More restful than reading this blog post – watching the second season of The Future Diary on Netflix. (Not the Manga, but the Japanese schmaltzy scripted/unscripted reality story show)

More restful than writing this blog post… continuing with Episode Seven.

I have a one day yoga retreat tomorrow, where the focus is on rest and very gentle movement, Yin, breathing and nidra (alright, yogic sleep…but it sounds so much more cultish when you say it like that).

The night before a long distance running event, I used to ensure I was well-rested and went to bed early.

Do I prepare for tomorrow by… staying awake and going to bed late?

Three weeks ago I moved.

House.

Job.

State.

When the train carrying my furniture derailed across the desert, I was facing an extra week or so, over Christmas, alone in a near-empty strange house. My two very familiar cats were with me, the moving company had been very supportive about helping me get hold of essentials to tide me over, and I still had a dewy-eyed kind of outlook about this being one big, exciting adventure to be relished. And I had moved to be near the beach. The beach!!!!

BUT, with most of the objects around me totally unfamiliar, no real feel for the geography and no appointments to keep I decided I needed to do a bit extra to gain some kind of routine and stability.

I set a morning routine.

I’m not sure I would have otherwise thought so carefully or purposefully about what was important for me to do daily.

I am lucky enough to have a job where I can (within reason, and as part of a very two-edged sword) set my own timetable during the day. In the past, I have conscientiously tried to exercise before work and then make it in to the office as early as possible. Sort of a “you can have dessert after main course” approach, where I aimed to put in all my work hours as soon as possible so I could go off and play later in the day.

Except, I also have the kind of job where a few extra minutes spent at the end of the work day easily becomes a few extra hours, especially if I want to maximise the fun, interesting and rewarding aspects. I have written before about how the hamster wheel of academia works against self-care by encouraging people with a particular personality-type, who have been rewarded all their lives for a very specific set of actions and traits, to voluntarily strive for excellence beyond common sense.

When I made my list of all the things I would love to do daily, it was pretty long. And some extra ideas came after the inevitable Google search.

I asked myself “What would happen if I started work at a reasonable, but not so early, hour? What if I took the time when I was freshest and most rested, to do things I would love to do, but seem not to get around to each day?” I decided on a routine where I spent an unheard-of hour and a half of my freshest time focussing on activities that would make me healthier and happier.

So, for a few days I did just that. I’d like to say that I stuck to it and every morning has been a celebration of what I love, followed by a productive 8 hours or so of academic work. As far as academic self-care, though, even after ten years or so in the game I am still very, very much on “L” plates and I have already put in some horrendously long all-nighters. (This may, however, actually suit my work-style and not be so horrific… if I remember to balance it out…)

So, during my week rattling around in my house, I bought myself an oversized beanbag at Kmart and set up a “morning place” and decided on:

1. Wake up. No devices in the bathroom. (Unlike usual Twitter, email, looking at teaching site. I am sure I am not the only one…)
2. Floss and brush teeth
3. Feed cats, open curtains and windows
4. Grab glass of warm water with lemon and walk to morning place
5. Morning pages using pencil on iPad into Goodnotes. This is three pages of writing without censorship or aiming for good form – just writing. It is the corner-stone of Julia Cameron’s the Artist’s Way . This releases any pressing thoughts that would otherwise be whirring about. It also reminds me that yes, I CAN write. So later in the day when I need to do it again I can just get down into it without any preciousness about how HARD it is. It’s only taken me 15 years or so to try it out, since John and Becky at Aurora suggested it was useful.
6. Mindfulness/meditation. I have been setting a timer and am up to 12 minutes now. The cats detect when I am about to start and both climb on my lap. Better than goat yoga ?
7. Walk down to beach and swim.
8. Return home to shower and dress for the day
9. Make breakfast
10. THEN, over breakfast, for the first time since waking up, look over the news headlines and Twitter and what is on my Trello board for the day.

I did this on 6 January, and it brought home how beneficial this process could be. Instead of sitting on the loo, barely yet awake and doom-scrolling through reports of this outrage and that horror, I found out about the first 2021 U.S. coup attempt over breakfast, having been in a more relaxed and sustaining world for a couple of hours.

Thanks to Sandy for her very eloquent post this evening about why she has not been blogging for spurring me to blog this evening 🙂

Anyone been through similar … or have sage words of advice for deciding what to do next?

2010

A decade ago I was the right side of my forties, married and twenty years into a stable relationship, with two dependent kids. I had an ongoing job in academia and had paid off my house. I was more or less physically fit and had just completed a Masters degree.

Australia had its first female Prime Minister, the United States its first black president. Economist Ross Garnaut was working on a second comprehensive and scientifically-rigorous review on Australian government action to minimise climate change. (Spoiler: Recommended action was not taken).

I was kind of hopeful, but stressed by trying to keep all the balls in the air, with little time for myself.

2020

Entering 2020, I am the wrong side of my forties, divorced and single. My kids are more or less independent, although each is living with one of their parents. My job was made redundant a month ago, allowing me to once again pay off my house. I am in the gym most days and enrolled in a PhD.

People I do not respect, who seem incapable of compassion or making wise decisions, have been bought (yes – bought!) to power by interests that value what I do not, in nations with capacity to change our planet.

In the last week, after months of the east coast burning beyond what I could have imagined 10 years ago, there was severe flooding in Queensland, a massive dust storm over Dubbo and hail the size of golf-balls fell on my nation’s capital.

I am frankly terrified for the future of the planet, either through climate emergency or a man-child temper tantrum that takes the world with it. I suddenly have far more time each day to do things slowly and well, and generally what I do is determined by my needs and wants, not a clamour of others.

But, what is it that I want to do, or should do?

With this backdrop, I need to decide what to do with the rest of my life.

I understand that my position is enviable and a result of being born privileged. I am not held by debt or kids or ill-health or a relationship or an ongoing job (although I am very lucky and grateful to have a half-time position, in a job I like, covering parental leave for a year). I do need and want to be employed.

I am not sure I have a template for how to make the decisions I need to. I suspect that, with so many possible paths, many options will turn out to be just as good. I just need to pick one. Which?

Life is short, precarious and full of the unexpected. I know that good fortune today can turn to circumstances almost impossible to bear within a microsecond.

Do I breathe out for a while, enjoy the stability and extra time and ramp up the yoga classes ?

Do I devote all my time to finishing my PhD? Or drop it because I don’t need it for my job any more?

What about finding a partner? People do that and it’s fun. Or moving into community like a baugruppen or cohousing? Or opening my house to refugees?

Should I move interstate or overseas for a higher paying job that maintains seniority, or just for the change of scenery…. or try to find something as close to home as possible and finally get rid of my commute?

Should I maximise what I can earn now, this far out from retirement where I still have compound interest to make a difference? Or aim to work at something high-paying so I can invest in a property that will allow my more-dependent child to live independently and not at home with me? Or should *I* leave home and downsize to a small flat for myself and leave him in the big house?

Do I change careers? To what? What am I even interested in? Or good at? Do I go wildly out on a limb and do something totally different? Am I done with librarianship/education/communication/universities?

Or is time more valuable than money at this stage in my life, and should I aim for part-time work that allows me to grow in other areas?

Potter in the garden, bake fabulous cakes, sew floaty bright dresses, read my backlog of fiction, paint the walls, take up the flute again, de-clutter the loft, finally learn to code properly, catch up with neighbours and old friends, foster homeless kittens, go back in a serious way to fencing or kayaking or skating or swimming or snorkeling or running or… ??

Should I travel while I am still fit enough to enjoy it? Take a few months of the long service leave that was paid out last month, and that I had been looking forward to for years? What about volunteering abroad?

Being the wrong side of forty five, where even the best people can find it difficult to get employment, can I afford to take time out at all and should I be doing everything I can to try to get a stable full-time position?

Should I focus more on helping and equity ? Use my relatively advantageous position to help other people who are not in the same boat, with far fewer choices? Whom? How?

Or, given the mess the planet is in, focus all my energy and heart into trying to make a difference there? Repaying the debt that allows me to even THINK about so many options at the expense of my grandchildren and non-human life that shares the planet.

A few years ago, Anne Holmes suggested reading Transitions by William Bridges, a work I have returned to several times in the last decade. It provides some useful exercises around understanding how old patterns influence what we do in times of great change.

I know I should be grateful, possibly mainly because I am living somewhere habitable at the moment… and just buckle down and get on with it.

But which “it” would that be?

I settled in my suburb because community is a little more central here than in many other places.

It was built following “Garden Suburb” principles, aimed at giving soldiers returning from the Second World War a community to raise families. Most houses were located within walking distance of one or two parks or green spaces, houses are set well back from the road with wide green verges and generally are modest and timber-framed within ample yards. Many, like my family, now live in infill housing in what used to be gloriously large suburban back yards.

Streets curve with easy sight-lines instead of being laid out in a grid, and radiate out from a central oval block at the heart of the suburb containing:

• a primary school
• a large permaculture housing collective
• Aboriginal kindergarten
• kid’s playground
• senior’s village
• community garden
• child health centre
• Police and Citizen’s Youth Centre
• toy library;
• and a very understated community hall that was built with money raised by the local Progress Association in the 1950s.

So, it should surprise no-one that last night I walked down to the community hall with my adult son and shared a fabulous community long table meal with my neighbours.

Called “Cooking from Home Community Dinners”, a group of nine people from different cultures had earlier completed a course at a local neighbourhood house where they learned to cook each other’s favourite traditional dishes. This was food that was maybe comforting as a child, or unique to their culture, meals that they do not necessarily have occasion to share every day since they have been in Australia.

Over three nights in the last three months, the group has worked with a chef to serve a feast of selected dishes to the local community. We get to hear the stories of love behind each dish. And to sit with strangers and neighbours and maybe talk about the food-inspired questions to share our stories. “Who is the best cook in your household?”, “What was your favourite food as a child”, “What is your cultural background and do you practice any traditions now?”

In the last Federal election, 30% of voters at the local primary school voted for the Greens (compared to 16% for LNP), so this was naturally a zero-waste affair. The local primary school kids drew large tablecloths for many of the tables, and the others were covered with eclectic and funky op-shop kinds of table-cloths. 220 cloth napkins had been sourced via a no-waste community forum. Crockery, cutlery and glassware had been lent by locals, and we were all asked to bring our own coffee mug if we wanted a drink at the end of the night. Some dishes were served in bowls made from disposable leaves. At the end of the night, everyone stacked their plates and cutlery before leaving, and some of us stayed behind to clear tables and glasses.

And, of course, during the open mic in the middle of the evening where people could share, a local theatre director speculated about creating a work around culture and food in collaboration with the TAFE English as a Second Language teacher who happened to be seated next to him. And another person shared how the Repair Cafe movement fits beautifully with the philosophy of the evening.

Last night’s menu? We started with Cumin Puris from Rekha from Fiji and Bakwan fritters from Indonesian Martha. Francesca from Rome provided gnocchi with tomato sauce, followed by Martha’s Babi Kecap with pork, Rekha’s Gujarati curry with chicken and Vera from Indonesia’s Urab salad with coconut. For dessert? Francesca returned with Tiramisu.

To acknowledge the cultural traditions of the cooks, the evening started with a live performance of a mask dance from Fiji, followed by Bollywood dance clips on the screen over mains, and then an Italian duo with accordion and loud, joyous whoops as part of the vocals. You can see them near the stage on the very left of the panorama below.

My tummy, and my cup, is full.

It’s still marking season. Every semester, around this time, I write the same thing over and over and over.

It is very, very challenging to write feedback, not knowing whether this small, seemingly innocuous, comment may be the final straw that destroys someone’s self-concept as a scholar and is catalyst for them to drop out of uni… or whether they are the type of student who did not care about trying when they did the assessment and still really does not care enough at the end of semester to even read my often carefully-considered (although too brief) feedback.

I tend to err on the side of being very direct. I find praise sandwiches a bit patronising… maybe because I feel like I am being too obvious when I do it, and think I will come off as insincere if I try. It can be difficult, though, to be usefully direct.

Sorry about lack of referencing here, but I read a couple of years ago that experts want to be corrected, while novices want to know what they did right.

So, if you are trying to shoot a basket and are very experienced, what you want from your coach is to know how to improve, where you are going wrong, a “critical friend”. If you are just starting out, you may need confirmation that you are holding the ball right and that the way you are pushing up with your arm is the same as you have been shown. In other words, you do not have enough background to know what you are doing right. If you are an expert, you can see when you are doing right, but want hints on how to improve and stop doing wrong things.

The problem happens when the expert comes across a novice and thinks they must want the same kind of feedback that works for them… so points out all kinds of errors, leaving the novice, who is none-the-wiser about what they are actually doing right, feeling like they are doing only wrong things.

I think that this may be the biggest mismatch between markers and students when it comes to feedback.

I am experimenting this semester with listing in my comments a whole lot of possible right things that students can do for this assessment, then asterisking those bits that this student had issues with. It makes the feedback wordy, but maybe is giving them context for the bits where they can improve??

Regardless, here are three phrases that I write over and over and over and over…..

“Please synthesise and summarise.”

“Favour succinctness.”

“This source is not recent enough to support this claim about current technology.”

And one that I write too often each semester….even if it is just once or twice.

“I suspect this mark indicates more about your time management on this assessment than your academic capability. If this is not so, then please contact me and we can discuss together improvements that you could make for next time”.