Wanderlust

How has your year been so far? Despite having to work Melbourne Cup day and all of this week, I did get the chance to stop and take a breath given the crazy pace I’ve led most of this year. The recent experience of friends and family who have suffered serious illness and loss on an unimaginable scale has given me pause for thought about what’s really important and how precious life truly is. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if there are things you want to do in life, don’t put them on hold. Enjoy the here and now and live in the present as life is far too short and fleeting and our grasp on it becomes all the more tenuous as we get older.

Remembrance Day image via Yarra City Council

And yes, I should be taking my own advice given my motto this year was to Live like you’re dancing. There’s also a good article on Medium about Alfred Adler and The Courage to be Disliked about focusing on the journey and all the living that happens in between because for most of us who are lucky enough, there is still a lot of living to do and life does, and will, go on. I wish you love and courage always on your journey.

The weather has contributed to my introspection this week and I feel for the organisers of outdoor events that are happening around Melbourne this weekend including the yoga festival Wanderlust taking place in the Alexandra Gardens tomorrow, the Open Spaces Festival at the Abbotsford Convent, the 3 Ravens & Thornbury Bowls Club Community Festival and the Eltham Rotary Festival.

It may be safer to go along to the Shakers & Makers Market at the Coburg Town Hall or Suitcase Rummage at the Northcote Town Hall although outdoor events and dogs seem to have become a thing with Dogapoolooza 2019 on in Richmond this Sunday and Hounds of Heide in Bulleen next Sunday 17 November. It’s also Remembrance Day on Monday 11 November and for me, it will have a much deeper significance this year and always.

*This post is dedicated to the memory of Zen Lucas – a friend, a father, husband, son and brother but most of all a wonderful human being.

 

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No time for dreaming

I’ve almost reached saturation point and my brain isn’t coping with the amount of events I’ve had on over the past fortnight including two birthdays in my family, which kill me every year before Christmas.  I am hoping this week that things start to quieten down although work is still relatively busy given I’m now in planning and programming mode for 2019.

One of the birthdays was Mr Rosanna’s and he’s always a tricky person to buy for in terms of gifts – he’s quite fussy and isn’t materialistic so I always scratch my head trying to work out something creative, experiential and personal.  I think I did well this year as I bought him the Japanese best seller The courage to be disliked (above) which a number of high-profile people have read – it’s a self-help book based on Adlerian psychology and written as a dialogue between a young man and a philosopher.  I’m looking forward to reading it after Mr R finishes it.  Some people scoff at the self-help genre but I think that the greatest power you have is to be able to change the way you think, and therefore the way you behave.  Easily said but not so easily done particularly as we get older and more set in our ways.

I had my Irish friend Colum’s birthday a few weeks ago now and also picked a book for him – Normal People (above) a novel about two high school (and later University) students set in modern-day Dublin by Irish writer Sally Rooney which has won the Man Booker prize and she herself has become the poster girl for Millennial fiction writing.  I’ve read the Granta excerpt and it also had me intrigued so I may be borrowing Colum’s copy from him once he’s read it!

The second part to Mr Rosanna’s birthday present from me this year was a Busybird Publishing book writing gift voucher given Mr R has actually started a manuscript for a novel.  The Busybird 2-day book writing boot camp is being held 26 – 28 April next year at Busybird HQ in Montmorency so would make a great Christmas present to anyone in your life who has put writing a book down on their bucket list.

We are slowly coming to the end of the year and I hope you’re also starting to wind down, reflect on the year that’s been and plan for the year ahead.  You can dream but if there’s no plan behind it to action in a certain amount of time, then a dream remains a dream.