Making Tracks

Sometimes the Universe conspires in all its cunning and sometimes duplicity, to tell us quietly, and then scream at us in an earth shattering earsplitting roar, that the winds of change are blowing a gale, baby, and IT'S TIME.  For what, you might worriedly think - and sometimes even ask, and sometimes even out aloud and to someone else.... because change and risk are words that do tend to worry most of us.  Uncertainty can paralyse us.  Surely it's safer not to listen to these (mad?) voices in one's psyche, and keep doing what we're doing, because after all, life is pretty damn good, isn't it?  Isn't it?

In the mid 1970s - and what a different age that was to the then inconceivable lives we now lead - there was a lady called Robyn Davidson, who decided at age 25 that she needed to train up a herd of camels so that she and her dog could travel across the desert, from the Alice to the ocean, taking however long it took, risking pretty much everything, her life and those of her fellow furry travel companions included.  Now, Miss Davidson did indeed make that trek, and it was documented in a beautifully photographed book called From Alice to Ocean which was published in 1992, some 15 years later.  At the time of her trek back in the mid 70s, I was living the not-so-childhood dream of feeling like an orphan at age 10, because my mother had to all intents and purposes abandoned me, and into the care of a rageful alcoholic "father."  Now, I am what I am, formed as we all are by our childhoods, but you can make a hell of a life out of broken beginnings.

At the time From Alice to Ocean was published, and myself spying it in a bookstore somewhere, I was 28 years old myself, engaged, and not terribly keen on marrying or even having children for that matter.  Being a wife and mother seemed like something you did in some kind of weird parallel universe that I had never been part of growing up, and still wasn't, although I was having a fair old crack at it with a man I'd been with for four or five years at that stage, was still uncertain about, but had somehow agreed to marry at some point unknown.

I guess you could say I'd always lived life a bit by the seat of my pants.

1992: I bought this enormously expensive glossy big book, read it from cover to cover in the deepest fascination, and then promptly took it over to my mother for her to enjoy (we had mended our relationship some years prior and were, and remained till her demise in 2006, the best of friends).  Mother did indeed love the book; apart from her own wild sense of adventure (having left Switzerland and all her family behind at some tender age to jump on a boat bound for Somewhere Else, Australia as it turned out;) she also had a previously unknown - to me anyway - adoration of All Things Camel.  This was a book about a lunatic female adventurer who crossed a desert solo with four of these spitting farting beasts.  And one black dog, called Diggity.  Enough said, because Mother's other love is All Things Canine.

That book remained forever at her house in her little bookcase in the entry hall, jutting out enticingly to me whenever I visited, and every now and then I'd flick out the book and relive Ms Davidson's adventures.  At some point, a stone camel took pride of place sitting just above where that book lived its dusty days.  And when Mum passed on to a better place on her birthday in 2006 at age 76 (seemingly deciding she'd had enough of being trapped in a body that didn't function anymore) that book came back to me, along with it's friend, the stone camel.  In fact the critter is sitting in all its sunbleached glory by my pool here in Noosa, as I sit here, dreamily lost in full creation mode.  My clumsy Boofter dog has broken its head off a couple of times and it's always been carefully recapitated (is that a word?) with Liquid Nails.  And the book, well that's beside me right now....

So getting to the point (and I do have one!) last night I FINALLY got to see the movie version of Tracks; it only took almost 40 years to be brought to the big screen, lasted a few nano seconds at the cinemas (yep I blinked and missed it!) and suddenly here it was in my lounge room on a Sunday night, for my viewing pleasure.  And I enjoyed it so much, I've felt like I'm going out of my brain with restlessness ever since!

When I first was exposed to this story, I was 28 and engaged.  And now here I sit, and I'm 50 and, yep, engaged.  I'm still getting to know this man I've met so recently and so spontaneously decided to marry; this decision wasn't one that was years in the making, this time it's been a matter of weeks.  Does it make it a bad decision?  No, there are no bad decisions.  Is it an interesting journey, living with and getting to know your fiance, rather than thinking you know him properly first and then deciding to marry?  Oh you betcha.  It's so much more fun!

Said fiance slept his way through the movie last night, which was just as it should be, because I needed to absorb it in my own time and space, albeit with a strong but comfy arm wrapped around me while I soaked it all in.  It was heaven, even the anxious moments where the camels took off, and the awful moment where Diggity's day was done.  It was a story so real, and so old and familiar to me, that I was right there in that desert with that lone lunatic; I'm following every track she made in those sweeping desert sands, in fact I could feel the prickly saltbush and had an even drier mouth, because I did not get up off that couch once to get a drink.  And it's a damn long movie.  And when she reached the ocean at the end of it, and swam with her camels and without her dog, I had the salty tears to make the whole experience complete.

A restless night's sleep followed, and this morning I couldn't wait to go out to my office and put my hands on The Book.  I knew exactly where it was too.  It was waiting for me.  I brought it inside the house, made a coffee, and started venturing back into that desert, slowly turning the glossy pages, soaking up her words that were of another age, that were of a time when women still felt cheated or trapped in some ways, but where this most adventurous soul decided she was actually going to do something about it.

A piece of paper, brown with age, dog eared its way out of the book, and I pulled on it with idle curiosity.  Is it book-marking something?  I'll never know, because it's not mine.  But there's some of my deceased mother's handwriting on it.  Looking closer at it, and with keen interest now, I see it's not actually writing, but numbers, written in her very distinctive hand.  Six numbers.  Two supplementary numbers.  It's Tattslotto numbers, that's what it is.  From my mother to me.  I was always going to find this one day, whenever I was meant to.  Did it take the film makers to make the movie, for me to watch that movie, so I'd go and revisit that old adventure again, this book I hadn't opened in at least a decade and maybe more; a book I might not have reopened for another decade, or maybe never?  I think we will leave that question to float out there on the ether, because I sure as hell can't answer it.

I showed my man the piece of paper, and of course his reaction was we have to put a Tattslotto ticket on.  It was my first reaction also.  On reflection, I'm not so sure.  I think that piece of paper had a much more profound impact in just being there.  It reminded me of my Mum, and how she loved adventures, and how much we both loved this story.  She and I certainly shared a few together; she was then in her 60s and me in my late 20s, and some of them in the wild Western Australian gorges that this book is also about.  It also reminded me that life is short, time's a-tickin', Mum has left the building some eight years now, and those aforementioned Winds of Change are picking up momentum...

I had a call from The Man about half an hour after he'd left to go to work this morning.  "You might think I'm crazy, but...." (words I've been waiting to hear from this soulmate of mine, because I just knew he had it in him, because that's why he's my soulmate!) ... and my reply?  "Let's do it."  A bit like our engagement cake a few weeks ago (after a courtship of only some weeks' duration) that had the Nike tick on it and a "just do it".

So... What are we doing? .................*
When are we doing it? ............. soonest!
Why? .................. why ever not......?
* insert dreams and/or imagination!



" The most difficult thing has always been the decision to act; the rest is mere tenacity.  And the fears are just paper tigers.  One really can do anything one has decided to do, whether it's changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever.  One really can act to change and control one's life; and the procedure and the process is its own reward.  Just do it"
 - Robyn Davidson (thank you) & CazHow Xxxx

The Power of Now!

As long as six months ago, actually around the time my life's energy and focus really began to shift, a book kept being pushed gently into my consciousness by a number of different people I ran across in my day to day business.  "Have you read The Power of Now?"  "You must read The Power Of Now."  "This book changed my life.. have you read it?  It's called..."  Yeah, yeah, that Power of Now book, that I'd never heard of in nearly half a century on the planet, but which now the Universe has clearly decided it's my turn to absorb.

I decided I didn't want to buy it to add to my self help book collection.  I already own one or two, oh, thousand that is.  So it was easy enough to punch it up on our local library website.  Two copies, both out, both with reserves on them.  That's OK, no rush.  I hit the reserve button, thereby consigning the reading of said book to whatever date in the future it became available to me, and promptly forgot about it, reassured I'd done my bit.

But still, that damn book kept popping into conversations all around me!  Until just as I'd reached total frustration point, and was about to get on to Ebay and buy a copy to end the angst of "not knowing" (after my best friend happened to mention that she'd bought her ex-partner a copy of... guess what... yep!) when suddenly, an email arrived to tell me that My Book Was Ready for Collection.  Phew!  So I shot off down to the library and fetched the musty smelling, dog eared critter.  I could feel a sense of excitement even looking at the nondescript cover. The book fairly pulsated with promise.  What on earth could be in there that was so amazing?  And of course I couldn't wait to get started, but I knew just from the vibrations I was feeling that this was not going to be a quick flick, a speed read.  This was going to take some TIME.  I was going to have to absorb this one, word by word, paragraph by paragraph.  I was going to marinate my psyche in this creation and come out the other side a changed entity.  I just knew it.

I've now come to experience Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now.  I've joined the ranks of the enlightened.  We're like a little secret society, except not so secret because it turns out an awful lot of the planet has read this little gem.  Did it resonate with them all?  I sincerely doubt it.  Did it smack people between the eyes who were free and ready for its contents and deceptively simple message?  No doubt at all.

I could not have read this book even a year ago.  I could not have read it, and as for absorbing any of it, or even wanting to for that matter... I would have tried the first few pages, started skimming, then piffed it.  Actually I wouldn't even have got that far.  I would have picked it up at the library, read the first paragraph or so, and decided I didn't need to go any further; it wasn't for Me.  Then.

So.. the Power of Now...  The world makes sense.  The piece of the puzzle I've been missing all my life.  Key to Past, Present and Future.  Scrap that.  Key to Now, which is all that ever matters.  Because the past back then was Now, and the future doesn't exist until it becomes Now.  If you can live by this mantra, nothing from your past can ever affect you (because it's not now, where you now live your truth!) and nothing from the future can ever worry you (because it doesn't exist until it becomes Now).  So when you choose to dwell solely in the Now, there is nothing to focus on except Being.  Being is peaceful, unworried, untroubled.  It is the projecting backwards and forwards from here that causes us so much mind chatter, so much worry, and ultimately so much pain.

When do we cease being  "in the moment"?

 It's when we are elsewhere.  We are thinking about past wrongs, past things we might have done, or others have done.  Or we are looking into the future, worrying about what people will do, what we will do, how much money we're going to have (or not have!) and how we're going to cope or change or what we're going to do or see or buy, or what's going to happen to us.  As if we know anyway.

When we are operating on a thinking level, we are no longer merely Being.  We are often doing what's in the previous paragraph.  And suddenly there is no peace, because we are having anxiety and angst.  The thinking brain then obliges us yet further, and instigates emotions which attach to those thoughts, which create a whole raft of uncertainty and often a lot of pain.  We are reliving the past, we are imagining the future, and worrying about it.. and we are anywhere but in our Now.

Would you like to explore the Now?  It's my favorite place to hang out these days.  You do?  OK, deep breath... listen up..

I want you to go out of your mind (not literally of course!).  But I want you to strip away your thinking, to what lies beneath... So let's just Be. 

Don't worry about imagining lying on a beach or that sort of mumbo jumbo.  I can tell you from personal experience when I've tried that, I'd be lying there tensely, eyes tight shut, fists unknowingly clenched (so hard I'd be concentrating) dredging up images of palm trees and blue sky.. and damn if I wasn't THINKING about those things in trying to make the unthinkingness happen... totally defeats the purpose here....

So what is there, in your Now, when there's no thought going on?

Nothing.  A void, a silence, peace.  There is no endless "mind chatter," because here you've gone beneath the level of thinking, to your very core layer.  This is called being "in the now" or "in the present."

There is no pain in the Now.  There are no negative feelings in the Now.  All that bad stuff flows from the unconscious prattle of what we like to think of as "productive thinking" or on the flip side, the worrying that goes on in our heads, all day and every day.  And I guess many people never realise how counterproductive to your peace and happiness this sort of torture is, or that it isn't necessary or even helpful!  From that ceaseless thinking, flows emotion.. and emotion is what causes us to feel a certain way, both positive and negative, but unfortunately quite often negative.  It is emotion that has been spawned from one's thoughts, either positive or negative.. but never from the core self.  It therefore follows that your thoughts create your feelings.  Once you lose that mind chatter, life is suddenly tranquil and easy.

An example?  I used to think about an ex-partner. A lot!  I would relive the relationship, wonder why it couldn't have worked, what I didn't do, what I should've done, and think how much I missed him and all the reasons I thought I did.  From those thoughts (all regarding the past of course) would spring emotions: sadness, loss, emptiness, disappointment, longing for what was.  Suddenly I'd feel like I could easily burst into tears from the pain!  And worse still, I'd want to ACT on that pain!  Make it go away by either (a) trying to contact him, (b) distract myself, often by doing something unhelpful, or (c) obliterate the pain with some sort of substance, to give me at least some temporary relief.  Yet nothing had changed from five minutes ago; it was only my thoughts creating all this emotion, and out of the PAST for heaven's sake.  This wasn't my Now.

Similarly (and because I'm such a versatile sorta gal and am so unilaterally talented of course) I could project into the future on the same topic: Will he ever come back?  Will he ever contact me again?  Does he even miss me?  Who is he with?  What is he doing?  Is he suffering the way I am?  Err.. I doubt it!!
Oh, and yes, here comes the emotion and associated pain that loves to ride shotgun with those thoughts of the Future That Will Never Be... yep, my old mates Loss, Disappointment, Angst, Bereft & Co., come to torture me once again.  Damn, if only I'd not gone there and just stayed in the Now!

The Now is the ONLY place, once you find it and embrace it, that you ever want to be or will ever need to be.  It's that incredibly, beautifully simple!

I lived nearly my whole life incessantly thinking, evaluating, judging, planning..  Doh!  I'm a "thinking woman."  This is to be admired, I always thought.  And so did others!  Whilst never admired for my great beauty (damn it Janet!) I've always received compliments on my cerebral abilities.  And I took them.  Hell, a compliment is a compliment, and especially when you're no spring chicken anymore, compliments can be thin on the ground.

Thinking is really another word for trying to maintain control, or get control of something or somebody.  It's your ego, and oh it does love to be in charge! 

Think that one over....!

So... picture this.  As we move through life, and perceive that we can't seem to get control of our lives (listening to our mind chatter here again), and thereby causing the emotion of "I'm a big fat failure at this game called Life" many of us then move one step further on from thinking (because we can no longer bear our thoughts which make us feel this bad) and into something truly destructive, in order to squash/smother/kill those thoughts, and of course the emotion that attaches to them.  We don't want to feel that pain anymore, that agony of not being able to sort ourselves out, take control or whatever.  So we anaesthesise our thinking brain with a substance like alcohol, drugs, food, cigarettes, or even actions such as compulsive shopping, spending, travel, tattooing, piercing, cutting - anything to blanket the pain.

(I might add, I love to travel and shop, and also am known to imbibe the odd lager.  Can I make the distinction here that when you're doing these things out of a sheer joy of being, rather than trying to blot out and squash your misery or loneliness or boredom or whatever, there is a massive difference - the latter being that if you're doing these things negatively, they've become a compulsion, and often one you can't afford because they are indulged in so incessantly... which again adds to the doom and gloom because now your financial status is yet another problem you can't seem to get any sort of grip on!)

Before anyone thinks I better dismount from my lofty horse, I'll also assure you that I have drank myself into a coma, and quite regularly, for many, many years... and it affected me in every way possible, including financial, and never ever in a positive way.  The reason I did that?  I used to overthink about, oh, everything... and could never solve anything on that level, and in the end it was instant gratification to blot it out, if only for a little while.  It was only my deep seated fear of becoming alcoholic, having grown up with a raging example of why that wasn't a road I wanted to tread, thank you very much, that prevented me from thinking my way into a serious addiction.

So, where to Now?  I'm in my Now, writing this post.  For me, and for you.  The reason?  I'm wanting to share the simple joy of being.  That's first and foremost.  I'm hoping to fold this powerful message up inside my own prose, for my own future safekeeping, but also that it might resonate in a most simple, beautiful and profound way for You, my reader, whoever you may be; perhaps giving you the gift of a shortcut into the joy of the Now.... where there is no time, no past and no future.  Man, I love this road!

“Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.”
― Eckhart Tolle

Plastic Surgery: A Quick Fix ?

I was reading an interesting thread on Facebook this afternoon, following on from a post by a sunshine coast woman asking for a good plastic surgeon so she could get herself fitted with a nice new rack...

This didn't greatly surprise me; but what did truly shock me was the frenzy of replies, mostly from very knowledgeable devotees of all things surgical, in the name of perfection.  There followed details of a flurry of surgeons, operators, back-yarders, even some from other parts of this country, as well as, of course, good old Thailand (Destination Beauty apparently).

The general consensus is a new set of tits will set you back about 10K, the works (tits, tummy tuck and lipo) is 15K, but if you're not that financially abundant, there are lots of other things you can do to yourself, such as the botox, the fillers, collagen implants, chemical peels and heaven knows what else.  Also if you go for any of these minor league players, you have to be careful never to smoke or to drink through a straw, because the lines come right back!  See, I learnt something!

There was also debate about arm tucks to get rid of batwings, collagen injections, lots of errant noses, frown lines (hmm I'm frowning now, oops) and lips that simply aren't fat enough, but for what, I don't know, maybe to hide those imperfect teeth.  Hmm, are there any cosmetic dentists reading this?

I threw a couple of well timed posts in there regarding caution (mainly as a cure for death and disfigurement) and acceptance of one's looks as a first port of call... and well, let's just say I was the proverbial salmon swimming upstream against a veritable downpour of carp (with big lips of course!).  I was howled down, derided, castigated, and asked to exit stage left.  Which of course, I did.

Interestingly, my posts attracted a frenzy of Likes as well... hmm maybe they just liked the drama.

Ah, all in a day's work!

I have concerns about a world where plastic surgery is flicked around as commonly as eating a bar of chocolate, and with as little danger.  Of course it has its place in certain medical situations.  But is it just another excuse for a new "addiction" - like we don't have enough already - because after all, women rarely seem to stop at one procedure, and are actively encouraged to get the "deluxe package," all in the name of finding that confidence and self esteem which seems to elude them from the inside, which really is the only place one is ever going to find any, if they but knew.  Sometimes you can't see the sky for the trees.  As for knowing when enough is enough.....just ask Jocelyn and Pammy....

You've sort of got to wonder: these two women can afford the best surgeons money can buy too...
 enough said.  This is getting boring now.  I'm off to chisel my nose and wallpaper my breasts, and then I'm going outside to start on the dog's kneecaps (payback!) :-)

Cheers xxx