Author: ThirdCat

A bit of a scatty post, but I’ve still got very sore ears and it’s making it hard to concentrate

Being the penultimate footy weekend, we sat around most of the weekend watching it. It was well-timed for us, because being night games in Australia made them afternoon games in Abu Dhabi.

The mister dedicated himself fully to the watching-ness of it, but after the first quarter of the first day, I got a bit twitchy, so I worked on my Commemorative Election cross stitch which I’ve been meaning to get around to.

I like to have the footy and the cricket on in the background, it soothes me. I guess it takes me back to the safety of childhood or something. The mister is always shocked that I can have been apparently watching or listening to an entire football game and still say, ‘Oh, is it finished? Who won?’

The cross stitch will be hung in the boys’ room. There are people who let their children develop their own political beliefs. I am not such a person. I would be, but I’m so right about my politics, that they don’t need to develop their own thoughts.

A funny thing has happened, just as I’ve been putting this blog post together. I have realised that this is a lot less true than it used to be. Events of the last few years – living outside a democracy, the swearing in of our first woman Prime Minister, the fear of living with Tony Abbott as Prime Minister – have left me caring very much that they learn to be politically engaged, but less inclined to bludgeon them (cross stitch evidence notwithstanding). I have been noticing more and more lately, that in politics and political action, I am much more like my mother than my father. The personal is political rather than the explicit political action of joining parties and so on. And that’s not the person I expected to be, I always thought I’d be much more involved in a political party than I have ever been.

Actually, this isn’t the cross stitch I was planning. I wanted to take the opportunity to do my first person cross stitch. That is, cross stitch an outline of Julia, pearls and all, but I just haven’t organised it, and I knew I could get this finished before the next election.

Fittingly, I completed it during the Collingwood Sydney game, so I was working on something else when Julia’s team got whipped by the Saints.

So now, all that’s left is the grand final. We have to get up really early for that. If I recall correctly, it begins here at 8 am. Which is definitely an early time to be watching football.

From miscblogphotos

PS You’ll notice that I’m a bit of a sloppy cross stitcher, and I don’t go back and correct mistakes – like if I start a line too low, or do a run of stitches with the crosses reversed from all the others, I very often just leave it that way. Unless it’s a present. If it’s a present I do undo it.

Oh-kay, enough with the Oh jokes now

Snippets from home tell me that Oprah is going to Australia. As John Stewart says, we’ll have to start calling it Ohstralia (how many ways do I love that man, and how much time do I spend plotting ways to sort of bump into him and possibly have his babies).

Anyhoo, as I was blogsurfing my way through lunch today, I discovered a campaign I think you should join.

Anita Heiss for Ohpera House
“Oprah is coming to Sydney and there could be no better guest or representative of modern Australia than Sydney’s own ANITA HEISS.”

There’s details of how to email the shOh’s producers and ask them to include Anita Heiss as a guest over on Anita’s blog and website. I’ve never written to Oprah before, but I’m going to do it right now.

Always learning

I discovered an interesting thing when I was out on Thursday night. Did you know – and you probably didn’t, because why would you – that when I leave or enter the country, the HR person at the mister’s place of employment gets a text to let him know that I have left or entered. I think he gets a text about everyone whose visa is connected to the mister’s workplace.

Also, some misters receive the texts…I think this is an opt-in arrangement though, because the mister doesn’t get such a text (or so he says, and if he’s just saying it to save himself another conversation, well, I wouldn’t blame him, because how would it differ from any of the other conversations we have?).

I should, at this point, point out that this whole texting thing doesn’t hinge so much on being a mister as it does on being the person with the work-sponsored visa. If it were my employment which had brought us here, and I had subsequently sponsored the mister and the lads, then I would get the texts (we would also be living in a parallel universe where unicorns deliver toasted sandwiches and give foot massages, but that’s a whole different blog post, isn’t it).

I mention this, because the other day, I met a woman who has just arrived here, and we got to talking and one thing led to another and it turns out she is living in the same apartment building as another friend of mine used to live. So I said to this new woman, ‘Does your husband work for [insert name of large employer who has the tenancy for a lot of that building]?’. And she said, ‘Well, actually, I’m a single mother.’

I was mortified and of course I apologised. But my goodness me. I mean, on the one hand, sure I live in a society where such assumptions are more likely to be correct. But, far out, to have so quickly become someone who accepts such assumptions. And who voices them.

Must away, tennis parties to attend, gins to drink, that kind of thing.

this time with less laziness

That was nothing more than extraordinary laziness that last post. Goodness me, what would my self help books think of me?

Fifi and Pen raise the questions to which I should have posted the answers, so let’s see the question again. When considering whether or not to include someone, or something someone has done, in my blog or memoir, a question I sometimes ask is:

Does the person have right of reply?

Rather than providing me with a yes/no answer, the question acts more as a prompt, giving my thinking some direction. Probably, I could draw you a flowchart of sorts, but I’m too lazy for that.

As an aside, much of this thinking is instinctive, subconscious or unconscious, but when I do need to take the time to sit and think it through (for example, every now and then I think, ‘Oh, I wonder why I have never mentioned such and such’), I find that I have made this a consistent starting point.

So, back to the question. Does the person have a right of reply?

Because the people I write about do not have their own blogs or write for publication, or speak publicly, I often consider that it is enough if that person has the right of private reply.

Consider the mister. He would never start his own blog or publish a piece of memoir or have the funds to plaster his comments on a billboard, but he has every opportunity to say (but rarely does), ‘Erm, do you not think the way you related that story was a little, you know, one-sided’. I guess the mister’s ultimate right of reply lies in my commitment to our relationship and the kind of relationship that we have.

My parents have a different kind of right of reply. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t actually write or say anything, but they’re my parents – I might be forty years old and they might be dead, but nonetheless, I am constantly seeking their advice and their opinions and chatter with them constantly. Of course, there is a danger in imagining the way in which someone exercises their right of reply, but I am confident that I come to those relationships with enough honesty that if I do make a mistake in how they actually would respond, it is an error of judgment and not one of defensiveness or lack of generosity or revenge. Also, my father gave me explicit permission to say whatever I wanted to say.

Anyway, when it comes to my parents I use a different kind of question, based around whether or not I have the right to tell the story, and the parent-child relationship is, I think, a unique one in our ‘rights’ to a story. Perhaps I will talk about this another day.

Some people do have a right of reply, but I still choose not to write about them. For example, an alarm bell rings if I imagine that person exercising that right, and even as I am imagining it, my heart races and my breath shallows. This is a sign to me that I can not write about that person with sufficient objectivity, which is, in turn a sign of other things, for example, that I am unable or unwilling to write with honesty or generosity. In such a case, we all lose. I am limited in expanding on this point by providing examples, because it would immediately mean that I have to write about people and events I have already decided I don’t want to write about. Sorry bout that.

What if the answer is no, no the person does not have a right of reply? Sometimes, I might decide that doesn’t matter and write about them anyway, perhaps because they are completely unidentifiable or sufficiently anonymous. But generally, if they do not have a right of reply, I proceed with caution, because it is so often a sign of a power imbalance (this is where a discussion about the rights to a story would be useful, and I really will come back to that another day).

In this case, I might consider the consequences. For example, in telling this story, is there more gained than lost? As a human rights activist, I have very often made the decision that yes there is more to gain by discussing this situation publicly, but as a blogger or potential memoirist wallowing in middle class privilege, I have to know that ‘giving voice’ is fraught with opportunities to patronise or appropriate. Am I doing either of those things?

In my previous life, this was less of a problem, but at the moment, I am definitely having to weave my way through this. Luckily for you, this is one piece of angst and over-thinking you will be spared.

I do have other things to say, and I know that this is all a bit superficial, but this cough I’ve been fighting for the last few months seems to be developing into one of those pre-sinusitis infections which means my ears are ringing and I’m quite light-headed (not in a good way), so I’m going to lie down and possibly go back to sleep for the afternoon.

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One of the questions I ask when I am deciding whether or not I have the right to include a certain person in a story on my blog or in my memoir is:

Does the person have a right of reply?

….and then, I started writing this whole post about exactly what I mean by that, but actually, I want to go and watch the footy instead. I will come back and finish it another day. Yes, yes I will.

dealing with it

I have decided that while I could simply find a way to cope with life here, it would be much better to find a way to be not unhappy. It would be much better to end each day reflecting on a day well spent than to just flop on the lounge, gin and tonic in hand, thinking, ‘well, phew, that’s another day down only xxx to go’.* It would be much better to feel satisfied than to simply survive. What a waste of life it would be, I have decided, if I were to settle for coping when, if I just put some effort in, life could be much more.

Knowing as I now do (remember, I’ve read every self help book published in the last ten years) that we slip into (bad) habits easily and spend a lot of time rethinking the same negative thoughts that we had the day before and the day before that and the day before that, I spent a bit of time identifying the flashpoints in my day. Those points where I just lose it, and blame everything that is wrong on the world around me and am able, very quickly, to convince myself that if only I did not live here then everything would be okay.**

One such flashpoint is the drive to the gym. Many mornings, not every, but many, I drop the lads at school, the mister at work if he’s not already there, then drive to the gym, do my class, then drive home again. These drives involve all manner of negative thinking on my part as I respond to those around me. Now, driving, she isn’t my thing at the best of times, but here that is multiplied by one gazillion and living here, there really isn’t much choice but to drive.

One of the reasons I dislike it so much here is that, for me, the culture clash is, without a doubt, played out on the roads. Of course there are different ways of driving, because we’ve all learnt to drive in very different environments from Pakistan to Sweden. I can cope with that, and I have tried to remember eldest lad’s wise words. But it doesn’t work, and I get myself into a right righteous tizz about the excessive speed, and the headlights of the car behind being flashed at me, and the turning from three lanes across and the complete ignoring of the lanes in the roundabouts. I make gross cultural judgements, based on one interaction with one individual, which is something I do not like to do, and that means I get mad at myself, and that means I am feeling bad about the people around me and bad about myself. Any spiritual and mental benefits that I get from the exercise are well-gone by the time I’m back at the dining table drinking my coffee and reading the paper (another flashpoint, but we can deal with that tomorrow).

What is my solution to this flashpoint? How do I change my attitude to this? I decided to do something that I have never done before.

Affirmations.

Yes, indeed. I know I’ve lost at least half of you now (and all of my friends who are thinking, oh, bloody hell, what’s she going to be like next time we see her, she’s really starting to be a fairly high maintenance friend), but do bear with me for just one paragraph more.

With Abu Dhabi classics on the radio, I repeated to myself, over and over again, ‘I am clear and focused, I am calm and relaxed’. I repeated some other things, but I think that would be over-sharing – I mean, you know, there’s only so much of your ridiculous side you want the internet to know, right?

Anyway, when I arrived at the gym, I realised it had worked. Not because I was feeling calm, relaxed, clear or focused, but because I’d just spent fifteen minutes laughing at myself. Which is way better than spending fifteen minutes getting worked up at the attitude of some dude who really doesn’t give a shit about you or your opinion.

*here, I hesitate to publicly define the remaining amount of time on account of you-know-what
**please to be noting, this is not something I got out of a self-help book, this is something I have figured out all for myself…any day now and imma gonna have my own show, and you are all invited, and there will be special giveaway under your chair, not sure what that might be, but trust me, it’ll be great

From miscblogphotos

Wednesday lunchtime

One day, not so long ago, but long enough that it could be once upon a time, my eldest boy said to me, ‘Mum, why do you have to take everything so serious?’

We were standing outside a shop in Marina Mall, and I had left the shop without the pair of sandshoes I needed to replace the others which had just about worn through the sole. There were too many shoes and I couldn’t choose and instead of crying, I swore at the mister.

Eldest boy was right. I was taking things too serious. Every time I went to a shop, I was thinking of airmiles and packaging in a land with no recycling and of money we didn’t have, and, because I had just finished sorting out three houses and only one of them mine, I was feeling the weight of things.

It was hard for me to see the funny side and I loaded every decision with significance.

When life is going well, when you haven’t quite grown up, you don’t realise, but there’s a lot of decisions in a day. It starts with whether or not to get out of bed and just keeps going from there.

Once you start thinking about every decision, well, it means you’re paying a lot of attention to the consequences of every decision, which means you’re constantly running through scenarios and that means you live every day several times over.

Which would be fine, except that you only ever get enough sleep to live your day through once.

Life is not exactly smooth right now, but it’s nice to realise that I don’t feel that way right now.

My heart, she is racing fast right now

Just now, just this very most-recent-past moment I got hit by one of those realisations you get hit with every now and then:

I am a grown-up.

Now, I’ve had that realisation before, but what just occurred to me, what just hit me in the very most-recent-past moment is this:

I am a grown-up FOREVER.

Fark.

That makes you think, doesn’t it?

Here, have a cake, they’re a few years old now, but cakes don’t go stale in cyberspace:

From miscblogphotos