Some of London

a spare friday night...

It’s Friday. 10:12pm

I decided to turn Netfix off for the night. Four candles lit, ok three now; I swivelled my chair around to see that the candle by the window had melted down into a pile of white wax attaching itself to picture frames and running down the wall, into a crack that was there before I moved in… I promise.

‘In Rainbows’ is playing, the vinyl spins, and I left the lid up. The sound carries, I put the second speaker on the other side of the room and I’m glad I did.What is it, fifty-one days? Fifty until I leave? Yes, fifty. Not just leave this room, this house, this suburb, this state but this country…home.

It’s a good thing. It is. I just have to take time and look at things, these things in this room. The places I go, the people; the people I love because I’m counting and unlike some seasons where you may only feel a change, this one has a definite, abrupt ending and I know it.

“I don’t wanna be your friend, I just wanna be your lover” 

 this song is playing now and I’ve always been drawn to lyrics I don’t understand maybe because I have to try harder to find meaning. One of my two plans this year is to see Radiohead play at one of the five festivals they’re headlining in Europe.

There’s so much to do, you know?

I have these extravagant ‘to do’ lists-

+things to think about

+friends living there

+predicted costs/payments so far

+work I could get

+visa check list

+notes on travel

+things I want to do before I go

That’s not even all of them…

 =i took this in Tasmania= 

And you know I wanted to do some really neat things before I left like give away all my art work and write a letter to someone different everyday and take more photos and get better at life admin but it’s not really happening, especially that last one…I am thirty in a few weeks, are you ever ready for your next year, your new number?I’m thankful I was never one of those girl that had grand ideas of “settling down” by any certain age. I’m anything but settled; I’ve never really liked the sound of that, to “settle down”. If to settle means to be comfortable then I want none of it. I am determined to fight comfort until the end. Although I do have fleeting thoughts of a lovely someone, some day… I feel like it’s overwhelming because I’m doing this on my own. This is the way I’ve always done things and so I believe it’ll work out but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The nerve pain in my L5 S1 came back yesterday and walking is hard again now and all my thoughts took me right back to this time last year, when the pain was at it’s worst and I felt it all. 

I felt so alone… It’s this world, this culture.I attended the Melbourne travel expo on the weekend. They shouted out special over the PA system while herding us through the gates. There were people breathing on each other, so many people. Holding flyers, selling you your next grand adventure, shiny free gifts; pens, luggage labels and other useless items. Granted, I use pens, a lot, but still I wasn’t interested; probably because they were plastered with labels so you could walk away and still be a sales person on their behalf.I’m traveling on my own, looking for a one-way flight; I know it’s my choice. I’d signed up for some travel info session- [the first of a series of poor choices...actually I think being there was technically the first] endless power-point presentations on how much better your life will be when you leave the country with someone you like. All the “Expo Specials” were for those traveling in a pair or in groups, all the flight sales were for return airfares. I’d been there wandering aimlessly for three hours until a friendly “expert” lead me to a line where I waited an hour, while couples and families made their plans around me; smiling and laughing at their future, as if making plans and reality were the same thing.

=i took this in Tasmania #too= 

I wanted to be patient, I wanted to be ok, and I wanted to control my feelings; particularly when an elderly couple pushed their way in front of me after I hit the forty-minute waiting mark. Yet I also wanted to try and understand what it was I was experiencing in that moment.The only redeeming quality of the expo was the free wifi, I sat down on the floor, a million strangers moved around me as I streamed The National into my ears to calm me. I had never wanted to be swallowed up by the music more than in that moment.

I love spending time on my own. Sometimes it just hits me that I don’t know what any other way is like. I’ve been on my own for so long that I have naturally adapted. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner, sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in….” and I’m leaving that behind too.

There on the floor flicking through some travel magazines that I never asked for, which came with the free tote bag, labelled “Live, Love, Travel” my eyes began to well up as I remembered traveling through Tasmania a year ago, one night at a restaurant… and that conversation while ordering my meal.

Waitress: any thing else?

Me: No thanks.

W: so, that will be all?

M: ahh yeah… thank you.

W: you don’t want to order another meal?

M: who for?

W: you must be waiting for someone… or is it just you?

M: it’s just me.

W: sorry… we don’t really get many people eating here alone.

After that awkward interaction I began to wonder about our culture; I wondered why restaurant tables are preset for two or more people. In a world were we are constantly fighting for independence or a sense of individuality, we need only to look around us and see that almost every corner implies co-dependence is the ‘normal’, acceptable and approved way of living. Just once I’d like to go somewhere the seating is arranged and see a place set for one.I am happy with the way I’m living and for that I give no credit to a culture that suggests that I am not enough on my own, when that is exactly what I am. Enough. And so are you. 

L5 S1

I feel so distant from the pain that was within me earlier this year; both physically and emotionally.

It’s hard to believe it was only nine months ago when I questioned if I’d be able to walk “normally” again- without pain, without limping. I wasn’t very good at listening to my body and would struggle explaining to my GP and neurosurgeon, where the pain was, how it felt and the severity of the nerve pain. I work with universities helping to train medical students in communication, by pretending to be a patient. You’d think after years of talking injuries, accidents, unfortunate diagnosis’ and death, I’d have a handle on the pain scale structure and what information is required for history taking. Yet when it’s happening to you, well, what is real feels very different to what is not.

The medical team suggested I make pain notes. Pain is a strange thing, hard to control, hard to process and at times hard to heal.  I made a conscious effort not to let this pain be a vocal point in my life. 

“This is not going to become part of my identity,” I thought, so only in the margins of my diary I wrote out my pain in red pen:

2.3.15

+hurts

+hurts when I sleep

+hurts when I wake

+when I walk

+standing hurts

+bending down hurts

3.3.15

+same as the day before

+hurts when I cough

+after walking for a while I forget the pain

4.3.15

+a little better when I stood up this morning

+still hurts when I cough

5.3.15

+sore all day, filming all day  = standing all day

6.3.15

+hurts getting up

+cried at the physio

+hurt all day

+pain killers not helping

7.3.15

+hurt in the morning

+hurts holding things

+hurts to walk

+couldn’t pick up car keys off the ground

+new pills from GP

+getting older tomorrow

8.3.15 [#birthday]

+hurts when I sneeze

+hurts when I cough

+used heat patch

9.3.15

+left sign school early because of pain

10.3.15

+NO PAIN IN THE MORNING!!!

11.3.15

+woke in pain

+hurts when I cough

+got sent home from work

+cried on the floor

the following was a ‘to do’ list I had written at the time:

-sleep

-cry

-listen to records

-lay on the floor

-cry

-sleep

-walk

-repeat

I’m glad that I wrote these things out because I’d forgotten, not necessarily the effects but how it felt. It was terrible but I couldn’t be as thankful as I am right now, if I were not able to re-read what I’d gone through. I made a decision to take time and write the specifics about what I was going through at that time in my life and I’m glad I did.

It’s a process and I still have to be careful. Now there are days when I have no pain. I remember thinking “if you can’t feel your spine, it’s a good time”.  I’m hopeful that in time I will be closer to that point.

This morning I had physio-pilates at 7:20am on a pain scale where 1 is the least amount of pain I’ve experienced and 10 is the most; I would rate this mornings session at 2. Earlier this year I would say I’d hit a 10 for sure.

Throughout this year, even when I was on 4 different medications and my health needed to be a priority more than ever; I was still able to finish all my assignments and graduate sign school. I had my first composition performed live, I moved house, continued to work and support myself, drove a bus to Alice Spring, started taking piano lessons and got my taxes done. We are capable of some much more that we think we are.

To my GP, neurosurgeon, psychologist, physiotherapist x2, my sister and my dear friends; to whom without their support, the struggle would have been so much more real, I thank you.

So much has changed and I’m so thankful.

What did you learn?

• -     Healing is a mystery; it can happen over time or can happen in a moment.
• -       Writing is a great way to process what you’re going through.
• -       Don’t let the biggest pain in your life be the biggest thing in your mind.
• -       Sometimes really hard things happen and all you can control is your response to these things.
• -       You need other people, you can’t do everything on your own.
• -       One of the most important things in life are the choices that you make.

#oneyearagoinvietnam

and when i was alone and said to myself out loud- "it's hard" i also thought "beautiful things can come from difficult times"

#zinedream...

i started a zine 3 years ago... im going to finish it 

#abouttoday post nam...

#abouttoday...

"I feel so much older #thatsalie or though my body aches at times and then I tell myself "you've got the heart of a youth and the bones of an ancient egyptian mummy #dealwithit" and then I remembered those lyrics by The Cure, "yesterday I got so old I felt like I could die, yesterday I got so old it made me want to cry..."
Sometimes their lyrics are so serious and honest but its hard to take it seriously because the melody is so playful. Their music has this ironic way of making me feel good about things. 'The Cure' are great.

Today, walking by the maribyrnong river, to the shopping centre to keep my "genius" appointment at apple and I thought of all the things inside me that I want to get out. All the things I want to say, want to communicate to the world before this ends for me. And I can't work out how, in any kind of way. My eyes glazed over.
Isn't that all we're all trying to do; isn't that what we're doing here? Trying to express this experience of being human and what that means and how it feels. And maybe that's one reason im studying sign language, find as many ways as I can to communicate; just to get it out right... 

im always asking why, too curious and for my birthday, my sister gave me a book called 'Why? Answers to Everyday Scientific Questions' 
"because you're a scientist now" she said.
I am always amazed by her insight of me. She said "I worried about you almost every day but I knew being in Vietnam was good for because of what you were going through. You never talk about how you feel to get approval or reassurance or some sense of direction; you've never needed that from people. You just need to get it out".
I was silent for a moment and then said 
"I feel good when say things like that" she laughed
"why? Because it shows you that I know you?" she asked
"yeah...and you know me and you still like me" I said
"I like you even more because of it" she added

My old iphone4 [replacement of my stolen iphone5] has issues- no safari [internet], no wifi and no app store and the off button doesn't work... They asked me if it's ok to reset the phone, which I agreed to, though it was not backed up- I figured i've been getting good at letting things go. Well they couldn't reset it anyway because you need the 'off' button to go off for that...they apologised and in the end i don't think the ''genius'' felt so genius. I said
"don't worry about it, genius is a pretty lose term these days"

sometimes I wonder, how I got to be so deeply effected by things. Maybe going through my whole life sober is part of it; I have never known what it's like to numb whatever it is I feel. When I cut my leg shaving I thought maybe I should allow myself to be upset [about other things that aren't shaving cuts] and not constantly analyse myself as to why... And just be ok with that.

I keep thinking about that missing airplane; I was flying with that same airline, in that same area last week. And I don't think, "what if that was me?" I just think about the purple blanket that's waiting at your seat, when you board and the endless cups of bad coffee with the weird powdered milk and the eye contact I made with the air hostess and the rows of seats in front of me, filled with strangers, all going the same direction and wondering- only for a moment "who are you all? Where are you actually going?". And the friendly voice that began with "this is your captain speaking..." First in a foreign language, then in English. It all seemed so ordinary then one moment changes the 'ordinary' forever."

'the cure'- in between days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scif2vfg1ug&feature=kp

#kidsilove

I never really know how to feel on camp. It's interesting. At the staff meeting the other night someone talked about Mondays [pick up day] I said "I'm glad I wasn't on pick up day this wk, nothing messes me up as much as seeing where they live does..."
I never knew I thought that way but its true.
You spend two, sometimes four weeks with these kids and later you can forget their filthy language, bad attitude and behavior

, the violence the exchange between themselves- that draws blood and leads to the emergency room. The hurt they inflict on each other, while at camp, which must have some lasting effect...

But I can't forget the smell of their house or the look of their father or step dad or "mums friend joe" and his beer gut, and him dressed in his best underwear at 2pm and how the sun reflects off his bald head as he slurs his words and asks me to read out the questions because the daylight is too bright, for him to read the form. And he makes excuse about why the kids clothes are in a garage bag instead of a suitcase like "the cat had kittens in the suitcase or ferrets ate a hole through it- YES FERRETS.
And as you walk away that child clutches your hand and wish that smell would stay with the house but it follows you in the garbage bag and you think to yourself "there must be more i can do!!"
Because you know that what you're walking away from is what this kid is coming back to...and that's only your experience at the front door."