Memoir of a single mum

Often it is good to revisit past places of happiness. I remember buying my son his first small yacht. It was slowly dissintegrating on a stand at a local yacht club. Under the tutorship of three wonderful older men, this boat was stripped, repainted, re-sealed, patched and readied for sailing, proudly carrying the sail number 123 on a faded pale blue sale. It was a minnow named White Knight after the confectionary and we left it so.

She had a magnificent old polished wood mast whilst other newer craft had aluminium ones and this made for ongoing maintenance issues for an eight year old and his non-sailor mother. Another kind male mentor found us a free second hand alumnium mast and my son set sail amongst the red group of the sail training fleet at Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron.

Each summer weekday, we would end school days here. Meeting at the school gate to collect him, rigging her up and him sailing happily until sunset. I set up and cooked the BBQ on the yacht club deck or lawns, whilst he showered and readied himself for home and night-time routine.

When we could not afford to purchase the next sized yacht, a Sabre (then $3,000, used and in need of TLC) we sold White Knight and my son never sailed from BYS again. They also changed membership fees at that time that I, as adult could not be a non-sailing social member without an adult sailing member. My son's annual junior sailing fees were worth every cent, just for the closeness we developed through these years.

The lack of sailing, the lack of access to a Sabre, then subsequently the lack of a Laser, meant a particular moment in mother son relationship was no longer able to be that special part of our shared family history. This is turn meant the reliance on cheaper , 'more macho' team sports which at least offered more male mentors... but from that moment on my son and I began the inevitable drift away from each other as he neared adolescence.A distance which remains today with even the hint of blame in my son's judgemental moments, the blame of being a non-working Mum with an income and being responsible for his infrequent visits from his father.

This brings me to the first year after my son had sold White Knight we strolled the lawns for old time's sake and he actually cried (not a young child) when he saw that the new owners had t-boned her and crashed her causing scratches and dents that remained unattended to as she sat on her rack, with the season drawing to a close. He and I could not cope with the lack of respect and love shown this craft that meant so much to us. We stopped going near BYS.

Late one recent Friday evening, I returned for the first time in over ten years. I found what I believe to be White Knight on a rack, still scratched, gunwall needing much TLC on under side. The proud BYS sticker and sail number no longer on her stern.

I felt tears welling up again. Money can buy kids anythings these days but it will buy back our days sailing White Knight (adults can but my son no longer wants anything to do with this rich person's hobby). Nor can I save White Knight. She is slowly rotting away and I am sad that I cannot buy her back, restore her again and keep her cocooned for any grandchildren I may (or indeed may not) ever have.

She did not deserve this after all the years of pleasure she gave the girl who owned her before my son (at RYC) nor now. I wish I had the money to buy her back. I know adults sail minnows but that is a part of my son's life he left behind when the reality of the Australian class system confronted him for the first time, face to face. I think I will post this thread on the BYS site... if they have a blog or at least link to it (which they do and I couldn't).

I felt the Board and Management needed to know how important a part this special place played in the youth of one small local boy and his full-time mother.

Aiode speaks again

Today I will work on my artefact. After mapping her narrative structure with Glenice last week, I see I need to be less a free writer and take on the hard stuff, the actual structuring and plotting. But as usual procrastination... a re-read to remove unnecessary/inadequate adjectives and replace with more metaphorical and illustrative phrases or words... should be fun BUT OH SO TIME CONSUMING. I cannot possibly judge progress via word count.


Today I need to work both sides of my brain... the analytical with all the mind maps and narrative graphing, and the creative... just playing with words, ideas and forms of showing not telling.

I am almost ready to begin playing with the very difficult second person narration of one protagonist.. she is calling out to speak at last after all these months of authorial unwellness and turbulence.

Is the Muse possibly returning and could it possibly have anything to do with the fact I am now spending cash (I really haven't got spare in my budget) to frame my own artworks as I learn to play with different vis arts media? Are they connected?

Perhaps I have rreconnected with colour and have finally accepted that the beauty out there is real, and what normal people see and the much lamented intensive tones and shades of my mania are really only 'dreamstates'and hallucinations. These colours are perhaps not real after all, so why have I spent over twenty years mourning their loss. My other senses seem to be sharpening now and I am definitely having more common moments of synaesthesia. I never query that my dreams are in colour... they just are. I hear sounds as colours. I feel the very air around me as electric charged or pulsating. I love this new 'me'.

Could yoga be doing this or is it new meds and another form of man-made bio-chemical brain inbalance.

Hey, I'm just going to enjoy it while its lasts. I can't believe this can be mine forever... but if this is the plus 3 to plus 4 state just before hypomania... role along.

Am I allowed to position this rating as 'normal happiness' and not a clinical sign of mood lability?
When can I stop judging my moods as abnormal? When will THOSE OTHERS (you know who you are) allow me the freedom to be both sad and happy... and not always position me as 'mad' or in a dangerous space?

Just a little about the image... supposedly Hesiod ( a male poet.. why do the blokes always think they are in a story... even image... is it Hesiod's anima?) and 'a' Muse, hopefully Aiode???

Now the wikipedia entry for Plutarch's original three Muses (Boeotian):

In Greek mythology, Aoide (Ἀοιδή) (or in Latin Aoede) was one of the three original (Boeotian) Muses, though there were later nine. Her sisters were Melete and Mneme. She was the muse of song. According to Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Zeus, the King of the Gods, and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. She lends her name to the moon Jupiter XLI, also called Aoede, which orbits the planet Jupiter.

Does MY LIFE have to be so hard?

What is it about me?

I know I suffer BMD but that can't be the ONLY reason my daily existence is such an emotional roller coaster. I seem to care TOO MUCH about everything ALL THE TIME.

Just let's examine my movement on the moo- scales over the past 48 hours. It would look visually, like a heart monitor screen whilst the heart is undergoing shocks from defibrillation! Up, down, massive ups, massive plummets and then dead straight.... before beginning the patterns again.

Why?

I was very happy with getting down to the business of writing my Exegesis finally. I have stopped procrastinating and am no longer going back to the safety net of 're-reading articles or book chapters'. I have closed the books and am getting out of my head everything that has stuck in the deep recesses of my brain over the last forty months. The Dr Rowena Wallace method of focused writing seems to be just what I need at this moment.

It seems productive and a step in the right direction; forward for a change. I feel that I have actually worked (intellectually) over this period and despite the obvious structural and stylistic omissions at this stage in the draft it is a reasonably strong base to work on in the coming days.

I have also been jotting journal notes on plot additions and deletions for my artefact and am really looking forward to giving this 100% of my attention in the next few weeks.

BUT.... (here comes the but...)

Everytime I begin to feel under control and even healthy... some voice from somewhere (outside my head) comes along to destabilise me.

My supervisor implied last Thursday that when I sat a seat apart from her on the couch I was trying to avoid her. Wrong!

I'm the bloody one who flew home from my holiday in Sydney just to catch up for a meeting about how stuck I actually was. She was the one too busy to fit me into her busy schedule... after all she needed to leave at a certain hour to ensure she could meet her family/mothering responsibilities. What about mine? Let alone the issue of how much I spent to fly down and return back again to Sydney! My money of course, never University funds.

She also had a go at me for wanting to attend an annual Conference where most of my networking occurs and where I just might have a hope of getting some respect from a future employer. This University Which Shall Not be Named...(my alma mater) will not touch me with a proverbial barge pole now that I have seen the insecurities and hidden agendas at play, keeping it disfunctional (at least at my home Campus).

My future at age 54 hangs on this stuff.

I am not privileged enough to have had a husband and supportive family to ensure that I did not need twenty years out of my academic career and subsistence on Welfare.

These were not bad choices or things I regret... just how the cards fell.

I am only pissed off NOW when people refuse to understand or empathise and put their own emotional and career needs first AT MY EXPENSE.

Hence I am angry and this takes so much energy.

I pay a heavy price for this anger. I turn the emotion inside as I cannot vent (apart from here days later), and I end up crying and self-sabotaging my academic (and health) progress.

Need to regain balance and stability... again.

To take my mind off things, I decide that I need to think of someone other than myself to gain some perspective.

So in a very positive frame of mind I take myself off to important academic "Show Cause" (for continuning to be enrolled in a Course of study) Hearings as the Student Consultative Network representative at a different Campus in a different Discipline... see how protective of myself I can actually be?

This was a great learning experience and opportunity to read character... that of the fellow academic panel members and the students presenting.

Without breaching any confidences or professional ethics let's just say that when faced with cultural pressures unknown to us Aussie-born students: wars, political instability in homelands, extreme poverty, employment victimisation, workplace inflexibility, illness and homeless insecurity... my little issues seem like proverbial mole hills.

It was a humbling experience. And a timely one wit a reminder that I need to re-focus and regroup emotionally.

Next, I have to reach out for some beauty somewhere; this time around the leafy Acland Street and bright shiny wet streets of St Kilda and her wintry sea.

Then, up again to normal scale... move on and write again. Good stuff....

Only to be brought crashing down again by a 'friend'/co-scholar. A return of a missed phone call sees me being asked to 'fix' some computer program issues THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE ARISEN if this bloody person had listened in the training classes or re-read the notes. Nor would it be my problem if he had run the expert trainer herself PRIOR TO NOW....

...Why would anyone at this stage of a PhD completion have moved the main document several times, onto several machines and hard drives... I can understand having backups ... but changing the machine that holds the ACTUAL document and attached library files... geee how dumb?

The complete lack of understanding of I.T. by MOST academics is staggering. Why do they assume any computer or program can fix EBEKAC? (error between keyboard and chair!)

Jesus... how is this a problem needing MY TIME or energy?

Our scheduled meeting had been about agreeing on a final draft of a journal article (co-written, then re-written by me to meet referees concerns... which academically were quite startling in their response.... a complete lack of research rigour on the part of my co-author stating blatant factual errors)... not a joint let's problem solve YOUR PhD issues session. This self-centeredness is staggering... and INSULTING to me! This from the PhD candidate of the Year!!!

Now this colleague needs to be sure his second journal article flows and doesn't regurgitate this joint paper. (I too have a paper for final submission also).... yet the next scheduled meeting is to FIX COMPUTER PROGRAM ISSUES.... I think not!

And to fix his citation issues when these could be researched on our own library website or in the Australian Government Publication Stytle Guide 2010.... why me? I guess I am easier to blame when things go wrong than to actually do the blooody work oneself. NO WAY JOSE. Been there had that just last September/October with same individual, and hospitalised again in February by same issues with a trusted superior/employer and male PhD scholar...

Patterns repeating. Can I be strong and do/say what I must?

I am feeling used and abused again... Remember friendly fire?

So again what was to be a really productive writing day has dissintegrated over night with me getting angry, then keeping it inside, then lashing out on the keyboard again. So much for actual academic writing progress... I need to vent again.

This 'dear' scholar also inferred that I am responsible for my supervisors extreme stress and anger at 'my' lack of progress!!! How dare he. And if that is actually what she thinks... how dare she? Her stress is not my issue, nor should it be... that's what her job is and why she is paid at that level... deal with it. I am trying to deal with my stress at $11.80 or whatever an hour... and I am managing to inch forward and stay well.

GRRRRR angry again....or rather, still.

Just when my world seems about to totter right down towards hospitalisation yesterday, my 21 year old son decides to watch a bad movie on the TV with me last night. I can't say "No, too busy", as this request doesn't happen often and has actually been years in coming.

I am so glad I put the bloody PhD on hold for this. We have had an amazingly tough last ten years. He has had to deal with so much trauma, stress and crises for someone his age that I am proud of him actually having survived it.

He decided last night to finally reconnect with me, as a parent and trusted friend.

We were able to re-trace all our emotional injuries to each other and share the innermost fears and insecurities (both of us). The years of fights, assaults, deaths, illnesses, drug use, car crashes, legal problems, financial crises, gangs and guns are finally all out in the metaphorical cold hard light of day.

The pain is not gone but it can be dealt with at last.

My son confessed to not a day going by without some 'nightmare' haunting him for a moment or two or preventing him from sleeping. He understandably has emotionally disconnected (superfically) just to get through at present.

Who can blame him? I now understand where he is at... finally.

I would be in the same place myself.. and probably a worse place were I his age. I am so proud of this young man. He has had to grow up so hard and so fast.

For the first time in years I KNOW he will survive and I can begin to relax. I am so overcome with relief that this also needs capturing on paper/screen.

Now I can move on and roll the dice again for myself. This has been a major movement in my stability.

When people read this, perhaps they can see how my PhD may be the most visibly important thing in my life but really there has always been more important domestic issues that have sapped so much energy, emotional strength and will to succeed on my part.

I am proud of where I am now... for the first time in years.

And F.... anybody else's expectations.

I am going to stay well, keep a strong relationship with my son and finish what I have started in my own time... so everyone else can just deal with that.

Sorry guys... my turn.

The tears are flowing now.. but they are tears of release.

Happiness in Emerald City

I could never live here but each time I set foot on Sydney soil I feel liberated and transported into a fantasy world. One should never blog drunk, but tonight I am breaking this rule. I am "merry" and high on the whole sensuality of this City. It may be grey and winter, and already I am sick of the smart arse comments about 'Melbourne weather' but Sydney has a special place in my heart. It is gauche, her people parochial to the extreme, but the City has a charm that delights both Aussies and overseas visitors alike.

Sydney is more than the picture postcard vistas, despite me using a shot from the harbour looking back over Bennelong Point. For me it is the MOMA shop, the Opera House playhouse theatre, The Warf and the STC, Belvoir Street and Company B, the Cross and her seedy in your face night life, and the quiet of the Tea Rooms in Darling Harbour. Add to this the intensity of the hawkers in Chinatown, the tackiness of Paddy's Market (pticularly its one tram), and the stately buildings fronting the Domain. Above all I love that the Unis are all so central (UTS, Sydney University and Uni of NSW). It feels like an intellectual capital city.

The hotel rooms is exactly the same as elsewhere, clean, neat unoffensive ultra-modrn lines, ubiquitous abstract art and 'tasteful' bathroom cosmetics and fluffy white towels. I think I was born for at least four star environments and room service.... this is my version of doing it on a budget. As one ages, a certain amount of comfort is necessary (heated pools, fitness and business centres and 24 hour room service). But I really hate the fact that now the bar fridge is computerised so there is no chance of guiltily devouring a chocolate bar as the munchies hit and replacing it with a Safeway special. How much do I crave that chocolate? I admit I would prefer Belgium to Cadbury's with palm oil, but there is something about that fridge with its temptation and feeling of transgression.

Ah transgression, that is the magic of being away from home. I am suddenly free. Free to do what I like, when I like and no explanations to anyone and NO GUILT. I am 'me' unencumbered and living for the moment.

The sensible me says I should attend all Conference sessions and take copious notes yet the practical me says that I am only here for the networking. It's not cheap but I think it is a good investment. Also Conferences bring out the liberated youth in all participants, away from all 'normal' constraints and responsibilities. You get to meet people at their most honest, raw and open. I adore these moments. I guess I live for these moments of liberation. How many Conferences can I justify each year? And how do I justify to myself my need to get in early and just experience being here, in the moment, before the actual dates of the talk-fest? Why do I have to? Why do I feel guilty?

This is exactly what I need to feel re-charged and motivated after a period of self-doubt and uncertaincy. Here I can be manic without people judging me and fearing for my well being. I can live my life in colour at last. I need this. I will return home ready to tackle the hard stuff. I will have been 'me' for a few days without fearing people's judgement or treading carefully because they fear that I am 'mad'. I can just be. I love being away from home.

In the email today

... yep, inspiration and advise seems to find me when I need it most. Now this has to have come via The Graces!

What work-life balance? (It's all one pond.)

Wednesday 12th May 2010

I went on a retreat a few weeks ago, and it was just the thing for recalibrating my energy, focus and enthusiasm. What is was not about was work-life balance, because I don't think that's the right paradigm for my life, and maybe not for yours, either.

For me, it's about choosing in a more flexible way, day to day, how to allocate time between the different parts of my life - client work, writing my book, working on my business, family, friends, downtime (and currently of course, Masterchef!). I used to think of it as making work-life choices, but now I've taken it a step further.

While I was on retreat, I had a chat to Venerable You, a Buddhist nun I met last year when I presented a couple of workshops at the Australian Youth Buddhist Conference at Portsea. Venerable You is a most practical and also inspired teacher, a combo that appeals greatly to me. (She is also very amusing...)

We were talking about fitting meditation and reflection into a busy life, and she mentioned that she saw it all as 'just one pond'. A lightbulb moment. Just one pond. Not divvying up time between this compartment or that, finishing 'work' so you can move onto 'life'. Just one pond. For me, a window opened somewhere, bringing a sense of flexibility I hadn't had for a while.

In any moment, on any day, you can move fluidly from one area into another, and back again. You can respond as needed in any part of life. You can follow your sense of what needs to happen next, or what suits your frame of mind. So some days it's all about my book, and on others the focus is on client needs, or cooking a new risotto, or preparing for a creative thinking workshop, or going to a movie with my son or a friend. But there's no weighing it all up to find that perfect (mythical?) balance; whatever needs to happen on a given day, happens.

And if you are cultivating mindfulness, say, or patience, then you cultivate it in every part of your 'work' and your 'life', not just carve out 20 minutes for it each morning.

Just one pond. Utopian maybe, but so far, it works for me.

http://workincolour.com.au/blog/post/65/what-worklife-balance-its-all-one-pond/

Ah how calm it is...

Does anyone remember The Honeymooners? If so I would have started with that old Jackie Gleason catch phrase "How sweeet it is!"

Yep, today was another small step on my journey to full wellness. I had my first hypnotherapy session. It was fantastic. The best description is like a very calming guided meditation session. I can actually remember most of the salient points, and suggestions. The idea is that we (Dr Caroline Llyod and I) are attempting to bridge that gulf between the rational logical conscious mind, which knows everything I SHOULD be doing, and the unconscious mind, which seems controlled by impulsivity and instantaneous gratfication.

If this is successful it will be the nearest I can conceptualize to magic. No matter how much Cognitive Behavioural Therapy I attempt, and being able to identify the irrational thoughts, negative self-talk and highly charged emotions hidden beneath these words, I seem unable (unwilling?) to completely counter the negativity. It must be so safe in that space where sabotage can claim victory over success. Why else choose to dwell there?

We actually had to lay-out up front the whole bag of issues. I am/was fat because it deters the opposite sex from coming near me (which means I can't get hurt).

It also means that people have lower expectations of me. I am perceived as a lazy fat slob who gutses Maccas and chocolate every moment of the day. When people see that that isn't me, and whilst I can enjoy chocolate like most people, I do actually have a more savoury palate, leaning naturally towards fruit, vegetables and spices. My laziness is simply a complete lack of motivation and ability to fight the depressive episodes and self-destructive behaviours, not general 'who cares laziness'.

Also, when I first turned 50 I noticed that being fat rendered me invisible 'as a woman'. This was good. There was no pressure of expectations BUT along came the "obesity epidemic" and fat people were suddenly the new social outcasts, much in the same way smokers still are. It was suddenly deemed appropriate for total strangers to make comments on my body shape!

Bye, bye invisibility and anonymity.

So, today was also all about laying-out these root causes of my weight gain, and to look at the hypothetical situation (hopefully eventual) of me being thin and how that will impact on my behaviour, self-perception and my interpersonal relationships.

Just all of life's biggies, huh?

I reassured Dr Caroline that thinness will not be a magic bullet. I will be the same screwed up goofball, destined to repeat the same mistakes and problematic learned behaviours... just hopefully THIS TIME with my support crew (Caroline, Dr John, Dr Bill, Scottie, Julie, Felicity, Birgit, Angela and Dave) I can make actual progress like a 'normal' person. [See how many people are putting effort into me... and that's not counting my friends, and own self-commitment].

It is huge journey and with the PhD alongside it is quite draining and energy sapping. I never knew how hard it would be just to become healthy... but I am past the give-up-stage FOREVER.

As you can tell I am still on the positive axis (+2... that seems well balanced) and as a reward Glenice and I went to see The Warf Review (Pennies from Kevin) at the Whitehorse Centre, matinee.

Wow! To think that the brilliant Phil Scott, Jonathon Biggins, Drew Forsythe have written their ninth Review for the STC.

How privileged I was to sit and watch it in Vic, although I do miss that magnificent vista from the Warf bar looking out over the darkened harbour. The other exceptioanlly talented satirist and vocalist was actor Virginia Gay (ex-All Saints). She was terrific, particularly her cruel caricature of Amanda Vanstone, and the decidedly different character Penny K.D.Wong in Constant Cave-ins and of course her delicious Hermione Gillard in Kevin Potter and the Lower Chamber of Secrets. Other stand outs... Biggin's Pope, and Dumblegough; Forsythe's House Elf - Godwyn Gretch and his Canberra's Got Talent Nick Xenophon. The same sketch was superb with Biggins Bob Brown and his version of "Tell It To-ooo-oo Ya"

Haven't laughed so much in ages. And how great to sit where the entire show requires intellect to 'get the gags' and not performers simply relying on cheap slapstick laughs (although the Michelle Obama Motown Medley was a tad too Priscilla for my liking).

The one thing I am learning is when University is placed in its rightful position as ONLY ONE element in my life and only 38 hours a week maximum, there are so many opportunities to stop and simply enjoy living.

And yes, Jackie "How Swee-eet It Is".