DIARY DAYS - JANUARY 2020

JAN 1 2020

Old friends have shared New Year’s Eve with me.

We are touched by age and denied dreams. The sadness’s of time and lost relationships.

Australia is burning. There are wildfires up the East Coast.

Our Prime Mister behaves badly.

I am flattened today with an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

The majority of the people in this country recently voted in a climate change denying government.

I feel lost.

JAN 2 2020

I went to the pool and exercised.

My vision for the year seems clearer. It is not about the sight but seeing the connections.

Everyone in the pool has new bathers.

I have had the habit of watching day time soap operas for more than forty years off and on. The same soap operas.

My mother was the first practitioner in our small country time to train in using natural breathing techniques to give birth. I think she used the same techniques to die naturally.

I am reading Helen Garner`s diaries and they are marvellous.

It is hot still.

JAN 3 2020

A dear person came late in the afternoon. She has been playing with attraction and is gleeful and happy. We talk as we always do. Bottles and buckets of chat.

Australia is catastrophically fire impacted.

I worry for my sister and her husband up the coast.

Outside, even here, it is strangely empty and silent.

I feel my tiny heart in a sea of dark.

JAN 4 2020

The Fire is omnipresent and I listen to Thirteen Ways with Birds, music by Paul Kelly and I am made discordant.

I share the day, both of us on sofas` and I am delighted by our talk. Then she goes home.

I have existential angst as the fires burn, unprecedented.

Our Prime Minister is deplorable.

Another friend comes to visit, late and we talk into the night.

She has had big losses in her life. She is struggling and as brave as any one I have ever met.

I cry when she has gone. Tears for her, tears for humanity, tears for wildlife.

Tears for me.

JAN 3 2020

The music is still discordant. The fire has burnt 12 million acres. The biggest fire in the world previously was 2.2 million acres in the Amazon.

The gods are giving Australia a huge slap for our careless disregard for the environment.

It is raining here today. Here and on the fire ground. But not enough. Not enough.

“It is hard to put a tree out with a hose. “said an Aussie battler interviewed about his experience.

I feel stopped by a numbed sedentariness.

JAN 6 2020

I read the dawn up. Then sleep again.

When I wake the air is thick with smoke.

I wonder what to do.

The challenge of retirement.

Everyone is going back to work.

What to do on a day when it is hard to breathe.

The world is still burning.

When the air clears, I will visit the areas that need tourists.

JAN 7 2020

I swim and talk with a friend.

I complete the crossword and watch the television coverage of the fires.

Until I cannot.

I hate our Prime Minister for how he behaves.

I paint my toenails.

A friend comes for tea and brings Jelly Slice.

If I was going to be executed and could choose my last dessert, I would choose Jelly Slice.

I am idling.

JAN 8 2020

I have decided to choose a highlight of my day. I was thinking that perhaps it was the Pressure Washer loaned by a friend but really it is still the Jelly Slice.

I swim again.

I am so pleased that my sister is back home, safe from the fires.

I get rid of my whiskers.

It is heating up and I am not enticed outside.

The sun rises at 8.30 am in Queensland. They have not saved daylight as we do in the southern states.

JAN 9 2020

I wake

I swim

I lose my keys

I panic

I decide that Donald Trump is a narcissistic, lying son of a bitch, clearly unfit to rule.

I make brown paper templates for the outside seats I am padding.

I work out how the pressure washer works and get water all over myself, the shed, anything that needs to stay dry. Not the concrete.

I am daft.

The day is beginning to smoke.

JAN 10 2020

I go out for breakfast with a friend and we talk for hours and hours.

I go to my usual locksmith to get keys cut but cannot park anywhere close.

I am irritated and frustrated and drive down an unfamiliar road. There in front of an empty car space is a sign. Keys Cut $2.

I thank my parents.

My parents are dead but I often find their spirits in my day-to-day doings.

They were immensely practical people in life, and always there when they were needed. It is a gift they have continued after life, making my life both magical and blessed.

I take the paper templates to a business which will cut the foam padding for my seats.

It is raining and I am very glad.

The day has flowed.

JAN 11 2020

I cannot get going.

All day I have sat.

JAN 12 2020

The weather is glorious.

My old cat is very unwell

And still, I am poleaxed.

I am turning into a friend of my mothers who sat and did puzzles all day.

Fuck.

JAN 13 2020

My washing machine filled with smoke.

I did not follow through with finding someone to tell me what is wrong with it.

I read Wolf Island by Lucy Treloar all day.

Immersed.

JAN 14 2020

I swim

I procrastinate

I write a little

I read a little

Phaffed.

I ring a friend and speak for a long time.

It is a day of smoke and misery.

JAN 15 2020

I swim

I write a little

I read a lot

I test the washing machine and it blows black smoke through the front loader

More smoke and misery.

JAN 16 2020

I swim

I talk politics

I consult CHOICE magazine about the best washing machine to buy

I go and buy the best washing machine. They will deliver it and take away the old one.

The old cat is skittish

The smoke has gone and I have more energy.

It is cool

JAN 17 2020

I love services.

I am flea brained today, all over the shop

I have a friend for dinner

I salute the efficient instalment of the washing machine with wine and read

another dystopian novel.

JAN 18 2020

I wake and feel unwell.

Surely the wine

I have hard wired habits

I love the newspapers and read them all day

At heart I am sick of myself.

JAN 19 2020

I paint my recycled apple crate outdoor sofas.

I love them

My DIY skills are shit, my vision splendid.

If I were rich, I would contract out to achieve the vision.

I watch television and sadness invades me

It storms.

JAN 20 2020

Unbeknownst to me COVID – 19 virus begins its world domination

The Dystopian novel I am reading does my head in: too close to the bone.

The chooks have scapegoated one little bird

I get Mole mapped by standing naked and having my shady bits photographed

I take the old cat to the vet. She is not happy about being put in the carry basket but is not prepared to scratch me.

I feel vulnerable; surprisingly lonely.

Civilisation is at risk

JAN 21 2020

My friend and I walk together and she makes me walk up and down steps

So that I don`t have a stroke

I am so pleased with myself

I squander the rest of the day.

JAN 22 2020

Mum`s story is on my mind

I swim and read the papers

I write a submission to the Aged Care Royal Commission

Lots of tears. It is still painful

Her loss.

I am knotty.

JAN 23 2020

I swim

Plastered in the chic seats of the Gold Class movie seats I watch “Little Women “

Howl like a banshee

Lovely

Was content

Baked

Planned little pin cushion projects with the walnut kernels from my tree

Getting to the heart of things

JAN 24 2020

I am gifted Pineapple lilies and a lotus

I have a chakra clearing

I make a list of the gardens of Europe I will visit

Everything to do with “Home “is painful

JAN 25 2020

Japanese wisteria

Sloth

JAN 27 2020

I watch the online shopping channel

Paint pots

Let the chooks out and they play under the lemon trees

Dust bathing delightedly

I hang a picture in my studio

Finish the Aged Care submission less passionately than when I started

I wonder where everyone is.

It is a public holiday.

Unnaturally quiet

JAN 28 2020

I climb a really big hill with my friend

My sister comes to stay for the last time in a year

But I don’t know this yet.

JAN 29 2020

I swim with my sister

I start pottery classes. I want to make vagina plates like Judy Chicago did in her “The Dinner Party “installation.

I begin with pinch pots and display little talent

I have a friend for dinner

JAN 30 2020

I swim

I make lists of plants for my pot garden

Birch trees

A Japanese Maple

Worm wood

Bamboo

I am ambitious

It is hot

JAN 31 2020

I am at Bunnings very early

All day it is hot

I sew cushion covers for my apple crate outdoor sofas

I wrap my old cat in cool cloths

I spray her and myself

It rains late in the evening but the night stays heavy and warm

The humidity , fuck me!