I’ve enjoyed the school holidays so far. My favourite part was time spent with loved ones. The first weekend I went for a night in Melb with my grandson (who I am besotted with) and his parents. We visited the State Library, Immigration Museum and this amazing park along the Yarra near Fed Square. I was excited about the Sheoaks because I’d been reading about them and it felt great to be near them(pic below). I took my mama on an adventure to the Courthouse Gallery in Yarram to see some art by one of my favourite local artists Mandi Thorpe. I visited the op shops and got some good treasure and then fish and chips at Port Albert to keep dad’s tradition of taking mum for lunch there. Another play with my grandson after a dentist appointment and I loved watching him chase butterflies in the oak tree park. He went to climb a tree and a magpie made her presence felt. We looked up to see a fluffy maggie baby and returned home, not wanting to distress mama magpie. The last day of the month Frankie and I went to the local gallery and I enjoyed hearing his thoughts.
ABC News:Reading fiction has unique benefits for language and empathy
“We all have these biases — I have things that I have to unpack that make me really, really uncomfortable — it’s just because of society and how you’re raised, your standpoint, and all those things that make you, you.
“Fiction is such a powerful way of privately confronting you with those things.”
Melanie Saward
“We know that language abilities are a great predictor of things like educational achievement and then later on, career achievement and success.
“So, given that we all recognise how important our verbal abilities are, I think it’s really interesting that fiction is the one that seems to have the stronger influence.”
Raymond Mar
As someone grateful to be aged and comfortable identifying as old, I enjoyed reading The Conversation : In a culture obsessed with staying young, we ignore the many benefits of aging.
Word – empiricist –
Meaning of empiricist in English
noun[ C ]
uk /ɪmˈpɪr.ɪ.sɪst/us /emˈpɪr.ə.sɪst/
a person who believes in using methods based on what is experienced or seen rather than on theory
An insightful meditation on the planets: https://planetarybeing.substack.com/p/the-sun-comes-fourth
I had an awful experience in the last week of term. I had some kind of gastro thingy that ended up with me going to hospital in an ambulance. It was gross, and there’s no need to share details because- yuck. The great news is I realised my superpower is sleep. I slept through most of the waiting and journey. That is such a blessing. It was a whole day of discomfort: being tested and prodded in between long waits, but I spent most of it asleep. When I was woken for some procedure or other, I could hear people around me suffering and feel the general chaos and misery of where I was, so I returned to sleep. When I got home late that night, I cocooned myself in bed and felt grateful for the daily luxury of a clean bed with soft sheets, lots of comfy pillows and a snug doona that always keeps me warm. I slept another 8 hours. The last time I was at the hospital was with Dad. It’s almost a year since he died. We were in and out of the place for 2 years. He was so miserable in there. He had difficulty sleeping. Some of my friends and family members don’t find that sleep comes easily. I feel very thankful to sleep with ease; I don’t take it for granted.
I cancelled my massage with Naomi from Thrive. I really didn’t want to give her gastro, even though I don’t think it was that. This was a hard call because that monthly treatment from Naomi is one of my rewards for adulting. I have been having a monthly massage for most of my life. Writing that makes me realise how privileged I am. So I booked a massage with the next best massage experience I was aware of at the Relaxation and Recovery Centre. I’d had a massage with Meagan before. When I got there, it was a different Meagan, new owners, and it worked out perfectly well. The new person showed me around the centre ( I pretended I hadn’t been there), and it was so improved. I booked a float for old times’ sake.
I began using flotation tanks in February 2018. I did this weekly until the pandemic made it feel unsafe in February 2020. Those two years of weekly hours in silent, dark, magnesium-heavy water that held me at body temperature helped me reset my sleep. I clearly recall the super-stressed feeling that led me to the float tank. The racing mind, because I wasn’t getting enough sleep and couldn’t switch off, thinking about work and responsibilities, led me to the first float that I’d been meaning to take. That awful experience in the previous paragraph led me back to the float tanks. The float tanks that gave me the superpower of sleep.
I floated this week, and it was great. My skin feels soft, and my fingernails feel hard, and I am excited to do this regularly again, not sure how often, but at least once a month. I’m wondering what new superpower could come from this, since I am still sleeping well. I imagine that the enforced meditation space will be powerful for my creativity. My conclusion is that even the worst, most uncomfortable experiences deliver goodness if you look for it. I want to remember that.
It was really too hard to vote for just 10.
None of the links in this post are paid.
