Writing retreat report: I’m back!

Tags

Enter your zip code here, far-far-away, hiking, Meditation, Nature, Snake Gully, writing a book, writing retreat, Yoga

Here I am! Back from my very own Cabin in the Woods (see what I did there? A little Wheedon call out)! Or as we call it here in Australia: the bush.

We probably do have what can be referred to as woods somewhere, but mostly what we have are bushlands.

I had an absolutely MARVELOUS time! Honestly. A long-overdue reunion with very good friends; an eight-sided cabin that had everything I needed, including a kitchen, table to eat/write at, bed, couch to lounge/read/write on, bedroom, bathroom, compost loo and a wrap-around balcony. Plus endless views of bushlands and all their wild and furry residents.

And, an ancient girl dog named Jack.

And… wow, to quote The Castle – you can feel the serenity – waking, walking and living in such an incredibly unspoiled piece of nature brought my body and mind into balance so quickly and completely.

Of course, the first couple of days of my writing retreat I did very little writing. Much of it was about decompressing, catching up on sleep (always needed by AI types), and the aforementioned re-balancing. This wasn’t just a writing retreat – it was also a break for me to relax and rejuvenate my health a little, far-far-awayyyy.

So there was much napping, although never at sunrise. A cabin without curtains with a view to the east means waking up early. Which just felt natural and gentle. Probably because I was often in bed by 9:30pm.

There was much yoga-ing, meditation and chanting (or what I like to call heart singing). Lots of cups of tea and reading books. A few little sessions of note taking. Sleeping. Eating. Talking to my friends over evening meals.

To begin with, there was also lots of fear. And resistance to too much structure. Which reminded me of the deal I struck with myself when I first started blogging: just write. Don’t worry about how good it is or not, just write what needs to be written.

Some writers are perhaps more structured and disciplined. I don’t really know. But for me, the only way to write it is to inhabit it. And the contemplation of what I had to do – go back into some of my not so pleasant experiences – was scaring me even more than trying to write a bloody book plan.

Ha. My book plan is approximately two pages of hand written notes, some of which are drawings for diagrams I want to have designed.

Anyway… the first two days weren’t very productive but eventually I turned that around.

Some mornings I woke up and thinking it was much later than it was. Because even a lie in, some (non-related) reading and the making of food, it’d still be only 9:30am.

I also took some lovely walks, reacquainting myself with the land. My first was down to Snake Gully.

It’s funny how moving your body like that (cross the creek a few times, climb a few hills and over some rocks, then later up a waterfall) can help a person to wake up in the head. Being completely surrounded by nature with no man-made world sounds… there’s lessons to be learnt if you’ll only look and listen.

Which I did. Snake Gully had some things to tell me that I needed for my book. Yep, that’s another post coming soon, too.

I spent a lot of time moving from spot to spot for my writing work. Couch, table, bed. Repeat. It kind of all depended on the day and the subject matter.

There was always more yoga and chanting. One day the weather was so glorious, that there was yoga on the deck.

Eventually I hit my stride with my writing, finally realising that it didn’t matter the order in which order I wrote my book. The first chapter didn’t have to come out first! So I wrote whatever came to mind, for sorting out later.

On Thursday, I got a LOT done. My friends had both gone down the hill for another trip to Albury, so it was just me and Jack the dog, all alone atop the hill. Which is sometimes what you need as a writer: everyone else’s energy out of your immediate vicinity.

Friday morning – end of the trip growing nearer – I was unimpressed to wake up and realise I’d been having a dream about work. Gah!! I guess my sub-conscious was gearing up for the return home, ahead of schedule. Boo.

We had a lot of rain on the Friday; perfect stay-inside writer’s weather. First thing in the morning when I went outside there were some Ruby Roos (my childish name for kangaroos!) just down the hill…

And having felt like I’d done a HEAP the previous day, I slacked off and watched a movie on my laptop, while listening to the wind and the rain and drinking tea.

Making a sweet potato, bacon and veggie stir fry…

Cutting more wood…

And a little writing. But mostly I was waiting for the end of the day because I was going down the hill WOO HOO! My friend and I were going to one of the local pubs for some dinner and a bit of fun on the “town”.

Finally, it was going home day. Still almost a full day here on the hill. I did everything slowly: yoga, walking, wood chopping, cooking, eating, writing, and writing.

The book is a goodly way along the track, but far from finished yet. There’s more to finesse and probably a truckload of editing, and that’s before I let anyone else see it. Then there’ll be feedback from people I trust, more editing, designing and eventually a finished product.

So much excitement. And there’s more writing retreat-related posts to come. Quite a few, actually!

~ Svasti

Other posts inspired by my retreat

• An ode to Snake Gully
• Writing a book is a topsy-turvy thing
• Life lessons from managing a fireplace
• Waterfalls sound like the Universe
• I’m off on a writing retreat!

I. Am. Out. Of. Trauma.

Tags

Depression, Enter your zip code here, Healing, I Am Out Of Trauma, Kinesiology, PTSD, Trauma

Yes. Yes, I am.

And I need to tell you about this because trauma’s a tricky little bastard who likes to make you think he’s permanently in your life.

Let me tell you: when you’re dealing with PTSD, you think its forever. It sure feels like forever. I really DID think it would in fact, be forever.

And yet.

I. Am. Out. Of. Trauma.

Truly. I’ve tears of gratitude and happiness and just the most GIGANTIC sense of relief and release flowing forth from every pore of my being. Because I know this now, and I know it deeply. Irrevocably.

But it’s not like I woke up one morning with a blinding flash of realisation – THAT I AM HEALED! No one sent me a telegram or email with said announcement, either.

Yet, I am out of trauma. I really, really am.

It makes me smile the broadest smile I can manage with this face that I was born with.

Cumulatively, I know this is true. Piece by piece, as I’ve reclaimed all of the forgotten broken parts of who I am.

And instantly I know this, too. In retrospect, anyway.

Last weekend I knew this most definitely, in my kinesiology session, where my kinesiologist Amanda, said this: You’re no longer in trauma. Life and these sessions are now about what’s next instead of what has been.

She said that and I knew it to be true. And I remembered all of the sessions. My early ones with Kerry. Then the first eight or so months with Amanda. As we shone lights on all the sneaky hiding spots that trauma tried to squeeze its self into. To remain and fester. Because that’s what trauma likes to do.

But that was then. Those sessions were then. All of those years, all of that sadness and grief… it isn’t who I am anymore.

Instead, I cackle out loud like a crazy hyena. I snort and belly laugh, too.

Because I. Am. Out. Of. Trauma.

This, I know deep in my bones as all of those Other New Things come at me… more change, but this time of the positive ilk. My job now is to prepare. To make the right decisions for my future and… already do whatever I can to help others.

And I can do that – help others – because I. Am. Out. Of. Trauma.

So all of the hard won wisdom is now mine to share. And that’s what I’m in the process of doing.

I want to hand write love notes to all of the wonderful healers I’ve worked with over the years. The people who kept me afloat when I otherwise would’ve drowned. I’ve so much gratitude for all of their love and care and support.

I. Am. Out. Of. Trauma. And now it’s time for me to give it all back to those in need.

~Svasti
xxx

The last exhale (farewell Nan)

Tags

Can’t catch my breath, death, Enter your zip code here, farewell, funeral, Grief, No more a grandchild, no more grandparents, tea parties

Can’t catch my breath, the wheel is turning; my station on the totem pole changing before my eyes. Not for anything I’ve done, but rather a birthright.

I am now the next eldest generation. No more a grandchild, for all the grandparents are gone.

She passed this morning, my maternal grandmother. Before we had a chance to say goodbye since my Prick Uncle didn’t see fit to warn us sufficiently, even though he saw her on Saturday (bad family blood never really helps in the end).

We could’ve been there yesterday, had we known. But we didn’t.

Now I’m no longer a grandchild. Only one generation left older than me.

And I can’t catch my breath, no air in my lungs where I mean it to be. That last exhale where she finally slipped the last veil of this life, that’s where my lungs are at. Emptied in shock and not filling up again (not yet) no matter how many swigs of O2 I take.

My lungs are empty, like hers are, and I didn’t get to say goodbye before she was gone.

She wasn’t perfect but she was my Nan.

And, she was my grandfather’s keeper, with his suppressed PTSD and life-long alcohol-themed self-medication. A milliner, a marvellous baker of deliciousness (including homemade fig and apricot jam) and in her senior years, an adventurous solo traveller with her senior citizens group.

I learned to tie shoelaces in her lounge room, in my knitted slippers with their knitted laces. There were tea parties with proper English China and biscuits on matching side plates. She made for my sister and me, matching toy clowns with their spaghetti-like arms and legs, and embroidered faces.

Growing up, she was a wonderful Nan. She gave us love.

But she was also mean-hearted, jealous and bigoted. It was only later I learned of her involvement in the forced adoption of my half-brother and it’s something I’ve never been able to entirely reconcile.

A wonderful grandmother. A terrible mother.

A troubled soul whose own benign shop front faltered as dementia kept up its relentless advance. More, we saw the bitterness and meanness my mother always said was there.

Finally we understood how it was for my mother who, to her own credit, never poisoned us against her: we had a relationship with my Nan despite my mother’s own troubled connection.

It was that ever-growing meanness in the end which kept me away. That, and Prick Uncle moving her to the opposite side of town, closer to him, but nowhere I could get to easily or often without a car.

There’s no point in making myself feel bad about that now. She’s gone. But the Nan I knew has been gone for many years now, really.

Yet… that final goodbye. That chance to share love and connection and let her know we were there? Taken from us through a sibling feud older than I am.

Now, I’m a grandchild no more. I’ll see her again I guess, on the day we bury her. Cold and small, the essential spark gone from her flesh. I’ll be able to tell her then as I’m telling her now that despite her flaws, and her apparently shoddy parenting, she was a good grandma.

And in the end, she got her wish to go peacefully and in her sleep. She lived probably fifteen years longer than she really wanted to, but it was only the last five of that she wasn’t really there.

Farewell Nan. Complicated lady, bearing both spikes and sweetness. Farewell, woman who was cold-hearted enough to give up her first grandchild on behalf of her own daughter. Farewell, maker of Peach Melba and Christmas Plum Pudding (with silver pennies inside) and homemade brandy custard.

May you have a fortunate rebirth, Nan. With lessons and learnings that bring you awakenings and ever-closer to your Essence Nature.

~Svasti

xxx

The pattern of choosing to love the wrong person

Tags

Choosing to love the wrong person, Enter your zip code here, Heart, Love, low self-esteem, patterns, protection, safety

I’ve written about this a little already, but I thought I’d expand on the topic. Be prepared, coz this post is a long ‘un.

Choosing to love the wrong person is something we humans do when we feel the need to protect ourselves: weirdly, we pick the wrong person on purpose.

It’s meant to be a way of keeping our hearts safe from future emotional devastation. But it’s a trap. It only works for so long, if it ever really works at all.

My theory is that it’s the mind’s way of doing what it thinks needs to be done to protect that pesky heart that’s always getting hurt and causing a world of pain for the rest of the body.

But we all know what happens when the mind gets involved in matters of the heart, right? Hint: it usually stuffs things up, no matter how well meaning.

The twisted protection logic goes something like this: if I’m with someone I don’t/can’t really love because they aren’t the right person for me, then I can’t have my heart broken because I’ll never really love them. There’ll always be space between my heart and this person, and so I’m Safe.

If you’ve been hurt before – in that everything fallen apart, life ceases to have any meaning kind of way – then it seems like a sensible idea in theory, right?

Except it’s not.

I can trace the development of this pattern back to the failure of three relationships in a row from my early-to-late 20’s: three men I loved who didn’t love me back.

Although I suspect the groundwork for the pattern was there long before that.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure by the time the third relationship blew up in my face, my heart was broken in a fundamental way. Like, engine fallen out of the car kinda thing.

Let me share some back story on these three loves of mine, then…

Love #1

Was my fiancé. We met when I was twenty-four and he in his late thirties. I suspect my idea of relationships was already a bit warped. I mean, take a highly repressed and aloof father, a physically and verbally abusive brother, chronically low self-esteem, a terrible first boyfriend, an abortion, and a whole heap of other issues never written about here… my ability to choose the right man to marry was already impaired.

Back then, I was attracted to older men. Men I thought could teach me something. Little did I know what I was really looking for was an honest-to-goodness teacher, but that’s another story.

I’d conflated the idea of a romantic partner with someone I could trust as a teacher. And back then, my standard modus operandi with men was to throw my power at them. To inhabit their life and let them be in charge.

My fiancé btw, was a good and honourable man. Really. I’d thought we’d marry and have kids and be together forever.

But he was just as confused and lost in his own ways as I was. By the time our relationship entered its third year, it was no longer the force of nature it’d once been, and he pulled away from me. Which of course, triggered my paranoia, insecurities and low self esteem.

These days I suspect that things ended because he was no longer “in charge” in the way I needed. Which meant the guy I’d been throwing my power at wasn’t doing what I needed him to do. By the time I was ready to leave, my heart had bled all the tears it’d held and there was no way across the chasm that’d grown between my fiancé and me.

So he became my ex-fiancé.

Love #2

Waiting in the wings was another man. The second ill-fated love of mine and a mutual friend of mine and Love #1.

In retrospect, it’s not surprising to me that he was in fact, a teacher. Not this teacher, but the person who introduced me to him. He also taught martial arts.

Oh look, how perfect! Someone big and strong AND an actual teacher that I could offer myself to on a platter. Which is exactly what I did.

Having leapt from one relationship to another, I was amazed at how different things were. I chastised myself for almost settling for much less, and I proceeded to fall hard. Harder perhaps, because now I was *sure* that this was The One. Someone much more suited to me.

Except. He had a binge drinking problem. I was sure I could “help” him with that.

And. In the end, he didn’t want me the way I wanted him.

He was honest about this important detail eventually, but I wanted him so much that I ignored that fact and let the relationship carry on anyway. He didn’t exactly say no. Not very often anyway.

It was off and on, passionate, sexy, dangerous and highly destructive to my sense of self. For eighteen months. I had counselling in my attempts to resist him.

When it finally, absolutely ended for the last time, I hit rock bottom. It was very ugly. Crazily, I even intentionally got myself into a fight and let a group of girls beat me up (it didn’t hurt as much as my broken heart).

Then I went overseas, as an absolute raving mess. I had fun, visited far-flung places and came back feeling more together than I had been in a while. I even went to my first Ayurvedic doctor and stated to turn my health around.

With better health, came a better state of mind…

Love #3

Which is when I met the next guy, via online dating. Which I was only trying because Love #2 had started doing it, and I was actually there to stalk his profile. When was he last on? Who was he talking to?! Ha, so sad and pathetic. 😉

Anyway, out of that came a welcome surprise in the form of an email from someone very interesting.

If Loves #1 and #2 had bowled me over, I wasn’t prepared in any way for Love #3. He was around my age (the first one in a long time who was), gorgeous, intelligent, gentle, charming, sweet and genuine.

We shared many things in common and the attraction was mutual and instantaneous. On our second date, we both agreed the line “where have you been all my life?” was appropriate for us.

True to form, I let myself fall in love quickly and deeply. This time I was VERY SURE I’d met The One. It had to be, right? I’d had two (three actually), terrible and failed relationships only to meet my knight in shining armour, with his sunny demeanour and adventurous nature.

He was so attentive, calm and wonderful. He’d Christmas with his relatives in Canberra and then drove to Melbourne to pick me up from my parents’ place so we could slowly 4WD our way back to Sydney. We had New Year’s in Jindabyne and I was so happy.

Until January, when he took me to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and ever-so-respectfully dumped me. In public, so I couldn’t cause a scene. He wanted to be friends however – really wanted it – and in fact, we are good friends to this day.

But for an entire week after he dumped me, I felt myself shutting down. I was quietly sad. Despairing. I couldn’t imagine someone more perfect for me (or so I thought) than Love #3. I couldn’t believe my rotten luck and I’d no idea what was so wrong with me that no one wanted to be with me.

My heart, I’m pretty sure, was packed up neatly into a shuttered wooden box. Surrounded by layers of bubble wrap and duct tape.

It’s good, they say, to be friends with your exes. This is sort of both true and false. True, because people you’ve loved (and who’ve loved you back) are still in your life. False, because unless you’re the one doing the dumping, there’s a good chance you’ll still be in love with them and wanting more than they can give.

I was in love with Love #3 for years, and most of that time I was in denial about it. I analysed his every word and action even as we hung out (skiing, motorbike riding, camping, 4WD-ing, hanging out with friends who declared we looked like a couple). Even as we took more long cross-country trips together.

Neither of us dated, and we might as well have been together except for the lack of sex.

It drove me crazy. Why? WHY? Why didn’t he want to be my boyfriend?!

Eventually I started dating again. However, Love #3 and I still hung out AND I was still hung up.

THIS was the beginning of choosing men I had no chance of falling for…

It wasn’t conscious, not entirely anyway. It was a survival mechanism. My mind overrode my heart because it knew I couldn’t withstand any more heartache.

And so I continued… the loser friend of my cousin’s boyfriend; the weird Persian student; the sweet guy I was never into; the tall, dufus-y baseball player; the dorky ex-air force guy who insisted on a relationship I never wanted…

And then this guy.

Which is one of the problems, with this whole “protection of the heart” pattern, no?

Not only do you end up wasting your time and the time of the people you date when you should’ve said no… but one of them could turn out to be a secret sociopath with a penchant for hitting women.

And, because you’ve been busily tuning out your instincts about who you should be with, you lose the connection to that gut feel which tells you NO.

So you miss it, and you’re unprepared. And then your world breaks into tiny little pieces.

Which is really just the Universe presenting a wake up call to you in the strongest possible language. Because there’s only so far you can go while wilfully ignoring your own path in life.

And being with the wrong person is DEFINITELY ignoring your own path.

It’s taken me all these years to piece this understanding together. Of what happened and how things got to where they did…

And now I’m doing what I can to undo this pattern. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

For the longest time, I simply didn’t want a boyfriend. Until I did. But even then, men remained scary.

Actually, men I have no interest in romantically were and are fine.

But liking a guy and wondering if he might like me back? A massive risk. Terrifying, even. Something that until fairly recently, left me feeling disempowered, goofy and maybe all of thirteen, all over again.

Around cute guys, I still feel like a kid with no social skills but like many things in my life, I relate this re-learning curve to yoga.

Specifically, to something I often tell my students:

You’ll never be able to do the poses you find difficult if you never do them. So practice and enjoy them, even when they aren’t perfect. Even when you fall over. Because one day something will change and you’ll find yourself able to do the thing you told yourself you never could. All because you kept up your practice.

So right now? I’m practicing. Flirting. Confidence. Noticing when men notice me. Noticing men and not feeling shy about it. Being able to be attracted to men without losing all sense of reason. Making eye contact and holding steady.

~Svasti

Generating lurvvve – part 1

Tags

ardha chandrasana, bhakti, Cycling, direct realisation, Enter your zip code here, Facebook, Inspiration, kaleidoscopic, kirtan, Krishna Das, kryptonite, Love, neediness, Om Namah Shivaya, Shadow Yoga, Sri Krishna Govinda, Suffering, Yoga, Yoga of Chant

Recently life’s been a little kaleidoscopic. So much going on, it’s kinda hard to work out what I’m actually meant to be focusing on.

Which can be good and not so good. Then when there’s half a moment to calm down, sometimes things settle in a pattern that makes sense of the world a little more.

And that’s good, right?

So, last week I heard this (voice in my head), then wrote it down AND made it my Facebook status:

Do something you love, something from the core of your being. Give over to it entirely. Let your heart open. It makes all the difference…

And today I’d like to add this:

Doing the things you love, generates love.

See, I’ve been thinking a lot about our outward seeking culture recently and how needy we human beings are as a result.

To clarify, there are two broad definitions of need that I’m talking about here:

Need type #1 – fundamentals that help us to live. E.g. oxygen, sunlight, breathing, nutritious food, love (yes, I think love falls into this group). Characterised by things we do not thrive without.

Need type #2 – internal or external objects of desire that we crave. E.g. entertainment, clothes, physical appearance, other people, money, cars, houses, iPods, travel, fame etc. Characterised by a belief they will improve our self-image/confidence etc.

Of course, needs from type #1 can and do cross over into needs from type #2. And we tend to believe strongly that needs type #2 are in fact, needs type #1.

I’ve been wondering about that. Why? Why are we so needy? How do we get these different types of needs so messed up?

And I confess. Most of my life I’ve felt that sense of need, based on what I think I’m missing. How, if only I had a boyfriend who loved me, or more money, or more friends, or if I was prettier, or wasn’t such a dork, or had a home of my own, or children or nicer/better taste in clothes, or if I was taller/shorter/thinner, or if I didn’t have to work for a living or… you get my drift… that I’d be happier.

Maybe other people are smarter than me and have this stuff figured out already? But I’d be willing to bet that most of us, even if it’s only in a very subtle way these days, experience that kind of need. It can make a person feel desperate at times. Or hollow, even.

But generally, we just think less of ourselves because we don’t have what we think we need.

This my friends, is need type #2. The kind of need that creates suffering because it makes us feel incomplete in some way. But actually this is really just the default human condition, until we get sick of it that is, and seek another path.

For me, that path is yoga. And what I’m trying to convey here are some personal realisations combined with everything I’ve studied and learned to date.

So, let me talk a little about my own personal kryptonite: love. Or the lack thereof.

I’ve had such a funny relationship with love in my lifetime. Mostly, I’ve felt like I never had enough love, or enough of the right kind of love. Not accepted. Not wanted.

And if you believe it, and so it will be.

Like many people I grew up believing that we must be loved by someone else in order to have love, and to feel like we are valued. And much of the “evidence” in my life suggested that I was not valued very highly at all!

I have a good idea how these beliefs arose. As far as I can tell they date back at least several generations before I was even born. I grew up saturated in them and so of course, I’ve inhabited those ideas for myself.

At the same time, as I’ve been re-counting, my other life-long goal has been spiritual evolvement, before I even knew what that meant. There’s been this ongoing battle between my extreme neediness and my desire to shed such a limited view of life.

Of course, throw a few traumatic experiences into a person’s life, and watch the neediness factor multiply. Especially if they’ve got screwy ideas about love in the first place.

I’d say this is something that’s plagued my relationships and friendships for most of my life. Even worse, it’s had endless impacts on my relationship with my Self…

A few weeks back I went to something called ‘Yoga of Chant’, conveniently held at a yoga studio just a five minute cycle from my place. It was advertised on a meet up website that I’ve used before, and I was immediately drawn.

First one I didn’t get to as I was at home with a horrible flu. So disappointing! Second one was only two weeks later and I was determined to go! Of course, it had to bucket down rain just as I was leaving. I arrived kind of sodden but it was worth it.

Had to peel off my plastic pants and rain jacket, so the chanting (or kirtan) started before I found a seat. The dude running the group (a yoga teacher) played electric keyboard and sang (gorgeous voice!) while his friend played double bass (it worked really, really well), while we sang extended versions of Sri Krishna Govinda and Om Namah Shivaya mantras (Krishna Das style).

I don’t get too many opportunities for kirtan here in Melbourne (i.e. none) and this one rocked. It was kinda awesome actually and for me, there was real bhakti in the singing – loudly, deeply, from the very center of my heart.

Its not that I have a fantastic voice, but I absolutely ADORE singing kirtan.

Next day I was still buzzing, and had this lovely-warm-gooey-heart-opening sensation most of the day. The sort of feeling I get when I do ardha chandrasana and reeeaaalllly rotate and open through the torso…

…times about a hundred!

Interesting, I thought… and went to the next one (last Saturday actually).

The other thing I did last Saturday was attend a free Shadow Yoga class (more about that in another post). And I came away literally glowing with happiness. I could feel it, and I noticed other people noticing it, too.

Cycling home from the yoga class (before the kirtan), that’s when those words popped into my mind: Do something you love, something from the core of your being. Give over to it entirely. Let your heart open. It makes all the difference…

And I got it. Hey, sometimes it takes me a while to get things!

Ohhhhhhh! By doing things you really, really, REALLY enjoy, you are generating love for yourself and other people? And when you do that, there’s no sense of neediness? No space for miserable, self-defeating thoughts? No feeling bereft, adrift and craving connection with others, because the connection is already generated with yourself, through the LOVE you’ve been pumping out via your own actions?

Ahhhh..!!!

That’s what happens sometimes, when you shake all the pretty pieces of coloured light in your kaleidoscope to reveal a mandala you probably already knew about on some level… but had never experienced for yourself.

Until that moment when you do.

And it changes EVERYTHING.

[Read part 2]

~Svasti

Feel to believe

Tags

Beth Orton, Enter your zip code here, Feel to believe, incredible-coughing-lady, iPod, She coughs for all of Australia, Spring

And I won’t waste a single second
Living in hell like its some kind of heaven
~Beth Orton

Working away like a super-entertained little kitteh here (except I’m just super-busy, and not so much with the entertainment and no kitties on hand. Okay… so I’m busy and it has nothing to do with kitties or entertainment!), and I had to search my iPod (saviour of my sanity) for some music to block out the incredible-coughing-lady here in this open-plan-yes-sound-travels office.

It’s highly possible this lady has TB or something equally as nasty. She coughs for all of Australia, she does. And apparently has no qualms about her rather loud and dastardly noises, as she makes no attempt to cough more quietly. Ever. I dunno, perhaps its just a smoker’s cough? A really, really bad one? In any case, it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

I’m resisting my desire to anonymously leave a packet of cough drops on her desk.

So, thanks to the incredible-coughing-lady I consulted that blessed little piece of electronica, holder of many noises I do consider acceptable. Felt that Beth Orton was somehow appropriate today. Yup, she really is for this lovely, lovely Spring-like day (almost Spring here, so it’s a tantalising preview kinda day with very pretty blue skies, even in the city).

And then, amongst the general enjoyment of Ms Orton’s smooth tunes, the above mentioned lyrics rang out clear and true.

And here, folks, is the song, enjoy!

~Svasti