series of interconnecting spirals, that when you looked closer contained even more interconnecting spirals within spirals. Even within the very lines of spirals, tiny and fine as they were, were more, impossibly tiny, spirals co-joined and entwined. The web-like finesse and detail of her art was astonishing - even to other mutants.

…To be continued. (I hope)

Within 24 hours, calm claimed my anxiety and beat it to a pulp

yesterday she didn't have a job. Yesterday she was suffering mild anxiety and was desperately trying to be philosophical and resigned to her current situation.

Today she has a job! A good job from all accounts. One practically designed for her (well...that is when she figures out exactly what it is and how its done of course).

yes!

I have work.

I've been under more physical stress than I realised. Today my body feels like its just had a big weight lifted off it. It doesn't feel light and energised as such though. In fact, I am stiff, tired, sore as if I've run more miles than the average road-runner.

Of course, I haven't been, I've been pretty "slack" actually, doing "nothing much" and instead feeling oppressed and down-hearted about the search for work. Emotionally, it's the direct equivalent of running a marathon.

Today, it's like I've been granted Holidays after doing a really tough gig. Ironically, I've done very little this past few months other than "look for work" and write a lot. Still, underneath where no one see's - least of all myself - I was working harder than most to keep getting out of bed each day, deal with home, children, job applications, welfare angst, financial stress, career focus, passion, direction, loss, the list goes on.

Today, I can breathe and let the past finally go for good. I've been given a new shot at finding what it is I'm "meant" to do. That's a blessing and a massive Christmas Present.

I'm on holidays now...until the second week of January. Then I start my new life as a Volunteer Management Program Project Worker :) Go figure!

Of course this all depends on if I pass the Criminal History Check..... hahahhaha *smirk*

Musing back... Deciding foward

2008 has been one Annus horribilis

There's been a couple of good bits but overall, it's not been an easy year, a comforting or comfortable year or a year in which things sort of "flow" smoothly.

2008 seems to have been more about personal decisions and growth on the more subjective strata of the Inner Bean.

I've learned a lot more about what emotions are... what BIG emotions are. How they affect the soul, the core and how they impact on the ability to make choices.

I've learned how to live with very much less. I've done "without" and lived a lot more simply in many ways. I've railed against this on many occasions as I really don't like being thwarted by a lack of financial freedom but I guess its been a good lesson to rein in my tendency to be a little too free with money. I assume too much and rely very heavily on God to "provide". And He has actually in astonishing ways on occasion.

I've struggled with relationships - the really important ones in my life - close female friends I've known for many years and male friends. These relationships are so important to me and yet I struggle so much to be "there" for the people who count. I know how selfish and self-centred I am now.

I've learned when to call it quits with live-in spiders.

I've learned that badgers demanding I go about smelling coffee doesn't guarantee that these "magical visions" and synchronicities will turn out to be what you expect.

I've learned that I don't really know what I want in life other than a broadband internet connection and blogging and other writing. I would emotionally starve if I could not write or muse in words. It's not likely going to pay my bills anytime soon though and I don't know what to do about that right now. There is no clear vision as to how to turn this passion into something that makes a difference AND subsequently, feeds my family.

I've learned how to study for university but I'm not sure I'm that interested in University studies in an online context anymore. It's a LOT tougher to study alone than in the dynamic environment of being on a campus with other flesh and blood students. I still don't know if I have the courage and the fortitude to continue towards a B.A. in Internet studies via Online Universities Australia. That being said, I am seriously considering going back to school locally here and doing a Business Certificate course next year if work doesn't turn up by the New Year.

I've learned to clean! And How! Having spent some time cleaning in the spiffiest, cleanest motel in all the land...I really know the difference between clean and sort of clean! I hope that's a skill I can keep! :)

Next year will pose it's own challenges. There is no need for resolutions as such. I do want to make some decisions though. I can sit here, getting fat again, whining and musing about what I am "meant" to do and trying to figure out what I truly want to do or I can just get involved in life again and see what happens.

For too long this past six months of this year - I've navel-gazed myself into a confused frenzy of self-limiting beliefs. It's time to regain my equilibrium and look at God in the details of life again now. To head through the mists, terrified for sure...but just head through them without stopping to try and get bearings I simply cannot find by myself.

This year was the year of Let Go.

Next year I hope and pray it will be the year of Let God.

Have a wonderful Christmas season no matter who or what you believe. My hope for you is that the Christ child inspires you to practice loving large within small circles.

God speed

Footnotes to the Girl story

hahaha

Am getting a bit of feedback of sorts re the first two "chapter" posts for a story I've been writing called "The Girl who couldn't Cry".

You can find chapter 1 here and chapter 2 here.

The story is entirely a work in progress. I do have a few chapters written up but they may be tweaked or changed and even I don't know where this story is going to end up. I'm just glad I have more than one or two chapters in the current pipeline. I can lose interest in projects like this very quickly as I am completely and utterly results focused more than being able to engage with a process over a long period of time. This story however, seems to have a full universe of potential within and I am more than a little excited about seeing if it can and how it might develop.

Originally, I just started writing "The Girl who couldn't cry" into this blogger screen on a whim, but when I got to over 3000 words, I balked a little at posting it in its entirety. I have written long stories in here before, but because I tend to write on the fly and because I need space between writing and editing to see the flow/grammar/spelling issues...I decided to split the Girl story into sections...chapters if you will... so that I can try and polish the text a little more than I usually do when blogging.

I have to say that this particular story has gripped my imagination like no other before it. Ariadne is fast becoming a very important person to me and I want to get to know her better. I can feel other characters itching to burst forth too. It's a bit surreal for me as I tend to rely so heavily on pure accidental creative energy for writing. I can rarely force it forth, it has always just flowed from under my fingers with the merest hint of a "hook" before I even knew the ideas were there.

As with "The Girl who couldn't cry", I start pretty much all my writing with a title. From there I just let the energy flow - if it will. I had no idea that when I wrote that title into the heading of this blog earlier this week, I'd be telling a story of a world I know nothing of, in a place that is alien and strange to me, about a woman who is very different to myself! My propensity for tears borders on the ludicrous after all! *blush*

The dear story 'fan' who is sending me editorial advice via email will prove useful in helping me to polish ideas, I think. Therefore, I extend an invitation for everyone who may be reading the story to also email me feedback. You can use the link from my profile here in blogger. Alternatively, you can just comment below each chapter with any suggestions or possibilities, ideas, spelling corrections (being mindful I tend to write in Australian English which spells differently sometimes, to American English), etc.

The medium of blogging is a wonderful way of collaborative story-telling. As an aspirational author, I have a lot of creative pride in my work but the times are a-changing and collaborative "instant" fiction may be a trend of the future. Authors with 'fans'- or followers - who can also write, think and contribute lovely gems to the final fabric of a "Jolly Good Yarn". It may be a bit of a pipe-dream perhaps, but it would be nice to feel that kind of encouraging support as one writes; writing is such a solitary hobby for the most part.

I do hope you will enjoy this process for as long as the creative fire, for it, burns.

The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 2

The intuiting thing was a double curse for Ariadne. Her gift in knowing the feelings and mind of others could often cause her such grief that, at times, the pain behind her eyes threatened to explode her head. The need to weep in release of the guilt, pain and horror of what she saw and felt inside others, was denied her. He brain knew it as a response that was humanly natural but her genetically modified body did not. It could not produce the evidence to prove its existence. It was like there were two warring factions inside of her trying to make the other understand a concept the other could not conceive or imagine. She poured a few more drops of tears from the bottle into her eyes so that they streamed down her face, giving the illusion of crying.

As to why the Ariadne Modification was a tearless one, none of the mutants actually knew for sure. Ariadne’s, and particularly this Ariadne were regularly visited by the psych-docs, more so than other more obvious Human Genome Modification Projects. The fact that Ari’s body wanted to cry, and the fact that is was physically and biologically impossible for her to do so was a little bit mysterious. Most assumed that it was do with eye diseases and left it at that. Ariadne herself, intuited from the ongoing stream of psych-docs it was to do with eye diseases but she also felt it was something more too. Something to do with “Happiness” perhaps, although none of the psych-docs ever mentioned anything about that. They seemed rather more interested in her intuitive capabilities and her propensity for absorbing the emotions of others like a sponge. Not one of the doctors ever asked her if she were ‘Happy’. Most of them seemed as sad inside as any mutant to her anyway, so maybe on the subject of herself, she was simply a little off-target with her impressions. She learned to deal.

"What's the matter now Ari?" said the slightly blue skinned female opposite. Ariadne immediately felt the rush of annoyance emanating from the speaker. Critical judgment overlayed with concession for the humanitarian purpose of behaving "nicely" to others when really, you just wanted to punch their faces in so they'd wake up and get a grip and see things the way you saw them. Ari felt the pain behind her eyes get stronger. She looked at Margot, her sloe eyes streaming with the evidence of bottled tears.

"Shut up, Margot! I know what you're thinking,” she said simply.

"What am I thinking?" Margot veiled the question in a tone of, very nearly, pure sarcasm.

"That you think I'm an idiot to get so emo about the shit in other peoples heads. And, that I should just get a grip and get over it and stop being such a baby” Ariadne said the words as if they were clinical facts. In any other person, human or mutant, this statement, delivered so matter of fact, would have been a mere assumption. From Ariadne, it was always the truth. She had very few friends for this reason - because she could know someone’s mind - and heart - long before they knew it themselves. It's discomforting to be known before one can know oneself. Ariadne knew this too and it grieved her yet again that she was not able to turn off her abilities in this matter.

Margot snorted briefly and re-focused on the bread she'd been running around the edge of her pannikin, scraping up the remains of the gravy left behind from her meal. The blue tinge of Margot's skin told the world she was a genetic experiment in light refraction for the purposes of withstanding Ultra Violet light at extreme levels. One hundred years ago, humans had been dying in the thousands because they loved the sun too much. Now most humans couldn't be in the sun for more than a few minutes, and that was filtered sunlight too. Most normal human beings were so pale now; no sunscreen could protect them from the damaging effects of sunlight. Margot was the proposed answer to this conundrum. She could sit in the sun for hours and never burn. They were keeping her healthy and alive for as long as possible to watch for any evidence of cancerous lesions on her skin. Her skin was regularly removed in patches so that her genetic strengths could be analysed and replicated in future Margot experiments. She currently bore the evidence for a recent skin patch removal operation, in the form of a large dark bandage on her upper right arm. Margot regularly cried, privately as she could, to release her pain. Ariadne - along with their ever-present observers outside of their Perspex cage - always knew when Margot cried but never said anything. She felt Margot's pain as keenly as Margot herself.

…to be continued. (I hope)

Dropbox is jaw dropping wonderful

I downloaded a little application to Preciousss here today that may have the potential to revolutionize the way we do business, communicate, share information and generally collaborate over distance.

It's called Dropbox and works with either PC or Mac, interfacing between the two platforms if necessary.

Essentially, it's a secure way of backing up your own personal data to a web interface OR a way of mirroring that same data in other locations.

For example. Say I have some files on my computer which I copy to my Dropbox folder on my desktop. I go away without my computer. Someone wants something that I think..Oh.. I have that file. I get on another computer, go to the web interface, put in my email and password to log into "My Dropbox" page and voila! There is my file, which I can then download and do whatever I need to with.

The mirroring of files is VERY useful if you wish to share a file with someone on the other side of the world. Don't worry...your computer is safe. Dropbox uses 128 SSL Encryption. That person can ONLY see the files you have in the shared folder for which you have given them permission to view. They can't edit anything else on your computer. You have the option of choosing whom you wish to share files with. They download the file from the shared folder in the Dropbox web interface onto their computer, can edit and add to the document/file and within minutes, the updates will show in your own folder!

I sent a .zip folder of data which amounted to an excess of 72 megabytes to bat today - he lives in Europe remember and I'm in SE Australia! That's quite a hefty distance and a real PITA for posting data on discs and flash-drives! However, with Dropbox, he was able to access and use that data in less than 10 minutes. This is pretty much impossible using email, and I soooo wasn't looking forward to burning it to disc and packaging it up for the post.

The free version of Dropbox is a very generous 2 gigabytes with a paid version of 50gig for approx USD$100.00 per year thereabouts. But for on the fly file sharing for business managers and writers, 2 gig is probably going to be ample - at least if the shared folders are regularly cleaned out.

There are other little tricks that are important to know about dropbox. On the Mac, you can use Growl to notify you of changes made to shared folders. Not sure what the notifiers are in PC these days sorry, I'm sure there are plenty *grin*. It's also important to copy files across (alt+drag on the Mac) to the dropbox folder or you will be physically moving the file to Dropbox and it won't reside on your local disk anymore. Templates for application sharing can also be a bit tricky... don't lose your templates folders!

If other people don't have Dropbox, you can still share files with them. By slipping files across to the public folder in Dropbox, it will assign each file its own URL and you only need to provide that link in an email, which your colleagues can access from there.

It seemed a bit overwhelming this tech for about 3 minutes. But when it worked, I was beaming like a cat who licked cream! I couldn't get over the speed, efficiency and the really easy interface. For collaborative projects, Dropbox could perhaps prove to be among THE applications of the decade!

So far so good. Oh...and btw...I am not getting paid for this bit of free advertising for Dropbox! hahaha When I find something incredible, I simply share it with the world and today...this was jaw droppingly incredible to me! I can't wait to use it for a joint project.

Can you believe it?

Found this cute little article by someone who calls themselves "Divine Caroline" on the beta version of the new age spirituality website, intent.com.

It made me smile because I really like it when some of the sillier aspects of the Christmas story are shown to be...well.... very silly!

Laughed my head off about Mary being "preggers" trying to ride a donkey!

Exactly! *Applause*

The POINT to the reason I celebrate Christmas, and for the millions of Christians around the world who share this belief system with me, is that the wisdom and graciousness of God is way more incomprehensible than the collective wisdom and graciousness of humanity.

We can't "get" God's perverse and counter-intuitive actions in the world, both the miraculous and the mundane, then or now. Nothing God does, ever really makes total sense in the moment, but it does tend to make sense a whole lot later on.

What man breaks, God restores, just not always from our immediate vantage point and in accordance with our sense of propriety either. We can complain as loudly as we like about when and how God "should" intervene, and he might do that occasionally. We can, and often do, complain when God's interventions don't follow our plans or don't make sense to us. We tend to - very quickly - forget God's interventions when they happen to suit us very well.

The thing is, we can't see the whole story because we can only ever belong to the chapter we are living. God isn't being precious, mean or prevaricating towards us, he just has inside info we cannot yet know.

Two thousand years after the original Christmas Day (give or take 4 or 5 years either side of Year Zero and soooooo NOT December 25!), we look back and go "Aha!" at the birth of Christ, because what was an insignificant event in the view of humanity back then, became - and becomes to this day - a very significant global perspective indeed.

Somewhere around 33 AD with a brutal killing, followed quickly by a defiant metamorphosis from the tomb, God, the baby, became God the man and changed my life - your life - forever.

No Three Kings of the Orient...no non-crying babies in barns... no donkeys or cows, octopi or lobsters staring googly-eyed at a halo-lit mother and child... just God, present, among us, saving us from ourselves.

You won't believe it until you see it with God's eyes.

The Long way to Intentional "Community"

I'm a "sort of" member of an "intentional community" currently finding its way in Second Life. I am not really a full member as such as I deliberately stay on the side-lines, preferring not to get just "too" involved.

The community is experimenting in creating a virtual "tribe" of people who 1) want to live sustainably 2) want to build lasting commitments to people they love 3) want to practice 'Love, Conversation & Community'. I've been a full member of a very Intentional Community all my life... that being the Christian Church! Yes! That "silly old fashioned bunch of crackpots" called The Church IS an IC! A common purpose and a REASON to be together far beyond ourselves. The IC in Second Life has too many ideas, more rules than most churches and a lot of really different purposes for existing.

The Second Life IC a bit of a Utopian idea really and I admit to be more than a little sceptical as to its success. People tend to gather for strange reasons and this community is attracting diverse cultures from all corners of the globe, stretching the boundaries of such prosaic things as meeting times and authoritarian concepts. It's muddy, murky, silly, strange and kinda beautiful when you watch from slightly afar. I love the people...well most of 'em, but I shake my head and smile to myself a lot. I guess that makes me more arrogant than most of them put together. I must amend this haughty air I know!

Whilst I personally believe the IC, I'm toe-dipping into, is deeply flawed and will most likely fail in its purpose and goals... I watched an episode of "The Long Way Down" tonight on SBS Television.

Watching the 8 blokes all attempting to get along through some rather tricky goals was quite enlightening. This WAS an Intentional Community albeit not a permanent one! Eight very different men (and some girls behind the scenes too mind you), one vision, a unified team!

I've been musing this evening quietly in the back of my mind as I attend to other duties, wondering what it is about this IC that is so different from the one being attempted in SL.

I'm still at a bit of a loss but my hunch is that it's to do with Shared Purpose. There are no hidden agenda's, no personal ego's getting in the way, no misunderstanding each other and so on. Just one clear, unequivocal REASON for them to be together, learning how to get along to make a collective vision happen.

It's quite, quite different to the Second Life IC I'm currently watching from the edges. There is no real purpose to the group...not a definitive one that everyone clearly understands anyway. There is too much shoving and jockeying for authority among certain members and a LOT of general misunderstanding of the platform of SL itself as in its social dynamics and the reason people use it.

Now of course, a lot of this is my personal observations and it may well be that the SL/IC will be a rip roaring success despite its early birthing hurdles and I'll have to eat my arrogant hat for saying all this stuff. Honestly? I don't see a lot of success in the IC wind for this puppy. It will be nice to be wrong about that!

'The Long way down' is different I think. Very different in that this collective bunch of blokes that rarely have anything much to do with each other for the most part, who all come from different corners of the globe, who are all intrinsically different temperaments, they all seem to share a singular vision that is, well...pretty much identical for all of them.

The vision is to get Ewan and Charley to ride their motorbikes from the top of Scotland all the way down to Johannesburg in South Africa. That's it! That is THE purpose. It's clear. It's precise. It's do'able (they hope). It requires leadership but no actual defined "Boss" so there is no jockeying for a position. Everyone has a specific purpose on the team aligned with their specific skill set. Yes! All the various ego's are sometimes in conflict but they get over it and keep going and get along. They have a reason to BE together and because of that reason, they're learning to care about each other a very, very, very great deal!

SBS TV is televising the Long Way Down series on Wednesday evenings Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time at 20:30. You can watch entire episodes on the web each week after the show has aired on TV here. Just click the tab that says "Watch Full Episodes"

I highly recommend it. They squeeze an awful lot into each epi...and it can seem a little bit light on occasionally I'll admit. Still, tonight's episode (no. 3), really highlighted the commitment and camaraderie of this particular 'Intentional Community' very clearly for me.

The girl who couldn't cry: Chapter 1

Pain seared the spot between her eyes where no one could see. It was as hot and as sharp as if a poker had stoked her brain instead of fire. She longed to be able to weep for in the weeping, it might be cooled. She could not.

Ariadne reached into her bag and scrimmaged about for the small bottle of tears she kept with her at all times. In the autopilot of long habit, she twisted off the cap, holding it between thumb and palm while tipping back her head and dropping two small drops of liquid into each eye. The cold shocked her dry eyeballs, bringing the familiar sting as the salty solution cleansed and moistened them. To cry would be a much better option and this was as good as it was ever going to get for the girl.

She looked across the table where she and a small band of other mutants sat in silence considering each mouthful of the meal they'd been given. Ariadne looked almost normal in comparison to the array of slightly misaligned human test cases. She considered them more human than most. For all their mutantcy they had the familiar idiosyncratic tendencies of most human beings - the desire for unconditional love, connection, happiness, prosperity and power. None of them was any less normal in that regard than those who considered themselves more human.

They had no parents, these kids. They'd been grown in petri dishes and test tubes. They were a new kind of genetic modification organism, bred to specifically help normal humans - who obviously weren't mutants - live forever. Ariadne had been bred in such a way that her gene for the ability to cry had been turned off. She could not shed tears in enough quantity to weep. The barest amount of fluid escaped what tear ducts she possessed and because she was pretty and apparently physically normal in all other respects, and because she was quite good at intuiting what other people were thinking, they'd given her the eye drops to keep her eyes moistened instead of "re-integrating" her cells into yet another crop of Ariadne's who couldn't cry.


…to be continued. (I hope)

Dreams et al

What are your dreams?

You know? The disembodied visions sequestered inside your cortex responsible for imagination and emotion? I don't mean the dreams of your subconcious as you sleep as such, but the imaginative aspirations you place far beyond capability and possibility in your life. The kind of imagination that builds a story about what you'd love to do with your life and which makes you feel a certain way. Do you feel wistful about that story? Do you feel uncertain? Sceptical? Content? Energised?

My own dreams are wafty, uncertain musings I tend to compartmentalise into the "Never-gonna-happen" bin from the file "No Way THAT's possible!" What I dream about makes me feel a complimentary mix of wistful bliss and baleful regret that it could "never" be reality.

We are told to take hold of our dreams and make them come true; that the aspect of true success is the fruit of our proactive creating the life we want and the living out of our dreams. If we aspire to write that glorious novel, the one that changes "everything" for the next 100 years of human history; the Classic that stands the test of time long after we're gone etc. Or, the dream of travelling the world and filling our life's plate with a taste of the colours, cultures, sounds and smells vastly different to our experience thus far. Or, the dream of meeting the one person who truly "gets" you and with whom you do not need to be anything other than entirely your truest self. Or, the dream of opening a restaurant, a business, a bank, creating a really nifty gadget that doesn't yet exist... we should simply begin to do so.

The list of dreams is as endless as the sea of humanity.

There are some people in the world who know exactly what they want, why they are here and where they're going and what they want to leave behind. They do not quibble - as I do in this blog far too often - about the vicissitudes of establishing their dreams in reality, they merely begin the first step and with jaw set and chin pointed forward, they march straight towards their North. They fall down, they get up again and they do not meander even when life forces them to. They categorically refuse to be denied the evidence of their dreams, made physically manifest through the genius of perspiration and the kicker bit of inspiration they started with.

What do I want?

For this past year, I've asked myself this question over and over and over again until my whole body wants to burst with the frustration of having to answer it.

I still do not know! Other than wealth in abundance so I don't have to think about budgets and being financially scrooge'ish towards others, I really don't know what I want to do that I CAN do as easily as breathing without over thinking it and with utter pleasure in the process rather than fear of never achieving the final result.

This isn't supposed to be a struggle, it's supposed to be incredibly simple. Those people I mentioned before simply dream and do, they don't vacillate and moan about the improbabilities of achievement or of not succeeding in their hopeful aspirations. I do though.

My natural inclination is to do what I want to do. If I want something I generally make an effort to achieve it so long as I don't try and turn it into a fantasy inside my head! However there is a very strong genetic restraint I inherited from my mother (and to some extent my father too), which says that I CANNOT achieve what I would like to achieve in living out my fantastical dreams, simply because if I happen to succeed at it...I'll have to work harder, longer, better and more frentically to keep up the pace. It's a law of perfection that effectively stops you producing a dream to reality in the very first moment of your dreaming. It says that fail or succeed...you cannot really hope to match this perfect illusion you have inside your head. Yes! I know it makes your heart tick with pleasure but remember you're "only" human and you are sooooo NOT that clever and this will be incredibly difficult work and if you happen to be good at it...it will turn out to be very bad for you in the long run.

Since the age of about 17 when I first read "Out of the Silence" by Earle Cox, I have wanted to turn it into a rollicking 'Hollywood Blockbuster' screenplay. That has probably been the longest held dream I have to date.

To this day I often think wistfully on this dream and sigh ruefully that I "can never" actually write this old Sci-fi story into a "fabulous" screenplay. I don't have the balls! As soon as I think about transferring this dream across to actual gritty reality with the determination to make it come true - the beautiful sheen on that dream becomes a mere fantasy and an impossibility.

It's not that I can't write it...I probably could, probably really badly - it is however that I can't write it because I fear I will lose the ability to keep the dream alive. Once outside of me, it is not a dream anymore, it becomes a duty, an obligation I must fulfill and I am so lazy it's just "not possible" to do it justice. When I get bored with going uphill on anything, I lose focus and simply let the ambition die. If it stays a dream I am the only one who will regret never bringing it to fruition, no one else needs to be disappointed in me!

For the past few years I've harboured ambitions to be my area's first Professional Organiser. Helping people get their stuff and their lives decluttered, sorted, stored properly and their spaces opened up so their minds are free to finally play instead of feeling guilty and trapped by their crap. I have wanted to help people be free of the junk (and recognise what IS junk too), and liberate them to orderly and functional, organised lives. I've dabbled a little bit at seeing if this dream could even remotely be viable. I still don't really know. Some would suggest I dump it as "No one in this town will pay for that kind of service!". Others, like my mother would, in the gentlest possible, non-direct way, openly disparage the idea as a mere fantasy and that I could never hope to achieve such a glorified position in life! I kick myself for aspiring to this notion when I see the clutter that follows my own family's wake!

Dreams "Cannot Happen" is my psychological wiring. Logically, I realise that I have the power within to change this attitude and response to dreams. Practically, I do not have the skills - at least not right now.

I don't know what I truly want enough that not doing it would make me unhappier than the process of actually doing it.

When I figure that out, a lot of this current angst should dissipate into the ether. I hope.

The Long View of Moving it

The Long Now has this wee little post there this morning that on first glance doesn't appear to be "much".

It's a simple post asking us to consider updating the storage of our digital data as regularly as every 5 years to new storage formats.

It's a valid point.

In this age of instant access to everything, information is becoming as transitory and as ephemeral as mists across mountains. Nothing we think we are keeping for prosperity is likely to last as much as we hope it would and expect it will.

Since I was a little girl, I've always had a very long term view about my writing. Even when I was little I can remember the strong will and urge deep within to write "something" that could perhaps be seen by those that came long after me. When I was in my late teens, I began keeping "Mood Journals" which in hindsight were an early version of paper blogging. My Journals were not standard "I did this and this today" diaries as were usually kept by girls my age. They were flexible, mutable documents of my moods, feelings, aspirations, creative writings and memories. Very much like this blog I write now.

The paper books I wrote my angst and thoughts into back then have survived over 25+ years! I can still access them and read them at leisure. I haven't lost my poems of that time, or the stories. It's all still there, readable and accessible.

When I lost my hard-drive in this lap top earlier this year and could not retrieve the data I had accumulated in the year prior to that, I lost a very large number of photo's, writings, ideas half formulated and documentation I cannot replace and never will. It's gone.

My sister and brother-in-law recently had to spend a very large sum of money on having thousands of family photo's from when their children were very little, retrieved when their computer "died".

The human response to tech is that it is "permanent", that the new inventions, which promise so much, will remain long after ourselves. It's an assumption that these digital space-age devices which seem so inherently simple and usable to us, will be the same for many to come after us. Not so!

As people change, so does the tech they use. What we think is about as good as it gets, changes in about 5 to 15 years to something "better" or "worse". It's change and change is here to stay.

History is important to the human psyche. We long to know where we have been, how far we've come, what our forebears thought and did. We long to be surprised by the ingenuity of our ancestors - that "Gee Whiz" component of amazement that they could survive and flourish in such "primitive" circumstances! It gives us hope of our own survival and ability to progress forward to what may come. History anchors us and helps us learn - well, hopefully it does.

Much of our social history will be lost within as little as 50 years if we assume we can keep it on the data storage devices we use now indefinitely. We can't and we won't. The Long Now post I linked to in the title is an important reminder that if we wish to keep the NOW we are living alive for the THEN of our children' children - we need to be proactive about moving our images, stories, writings, thinking, ideas and accounts of our events into the new storage devices to come.

Remember this so that those who come after us remember us.

Creating something that lasts

Steve has written one of his usual counter-culture blog posts on the nature of work and how we can approach it - or not.

I read this post this morning after I'd posted my own deeply disturbed (and perhaps disturbing) feelings today on being long-term unemployed. I strive after paid work because it's what I know and understand. Steve's approach is so alien to my thinking and style it leaves me gasping!

Of course, the way he writes it makes it sound so easy! "Just" create something of value and deliver it!

I shake my head in abject confusion.

I STILL don't know what it is I'm actually good at! I still don't really know what my passion, and what I truly love to do, is, apart from writing here in this rather pitiful forum. I am at a complete loss as to what I really want to do with this life I've been given.

Create something of value huh? What the hell would that be perchance?

My head has been spinning with this conundrum all afternoon. Maybe I'm over thinking it perhaps. There is definitely something amiss in how I am approaching all this career stuff of late.

I shall find my way... my machete is hacking away at this forest of confusion and lack of direction to make a path of some kind. Thing is...I think I currently can't think far enough outside of this jungle to make sense of trying things I've never tried before let alone thought about!

If only there was a clear sign I could see ahead that I can cross-reference against a map! Do I even have the map up the right way though? Today it seems like it's in a foreign language.

Create and Deliver Value!

Who am I? What am I here for? Where am I going? Why? And who for? Do they even care? Do I?

It's supposed to be easier than this yeah Steve? "Just" do what I love and let the money come? Right! Right!

Control and the removal of rugs

Five weeks almost. Five weeks of being in a state of limbo so deflating and dehumanising, I am losing the urge to create the momentum to keep going.

The motel where I was working casually as a cleaner has all but given up calling me for work. It seems I was too much of a cost liability. Because I was open and honest with them about my desire for full time stable work and because my Government welfare payments demand that I apply for at least 7 to 10 jobs a fortnight, the motel reasoned - fairly - that it would be pointless to train me to any standard as a casual cleaner because I would be likely to leave as soon as I had full time work!

It is a fair assessment of my situation. I quite liked the work at the motel on the whole although I seem to find it very difficult to fit in with already well established teams of females! That would be my problem though, not theirs. I tend to feel the undercurrents of mistrust and caution in others so acutely it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was slowly getting better and covering the minute details of the work, noticing marks on mirrors missed and the errant hair on the floor etc.

But all this is moot now. They had promised to train me for the office but I still have not been called in for training even though I have rung them to ask.

This past five weeks of needing to do a minimum of 30 hours work a fortnight - and not being able to - and apply for at least 7 to 10 jobs as well (at least I have been able to do that) to justify my government payments so I can house and feed my children, is getting me down now.

I woke up late this morning. Not long ago, I was an early riser and proud of it. I used to regularly rise between 0500 and 0630 in my mornings and get things done before the day really kicked into gear. This past three weeks at least, I find myself drifting in the behavioural patterns of those who have given up caring! I got up at 0900 this morning! Which I deem abhorrent in my personal scale of responsibility and ethical control of ones person!

The will to keep positive and upbeat, to be proactive and determined about my life at the moment is drowning under an emotional ocean of Blue. I feel unwanted, unemployable, unattractive and unneeded. It is even difficult to find enough voluntary work that will be acceptable for justifying my payments.

Right now, it feels like I'm in this hole and I cannot see the rope or how to climb out. All I want to do is sit down in the bottom here and focus on the computer screen and write. The ironic twist in this sordid self-pity is that my creative output seems to be double the usual for me. The need to express things in words is bordering on volcanic. My brain is spewing forth words in convoluted ways as if in desperation to string something of worth together when all else is falling apart.

Long term unemployment feels like losing ones religion. The hope you aspired to so valiantly and confidently is needled apart until the knots at the edges of your soul tapestry undo and the image of your most treasured beliefs and dreams frays. The more you try to redo the knots - the more the canvas repels your efforts. You simply give up and live with the fraying edges of life because it feels like it doesn't matter anyway.

I used to be a proactive, organised woman. I kept lists and I got things done efficiently and there was not much that crossed my desk that did not get processed and filtered through its required steps. I've lost much of that drive this past year. The energy and the will to create order in my life is so very muted. Today it feels like it is in its death throes. I feel burdened by the guilt of not being able to achieve something useful. I have been rejected by all of the jobs I deeply believed I wanted. I don't know why.

Monday I begin cleaning a house. Perhaps that will lead to other houses to clean. I can barely clean my own right now. I am so worried about not working right now and I am deeply frustrated I can't fulfill my obligations for my payments - I will probably have to pay back this past months income for not following through on my agreements.

My soul is ambiguous about it. I wanted so much to be something "more" than a mere cleaner. There is a deeply rooted prejudice in me that cleaners are people who are not intelligent enough to work in offices. This belief is in error but I hold it nonetheless. For me...cleaning is a menial job of the dumb! I wanted a grand office job! I had visions of being neatly attired and efficiently typing documentation and forwarding important phonecalls to important people in next door office rooms. I could see myself happily filing papers in vast walls of filing cabinets and taking down the disjointed notes of some hapless VIP on the Dictaphone, making sense of them for him and creating worthy important papers that in some small way made a difference.

Now I clean houses like a servant. I understand logically that my thinking is flawed in this. It does not negate the impact to my spirit. The core of what I believed about myself is being shaken and the various rugs I wanted to control are being removed from under my prejudiced feet.

Maybe this is will be my lesson.