Day 176: Come On Baby, Light My Fire

Today is a GREAT day! It has been one of the most brilliant and happiest days I've had for a while and all because I attended my photography studies class and we started studying Design Theory. It was magical and moving and confirmed so much to me.

It seems that, as the class progressed, all the things that have been whirring inside me had finally found a landing, a nest to make a home. All the intense feelings I have when I look at art, when I want to create, when I listen to my music, when I experience from within? They all have a tangible home! The poetry I read that moves me......the images that stir my emotions? THEY all have a blessed tangible home....

Today we talked about form and design and content and I got whisked away into another world. A world that feels like a second skin, a world that is pure and beautiful.  It felt like I was Dorothy and this wasn't Kansas anymore....and that I had entered Narnia through my own special wardrobe. The language, the feelings it evoked. I must have looked 'special', sitting there with a stupid grin from ear-to-ear.

I felt like my brain and my heart was doing it's own interpretive dance to music it had never heard before. The language of art and what art is (to me). I seriously had emotional moments when the tutor was talking about things that I only talk to with very few people. It's like she understood and was doing a slow dancing tango with me, with my class....

A voice inside kept whispering "Don't stop, please don't stop. I don't want this night to end. Don't throw me out into THAT world. Keep me safe and warm and cocooned in THIS one" and as sensual as this sounds, I think that's how it really felt for me.

So, I'm happy and 'happy' is an understatement. As Steve Martin as Navin Johnson exclaims in The Jerk "I'VE FOUND MY SPECIAL PURPOSE!!!!"

Now leave me be as I roll around in post-euphoric bliss and lick all the surfaces of this magical place so I don't waste a single skerrick or morsel. Oh come quickly next Tuesday evening!!

Day 169: Windowlickers

You know we take our lives so seriously that, every now and then, little gems show up in our day-to-day that make us stop, take stock and, if we're lucky enough.... LAUGH!

So there I was, nervously taking the train home after a lovely evening spent catching up with an old friend, Garry Hallett, from my Contiki tour of 1986 (GE606) - G.I.D.....Give It Death (or dith as the Kiwis said) who was in town. I'd just finished telling Gaz that I didn't want to stay out too late as all the Windowlickers are out late at night and they're all on my trainline, for some reason.

Windowlickers? It's my term for the 'special' people in our society and was coined after a particularly interesting experience one evening, once again,when I was catching the train home late one night. A 'special' gentleman decided that I was going to be the object of his fascination on my train and spent the best part of the train trip staring (leering) at me. I did my best to ignore him but at Box Hill station, he alighted much to my relief. He then went to the window of the train where I was sitting and planted two palms on the window and in rather close proximity, proceeded to slowly lick the window. I suspect it was to show me how ravishingly desirable I was to him and I THINK I was supposed to swoon and leave my absolutely wonderful husband for him, to run away and live in post-coital bliss in a cave somewhere. I dunno........maybe I got it wrong, who knows?

Anyway, after a lovely evening spent with Gazzah, I jokingly told him about my Windowlicker experience and sure enough, I was blessed with a gift. At first, I was a bit worried/nervous as I wasn't sure if he (my Windowlicker for the evening) was harmless or not. However as time and many stations passed by, it was evident said Windowlicker was a sweet little Peckerhead that had no intentions of hurting anyone as he was enveloped in his own dancing world with matching headphones and doof doof to help him along.

I couldn't help myself because Peckerhead actually lightened my trip and made me genuinely laugh. He made all the other passengers happy as well and that was our little gift for the day.

Now in contemporary society, it is a safe thing to be cautious and wary of strangers who behave strangely in our midst. But every now and again, you come across an unaffected individual who just wants to express their joy and happiness and God Bless their little cotton shoe-shuffling socks, they spread  a little joy to our doldrum lives.

So, take a few moments out and watch my iPhone catch of Peckerhead Windowlicker, Parts 1, 2 and 3..... sit back and have a giggle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02ijo1skps&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2upWy5h2iY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bq77IyI9LU&feature=related

Enjoy!!!

DAY 161: Treating your body like the temple that it is

For years I have indulged in foods and activities (or lack of) that, up until now, I didn't realise was doing me so much damage. I LOVED sweet foods (still do....I just don't indulge that's all), rich foods, foods that are fried, quick hit foods and ....... no activity that burned all that fat that those foods built up. I guess, as I was growing up, the focus was on filling my belly with all these new foods that I was tasting in this new country of mine. My Mum has always been a healthy woman and rarely indulged in fast food or anything that wasn't good for her but she also has tremendous discipline which she didn't pass down to her progeny, obviously. My Dad.....loves the food that I love but he, too, could exercise moderation albeit his version of it.

So, fast forward to the present and all that abuse paid out it's dividends eventually. The penny didn't drop a year ago when it should have so, rather half-heartedly, I approached my diet and exercise regime and fell off that bucking horse 6 months later. No surprise really.

THIS time, the penny has dropped and you know how I know? Because I can say "No thank you" to all those foods that got me here. I can stare down chocolate and cake (my bane) and pies and pastries and cheeses (good cheese) and they will blink before I do. Sure, I have the desire, I won't deny that, but I wish I could verbalise adequately how GOOD my body feels right now.

I am treating it, metaphorically, like a luxury car. I'm only putting good things into it and it is reacting favourably by taking me places that I wouldn't normally go. I have discovered flavours that are luxurious and delicious that aren't fattening and that still give me the same pleasure as all those other foods. Only this time, I know that they're good for me. Foods like huge plump gorgeous cherries and organic avocadoes and tomatoes, home made hummus and beautiful soups made with ripe, fresh ingredients. Foods that don't taste like healthy foods. Foods that my son asks me to make for him - he's clueless as to it's nutritious quality, he just thinks they're yummy. Grant's beautiful Moroccan lamb and olive tagine with couscous..... chicken cacciatore (fat free version) made with ripe and juicy vine-ripened truss tomatoes and a handful of raw nuts eaten together with a large Bartlett pear.

Now, you may think that those ingredients sound more expensive than ye olde supermarket variety mass-produced vegetables and fruit but we went to the Queen Victoria market today and surprised the pure cotton socks out of ourselves. We not only bought produce that hadn't been cool-stored for God-knows-how-long and it was almost half the price and twice, even three times, more fresh than the stuff that is sold in most supermarkets........which meant we could afford to buy the better quality stuff like vine-ripened truss tomatoes instead of garden variety tomatoes. We still came out in front and my healthy little heart is beating like a drum with excitement about it all.

If you want your body to take you the distance, treat it like the temple that it is. It's a gift you were given and it's up to you to take care of it. If it was a Ferrari, how would you treat it? If it was a piece of Tiffany jewellery, would you store it and clean it carefully or just throw it in your top drawer?

Have a talk to it. If your body is arking up and giving you trouble, have you contributed to that in any way? Do you put stuff into it that exascerbates your issues or have you been kind and treated it with love?

Vine ripened truss tomatoes with goat's cheese feta and fresh basil! It's alllll healthy and I can eat as much of it as I want. Why would you swap this for takeaway?