I read recently that hair has a terminal length, beyond which it won’t grow. At almost 4 years, my hair shows no signs of hitting that point.

really could do with a brush

It’s definitely longer than it has ever been in my life. And I’ll admit that it is becoming a little unwieldy and difficult to wrangle. Mostly I rock it in two plaits or an enormous bun on top of my head.

I’m excited that the white hairs that are ever slowly emerging are most excellently curly, and at current rate of progress I may have long white curly hair by the time I’m about 87.

Right now I’m torn between a much-needed trim and discovering that terminal length!

♥

Previously:
✚ one year update
✚ 22 month update

You should read this poem **.

Trust me. It’s very good.

Via the wonderful hula seventy. Her 365 lists project from 2018/19 remains one of my favourite blogging projects ever – nourishing, clever, interesting – a morning meditation served up in my inbox.

Perhaps worth a daily meditative revisit?

♥

On the subject of poetry, I feel like I may have finally cracked why I’ve never gotten on with poetry. A lifetime of, if not speed reading, very fast reading – and not reading aloud in my head.

It seems poetry requires slowness and thoughtful, careful reading and a voice in your head. Definitely a voice in your head.

I once would have described this as needing to really languish in a poem. But thanks to that widely shared Adam Grant NYT article, I now know languish doesn’t really mean what I thought it did. I was assuming closely related to languid – and not in that pale, sickly way – but kind of treacly, warm, tropical, lazy, and gorgeous. Alas.

I don’t know why^^ I took such pride in the number of books I could quickly churn though. Thankfully, I now realise that this is mental. Absolutely mental. Despite this knowledge, shaking off the read-racing habit is a challenging.

♥

On impulse I bought hard copies of yung pueblo: inward and also Natalie Goldberg: Three Simple Lines – after being entranced by her sharing a few haiku in conversation with Tara Brach

Will see how I get on.

** Danielle DeTiberus: Elegy for the Last Bottle of Ranch (for when the link inevitably breaks)

^^ Extreme positive reinforcement starting from childhood and continuing for way too long, I expect. I’d be willing to bet this is another of those fixed/growth mindset situations.

I have no idea why, but I’ve been feeling quite serene the past few days.

And more astonishingly, am still serene even after an action-packed day at SML. I feel as though I’ve had a holiday (though of course I haven’t).

Long may this continue! Or if it can’t long-continue, may I get some insight into the serenity formula.

♥

I’ve started reading Thursday Murder Club.

I’ll admit I had certain preconceived ideas and not-great expectations based on the title, but it’s utterly charming, delightful and amusing and you should totally drop what you’re doing and grab a copy.

Disclaimer: I haven’t finished and it could still take a turn (see also: squid game)

♥

In other reading:

I also completed the latest Liz Byrski. I saw her books once described as “chook lit”, which was an absolutely perfect description. Not my favourite of hers, but light, cozy and comforting.

And Oliver Burkeman: Four thousand weeks – there’s some excellent ideas/concepts in here and it is well worth a read. I do occasionally struggle with his writing style as it often veers toward that snarky, superior, too-funny-clever, miserable-Brit thing. That’s pretty ill-described, but I think you know what I mean.

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This quote (from an article linked in the latest creative mornings newsletter) is pretty much nails what I’ve been striving for for years

I used to think a routine was a secret, magical formula, and that only one correct version for me existed. Once I finally cracked the code, I figured, I would become my best self — a perfect, beautiful, calm, successful, and unflappable version of myself who would stay perfect, beautiful, calm, successful and unflappable forevermore because she had figured out her Routine and she never strayed from it ever again.

Bustle: How to know when to drop a routine.

Thankfully I finally (for the moment) seem to have abandoned the notion that this perfect routine is achievable or indeed desirable. It is bonkers how we’re all so heavily conditioned to treat ourselves as little individual machines and endlessly seek the perfect way to operate those machines. I’m thankfully beginning to gently rebel against all that.

♥

For a long time I was convinced that after death I wanted to be turned into diamonds – either diamonds or be donated to a body farm **

But this has me rather reconsider my choice:

fireworks funerals!

♥

^ the perfect resting place for music lovers

** Sadly, I don’t think we have body farms here … OHMYGOSH! We do!

♥

I have no idea how or why the algorithm decided to recommend Hania Rani: live from Studio S2 to me, because I’ve not ever been into classical piano, and have nothing in my viewing or search history remotely related. But honestly it’s one of the most utterly magical things I’ve heard in my life.

You should go watch and listen, I’ll wait.

I don’t know why this music fires such incredibly deep emotional triggers in me, but I was an utter wreck afterward (and am so every time I listen).

After I’d finished weeping at the joy of it, I remembered that once long ago in the dim, dark mists of time I was really keen to learn piano. But like many things back then, it wasn’t an option and I’d absolutely forgotten about it. Even a colleague talking about adult piano lessons last year, or the excellent anyresemblance buying a piano didn’t spark any memory – but this music utterly did.

But hey wow, I realised there is nothing to actually stop me learning now! So I trusted my instinct, spent no time dithering about whether it was the right thing to do, and rented a digital keyboard – which arrived on the day we locked down.

You’d think this would have been the perfect opportunity to get stuck into learning, but as we all know lockdown does not mean vast seas of time to embrace self-improvement activities. It means just kind of holding it all together – interspersed with stress, anxiety and doom-scrolling. And occasional comfort eating of many supermarket cinnamon doughnuts.

♥

But I eventually dusted it off and started with pianote: 7 days to learning piano (beginner lesson) – taking well over 7 days. It’s incredibly accessible and super-cheerful and high energy. Of course, I am quite terrible and have absolutely no illusions that I might eventually be anything other than barely competent, but I’m getting a good deal of enjoyment from it.

I’ve got 3 months left on the piano contract (with the option to extend or buy) and have just signed up for 3 months of pianote. That will be my first decision point whether to keep at it. And if I don’t want to continue – totally fine! And if I want to take it slowly – also totally fine!

♥

In response to my burning the things I want to let go of activity, someone in my DFH course forum remarked half-jokingly that rather than nurturing our inner child, we should start nurturing our inner teen. I think this is completely genius, because my teen years were completely and utterly shit and maybe teen carolbaby needs a bit of a do-over.

So when things settle a bit, I’m totally going to seek out old lady ballet classes.

And I’m really trying to unravel what other things I wanted to pursue but didn’t, because life got in the way.

On our epic walk on Sunday, I wondered aloud to Don why I’d been holding onto this certificate for a smidge over 29 years.

It’s particularly baffling when you consider that I’ve disposed of all other certificates of this kind** and this one has survived several allegedly very ruthless cullings.

However, in the event there’s an ancient Océ 2500 copier somewhere in the world with a paper jam that needs clearing, toner that needs replacing or “call key operator” sign flashing, I’m absolutely available at very reasonable rates.

image borrowed from here

I’m very tempted to add it to my LinkedIn profile – it’s probably equally as relevant as many of the certifications people post.

♥

This was part of a slightly more serious conversation about the papers, photos and ephemera we hold onto for no apparent purpose – inspired by the excellent ganching.

Will my children really be interested in my group primary school photographs? I’m going to go out on a limb and say no.

♥

** Okay, in full disclosure I also have a certificate from a one day Records Management course I did in 1989. I don’t know why either.

My hair and skin texture have changed significantly in the last year or so, which I’m mostly attributing to age. While I’m delighted that my face is finally radiant and clear, and my hair thick and shiny, the remainder of me is really very desiccated indeed. Painfully dry and desiccated. And itchy. So itchy.

When looking for solutions to the dryness about a month ago, I spontaneously purchased a bar of Shea Moisture shea butter soap from the chemist and it’s been surprisingly effective. The shea butter soap combined with jergens ultra healing+ body balm I bought at the same time have worked far better than the many (many) other significantly more expensive solutions I’ve tried in the past.

After the success of the shea soap, and inspired by my favourite zero-waste/sustainability youtubers**, I was motivated to try other personal care products in minimal packaging, bar-style form.

So I purchased shampoo samples from Shampoo with a Purpose and shampoo, body and face samples from Ethique. I suspect this will be enough product to last until at least the end of the year.

I tried the Shampoo with a Purpose dry or damaged yesterday and was expecting a ton of tangles, but it was pretty great. I’m keen to see how it performs over time.

I’ve also ordered silk dental floss and Eco laundry strips, but they’ve yet to arrive. Package delivery is a bit of a lottery right now, it’s always a surprise to see what turns up when.

In the grand scheme of things these are obviously very, very small actions, but I really liked the idea I read recently in the dense discovery newsletter of being a node for social/political/environmental contagion. And I’m keen to push out more into this space in a low key way.

I’m very tempted to buy a fancy artisanal soap dish or two, but will leave them in the favourites for a couple of weeks to see if I’m still vibing them.

♥

** faves are gittemary and rebecca sisson
hot tip: youtube is definitely much improved by having ad-block installed

♥

Joan and Ovi shared their wedding photos on a family zoom call last night. They were of course absolutely gorgeous. They’re a very good looking couple.

I may have cried at the spoiler photo Joan shared before the call. Naturally that’s heart-exploding-because-it’s-full-of-rainbows crying, not like boo-hoo sad crying.

♥

Daylight savings began last weekend and I’ve been really struggling to adjust. It took a while to come up with an adequate description, but I guess I’d liken it to jetlag.

I’m tired. Like tired in my very bones, but not tired like I need a sleep. Brain struggling to keep up.

How can the shift of an hour make such a difference?

♥

Lockdown day count = 108. I’m really thankful restrictions start easing on Monday.

It has been such a long time that by now I’ve forgotten (abandoned?) most of my good habits, to be honest I’m not sure I quite remember what my good habits were. It’s all a bit of a blur.

Learned yesterday that I’m back in the office sometime in February in a 3:2 hybrid. I actually don’t mind this model – until I’m told I must adhere to it, then I get all bolshie and oppositional.

Don returns 1 December, Joe/Frank end of October (which seems rather premature).

♥

Don and I have started a practice (if one can call 2x a practice) of taking a long walk on the weekend. These walks have been around 15km which has been pretty exhausting and have required a long nap. It’s been really very pleasant to get out and about and astonishing that I have experienced none of the agonising leg/ankle pain of the past. How can this be?

I can’t imagine we’ll keep this up every weekend, because we’d get bored and cranky, but it is something we’d like to do more of.

Once we’re released, I’m quite motivated to use the weekends for weekend activities that don’t involve hours of grocery shopping and household chores.

And in the mode of EXPERIENCE ALL THE THINGS, I lashed out on a 4 concert subscription package for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2022. I will probably also lash out on tickets to plays when the Sydney Theatre Company announces its 2022 season. And I will not automatically dismiss whatever other cultural happenings cross my path.

♥

In astonishing news, during the week I submitted my CV for an almost identical role to mine in a very different field. I’m not at all bothered if this doesn’t come off as there were quite a number of red flags in both the advert and my research.

The big thing is that I actually, bravely put something out into the world!

♥

It’s domain and blog hosting renewal at the end of the month. This means time to decide whether to throw down the cash for another year or shut up shop after almost 18(!) years.

I’m highly ambivalent about continuing, which I think is obvious given the amount I’ve been showing up, or more accurately have not been showing up.

I was talking this through with the endlessly patient Don, and said I don’t feel like I’m the same person as peak-blogging-carolbaby. He agreed and commented that current me is quite serious and earnest. I’d not actually thought of myself as earnest, but yes, I probably am.

Maybe I’ve lost my voice, maybe I no longer have much to say, maybe blogging is really no longer a *thing*, or my *thing*?

Maybe I’m just really knackered by the pandemic, maybe a pause is just a pause?

I realise I’ve been sharing a lot of myself at SML, definitely more than in the past. I guess it evolved unintentionally during the first lockdown and then during remote working as a way to bond and build community – and just get through it all. And what I spent all my energy sharing there I did not share here. I’m really quite motivated to wind this back and get some space from my colleagues!

And maybe I’m way overthinking this?

♥

103 days of lockdown today.

I’m at the stage of lockdown where after receiving a marketing email, I email a skincare brand** to express my “dismay and confusion” at their choice of brand ambassador.

Does the world really need another skinny, blonde, fake-tanned, botoxed, scandal-plagued influencer WAG pimping products on the socials? I would argue that it does not.

I suggested they could do better, and that I would welcome more diversity.

They sent a quite nice response, which was surprising. Naturally I don’t expect my objection to make one bit of difference, but I think it is important to speak out.

I’m keen to lean more into this bonkers-old-lady letter writing.

♥

Thankfully some of the current restrictions will ease at 70% fully vaccinated, which is forecast for 11 October. I’m very much looking forward to not having to wear a mask outdoors.

A colleague of a similar age noted that the current lockdown was quite like returning to our childhoods of the 70s and 80s. Overseas travel was utterly exotic and almost impossible. You rarely left your local area. Life was much simpler, days were unstructured and kind of rolled into each other. One was often bored.

I think generally around the place there’s been a vibe of embracing slower-living and accepting what is. And a whole lot of looking to do things differently when we get out?

I certainly feel that way. I’m very keen to move from endlessly dithering about maybe doing things to actually doing them. Less of the plans for plans and more of the “just eat at that restaurant, see the play, visit the gallery”.

Unfortunately I’m fairly confident that as it was after last lockdown, we’ll very forget those very good intentions and quickly return to the hustle and grind and that relentless consumerism.

But I really hope not.

♥

** L’Occitane Australia

In astonishing news, I completed my CV last week!

Scheduling a daily check in with Vincenzo and encouraging and cajoling each other along worked an absolute treat. I also sat down at the laptop one sunny Saturday for a few lengthy stints, made a ton of progress and wrapped up most of it. As another of my colleagues noted though – it’s much less difficult to pull this together when you’re not hating every second of your job and are desperate to get out.

Once done, I sent it off to a recruiter acquaintance. The feedback was encouraging and he’s ready to work with me when I’m ready to make a leap. I’m in no rush at the moment, maybe early 2022?

As you’d imagine I felt enormous relief afterward – especially after having the task hanging over me for over 10 years. I’d been telling myself for years and years that I could whip up a CV in a couple of hours if I needed to. Hah! Such deluded nonsense. It took many, many, many days and was a hard, uncomfortable grind indeed.

♥

Despite those intentions, I didn’t buy the celebratory vintage silk kimono robe.

If we’re honest, it’s one of those fantasy-self items that absolutely doesn’t fit in with my lifestyle, no matter how much I wish it did. So inevitably it would just hang around, unworn, guilting me, until it ended up at the charity shop.

I’m trying to do less of that.

I will buy something appropriately celebratory though.