The photo is just to help liven things up

From al ain

This photo has little to do with yesterday or today or even tomorrow. It’s not even a metaphor (at least not an intentional one). I took it about one year ago, from the top of Jebel Hafeet. Apparently, on a clear day, you can see forever.

Today I feel terrible. Quite unwell. Deep inside my glands and in my bones and whatever it is in my lower back which makes me feel this way when I do not feel well.

I made it safely to and from Dubai yesterday, and I parked at Ibn Battuta Mall. It was 50 dhms each way from there to the office and back, but it was worth it for a person like me.

The training was excellent, and the people I met were inspiring. But I didn’t stay for the dinner, because I felt gradually worse and worse all day until, by 4 oçlock, I couldn’t stand any more voices in my head.

I will make sure I’m up in time for a coffee before I leave

Prolly won’t have time to blog tomorrow, because I’m going to Dubai for a conference/training session with some highly skilled people.

I need to be at Jumeirah by 9 which, for most people, would mean leaving here by 7 at the earliest, because everyone except me drives at about 150 kms per hour.

I drive at the more sedate pace of around 120, partly because accidents do happen, and partly because our car beeps once it hits 120 (I’ve been told by other people that you just turn the radio up and you don’t even notice the beeping sound…erm…could not think of anything more hideous than driving at 150 km with a radio turned up to drown out the beeping…especially because the BBC world service in English doesn’t start until 9, and the classic radio cuts out about halfway between here and Dubai and the rest of the radio stations are just noise).

Now, if I drive myself all the way to the venue, it will mean negotiating the World Trade Centre roundabout. It all sounds very simple in the instructions I’ve been given. In my favour, I do have a good sense of direction, but working against that, I feel the fear in the traffic, and lose my nerve. Also, it’s very easy to miss a turn or make a wrong turn in Dubai, and then there’s nothing for it but to sit back and enjoy the ride to Sharjah.

So I think I will do what I always do, which is to stop the car at Ibn Battuta Mall or perhaps Dubai Mall, then catch a cab the rest of the way. The cab from Ibn Battuta Mall will cost a fair bit, but getting back onto Sheik Zayed Road out of Dubai Mall and pointing yourself in the direction of Abu Dhabi is extraordinarily difficult on account of the roadworks diversions. And it will be dark by the time I come home. I suspect Ibn Battuta Mall.

Do you know what I’m missing right now? I’m missing my house which is fifty steps to the tram if you turn left when you step out the gate, and one hundred steps to the bus if you turn right.

Day by day

I was thinking about my blog and how blogging used to be and what blogging has become, and I was thinking maybe it was time for my blog to be…I don’t know…what…and I know for a lot of people twitter has become the thing that blogging used to be, but it doesn’t quite work that way for me, because I’m in a different time zone, so I always miss the twitter party and then there’s never anyone at mine…

I knew three things: firstly, I wanted to keep blogging, because it’s fun, and I like the people I meet through having a blog; secondly, I was a bit sick of having a blog that was going into decline; thirdly, I knew what I didn’t want, but I didn’t know what I did.

So then I was thinking, maybe if I put a bit of an effort into the blog then I’ll discover what it is that I want it to be. I put some effort in, and I made an elaborate, intricate plan. Way back in January I made that plan, and nothing eventuated. Which is fairly typical of me. In my time, I’ve made a lot of plans, and on very few of them I’ve followed through.

Then, the other day I thought, instead of planning, why don’t I find out what it is that I want to do, just by doing. Write something every day for one month, and then, by the end, you’ll be able to see what it is that you like writing about.

And back on the first of April that seemed like a good idea. Now we’re at the fifth of April and this is the kind of post I’ve resorted to.

Look back on anger

The football being persisently unavailable on the television, the mister and I began discussing me. More particularly, we began discussing me and the progress of my manuscript.

On my part, I was trying to understand why I have so little to show for all that time when I had not much to do but write, and now, all of a sudden, when I have just an hour or so a day things are coming together.

On his part, he couldn’t suggest a better topic of conversation so had to run with mine.

I was sort of moaning about having to go back to work this morning (our weekend is Friday and Saturday and for obvious reasons, we don’t get an Easter long weekend). More precisely, I was moaning that my writing time was already at an end. Why did I not have this drive and momentum last year when the only thing I had to do with my time was write?

The mister was very good about not rolling his eyes, although he let it be known that the conversation was only allowed to take a limited amount of his remaining weekend.

The coincidence of my gaining a job and writing momentum at the same time is not wholly inexplicable. For one thing, having a job has given me a structure that I did not have before. The mister thinks I have created an environment of ‘urgency’. Knowing the time is limited means I do not waste the time (though it does not completely wipe away the question of whether I can possibly work full time and finish a manuscript – the answer to that question is still some time away). For another, having a job has made me feel better about myself and I’m less inclined to flop on the couch feeling directionless and otherwise woe-is-me.

And, on top of everything else, I think maybe I was just not ready to write. Last year, I did manage to get the wordcount on my manuscript up pretty high – very high indeed – but the moment, I am enjoying putting red lines through a great number of those words because my, there are some angry bitter words in there.

There is a greater sense of calm this year. Not only in my words, but in the act of writing itself. I am writing with focus and direction and a sense of purpose that has nothing to do with being right or wronged.

This is not to say that I will take all of the anger out, nor is to pretend that all was rosy in my fair land. Only that I am enjoying writing about being angry, knowing that I’m not.

Looking back on anger is a most lightening feeling indeed.

Getting things done

The mister and the lads got back from their Al Ain daytrip rather late last night, and because I still hadn’t finished my book, when the mister asked about my day, I said, somewhat despondently, ‘I must be the most unproductive person in the world,’ to which the mister replied, ‘but how do you know that everyone else is productive?’

It’s the kind of thing the mister says, and it sometimes cheers me up and sometimes gives me the screaming shits.

Anyway, the ensuing conversation reminded me of a lesson I have already learned, but seem to have forgotten. The lesson is: it’s no good having a to do list which reads ‘write book’. A list like that just leaves you feeling despondent and unproductive day after day after day.

So then, I spent an hour with a purple texta, making a list of the things I need to write in order to finish this draft. And today, I will work through one or two of those things and when the mister and the lads get back from the supermarket and their game of squash I will say, ‘I got a lot done today’.

Watershed

It was our intention to be away for definitely two years, but expecting ourselves to stay away longer. Like at least three, possibly four.

But two years, definitely, for sure.

Then, as you know, things turned pear-shaped, went arse-up, generally soured and I started to see things a little differently. I still wanted to make the two years, I didn’t want to run away again, I wanted to give things a chance.

I had to develop some good coping strategies. One of those strategies was to start taking things in smaller chunks. I’ll get to June, I said to the mister and see how I feel after my trip. Made that. I’ll stay til Christmas, I told the mister and see how it goes from there. Got there, still going okay. Came back from the Christmas trip, things had changed a little. Plus the weather was freaking glorious, and the lawn in our courtyard took root. Okay, I said to the mister, the March school break.

Then I got my job, and all of a sudden things were easier. I am going to be extraordinarily sad to say goodbye to my job when the time comes. In fact, if I were living anywhere else, I would probably never leave that job. It is my dream job, and not only that, the people I work with are wonderful.

Nonetheless, for me, this is not a city of permanent livability and the only reason I know I can stay is because I know that I will go. It is the future makes the now seem possible.

The problem with this state of mind is that my brain is constantly looking ahead. In my mind, I make calculations…how many months, how many weeks, even, one time, how many days. The future is a good place to think and to dream about, but it is not a place to live.

If I’m just going to spend my time dreaming of the time when this time will be the past, then I should just pack up now. Passing time by wishing it away is not time well spent.

So, I am trying very hard to do that whole living in the now. There is nothing more important than the thing you are doing now. The past is gone, the future is yet to come, only the now is here. And so on. I am trying to concentrate on getting my book written, enjoying my job, watching my children laugh. When I feel my heart race in anticipation of what might be, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and bring myself back to now.

Oh, dear…if we get to June and I start quoting Elizabeth Gilbert at you, you will tap me on the shoulder, take me into a quiet corner and have a word with me, won’t you?

Regrouping

Something happened. And I want to tell you about that something, only I’m having trouble working out how to tell you what I have learned from that something, without the other people who were around being able to read anything into it. Do you know what I mean? Even though I have separated myself and don’t want to make any judgement – good or bad – about anyone else, just by reflecting on myself, it will appear as if I’m reflecting on other people too. Get it?

I’m particularly sensitive about it all, because in the aftermath of that something, I said something hoping to have one effect, but causing another. Tried to do a good thing, but made things worse.

Words are such tricky things.

Sometimes you think they are diamonds, but they are really shards of glass.

And howcome they sometimes don’t reveal their form until they have left you and reached someone else?

I suppose it’s the kind of experience that, at some time or another, will wrap itself in a cloak of fiction and present itself to the world. But I’m not in fiction-writing mode at the moment. I’m doing memoir.

Which, of course, causes me to reflect constantly on which parts of which of my stories I tell. I’m at the point now where I’m comfortable with the lines I’ve drawn. It’s about me and my dad and my mum, and sometimes me and my grandfather, so I’m trying not to mention other people at all, though the mister gets a guernsey, and the lads do feature. That means that it’s incomplete in some senses, that my parents are represented only from my point of view. But in memoir, as I’ve discovered, all of those decisions are a trade-off of some kind of another.

Anyhoo, I’d best be getting on if anything at all is going to be finished anytime soon.

This is really only half a blog post, isn’t it?

Another way of looking at it

He says: ‘Mum, ever since you’ve got that computer you’ve just been living on it.’

I reply: ‘I’m trying to get my book written, I need to work really hard on it, otherwise I will never finish it.’

He asks: ‘What’s this one about?’

I tell him: ‘It’s a memoir…’

He interrupts: ‘Oh, so it’s like your memories?’

I say: ‘Sort of.’

He is perceptive: ‘So it’s about Denis, right?’

I say: ‘Yes, and some other people.’

Eagerly: ‘Me? Am I in it?’

Thinking quickly about how I’m going to answer it: ‘Well, I don’t want to write too much about you and your brother…’

Interrupting (again): ‘Because we’re not memories, right?’

Liveblogging the South Australian election

I intended to follow up my original liveblog of the 2006 South Australian election with a liveblog of this year’s election. But then, thanks to twitter I have discovered that Amber Petty is running the live blog on The Advertiser adelaidenow website.

WHAT THE FUCK?

I am too depressed to speak. Here in Abu Dhabi, I’m listening to the 891 livestream, but apparently they’ll be having Alexander Downer on soon, so I’ll have to turn it off.