The Blue & Yellow Post

I have trouble deciding.

I’ve always had trouble but it’s getting worse. Right now I can’t  decide on the sort of work I want to do  and even more pressing, I can’t decide what to do with my bathroom.

Because the blue and yellow journey is a comprehensive one, I consider all incidents and thoughts as inter-related. If I can’t decide about my bathroom, what does that say about my life in general and most particularly, what does it say about the work I want to do?

I’m an text-book Libran, which means I get swayed by the last expert opinion I received. There is no end of experts when it comes to work and bathrooms. So, what’s a gal to do? Give into the most persuasive, because he’s had 30 years in the same bathroom business  and he simply takes the deciding over? Or go with the other guy, who seems adept and who just does what you tell him - after all you’re the boss of your own bathroom?

Do you take a job advertised in a paper or website because it’s sort of a match, and it’s like what you’ve done in the past. Or do you take a different tack altogether?  Should you determine own work-life mix, with a portfolio approach of skills and talents and abilities and place it out there in the world to see where and how it hits the mark?

So in true Libran fashion, I’ve been sitting with the problem;  actually I’ve been sitting in the problem.

I’m seeing a career coach to figure out how to change the work-life mix. What’s my value added proposition?  What can I do that others can’t?  And does anyone want what I do?  Right now, in the Public Service, there’s a  lot of not wanting what I do. But that’s cool, I’ve had a good soak. It’s like starting off in a nice hot bath but having to continually top it up the longer you stay in. The longer you stay in of course, the more wrinkled you get, and the more relaxed you become.

Because my bloke used to do be my coach and he’s no longer here, I now have to pay for those skills.  I’m OK with that because the bulk of the coaching is self-directed.  The value in seeing someone like a  coach is that you allow youreself a time and place to tackle just that topic.  You talk about wishes, dreams, ambitions and you listen for negative self-talk and limiting thoughts. 

So it’s no surprise I talk to the coach and the bathroom guys about the same stuff - I need more space. Ergo I need to get rid of the bath. 

Baths have had their day. When the dam levels were high and it was OK to lay about and relax That’s not this day. This day is a day for movement. Moving to the right space where I can do what matters to me. Moving around in more space, to change and grow and develop more skills.  This is not a day to submerge ideas and talent in a luke-warm environment,  which, if left unattended becomes soporific. This is a brand new day for doing what I do best of all with people that want what I do. This is a day for change.    

I read somewhere that colds and flu are a sign of confusion. Well if that’s right - I’m knee deep in confusion, because I can boast the worst cold in a millenium.

What we have here is doubtless a case of psychosomatic illness. As you change your thoughts it reflects in the body.  Your spleen gets damp when you have trouble digesting life, or is that your stomach that gets acidic when you have trouble with your partner? Was the asthma suffocation or was it that my sinusitis was veiled anger? Duh!

I discovered the joys of psychosomatic illness during the neurotic bent of my almost 30s.  I was unable to hold down a satisfying job, and I used the body rather than the CV to explore the boundaries of life.  All was fine in my ill world.  I sniffled my way across every new age book shelf, until at last I could go no farther. My waterloo was a book with the title, “Love your rectum back to health.” Arguably the finest title of all from the mother of all body  illness relativity, Louise Hay. An angel of hope to everyone that had a sneeze, rash or piles. But for me it signalled enough.

I’m happy to say that sort of navel-gazing and rectum loving is all behind me. But the sustaining message I took from the literature is one of personal responsiblity. I was “reared” as a Catholic, which often meant abrogating responsibility. Or at least handballing the lion’s share of it to something called sin, a fall from grace or dodgey advice from a guardian angel. Non- Catholics had no idea that we had a 24-hour 365 days a year counselling life-line (in the shape of a guardian angel.)

The guardian angel was supposed to be good. But there was one religious icon I recall from my early childhood that showed a bad angel talking into one of the saint’s ear, and good angel earbashing the other.  What a conundrum. The secret was to rely on your inbuilt conscience. Truly an elusive component - especially for little kids, who had their work cut out for them managing anything under this 24/7 surveillance.

Angels and colds are, I admit, hardly parallel realities. But, lately my thinking has been preoccupied with both. Perhaps it’s because I just finished a charming book, Miss Garnett’s Angel, by Salley Vickers. In any event, I’m head over heels back in love with the idea of visitations from winged dudes to help you over tricky times.  But then again, my thinking is cloudy with the infected cavities of my head and maybe illness is an essential criteria for seeing them.

My darling bloke saw angels coming out of the walls in our bedroom - as he lay dying. One of them had long hair with body paint, and he danced “between us”, Stephen told me. Those that know Stephen (aka bloke), would know such an image would be most unlikely if he were in good health.  Clearly another great mystery about transition.

Garnett’s book also included a reference to the bridge of separation, over which a soul must travel when they die, assisted of course by an angel. Stephen, in one of the morphia-ridden rambles that characterised those precious last days, also mentioned a bridge. He told me he “was building a bridge between heaven and earth”.

So, Holmes, Hays or Vickers - what next? Is the bridge accessible to me too? Can I get over it? Will I ever get over it? Apparantly that’s the task of those left behind. A chilling idea indeed. No wonder I’m sniffling.

“Heaven begins with our favourite memory” my girlfriend Rosey once told me.

For me it was bumping out out a show, often at 3 a.m, doubtless tired and pissed, but so happy - in the smells, the dust,  the wonder and the satisfaction.

When I was starting school, my stage, cast and lead character was Mighty Mouse  a cartoon character from the sixties (who years later was disbarred from Comic Valhalla due to a perceived opium addiction!) Mighty Mouse was everything to me, my scene, my rising star, my metaphor and script for surviving the school yard. He was my Raison d’être.

He may have been small, but he was power-packed. “Here I come to save the day, that means that Mighty Mouse is on the way.”At that time in my life I was hanging out for a miracle and a saviour. And in the process, that wonderful alchemistical theatrical process, I rescued my self.

Notwithstanding the blatant fantasy fixation, the game provided me a rich vein of coping strategies. It  gave me the ‘pretend until it feels better’ mentality and the  ’practice until you get it right’ strategy. Both of which I’ve maintained to this day.  All through high school and through my working life I’ve cast the play, the characters, the scenery and style. So as to make my world interesting enough for me to be a part of.  If I found things boring I changed it. If the the colour was drab I’d enliven it. Sort of Steven Covey meets Colour by numbers.

• “Adventures in Paradise” became 2 years teaching in PNG.
• “The Little Princess” became 2 years in Government House
• “The Sound of Music” turned into the Australian Opera
• “Hawaii Five-O” translated into 5 fabulous years working in Television and
• “Disneyland”  morphed into the Public Service with its rich seam of fantasy.

But here’s something for nothing - the technique is exhausting. So I’m bumping out the show. No not suicide - just changing roles. A mid-life trauma has forced me to reconvene my cast of creative thousands into a new show altogether. But how?

In a recent documentary on the making of the Australian Hedda Gabler, the fabulous Cate Blanchett commented on the exchange between actor and audience. She ruminated that each production is forged in the exchange between actor and audience and each interpretation therefore is ”right”.

I’m not sure about this new theatre I’m engaging in. Not sure about the cast, or the role, or the plot. But I’ve settled at least on the audience. They’ll be explorative, faith-filled, imaginative, forgiving and kind (as much UNLIKE Hillsong as possible). This is theatre of the soul, not the masses.

And of the show itself? It won’t be outside the self,  it will be within. I’m happy to bump it in anytime.

I have developed a penchant for steps.

They are a fit metaphor for my program of personal change. It’s a multi-step program to correlate with my great age. So far, the program includes:

• A stepping out exercise component to move the lard off my arse
• A 12-step program to move the booze out of my larder
• A quick-step program to excuse my weird fascination with the TV show, “So you think you can dance?”
• A step-up-to-the-plate program to learn more about new media
• A one-step-at-a-time program to manage my stress levels
• A Steppenwolf program to explore my cultural and philosophical bent and
• A Russian Steppes program to facilitate overseas travel.

Of course, I’m not the only one undergoing such a venture. Like many other women our age, my own sisters are taking steps of their own.

Yesterday I watched my sister, Gabby record her first podcast about positive parenting and how to set limits with love, helping parents in what is arguably the most noble of all professions - bringing up kids.

And this morning I congratulated my twin sister, Cate on getting a sweet gig, doing what she does best - mediation in the courts. 

I’m using this blog as part of my watch your step program. Just watch what happens. With the help of a  great career coach and suprisingly non-neurotic therapist,  I’m submitting my own ”matters for mention”  about and in a process of personal change.

Matters Blue and MattersYellow.

Blue matters when you’re still, stable, satisfied, safe, secure and speaking your truth. Did you know that marketers use blue if they want to build trust?

Yellow matters when you’re changing, moving, altering, striving, climbing and creating new ways of thought. Did you know that couples fight more when living in rooms with yellow walls?

So as my mult-step program evolves,  I’ll be moving between Yellow and Blue moments. Sure, I’ll want more blue moments but I know I’ll have to have an equal if not greater number of  yellow ones. 

And for the significant moments  the “oh my god, of course!! ” moments, I dare say, there’ll doubtless be a story that makes sense of it all.  A story about what drove me in the past, and a story that reveals what the future is and what role I’ll play in it. 

So all I have to do is to keep writing up and down the steps, until  I get to the top or the bottom of what really matters. 

Be sweet.

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long. 

So starts the remarkable poem Ithaca by K. P. Kavafis. The message of the poem is a simple one that most travellers have figured out. It’s all about the journey and not about the end.

I wanted to write my first ever blog about the surprises you get on the journey if you keep your eyes open. Luckily I have a very patient friend, James - who teaches me all sorts of things on the new media journey -who told me to start my blog with a story. So here we go..

I re-discovered Ithaca on a transatlantic crossing, when I heard the poem read aloud by a  RADA trained, Greek actress one night on the QM2.  Does it get any better? Actually it does.

I took a copy of the poem with me for the remainder of my trip to USA and Canada determined that the meaning in the poem - to live in the moment - wouldn’t be lost on me. It was especially pertinent, as the journey to America was to be a circuit-breaker following the death of my darling husband “bloke”.  I had to get on with life, nothing was going to bring him back. And as I didn’t want to spend my 50th birthday alone - I took off on a whirlwind trip to spend it with my twin sister Cate, on a road trip through New England. 

On all trips there’s a balancing act between wanting to stay in a gorgeous new place, and moving on to what will undoubtedly be another gorgeous place. And so it was for me, leaving New England to go across Canada. So a couple of weeks later, after seeing Montreal and Quebec, I boarded a train in Toronto to make the trip across country to Vancouver. I had a sleeper, there was snow, I had my paints, and as far as I was concerned, I was happy to just look out the window. What I hadn’t expected was that I was to make some fabulous new friends on board. Friends who wouldn’t let me stay in the sleeper cabin, friends who taught me lots about loss, love, life and of course the journey. 

And at the heart of this group is my brand new mate, Ismail. Now there’s a whole other story about the synchronicity of names (given the time of my life and the state I was in, but that’s for another blog). Ismail turned my head, for the simple reason he was wearing a T-shirt that read, Ithaca is gorgeous.

He and I hit it off immediately. We talked about painting, about Vancouver, about tarot, about study, about Amsterdam, about life, about journeys and destinations. ”What’s your Go-to  (ie favourite) word?” he asked me one day.  “What’s the word you go to all the time, the word you use, the word people associate with you?” It only took a minute to answer. Gorgeous. My Go-to word is gorgeous, which made his first day T-shirt all the more significant. He and the trip, and the actress, and the poem were all part of a great and gorgeous circuit breaker. Journeys are about that. Going all the way across the world to come back changed, altered, somehow healed and to pick up where you left off and get on with what you need to do.

Ismail and I keep in contact and he will be a friend to other good mates who are moving over to Vancouver soon. We play it forward - how gorgeous is that! And this year I’m off again to spend time with my family, to celebrate the 21st birthday of my twin niece and nephew. Guess where? In Greece on Kefalonia - just across the water from Ithaca.