We arrived at the Ocean Grove Nature Conservation Reserve late in the afternoon. A lovely warm day.
The reserve is a huge bush block that is surrounded by a 2-metre-high fence. Good for keeping the feral animals out.
The walking track meanders around the woody forest, we can hear plenty of bird life, seeing them is a bit more elusive. We wandered past a dam and a little lake with some ducks swimming about.
Michael had stopped to take a photo, as he often does, I often just walk on past, this time, however, I came up short as a wallaby was busy munching on the grass just in front of us. I hadn’t seen it until the last minute.
This little swamp wallaby was only metres away from us. Nearly close enough to pat. She was busy nibbling away at some grass.
Then her head dived under a rotting branch on the ground, and with her front paws she pulled away the leaf litter, and sat back on her haunches eating something that she was gripping between her front paws.
I thought it looked like a mushroom, but we needed to check, and zoomed in using Michael’s camera. Sure enough, this Swamp Wallaby had snuffled out a treat, found it under a rotting log, pulled away all the leaf litter and found herself a nice pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres. After finishing that one, she sniffed around and found another.
It appears that it’s a thing for swamp wallabies. I’d never seen a wallaby eat a mushroom before.
After the nibbles, the wallaby bounded off into the scrub, and we continued on our walk.
One of life’s many lessons for me has been to listen to people when they want to tell me something about their experience.
It’s a tough lesson to learn. I have so many preconceived ideas about people and events. It’s sometimes difficult to put those ideas into abeyance and listen.
When I reflect on the recent decision by the Federal Court that found Senator Pauline Hanson guilty of racial discrimination, it occurred to me that Hanson failed to listen.
Despite attempts to mediate a satisfactory settlement, Hanson decided to take it to court, and lost.
Listen to people, learn, and change the way you behave towards them.
We had a two nectarine trees in our garden when I was growing up. As the fruit was beginning to develop, I would eagerly await the first sign of redness and snaffle it straight from the tree and eat it. My timing was inevitably off, and it would be a hard green all the way through. So I would lob the once bitten fruit into the big circle garden.
It wasn’t that big, but when you’re 8 years old, the world seems impossibly big. It was the big circle garden because it had a path of broken asphalt that ran all the way around it. Mum could walk around the big circle garden in ten steps. To me, it seemed an impenetrable jungle of plants. Lobbing a green nectarine into the vast expanse of the untamed landscape seemed a sure way to avoid detection of my transgression of wasting food.
My mother would find these green, bitten fruits in the middle of this garden that she had taken two steps into to pull up a few weeds. Raising the fruit on high, she would demand to know who had only taken one bite and discarded the fruit.
The benefit of being one of eleven means the possibility of being discovered was remote. Luckily, Mum didn’t have moulds of our bites to match.
Forward 60 years, I sat in the doctor’s office, and he handed me 4 sheets of A4 paper, lists printed on both sides. Mostly the lists consisted of foods I was no longer allowed to eat if I wanted to regain a sensible use of my bowels.
Nectarines were on the list.
I love nectarines, I like them crunchy, not green because I don’t have a big circle garden anymore, not soft and squishy. Nectarines need a blush of red, firm and crunchy.
Nectarine season is almost here, I’ll just have to rely on my memory now.
I love being by the surf. The roar of the ocean is a noise that brings me much delight. The bigger the wave crashes, the happier I am.
I always have waves crashing in my head. Tinnitus does that to you. Well, maybe not you, but certainly for me. You’d think I’d be welcoming of the crashing noise that travels with me everywhere. If only that was the case. Get up in the morning, the waves are rolling in, one after the other, about half a meter high. Jump on the bike to ride to work, the seas abate as I listen to some podcasts. Every so often there’s a little lapping noise in the quiet spots.
As I start my delivery round on my motorbike, I put a helmet on my head. The cuffing of my ears reminds me of lifting a shell to hear the rolling waves.
You get the picture, or the sound, as the case may be.
The best place to quieten the fuzzy noise in my head is by the sea. Not in it, the feel of sand moving between my toes scares the bejesus out of me.
So while it may cancel out, all I really do is move the sound from inside to outside.
Gives my brain a few minutes to think about something else, like the importance of putting the glass under the tap before running the water so as not to waste any.
We must confront our own biases and strive to be better allies to our First Nations people. -Talking To My Country, Stan Grant
Senator Lydia Thorpe strode into a function for King Charles and yelled at him. People are outraged that she dared to be so disrespectful.
Joe de Bruyn gave a speech at the Australian Catholic University and 90% of the attendees walked out. People are outraged that the attendees could be so disrespectful.
Thorpe is a First Nations person, elected to the Australian Parliament. From the start, she has made it clear that she sees the Australian political institutions as questionable for a First Nations person.
I’m not sure about yelling at the King. Makes me a little uncomfortable, I guess. After all, he is King. (How do you become king then?) That’s from my perspective, a white Australian whose family has only been here for a few generations.
To understand her, we need to look at this from her side. Sovereignty was never ceded. The rules of Australia have been imposed upon her and her community.
Every so often, the best way to make a point is to be really noisy because being quiet and polite doesn’t work. When Thorpe wrote to the King, he didn’t respond. That’s a tad rude.
And to Joe de Bruyn, a conservative catholic, former union boss who was given a platform at the Australian Catholic University graduation ceremony. He used his moment to cover some typical catholic thoughts on abortion, IVF, and marriage equality. He wasn’t in favour.
The University let him say what he said, fully aware of the contents of his speech. They cite free speech. The audience responded by walking out.
How rude, cry the right-wingers. How rude that the students couldn’t show any respect and up and leave.
de Bruyn should be able to express his view, for sure, as abhorrent as it might be. Doesn’t mean the audience has to listen, and on this occasion, showed their disapproval by walking out. Perfect response.
Respect isn’t a one-way street. When you’re the one with the power, you need to respect the people you’ve gathered.
It’s 7.00a.m., already 17oC. The sky is clear, and the air is crisp as I walk from the car park, dog in tow, excited to be outside. So many smells to smell and things to pee on.
I’m on a mission today. It’s the first day of a training program that will aid me in running 10kms. It is unclear to me why I want to do that, but there you go.
Step one is a 10-minute warm-up, walk or a light jog. The dog on leash, I break into a little jog along the gravel path. The birds chirping in the scrub, the surfers bobbing in the water like shark bait on a line.
The waves are crashing in and there’s a lot of people, all dressed in black wet-suits. And I pause to think who is crazier, the 60+ year old pretending to jog lightly, or the 60+ year olds dangling their legs in the cold water. Waiting for the right wave to ride to shore, so they can then paddle back out and wait for the next one.
My watch beeps and I ‘recover’ from my light jog for 30 seconds before leaping into cadence drills, a concept that eludes me really, then into acceleration-glider drills. I’m convinced that I would be better at dangling my legs over a surfboard.
Before too long, my watch declares that my workout is complete. I head to the sandy beach, let the dog off and watch her run madly along the sand, stopping sporadically to dig a hole because, she’s a dog.
I spend a lot of time out on the road these days. I see plenty of cars zooming past, all shapes and sizes. It’s the main way we get about, rushing from home to work and return.
Most of the cars I see have one person in them. We have built these great big massive machines, able to sit up to about 5 people and carry heaps of other things, and in reality, they make short trips for just a single person.
Some households even have two of the things.
Our world teeters on the edge of catastrophic climate change. We know that things have to change if we want to limit the destruction heading our way, less carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Yet, day in, day out, we jump in our car, drive to work, leave the car in a car park, then drive it home again and park it overnight.
So, what’s the plan?
We are a one car family, with an electric car. I have an e-bike that I ride to and from work every day, and use the bike to get elsewhere too. Sometimes, riding to the train station, taking the bike onboard and then riding the last bit on the bike again.
If we all know what needs to change, why are we still waiting?
As far as I know, this is it for us. The one planet that we all call Earth. For all life, this is all we will ever know. We evolved here, and like water in a puddle, the environs are perfectly suited to our needs.
As much as I would like to, I can’t save the planet for Homo sapiens. Yet, collectively, we seemed to have made a right mess of it. We all know it, even those who deny the impact on climate, they know that the planet with us on it is a mess.
I want to do my bit to reduce my impact on the world around me. For the household that Michael and I share, that means reducing our carbon footprint. To that end, we have gone all electric. We ditched the gas stove, central heating and hot water. Put some solar panels on the roof, double-glazed the windows, bought a battery to use our own energy overnight and got an electric car.
This is what we can do, not every one can do that.
We did this to do our bit in reducing the impact of our lifestyles on the world around us. It’s not much, and single-handedly we won’t be stopping climate change.
There’s those who don’t get it, that say it will never pay for itself. The battery, for example, only lasts 10–15 years and we will never recoup that cost.
I think that’s the wrong approach. If the only reason you are installing solar panels, heat pumps and batteries is to save money, then you may need to question your motivation.
The planet needs saving from us, and those of us that can afford to do our bit, should do it. Yep, it’s going to cost you money. Yep, it will help the environment.
All the money in the world won’t help when the Earth becomes inhospitable to Homo sapiens.
The last time I wrote about my depression was February 2021 – just over two years ago. Since that post, I have only written two other blogs. It’s not that I don’t want to write, just that it has been difficult to do so. I’ve written so many blogs in my head over the last couple of years, I’m glad that I have the time and capacity to sit down now and do some writing.
Thinking about sitting down to write, I am again sitting in a room in Victoria Clinic having maintenance TMS for my depression. This is the eighth visit to the Victoria Clinic, and I think I’m now settling into a routine of maintenance.
I came in Friday after work and will leave tomorrow morning, Tuesday. Really, just a weekend of treatment.
Before I get into the current phase, let me back it up a bit, as so much has happened to all of us since I last wrote.
The medical intervention for my depression took a real toll on me. There is no doubt at all that the TMS has helped me ‘find myself’ again. I feel like it has come at a huge cost to me, a cost that has been well and truly worth it.
I was never able to really return to my work at the ASRC. I did try, and ultimately decided that it was beyond my current scope. It was stressful to leave, I fought so hard to stay in the role; however, it gradually dawned on me that I wasn’t able to do the role justice, this wasn’t fair to the people I lead, worked with and the people who came to the ASRC for help. My separation from work was ugly and, possibly, one of the lowest points in my life. I left feeling misunderstood, rejected and alone. It has taken me a long time, and possibly still more time, to come to terms with that.
One thing that was evident to me, through the battle of leaving, I was no longer cut out for an executive role. That was a hard reality to face.
I did say to myself, when I left Family Life, that I would never return to a management role. Then, the very next job I took was a management role! I really should have listened to my inner self.
I loved my job at Family Life and the ASRC, I really did. I was good at it. Not only that, but I loved leading, I loved working with dedicated people, supporting them, and making a real difference in the lives of the people who came to our doors for help and assistance.
It was heart-wrenching for me to come to understand the price I was paying was too high. My mental health was suffering in a major way. Even though I had the drive and the passion for my work, depression and anxiety were significant barriers that worked away in the background, grinding me down, until I just stopped.
I took a break. There was a little money in the bank, and Michael was supporting me. It was a safe space for me to be. Uncomfortable, but safe.
Then gradually, as the sun started to shine every morning again, I knew that my next job needed to be radically different. Low-key, no stress, part-time and no strategies!
I am now a Postal Delivery Officer, a Postie for Australia Post. I put letters in letter boxes! And I love it. Nobody asks me to read contracts, interview new staff, look at financial spreadsheets, review the risk register or make an important decision. I don’t have anyone trying to bend my ear for a few minutes. I don’t need to sit with people over a cup of coffee to break some bad news. My job now sees me up at 4.30 in the morning, I get to work by 6 a.m., spend a couple of hours sorting my mail for the day,
then on I get on my three-wheeler electric delivery vehicle and deliver mail to a commercial/industrial area. I’m home by midday, have a nana nap and ready for the next part of the day.
My daily stress is misdelivering a letter and batting off the occasional snappy Jack Russell.
I do at times miss the work I was doing. I wish I had something that would let me use the skills I’ve honed over so many years, maybe one day, for now, I’m happy being a hyper-organised Postie.
So, here I am again, at the end of another weekend of treatment. The first to notice I was on a downward spiral was Michael, I ignored him, and told him he was wrong, I’m perfectly ok. As is so often the case, he was right, and I did need some help. I am grateful to have such a wonderful man in my life. I really should listen to him more!
I wasn’t really prepared for the ongoing impact of my mental health. I sort of thought I was ‘cured’ after a couple of intense treatments. I’ll get there one day, for now, I will continue to focus on healing, I don’t know how long that takes any more. I recall the disappointment I felt when I realised I was slipping again, the dark clouds gathered once more. This time, I’m hoping that the early warning signs have helped get me here sooner. Being aware of my own feelings can be difficult, self-deception can be pretty easy. Listening to others can be frustrating. Sometimes those closest to me, know stuff about me, before I even know myself.
The treatment has worked well. The last few weeks, the thought of getting out of bed, and going to work has filled me full of dread. I would get home and spend my afternoon scrolling through YouTube shorts, waiting until Michael got home, so I could eat and go back to bed. This morning in one of our group sessions, another patient remarked that today was the first time he had seen me smile since I arrived. Michael, when he came to take me out to dinner last night, made much the same remark.
