Weary

So tired. So sleep-deprived. So jaded.

I feel as if I'm moving in ever expanding circles, taking a long time to get anywhere and not really enjoying the scenery en route. I feel the need for a holiday - though one which energises the spirit (rather than the flesh). The days seem so ordinary and interminably long, especially when I am in the office. Everything is flavourless; bland; blended together.

There has been a small spike of exciting news at home but I can't feel excited about it.

I think they call this ennui.

Refractions

A weekend away with happy, like-minded people has been a much-needed tonic. Two days at Moore River at a photography retreat, with fellow photographers, lovers of laughter and wine, and a model who was more than willing to be the centre of attention, has vanquished the cobwebs from my mind.

A pity, then, that I seem to have to return to the rigmarole of the workday, but such is life.

I am in need of of a holiday. Time away from work, from the lens(es), from photography, from commitments. Time for nothing but the moment as it unfurls. Fresh time. New time. This little break (though not a break as I was also running a few workshops that weekend at the retreat) has shown me this.

If I had world enough and time...

I wish.

Recovery

I came away from the weekend with the realisation that:

1. I have lost my faith in people. Not all people. Not specific persons. But in people, generally speaking.

2. Art is in the head. The trick is to bring it out of this headspace and into this livespace within which we inhabit.

The mirror darkly

I struggle with memories of the 90s. I can recall vivid moments from the 80s - the arrival in Australia, growing up migrant in mid to late 80s Perth, hot summers, new homes, the struggle for acceptance, the struggle in accepting. But the 90s seem elusive, perhaps because so much of my time had been devoted to study then, and then carving out a career as a teacher; I have no sense of a time or place that, for me, is characteristically, the 90s. It feels as if I have forgotten nearly a decade of my life.

Myopia and memory loss

I've left my glasses at home - inadvertently - and am surviving on scratchy contact lenses today. Coupled with itchy hayfeverish eyes, they're not particularly pleasant.

I'd forgotten, yesterday, that it was Uncle C's funeral. Funny how the workday can consume so much of your thoughts that even the passing of a close relation can play second fiddle to the next urgent item in the project list. I vowed, years ago, that I would never let work interfere with my being true to myself, but I have somewhat failed. When last I saw him back in 2004, he seemed bloated, sickly, as if the excesses of life had risen up from within him and was stretching his skin taut in their struggle for release. He was only 60 then. I remember him as a man in his late 30s (disconcertingly, I am close to that age now), a stout, kind-hearted man, quiet and quite generous. Years and distance have made him mean less to me than I would have liked. And now that he is gone, I felt sad for a while, though I fear that the sadness was a selfish grief: more to do with the realisation that the generation before me is gradually dwindling and that it means that I am growing old.

Think! Believe! Grow!

For the last few weeks, life has been a strange planet and I have been its accidental tourist. My headspace was a grey day of bare twigs scraping the tired sky, torn fingernails rasping against an empty blackboard, and not even socialising and the odd glass of wine or two could repair the hurt that was ballooning without reason within me.

It's times like this that I realise that my life is in transition and I'm due for a change.

This journal continues my old prosaic one, perhaps five months after its last entry.