On the eve of 2009

On the eve of another new year, the mercury soars (it's blindingly hot and bright outside) and I'm shackled to the computer trying very hard to work from home and not be distracted by distractions.

On the eve of another new year, I can't help but think about the year just past, not in a reflective way, but agog at how quickly time flies and the new 2008, which, incidentally still feels new and freshly unwrapped, is soon to give way to a new 2009.

On the eve of another new year, I think about India and Nepal - already the experience feels like a long lost memory and I struggle to grasp at its tactility - and how it changed me, and how I must now remain changed and not fall back into old ways, old thoughts and old behaviours.

On the eve of another new year, I wonder why this feels like just another day. Another droll day. And the fact that nothing changes when this year flicks into the next. Perhaps I'm waiting for a miracle instead of making a miracle happen.

On the eve of another new year, I wonder if I will be bold enough to make certain decisions next year, whatever they may be.

On the eve of another new year, I am determined not to be overcome by sentimentality.

So this is Christmas

... The 25th dawns bright, with a gentle breeze, cool and fresh with the scent of greenery. It promises to be a glorious day. Don McLean crooning from the old CD player. Presents opened (that's a lot of bottles of wine!), breakfast eaten, coffees and teas drunk, and just whiling away the hours until Christmas lunch at GuyMac and Kylie's.

This has been the most relaxing start to Christmas I've had in years. There's a sedate calm about, of time passing slowly, of a day without urgencies, of events unravelling as they should, at their own pace. It's like sitting in a slow moving boat being rowed down a scenic, languid river.

Beautiful.

Brett very kindly and generously gave me a book of works by Trcka, Weston and Newton. Interesting, innovative and inspiring images - even though they were taken in the early and mid portions of the last century. I gave him a bottle of Red label Bundy. Then there's the home-made Christmas Cake from Dave's Mum, wines from Shem, Jazz, Tony, Jack and Carmel, chocolate from Nick.

Very nice.

I made a promise this morning -- that today would be brimming with positivity, with acts of kindness and compassion; that I would not dwell on any negative thought today and negative action.

And I mean to keep this promise.

Happy Christmas!

The new housemate

So I have a new housemate, who is professional photographer. You'd think that's why I'm writing this but, no... this housemate is AMAZING! Why? Because he actually tidies, cleans, clears, cooks, washes etc etc. We're having a Christmas BBQ with the photography group here at the old homestead, and he has taken it upon himself to clear out the garage (so that guests can use that as an entry), clean the bar fridge and tidy up the area.

You could have knocked me over with a feather!

So who is this outstanding personage, this housemate of housemates?

Lost

Please bear with my obsession with things Lord of the Rings (the film) a little longer.

At the end of the story, Frodo Baggins and his friends return to Hobbiton, Frodo to Bag End. He writes about how he has been changed by his long journey - that his return home hasn't been a return home for him; because he has changed and home no longer feels like home.

It feels like this for me, sometimes. Yes, I am home, and am happy to be home. But some of the details are no longer familiar and, in fact, feel discordant. Most particularly the relationships I have with certain people. I feel as if the month away has changed me in such a way that I can no longer connect with them. As a point of fact, what some of them have said, the way some of them have behaved, seem outrageously indulgent, sometimes offensive. It's as if I no longer have much in common with some people whom I regarded as friends.

What does one do in this case? Do I continue this charade of maintaining friendship with individuals whose values, beliefs and actions no longer correspond with mine? Do I let the connections I have had with them gradually attenuate and eventually fade away? Is the friendship we form with people based on more than just shared values and beliefs?

I don't have the answer.

Changes in the wind

India gives you new eyes with which to see your world.

Since returning, I've been evaluating everything in Perth against my experiences in India. After India, Perth seems insipid. Even on the Qantas flight back, the overweening courtesy shown by the stewardesses, felt alien, raw and, somehow, grotesque. The sight of local suburbanites at the shops yesterday, with their trolleys, mobile phones, summer clothing draped over overweight physiques left me with a peculiar sense of disconnection and distaste. After India, I have realised that Australia is a land of excess - where so much is available that everyone has forgotten what it is like not to have, and, thus, they complain when there is insufficient surfeit.

How can someone who is grossly obese, who is getting a living allowance from the government, and who is able to access cable television complain of being impoverished?

I've also realised that so much of what controls behaviour here (in the West) is motivated by anger and resentment. By negative emotions. I've learned that while I was trying hard not to be seduced by these emotions, I had also been party to acting and reacting from anger.

Why has India been such a valuable experience?

Because it has me thinking in a completely different way about my motivations, my call to action, my reason for being, my outlook, my values. It has placed me at odds with the values prevalent around me here in Perth - but this is a good thing, a positive thing. It's given me a different way of seeing and responding, of thinking and believing, of valuing.

How can people say that a trip to India makes one more appreciate what one has in the West?

In all honesty, it's not appreciation, but shame that runs through me when I look at the embarrassment of riches here. I see things here in Perth now that make me recoil -- because I know what reality is like in India for countless people. Perth is a false world, and its people have been raised to believe in the falseness of their lives, of their living. This vaunted "lifestyle" that we seem to value is empty - it fulfils nothing, creates nothing, results in nothing. Its misleading in its self-gratification.

I don't know what to make of these new thoughts, so I'm writing them down as a point of reference, should they lead me down another path some day.

This quiet, clean, sunny, wealthy world seems so strange to me. Even as I gradually slip back into familiar comforts, I realise that this is not "home" to which I have returned. It's another person's place, another person's home. I'm not in the skin I wore a month ago.