Hanging in there

The pandemic might end during the course of the year. Or it might not. It pays to be prepared for the worst.

A couple of days ago I read an evocative travel book which made me long to leave my well-worn surroundings in search of the new. Except that, with Omicron surging in Sydney, and probably at all the destinations I want to visit, the risk of infection has never been higher. So, I'm unfortunately forced to conclude that leaving Australia is a non-starter. 

Maybe I should stop reading travel books? It seems sensible. Spend more time outside in fresh air? Maybe, except that I can't rely on my fellow citizens to wear masks when they approach me... today a woman came up to me and asked me about bus routes. I quickly pulled my mask up over my nose, hoping she would follow suit. She did, but with a delay. Grrr!

I can't help but think that the longer this goes on, the more we are all suffering. If the pandemic ended tomorrow, it couldn't come soon enough. But it won't. I think of all the women who are trapped in abusive relationships, or people of any gender facing violence of any kind. It is documented that men with violent tendencies tend to take it out on their partners when faced with the extra stress of a lockdown or having to spend more time indoors. I also feel for the teenagers who have difficult relationships with their parents and can’t retreat to the relative safety of school, libraries or malls, where they can seek out healthy interaction with their friends. 

The world turns, and those of us who have survived are looking worse for wear every day. As global heating slowly takes its toll, the environment will be increasingly harsh and hostile. How many kinds of trauma will we live through?

Finding Ways (Travel Edition)

I don't know how my mum and I managed to be so lucky, but we took three small vacations during the as-yet-unfolding pandemic. 

In December 2020, we spent four nights in Hobart, Tasmania, coming back just before Tasmania shut its borders to would-be NSW travellers. If we had postponed the travel for a week or so, it would have been impossible. 

In May of 2021, mum was intent on taking in the Gold Coast, and I wasn't about to miss a domestic adventure, even though the uncertainty about border closures was still very much in the air. We spent four nights there too, and I updated my knowledge on Queensland - it may be lagging behind NSW and VIC in terms of progressive politics, but it has its fare share of rebels and counter-culture types. Walking around Surfer's Paradise, there was often a person with colourful hair or a piercing within sight. 

Again: QLD barred interstate travel very shortly after we left. 

Finally, after a lot of hesitation, we decided to be daredevils and fly to Melbourne this December, just as Omicron was gathering pace in both the nation's biggest cities. We stayed five nights in the CBD, enjoying the relatively relaxed pace, the user-friendly trams and urban design, good food and the coffee at Brunetti. 

Not even a week later, airline staff got sick with Covid en masse, and many flights were cancelled, particularly from Melbourne and Sydney. The notice given to passengers was less than 24 hours, and that could have been us if we'd tweaked our travel dates slightly. 

My pandemic experience has been softened, enlightened and made more manageable by these diverse Australian experiences... I can't deny that they were a risky undertaking, but hey - we only live once! 

I hope next year brings travel of the international variety. In the meantime, I'm grateful for what I've had. 

It's been a while...

Today I felt like picking up my virtual pencil and making a few proverbial strokes on this green canvas of mine. 

Something that I'm proud of lately is changing my mental health worker. I had been working with Mrs. X for some months, but it was uncomfortable, and I would feel low after our phone calls. Eventually I made up my mind to call up her supervisor and ask for a change. It's been wonderful being assigned an actual feminist, instead of someone who is ignorant and prejudiced about this important aspect of my life. Welcome, Mrs. Y. 

More recently, I discovered yet another quality life coach with a podcast - Victoria Albina, with Feminist Wellness. I have added her to my playlist, along with Xena Jones (Confidence Made Easy) and Kara Loewentheil (Unf*ck Your Brain). Originally from Argentina and living in the US, Victoria kind of glows. Her radiant voice informs her practical and nuanced feminist agenda. Her most recent episode explores ways we can learn to appreciate other people's love languages (e.g. touch, quality time, acts of service) even if we are disinclined to do so initially. It's interesting to think about how we can open up to a new mode of receiving affection, even if we weren't primed for it through our past experiences.

I spend a lot of time thinking about different languages, while languishing on systemic learning of Spanish or any other language. Mrs. Y and I set a goal: Pass the A1 Spanish test, and I am freaking out about practically applying it to my life. It's still not too late, but I fear I may have to delay by a week or so, because I also decided at this time to phase snacks out of my diet, and after years of relying on sweet treats for psychological relief, it's doing me in. 

Changing your eating habits requires a lot of energy. A doctor once told me that the first two weeks were the hardest. At the same time, I've already commenced searching for a special language teacher on ItalkI. Nothing concrete as yet, but at the same time I'm trying to keep Spanish in my life by liking facebook pages in the language, and occasionally reading El Pais (a popular newspaper). 

Does anyone know how Pedro Sanchez is doing in the polls? I've been trying to gauge the mood of the Spaniards, but my searches haven't yielded the results that must surely be out there. Maybe those results exist in Spanish only... es el momento de ser creativo. 

Self-love

Self-love is caring more what I think of me

Than caring about what others think of me

Self-love is interiority

Intuitively seeking out my opinion first

Taking responsibility for my worldviews

Checking in with my emotions many times a day

Trusting I continually find my way

Lessons learned from World Pride in Copenhagen

I just watched a very informative panel on asexuality, and I have an overdue apology to make to any asexual readers who have been around for a while... many years ago I wrote a post critical of the validity of asexuality. I'm sorry that I was ignorant and didn't develop empathy for what I now understand is a very valid community, which faces discrimination and stigma, just like bisexual or pansexual people do. 

The best I can do from hereon out is to listen and engage with aces who are brave enough to tell me how they identify. And amplify activist voices, as well. 

The Traveller's Imagination

I've never been to the Great Wall of China - perhaps someday I will - but in 2003 I spent a month in a snowy Shanghai where I was awestruck by the architectural diversity on display. The high rises here didn't behave like their counterparts in much of the rest of the world - they had grown new forms, developed new shapes. There were deviant angles and curves where I had expected rectangular prisms to be. Okay, so there were many typical skyscrapers too, but to my delight the irregular ones seemed to be in abundance. And at night, successions of bright colours sauntered on and off their glass canvases, alerting me to the dynamism and creativity that informed this (post)modern cityscape. 

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I always know I'm in Hong Kong because people will keep bumping into me. I think it was Pico Iyer who compared Bangkok's de-centred neighbourhoods to that of Los Angeles, and Hong Kong's verticality to that of New York City. Now I've been to LA a couple of times, and its geography is brought to life in many a Hollywood film, so I can appreciate Pico's comparison... but I'm yet to make time for New York in my hypothetical post-pandemic travels, in part due to the lack of human scale I perceived in the HK environment. NYC is also famous for its own American brand of rudeness, especially to visitors, not unlike the abrupt social stylings of some Hong Kongers. I live in hope that I will be shown better sides of both cities. I'm aware I'll need to actually visit New York City first to challenge my preconceptions!

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Speaking of Hollywood... When watching 'The Cider House Rules' I couldn't help but notice how drawn I was to New England's autumnal landscapes. I daydream of walking around delicate trees slowly shedding their leaves in subtle variations on red, orange and yellow. I wonder what the whole scene would smell like. Would it remind me of the Bay Area, in a different time zone? I can distinguish between what is North American and what is distinctly Maine, Massachussetts or Vermont. 

...I may have to wait to board a plane for now, but there are plenty of wonders congregating inside my mind, and I can't wait to see what new psychological states my journeys will unearth. 

Post-pandemic Travels

I recently realised that the Australian government only permits me to spend 17 weeks per year outside the country. That’s if I want to stay on my pension, which I do. 

I had been planning to spend a year living like a local someplace like Granada, Spain, but I can see that 3-4 months will have to do. The condensed time period may mean that I can live like a local in higher income countries, like Finland. 

In the past decade that I have been exploring Europe, I took many inter-continental flights. In 2018 alone I flew seven times once there. In 2021, with the increasing awareness of how much our carbon emissions are contributing to Earth’s suffering, I am disinterested in repeating that pattern. 

I will think back to 2016, when I spent all my time in Germany: 2 weeks in Berlin, with a short train journey onwards to a smaller town in East Germany to visit a close one, day trips to two other East German towns by train, and then finally a longer train ride to Frankfurt, my departure point. 

I felt a strong connection to Germany because I was seeing off-the-beaten-path destinations with the help of someone I cared about. I had more time to walk the streets, connect one block and suburb to the next, come up with theories about why Germans thrusted themselves forwards under the name of walking, muse on multiculturalism, speculate about GLBTIQ inclusion, and so on. More time meant more connection. 

With this in mind I’m eager to immerse myself in a new place (or even an old place ;) ), and learn something new.