Thursday afternoons.

Some train.

Some watch.

When the sun shines it feels pretty good.

Newstead V Dunolly

We all got up early. We organized our equipment.

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Zsuzsa’s team played first. I learnt timekeeping duties and blew the horn after each term. They won.

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Sid’s team played afterwards.

He kicked a goal. I think they won but I’m not sure. I had to leave, I enrolled to deep fry at the canteen. I cooked a lot of chips.

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This was my first time going to a Newstead local football /netball game. So many people involved, such a crowd gathered to witness local sport. Never saw so many cars in Newstead.

I’m very proud of us having played a small part in all of this. I’m starting to love it.

Zsuzsa on the passenger seat checks her texts while I’m driving. A couple in the park manages three young children. Innocent scenes make me relive the pain of loneliness within a relationship. Beneath the skin, tension still aches.

It is said one of PTSD symptoms is to relive the traumatic event, through unwanted and recurring memories. My psychologist during our first meeting told me it takes time to recover from a significant relationship breakdown, on average five years. I hope he is wrong and I hope he is right. I’ve done one. I can do five. It will be fine.

Truth might be simpler though, and the cause of my unease more immediate. I might just experience a temporary and very transitional kind of anxiety. From a break, to back to the routine.

Mine has now been disturbed for three weeks, the last ten days filled with children talks, children love, sibling tensions and constant asks for guidance.

School is back now. I’ve been happy returning to work, enjoying some adult equal footing conversation. And will get back to my well adjusted weekly routine like in a comfortable old skin.

A change in focus needing some time for adjustment.

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routine

[ roo-teen ]

noun

1. a customary or regular course of procedure.
2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity:the routine of an office.
3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
4. a rehearsed act, performance, or part of a performance: a comic routine; a dance routine.
5. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response:Don’t give me that brotherly-love routine!

adjective

1. of the nature of, proceeding by, or adhering to routine:routine duties.
2. dull or uninteresting; commonplace.

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transition

[ tran-zish–uhn ]

noun

movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change:the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Music.

1. a passing from one key to another; modulation.
2. a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing.
3. a sudden, unprepared modulation.
4. a passage from one scene to another by sound effects, music, etc., as in a television program, theatrical production, or the like.

verb (used without object)

1. to make a transition:He had difficulty transitioning from enlisted man to officer.
2. to change from one gender identity to another or to align one’s dress, behavior, etc., with one’s gender identity:My friend is transitioning without hormone therapy or surgery

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adjustment

[ uh–juhst-muhnt ]

noun

1. the act of adjusting; adaptation to a particular condition, position, or purpose.
2. the state of being adjusted; orderly relation of parts or elements.
3. a device, as a knob or lever, for adjusting:the adjustments on a television set.
4. the act of bringing something into conformity with external requirements:the adjustment of one’s view of reality.
5. harmony achieved by modification or change of a position:They worked out an adjustment of their conflicting ideas.

Sociology. 

a process of modifying, adapting, or altering individual or collective patterns of behavior so as to bring them into conformity with other such patterns, as with those provided by a cultural environment.

Year 1.

I awoke to the sound of four children and very soon they became five. The weather is bright.

A year ago I did the entry report inspection in this new place during a nationwide lockdown. Police stopped me on the move, asking me all sorts of reasons for my whereabouts, warning me about lines crossing and unorthodox car parking.

A year later I’m feeling a mixed bag of emotions, pride, regrets, gratefulness and anxiety intertwined. I don’t feel the need to untangle these in any way. They all make so much sense, sending important signals to self.

This day belongs to children and their friends, the sun is shining, and surrenderring is the only way.

I learned I am more comfortable playing with a soccer than I am with an AFL football. Re-learning the obvious. Seems like a fitting lesson for the day.

Sid is having a friend over.

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Girls have gone into town.

More words from Ros Moriarty, Listening To Country.

Meanwhile in a dark corner of the laundry, the funghi do their funghi thing.

Garlic, a hate/ love story

I hated you when I grew up. Raw in salad dressing, rubbed upon my thumb, probably keeping me healthy.

It’s all forgiven now and every year I look forward to those two days. Planting, and harvesting you six month after.

“I looked uncomfortably for cues of inclusion, and swallowed the loneliness of cold, silent nights in my tiny hut. People were not unwelcoming. They were just going about lives which were unfamiliar to me. I quickly understood how alienating such an experience of dislocation from culture could be.”

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I, Benoît Oury, son of Pierre & Sylviane, brother of Chantal, Jean, and Vincent, grandson of Emile, Jeanne, Marie Thérèse and Jean, nephew and cousin of many, former partner of Claire, will honour their stories, aknowledging the cultural background, understanding and sense of belonging they provide.

I will transmit them to Zsuzsa, Sidney and Jean. I will do this in whichever language seems appropriate, without feeling guilt or shame if that language isn’t my mother tongue at that time.

I owe it to my creators.

I owe it to myself.

I owe it to my children.

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Yes. We had another train ride. Melbourne won by four goals.

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A first glimpse of winter.

Zsuzsa went on her own today to Bendigo, taking the train with some girlfriends to go the cinema.

We leftoverz went to jumpz.

Some of us jumped.

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More Jean.

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More Brené Brown, sounding familiar.

“I’m good at anger and only so-so at vulnerability, so armoring up before a vulnerable experience is very attractive to me.

Luckily, my work has taught me that when I feel self-righteous, it means I’m afraid.

It’s a way to puff up and protect myself when I’m afraid of being wrong, making someone angry, or getting blamed.”

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More Jean.

They’re back.

The last of the garden blooms.

Easter, 2021.

The children are in Sydney, and I in Castlemaine. It feels a bit out of context, abstract, spending Easter without them. A disembodied experience of sorts.

The Castlemaine festival is wrapping up beautifully, the weather is heavenly, the town is bursting with actions and opportunities: giant Scrabble battles and epic theatrical performances here, open studios and exhibitions there, music, free and not, appearing regularly. Every pub has a few gigs, unusual stages appear in parks, reserves and streets.

We played a concert on a reactivated car park, the warming up looked like this, was joyful and the general feel was extremely positive.

Yet I feel unsure.

Warm feelings give place to confusion, and the need to brace myself for any self confidence bubble to be busted. What did I miss, what did I not pay attention to? Joy seems a somewhat selfish feeling.

Brene Brown writes about foreboding joy, bracing ourselves for disaster as a classic armor strategy. We refuse to express and experience joy because joy, and the inescapable loss of it, exposes us as being vulnerable. When joy leaves, or is taken away, it leaves us vulnerable to disappointment. Hence, when experiencing joy, we’d rather brace for disaster. It seems safer.

Could it be the other way? Could the longing, the pursuit, and the experience of joy be a diversion from exposing ourselves to our own vulnerabilities, a fragile attempt at avoidance? Are those two propositions even any different?

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The antidote to foreboding joy, she suggests, is to practice gratitude.

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I feel grateful for my children to be safely celebrating Easter with their mother in Sydney.

I feel grateful for a beautiful evening filled with support, talks, walks, random encounters and wholesome connections.

I feel grateful for my parents, calling me from France, and loving me.

I feel grateful for a different Easter experience.

Gouttes d’eau & feuilles de Songe