E IS FOR ELEPHANT - Eating an Elephant, One Bite at a Time.

We have all come across this tired old saying. How do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, yeah yeah. It was a stock trope of management courses in the eighties, and somehow it's still endured, for all these years. I believe Bishop Desmond Tutu was the one who first said it. 

But old sayings persist because they contain a kernel of truth, and in the eating of an elephant, just one bite at a time, we can arrive at something that really is fundamental to all human endeavour, and that's persistence. Without it, nothing gets done, or nothing big, anyway. And it's the big things that make us so happy when we've achieved them. I still remember my joy when I was accepted into Law School, but that was nothing, nothing at all, compared to how I felt at the graduation ceremony. And I did that one twenty minute study sprint at a time. 

So, fast forward to this year. Last Christmas, on  Christmas Day, I started learning Italian. I've worked at it every day, sometimes for hours, sometimes for just a few minutes, but the thing is I haven't missed a day. And a week short of the year, I'm now coming to terms with the subjunctive. I've read a few short stories. Sure, I'd have done better if I'd had the opportunity to hang out with Italian speakers on a regular basis. My practice has been limited to my husband and the man at the bakery whom I see perhaps once a week for a few minutes. But still, I'm happy with the achievement. By the time another year has passed, I hope to be able to watch television in it.

So, you ask, what other elephants are to be eaten? Well, for me there are a couple. I've been trying and failing for years to quit smoking. That's one. The other is that my lifestyle has gone from very active to almost completely sedentary. First because of Covid, then there were some other factors. After Emily's death I was deeply depressed, and did almost nothing for more than a year. I was just starting to pull myself together six months ago when I injured myself,  and that's still a thing that has made me more sedentary than ever. And as a result, I have got fat.

So, I still smoke and I'm fat. Tackling both of those things at the same time, particularly in December, is generally thought of as unwise. However, I have something going for me that I never had before. Apps.  Apps are the bomb. They take away all the worry and uncertainty. And importantly, they make everything objective. You don't have to keep track of how much you've eaten, smoked, whatever, because the app does it all for you, and therefore - and this is the big thing - you're not carrying it in your mind, so you a) aren't thinking about it all the time, which always makes one want to do more of the thing one is trying not to do, and b) your mind can't play tricks and 'forget' things. So the apps are a very, very powerful weapon, and if people say I'm staring at my phone too much and getting like a Gen Z person, well tant pis, at least I'm modern.

So those are my elephants now, and I'm nibbling away. Regaining the disciplined habits of work that I lost when I lost my girl, that's another one, but I'm still floundering around with that. But the point is that I will do it, because I a) want to and b) know how.

D IS FOR DISTRESS

Yesterday, waiting for the lift, I heard a baby crying in a room just off the lobby. Not just a little 'I'm hungry' cry, but a full-on screaming fit. It went on and on; I had plenty of time to listen to it, as the lifts here are rather slow and service 43 floors. It got me thinking about distress and its manifestations.

A baby crying is an ordinary event, and we generally don't take it too seriously unless we are the one walking up and down at four in the morning trying to get it to sleep. But listening that morning, it was borne in on me that to the baby, it is quite different. It doesn't know anything, doesn't understand anything, and its distress is very, very real. If we saw an adult crying like this, we would be shocked, unsettled, deeply disturbed; hopefully, we would be anxious to help in some way. And yet, the baby's distress passes almost unnoticed. Of the five or six people waiting for the lift, no one said anything. And yet, I feel sure that the baby's distress, in that moment, was equal to anything that life could throw at any of us. 

For a startling contrast, I witnessed a very similar piece of distress shown by a workman on the Brisbane Metro works the other evening. Although this man was not actually crying, I think it was a similar kind of meltdown. This chap was screaming, so hard his voice was cracking, and making little rushes at people, waving his arms. The gist of his screams was hostile, so although he clearly needed help, I'm sorry to have to admit that I did not attempt to help him. He was just too scary, and I thought probably one of his workmates might do something presently. I'm trained as a Mental Health First Aider, but in no way have I any training that could equip me to handle someone who has gone full-on berko. The first aid training is more to give people someone safe to talk to when they are struggling, and to help people to seek professional assistance in a non-judgemental way, that kind of thing. I knew I was out of my depth with this character. So I left the scene and got as far away from him, as fast as I could. I didn't want to be there and witness it if he attacked someone, and if he didn't, well Brisbane is a relaxed, tolerant place, and the way people seem to respond to mad people carrying on is just to ignore them and let them get on with it; to mind one's own business. 

What I'm taking away fron these two incidents, though, is the reflection that often when someone is behaving badly, or in some way offensive, there is a hidden distress driving that behaviour. Now I'm not saying we should make personal unhappiness an excuse for bad behaviour, by no means, but I do think it's worth always bearing in mind the possibility of some iceberg of terrible distress floating below the surface, when a person is rude, or ugly in some way. This is a very stressful time of the year, when so many of us can be taken without warning by a tide of loss and regret when we think about those who won't be celebrating Christmas with us this year, and we can all stand to be a little kinder. Always.

C IS FOR CHRISTMAS

 C is for Christmas. It had to be, didn't it, given the time of year. 

Pretty well everyone who knows me knows my views about Christmas as it is mostly celebrated in today's society; I've lost a number of friends because of my frank expression of those views. I'm okay with that, though. If a person can't handle the fact that you have different opinions, she isn't much of a friend. Most civilised strangers can manage that much, after all. To recap, though, for anyone who hasn't heard me holding forth about the Satanic Greedfest, the modern push push push of relentless consumerism, and the celebration of greed, gluttony and mindless conformity turns my stomach. Sure, it's nice to have a happy get-together with family and/or friends, to share a meal, to exchange some gifts, all good. But we take it to excess and excess in anything is usually harmful. Take, for  example, the attitudes one encounters about food on Christmas Day. Having eaten as much roasted meat, veg etc as I wanted, you would think it would be reasonble to decline the offer of a huge bowl of plum pudding, wouldn't you? Especially when aside from having already eaten enough, I say I don't even LIKE plum pudding? Apparently not. You are supposed to force it down like a goose in a foie gras factory. I say no, which makes me a scrooge and also a grinch, whatever that is. 

I make no secret of the fact that for me, Christmas is about celebrating the birth of our saviour, Jesus Christ. Appropriate celebrations mainly happen in church, although there's that yearly outing to hear a Messiah, I always look forward to that. This year, the dates didn't work out so we will have to listen to a recorded one, but Robert and I will make that a special date night and we'll put it on in our sitting room wtih appropriate ceremony. A quiet day with extended family, a few gifts and a nice lunch, and we're good. 

I know this isn't enouugh for everyone, and even though I think it SHOULD be enough for everyone, we all have a right to do things our own way so I'm not running about preaching. That's not what I am doing here. All this preamble is by way of context, leading to what I'm going to say next.

C is also for Crisis, Calamity, and other things of that nature.

On 25 December, as we loll about getting stuffed and drunk and picking fights with our rellies, someone near us is going through hard, hard times. Someone is celebrating his or her first Christmas alone. Someone's dad won't be home in time for Christmas even though he promised. Someone hasn't enough to eat. Someone doesn't even have a roof over his head or a safe place to sleep. And that's just the humans. More and more lately, people are surrending elderly animals to shelters to make room for a new puppy or kitten. This shameful activity peaks just before Christmas, because the kind of people who can do this regard their animal companions as chattels, and are fine with giving them as Christmas presents.

C is for Challenge.

My challenge to you, to us all, is in these last few weeks leading up to the big day, that we keep our eyes peeled. We look out for someone who's alone for Christmas. A bereaved person, one who's recently moved to our area, a new immigrant who doesn't know anyone yet. Someone homeless. Someone unpopular. And we INVITE them into ours. It isn't hard to set an extra place at the table, and even find a small gift. We always have way too much of everything anyway, don't we, people? Too much of everything is a kind of understood thing at Christmas. And they won't be in the way, I promise. It will enrich your Christmas, for you and everyone involved. You might make a new friend; you'll certainly make memories. 

Do it for me, okay? Just try it. 

B is for Beauty - the small perfections of ordinary life.

 When I was a child, my mother worked as a schoolmistress. She hated the work; it really isn't a suitable job for someone who dislikes children, and I don't remember her ever coming home in a good mood. She would usually arrive home and go straight out to spend an hour or so watering the garden with a hose, and come back in a more peaceful frame of mind. Usually. I do, though, remember her constant complaining, in particular about chalk dust. Back in those days, of course, every classroom was dominated by the huge blackboard at the front of the room. Chalk dust, if you were the teacher, apparently rained on you constantly, and settled into every crevice of your skin, particularly in your hair, at least according to my mother, who was not noted for her restraint of expression. Sometimes, if she was feeling benevolent, she would offer me five cents to brush her hair for her after dinner. I hated doing it; she only washed her hair once a week, like everyone back in those days before conditioner was invented, and it was always greasy and, to me, smelled bad, and in general I detested physical contact with humans anyway. But it was five cents, not to be sniffed at, and in any case it wasn't safe to decline the offer. 

Anyway, chalk dust, for my mother, was The Enemy - an ever-present scourge that could never be totally vanquished, but only held back by great effort. Looking back, I wonder what other teachers did, and why they didn't just use one of those ubiquitous chiffon scarves to tie over their hair.

I'd forgotten all about my mother's daily skirmishes with the dreaded dust, until I came across this photograph. This is chalk dust through an electron microscope. It's so beautiful that it took my breath away; it reminds me of those intricate, delicate ivory balls, with the layers of rotating spheres, that Chinese craftsman used to make. I hope they still do; it would be a tragedy if that ancient craft were lost.

Chalk dust

This reminded me of another set of microscopic photographs I had seen, and I went on the hunt. Thank you, Mr Google. These are human tears, but as you'll see, the different circumstances in which they're produced produce a very different image. The basal tears, ones that are generated more or less constantly to lubricate the eye, evoke for me a Chinese landscape, but those of laughter and grief, aside from their aesthetic qualities, tell a story that one can almost decipher intuitively; the tears of laughter resemble an aerial photograph of a thriving city, whereas the blasted scape of the tears of grief shows us the city in ruins.

Basal tears

Tears of laughter - a prosperous island nation

Tears of grief - a blasted ruin

And the list goes on. Here are some of the other images I found. 

This glorious blazing sun is a single grain of ragweed pollen.

This lacy confection is mucus in a pig's trachea. Basically, pig snot.

All these things are  useless at best, noxious at worst, and in any case humdrum, and yet when seen in fine, how beautiful they are. It's made me think about perspectives. The regalar roundof daiy life is full of these treasures, if only we could see them. And it's made me think about the small things in life, how often we overlook what could be a little injection of joy. We walk to work in the bustling city, but failing to look up, we do not see the flight of birds, winging across the sky in perfect formation. We travel to another city, grumbling all the way about the cramped seating, bad food and the rudeness of the stewaardesses, but fail to notice the breathtaking cloudscape just the other side of the window. We buy our milk from the grocery, but never notice the man who serves us. We don't see his constant small acts of kindness, or the way his face lights up when he smiles a greeting. 

The pressures of the quotidian can blind us to so much, if we let them. I've resolved to try to be more aware of these special moments of beauty. It could make the difference between a bad day and an okay one, or an ordinary day and one filled with glory.

A is for Accountability - Back in the Driver's Seat II

 On 13 January, I published my last post, which was all about getting back on with things, and here, at the other end of the year, are the results of my firm resolutions.

This was my work plan for 2023:

1. Get the Lending Rights claim sorted for Operation Badger. COMPLETED!

2. Publish Barefoot Tango. COMPLETED! Barefoot Tango is out in hardcover, paperback and ebook.

3. Publish Operation Checkout. COMPLETED! Operation Checkout is out in paperback and ebook. I don't do hardcovers for the Operation Tomcat series as they are fluff.

4. Publish my dragon book. IN PROGRESS. But I have been working away at it, and although the draft is not completed, I am up to the beginning of the resolution phase. Partly my own lack of energy and drive, partly a really nasty injury I sustained in June, which is only now starting really to mend, and partly a need for research have delayed this one. And I do have a title at last. The Dragon and the Dairymaid.

5. Publish the final revisions to Dance of Chaos and Gift of Continence hardcovers. COMPLETED!

6. Publish my science fiction novel, for which I also do not yet even have a title. I didn't get to this at all, because of my rule of only working on one draft at a time; it was only backup anyway, to be worked on if I finished the dragon book draft.

So, at the beginning of December, although I haven't completed everything, I've done a reasonable amount and this has included writing - I finished Operation Checkout, wrote most of it in fact, and I've nearly finished The Dragon. I'll be continuing with that, but December is a terrible month for getting work done, and even if I manage to write those final chapters, it is still a draft so will certainly not be published this year. 

There's still a lot of room for improvement. I haven't respected my working hours and if I were employed I'd have been sacked for not doing enough work many months ago. But it's so much better than last year. Going forward, I hope to get back to those four days a week that I decided was a fair work week so long ago.

These are the two books I've released this year. Both available at Amazon, Smashwords and all good online booksellers.

Back in the Driver's Seat

I was going to entitle today's blog post 'Getting Back Into Harness,' but that doesn't quite suit. I'm not someone else's obedient workhorse. It might have been better if I had been; the discipline of employment would have had me back at work long ago. But no; I am the captain of my fate, and lately, that ship has been steered into very dodgy waters, and has been becalmed for a long time, like the ship of the Ancient Mariner, and not very much more happily.

My beautiful Emily. Gone, but never, ever forgotten.

It came about when Emily was ill. No, let's be honest here. She wasn't ill. She was dying. As soon as I got the diagnosis, I cut my working hours back to an hour a day. I thought that would keep the flow to things, while freeing me to spend all of my time with her. 

That didn't last long. Within a couple of weeks I had abandoned work entirely, and I didn't even think about it until some weeks after her death. And that was just as it should be.

But that was more than eighteen months ago. Bereavement, however terrible, cannot be made an excuse for giving up on life. What an insult that would be to one who enriched my life with so much joy, and who took an active role in supporting my working life. So I knew I must get back to work.

At first, I thought I was just over-tired. It had been a gruelling five weeks (yes, that was all we had from the time we received the terrible diagnosis) and I was genuinely exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I thought I'd lie about and do not much of anything for a few weeks and then I'd be in a fit state to pull myself together and get on with the long, sad business of adjusting to normal life without her. 

The trouble was, two months later I wasn't any less exhausted. And worse - I didn't care. I could not find the least spark of enthusiasm for doing anything at all. And it kept getting worse, not better. From having to go to bed directly after dinner, to needing to sleep in the afternoon. When I found I was starting to need a nap mid-morning, I knew I was in some kind of trouble. So, like a true child of the twenty-first century, I took my troubles to Dr Google.

That whas when I discovered Dr Rami Nader. He's a psychologist practising in Canada, and he does this marvellous vlog on youtube, all about depression and anxiety disorders. I learned so much from it, and not just mere academic knowledge, but a very present help in time of need. I discovered that I was suffering from anhedonia, which is a symptom of a major depressive disorder. Now, you may say that a Google diagnosis isn't worth jack, and of course you'd be right. But when everything matches, and when the recommended actions actually do help, I think it is safe to say you're onto something. Following the guidance I received from Nader's wonderful vlog, I gradually started to pick up the scattered threads of my old life. I started to take care of myself, I started to take care of the house again. I had a bit more energy as this all happened. You can find Dr Nader's youtube channel HERE. Honestly, I can't recommend it enough. He has helped me so much.

But I still didn't really start back to work. Oh, I tried. I went through the motions. But they were just motions. I worked on so many different things. I'd pick up one book, write 200 words, quit for the day, and the next day I wouldn't be able to bear to face that one, I'd try working on something else... basically, nothing at all was accomplished. In 2021 it's fair to say that I did nothing after Emily was diagnosed.

Of course, from October, I had an excuse. I had my new puppy to bring up. And he was the most challenging pup I have had to raise. Perhaps because I was alone in the house with no support, perhaps because of my reduced energy levels and the fact I was still grieving, perhaps because I was unable to puppy-proof this house adequately. Or maybe it's just Chips. Don't get me wrong, he's an absolute joy. 

Not so little any more!

In 2022, I was determined to pick up the threads. And I did. I picked up SO many threads. And dropped them again. Over and over. I tried working on all kinds of things and got basically nowhere with any of it, except for some formatting and proofreading which doesn't require great personal involvement. I published a few editions of things, but basically nothing new got written.

And now it's crunch time. Chips is almost grown up, and although his conduct isn't at the level I find completely satisfactory, we do get compliments about his behaviour everywhere we go, so he can't be an excuse any longer. It's time to get real.

I started by reviewing what I had that might be worked on. My workspace is in an appalling state. Here, a brief rundown:

1. One novel ready to go but still unpublished - I got the proofing and formatting done last year but the cover designs were beyond my skill level.

2. One new book started in 2021 and never finished

3. One new book started in 2022 and never finished

4. One new book started in 2020 (!) and not finished

5. Revised editions of a couple of hardcovers

Oh, and that's not even counting the things I haven't started but would like to do. Honestly, it's just a total mess.

My usual practice is to start a new book at the new year, but this year, I felt I had better forgo that indulgence. This year is going to be about finishing things. Therefore, my work plan for 2023, which I offer here by way of accountability. The list is in order of priority.

1. Get the Lending Rights claim sorted for Operation Badger. This was released in paperback for the first time last year, and I'm having trouble getting it registered, but it's worth persevering with, because the thought of being entitled to some Government Money that I don't get is just too painful to contemplate. This is a relatively minor administrative task.

2. Publish Barefoot Tango. I am just waiting on cover designs.

3. Publish Operation Checkout. This is the long-awaited fourth book in the Operation Tomcat series. It is probably 70 - 80% written.

4. Publish my dragon book. This is a fantasy novel. Publishing it will also involve coming up with a title for it. This one is probably around 50 - 60% written.

5. Publish the final revisions to Dance of Chaos and Gift of Continence hardcovers. This is just a horrible slog because of the enormous time it takes for Lulu to send a proof copy.

6. Publish my science fiction novel, for which I also do not yet even have a title. This one is really pie in the sky - there's no way I will get this out this year. It's only about twenty percent written and some of that may have to be discarded. It's a difficult and challenging project with a complex plot. But including it on the list ensures that I have enough work to take me through the entire year. I wanted to see my whole year's potential work in the plan.

So, that's the plan. And I'm working every day except for weekends, although still not for long hours. But things are moving forward and some discipline is being imposed again. So that's enough for a start. I WILL have results at the end of this year.