SATURDAY MORNING YOGIS

Like smooth round pebbles in the depths of a hollow at the bottom of a cool, clear stream, the Saturday morning yogis gather. They gather and lie still and let the world wash over them. It swirls around them, the ebb and flow of life, always on the move. But the Saturday morning yogis lie still, breathe and learn to be.

Like smooth round pebbles rolling along the bottom of a cool, clear stream, the Saturday morning yogis move together. They bend and stretch and hold. They breathe in and out, their focus inward, unaware of the pebble beside them. Still part of the stream flowing around them, but on their own journey. Filling, for that moment, the space that is theirs to fill. Eyes closed. Breathe in through the nose. Breathe out through the nose. Tadasana, mountain pose. Breathe in through the nose. Breathe out through the nose. Adho Mukha Svanasana, downward facing dog. Breathe in through the nose. Breathe out through the nose. Virabhadrasana I, warrior one.

Source; Canungra Yoga Studio
https://www.facebook.com/CanungraYoga

Like smooth round pebbles that have washed to edge of the stream, the Saturday yogis stop, pause for a moment and balance. Like water flowing by, the distractions of the world continue. Find a Drishti, focus; breathe in, Vriksasana, tree pose, breathe out. Breathe in, Virabhadrasana III, warrior three, breathe out. Breathe in, Ardha Chandrasana, half-moon pose, breathe out. Breathe in, Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, hand-to-big-toe pose , breathe out. Balance, be still, focus.

Like smooth round pebbles lying motionless on the bank of the stream the Saturday morning yogis rest, recover, restore. The stream, the world outside, flows past, always moving. The noise of life, distant. The distractions of the day, gone. The chatter in their heads, cleared. Deep breathe in, deep breathe out, Viparita Karan, fountain of youth. Deep breathe in, deep breath out, Baddha Konasana, bound angle. Deep breathe in, deep breath out, Sukhasana, seated pose. Deep breathe in, deep breathe out, Savasana, corpse pose.

The morning is now perfectly still, although the cars still pass, people outside still chatter, dogs in the distance still bark, birds in the trees still whistle. The morning is perfectly still. The Saturday morning yogis are perfectly still.

Being. Breathing.

om..... om..... om..... om..... om.....

namaste

LONG DISTANCE

In the mid 1980’s my sister, then 18, got herself a British Passport, jumped on a plane and took off to live and work in England for two years. In the 1980’s England was a long, long way away. Still is, in a geographical sense. Our only communication with her was the old fashioned way, letter writing, with an occasional phone call thrown in for good measure. 

my sister and my daughter
just before my sister took off overseas for the 3rd or 4th time
don't remember which

During those two years I wrote to her often; long, long, long letters. Some of them up to around 20 pages. All of them on A4 note book pages. None of them proofed or spell checked. It was the only way we could stay in touch.

By the time my sister had completed her third or fourth stint of working abroad, I have lost count, the letter writing had completely disappeared. It had been replaced by emails and, for the last trip, texting. We had also stopped calling her. There was no need. An email was an almost instantaneous connection to her. I would press send and a couple of days later there would be a reply. No muss. No fuss. Suddenly the other side of the world didn't feel so far away.

oOo

In February my husband and I drove our daughter to the airport. My parents and my sister and her friends met us there before her flight was due to leave. There were chocolates and smiles and photos and conversations and laughter and jokes and coffee and the checking of watches and plans discussed. And there was tension.  Unspoken tension. Our daughter was about to get on a plane to LA. Not for a holiday, but to live. To live, get married, work, make a home, start a new life, all thousands of kilometres away, on the other side of the world. So there were also tears.

my daughter and my mum saying goodbye

I will admit to being apprehensive. I will also admit to not really knowing how I would deal with this new reality in my life. Our daughter, our only daughter, our only child, living in another country on the other side of the world. I didn't know how to deal with this and if I am honest, I was really scared. Scared that we would lose touch, that I would never have the closeness we share again, that she would become a stranger to me. Scared of the complete unknown of having a child move to another country.

Three weeks later.

The internet is a wonderful thing, even with all its issues, problems and flaws. It is a truly magical thing. And it is not like I haven’t discovered this before. I have been in the thick of the internet since its inception. Back when modems sang to you when you logged on. When you couldn't use the phone because the modem and the phone line was the same line. When downloading a page sometime took so long you could get up, get a coffee, come back and it would be still downloading. When you only had a megabyte of download because that was all you needed. When you didn't know how much download you had because that was all you needed. I still marvel at the internet, not just what it can do but how small it makes the world. And because of it how close we are all now.

My daughter has settled into her new life in LA. Not quite an American yet, but she is working on that. All those fears and worries that I had about the distance have vanished into thin air. Into the web to be exact. We Skype, Facebook, email and message so regularly that it is like she still lives just 50 minutes away, not a 13 hour flight away. The time difference can be a little tricky. Morning for us, is afternoon for her. Afternoon the day before to be exact. A clock set for LA time sorts that out. If anything we are more in touch now because we make an effort. The distance has spurred us to not be complacent about our relationship. In fact I have begun to worry that we are being a little too eager to stay connected.

Technology can be a pain at times. But right now it is a blessing for me. Without it I would be writing 40 A4 pages every eight weeks, waiting at the letter box with the response and getting a second mortgage of the house for the six monthly phone calls to the U.S. 

I have a lot of things to be grateful in my life. My family, my good health, my lifestyle, but right now the thing I am most grateful for is the technology we have that allows me to stay connected with my daughter all the way on the other side of the world.

To the Geeks in Silicon Valley, I salute you. 

R & 9

Today's post is brought to you by the letter R and the number 9.

R for resignation. From my job. 

9 for the number of years I have been in my job. 9 and a half to be correct. 

And this is what the blog has been all about. This is what the Year of the Chicken actually represents. Unfortunately I couldn't say anything until now but two weeks ago R-day arrived and now I can let you all in on the secret. 

Chicken on the head! 

Does it all make sense now? A bit cryptic I know and I am sorry if I have totally confused anyone but it would be professional suicide to announce on a blog that you intend to resign from your job months in advance. 

And now we go retrospect. What you are about to read below was written last year. Right before the "Year of the Chicken" started.When I made my decision. 

So without further ado. I present to you the first real post for the "Chicken on the Head" blog. 

The Year of the Chicken  

Have you ever sat next to someone at work who always seemed to be daydreaming of something bigger, something better. Who is always talking about "chucking it all in to go..." sailing... travelling... surfing... lama farming in the Andes. The general bumming around mentality of someone who's head is clearly not at work. Crazy, yeah? Or, maybe you are that person and the tedium of a work-a-day life is just too much to bear. Well, I'm with you brother. And I am about to start my Year of the Chicken.

Year of the Chicken? What exactly is that? Sit back, relax and let me enlighten you.

A few years back I read this book about being addicted to the "cheese" of job security. The situation where no matter how bad a job gets some of us will stick at it, because the job feds our need for security, because it has "perks". The security and "perks", in my case, is a good superannuation package, a 9 day fortnight, plenty of leave each year and a healthy secure wage coming in every fortnight. This "cheese" is suppose to be enough for me/us to over look the other not so great aspects of the job. Like mice is a lab maze, we are kept being fed the "cheese" so that we don't notice the monotony of the place, that there is often no way out or up and worst of all, no goal at the end other than the small bits of "cheese" we have received along the way. Which is great if you want to be a lab mouse but not so good if you want to, say, go lama farming in the Andes.

The author of this insightful book, unfortunately I don't remember the title but it isn't "Who stole my cheese", wrote about the office that he worked in and a work colleague who dreamed of being a small farm holder. The work colleague was an accountant and the general consensus around the office was that he was completely "off his tree". One day the accountant/wannabe small farm holder stopped at a stock auction on his way to work and bought himself a chicken. When he arrived at the office, with a chicken under his arm, there were a few raised eyebrows and weary looks but the author realised that this was the beginning of the end for the accountant. The wannabe small farm holder had taken his first step towards his dream.

At this point when recounting the story I usually get asked "what did he do with the chicken all day while he was at work?" Like that is the most important thing. Apparently he put it in his locker, according to the book. Not sure how PC that is but that's the story in the book.

Chickens inside lockers aside. I'm telling you all this because I when I read this I grabbed that idea and ran with it. I have joked at work for years "if anyone sees a chicken running around here, it's mine". And about four weeks ago that chicken came flapping and squawking into my office in a way that just couldn't be ignored. My chicken had arrived and I knew it was time. Time to start my "Year of the Chicken"

What does a "Year of the Chicken" look like. Hummm. Not exactly sure. There is some planning to do. A business plan to write, business cards to order, web-sites to build, and mostly importantly clients to be found and secured. Officially I wont be starting until around May/June 2015 so there is a bit of work to be done. 

The first step for me was to make the decision. That's a big step. There is a lot of "cheese" at stake here, and all different types of "cheese". "Cheese" that is soft and gooey. "Cheese" that is hard and bitey. "Cheese" that is so bland that you are not even sure that it is "cheese". "Cheese" that really, really stinks. There is even stuff that is pretending to be "cheese" but really isn't "cheese", this type of "cheese" can be a real trap for young players. But, unfortunately there is not nearly enough of the type of "cheese" I need at my work to keep me there. 

I'm a Landscape Architect. My passion is to create spaces and places were people can interact and relax and feel good about themselves. I design movement, activity, community. When I first came to the place where I work I felt privileged because it allowed me to follow my passion in are region which is mostly populated with economically disadvantage and marginalised people. People who would never have the economic opportunity to "hire" a Landscape Architect. This rated high on my moral and ethical compass. 

But... in the last 18 months or so my job has been slowly evolving, or more correctly regressing. And like weeds slowly invading a garden bed my work as a Landscape Architect has been eroded away until I now find that my work is no more than performing bureaucratic tasks normally associate with low level administrative management in a government authority. I no longer do the traditional work of a Landscape Architect, designing, drawing, creating, instead I complete the forms, write the memos and reports, attend the meetings that while still associated with the role of a Landscape Architect mostly more associated with day to day administration than strategy or planning. Barely holding onto the "cheese" I valued most, I had my yearly performance review. I realised that I hadn't not done any real design work for almost 12 months, and the year ahead wasn't looking to promising either. My chicken had arrived.

Okay, the chicken has arrived. What next? The big decision. A few issues to tackle here, the usual issues connected to the financial "cheese". But after doing the sums and working out time-frames,  I arrived at the date. March 13 2015. My Dad's 80th birthday. The weekend my niece gets married. An auspicious date. This will be the day that I pack up what's left of "cheese", grab my chicken and leave the maze. 

That's the easy part, sticking to it, that's the hard part. Time to confess past sins. In the past, I have given myself dates like this and always chickened out (no pun intended). This time, however, I have to ensure that I have everything in place, stitched up so to speak, to make sure I don't back out on the deal. 

This time so that I don't back out I will log the date that I am due to resign by in my calendar, along with the date that will be my last day. This time I will write my letter of resignation well in advance. Before Christmas. I will make it my Christmas present to myself. And most importantly, I will plan out and diarise what I will be doing once I have set myself free. This is critical for two reasons. Number one to keep myself accountable and make sure I do it. Number two, and this is more important than number one, to make sure that I plan what I have to do after I finish. Time is a moving beast, and it moves pretty damn fast. Before I know it my "Year of the Chicken" will be over and all that I will have shown for it will be that I have had a nice year long holiday. Great for lazy days in the garden, not so good for the bank balance. So organisation and planning is the key to staying on track and having a successful year. 

So it begins. The Year of the Chicken.

Fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

oOo

The above was written as the end of October last year. 

Fast forward to today. The first step of the plan has been actioned. I resigned from my "cheese" laden job two weeks ago. I don't think I slept so soundly in months. It felt really good. 

I did everything I planned. I wrote the resignation letter before Christmas and put the date on it. Actually I moved the date closer because once I have made up my mind it had became much easier to do. 

Leaving day has also been brought forward to the 12th March. Just because I want a long weekend. No other reason. 

Once I live my job I plan on giving myself a bit of time. A couple of weeks. But then it will be action stations. Like I said time is a moving beast and it will not wait for me to get my act together. 

I thought I would be nervous but instead I am really excited. I can't wait to get started. I don't know what this year will hold but what I do know that no amount of cheese is worth staying in a job that is not right for you. 

BILLY & NEMO

Since the Year of the Chicken I feel like a lid has been lifted of my head and all sorts of stuff has been pouring out. Stuff that has been trapped for years. I have started writing and I can't seem to stop. Prose, stories, my reflections, descriptive observations. I even find myself writing in my head while in my car on my way to work. It doesn't stop.

Recently my daughter asked my if I ever told her stories as a child, my answer was no. When I thought about it, my answer was no because I didn't think anything I said was worth saying. Or for that matter listening to, or reading.

Over the years I have written all sorts of stuff. A lot of it is crap. Actually most of it is crap. But I have dabbled in a lot of different genres but something I have always enjoyed doing is writing for children.

I recently found, among the mountain of stuff (sorry shit) that I moved from our last house to this one, an exercise book that, in my twenties, I kept beside my bed. I would fill it's pages at 3 in the morning when the rest of the house was asleep. I warned you that I'm a long term insomniac.

William and his older brother Luke.
William has just celebrated his forth birthday.

Within the pages of this yellowed exercise book is a list of ideas for children's stories. Some I had even started. Since the discovery of this long lost snapshot of my twenty something's imagination I thought "why not breath some life back into the words on the pages of the exercise book". I have rewritten one of the children's stories but decided, for now, to keep it for another time. What I will share though is a birthday present I have written for my nephew William.

Below is a story written for Will for his Mum to read to him. If by chance you have your own small person to read the story to, by all means please feel free to do so.

BILLY & NEMO

I have a nephew, his name is Billy.
Billy loves his mum, loves his dad, loves his brothers and loves to fish.
Most of all, Billy loves his big white dog, Nemo, and Nemo loves Billy.
But what Nemo loves most is to play with Billy, and the game that Nemo likes to play is “hide and seek”.

o-O-o

At night Billy’s mum sits on his bed and reads Billy his favourite stories. Just before Billy goes to sleep he asks his mum. “Mum, where’s Nemo?”
“Why Billy, he’s under the bed”.
Billy lies on his belly and lifts up the sheets and looks under the bed. Sure enough, there is Nemo, with his head on his paws and waiting to be found.
“Found you Nemo”. Nemo gives Billy a big wet lick. Billy licks Nemo back.

 o-O-o

In the morning Billy eats his breakfast, listening to it snap, crackle and pop in the bowl. Just before the last spoonful disappears into Billy's mouth, he asks his mum. “Mum, where’s Nemo?”
“Why Billy, he’s on the couch, watching cartoons”.
Billy runs to the couch and looks over the back. Sure enough, there is Nemo, lying on his back with his tongue hanging out, waiting to be found.
“Found you Nemo”. Nemo wiggles over and makes room. Billy crawls in beside Nemo, lies on his back and hangs his tongue too.

 o-O-o

In the laundry Billy helps his mum sort the clothes for the washing machine. Just before Billy is about to be covered by a giant pile of washing he asks his mum. “Mum, where’s Nemo?”
“Why Billy, he’s in the garage, looking for spiders”.
Billy runs to the garage and throws open the door. Sure enough, there is Nemo, sniffing in the corners of the garage and waiting to be found.
“Found you Nemo”. Nemo bounds out of the garage and runs round in circles. Billy also runs round in circles but Billy gets dizzy and falls over.

 o-O-o

At lunch time Billy sits at the table and eats his lunch. Just before all his sandwiches and milk is gone Billy asks his mum. “Mum, where’s Nemo?”
“Why Billy, he’s in the garden, playing with the chooks”.
Billy runs to the window and looks out. Sure enough, there is Nemo, following the chooks around, nipping as their tail feathers and waiting to be found.
“Found you Nemo”. Nemo accidently catches the tail of one of the chickens in teeth and pulls out some feathers. Billy whispers loudly out the window. “Nemo, don’t do that or Mum will be mad.”

 o-O-o

At the end of the day Billy and his mum are in the garden picking peas, pulling carrots and collecting eggs for dinner. Just before they go back upstairs Billy asks his mum. “Mum, where’s Nemo?”
“Why Billy, he’s under the mango tree. Shhh, he’s asleep”.
Billy looks under the mango tree. Sure enough, there is Nemo, fast asleep in a pile of leaves, under the mango tree.
“Found you Nemo” Billy whispers. And Billy and his mum tiptoe back to the house to make their dinner, leaving Nemo to sleep.

o-O-o