Recently I’ve started a bit of a ritual.Whenever I’m feeling a bit uneasy, or need space to think, want to do any planning or goal setting, feeling restless, or just plain need space, I start feeling an urge to let the sea breeze and salt air blow blow the cobwebs in my brain away and replace the static with the calming, rhythmic sound of the surf. I like to have a good walk, then simply sit and write or just think.

When the urge takes me I simply get in the car and drive to the beach. I’m lucky enough to live in quite a beautiful valley with beaches, mountains and a major river all nearby (well – nearby by country standards )

Today I felt the urge so headed out. It was a beautiful mild and sunny afternoon – and I had the entire beach to myself!! Miles and miles of beach and I was the only person on it. And as luck would have it today I took my camera so after yesterdays very serious post, I want to share some calming photos of one of our beautiful local beaches.

Looking down the entrance ramp to the beach

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This evening someone mentioned Dabrowski to me (a psychologist often mentioned in relation to studies on gifted people, and the man who developed the theory of Positive Disintegration), which prompted me to remember something my friend Rena posted on her Livejournal a while back (along with my earlier talk of boundaries). What follows here is part of an article that was included in her original post.

From Environmental Sensitivity: (and I’m not talking about physical sensitivity)

What does it mean to be sensitive? (1) capable of perceiving with a sense or senses, (2) responsive to external conditions or stimulation, (3) susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others, (4) registering very slight differences or changes of condition.

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… stainless steel is an excellent heat conductor

By request …

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Someone  put me on to a nifty piece of exercise equipment.

It’s a simple little barbell. But wait!!! There’s more! Not just ANY barbell, but a barbell for doing keigel exercises with. Or for the Australians … a barbell for pelvic floor exercises. We all know resistance training is excellent for toning muscles, so I thought … I must get myself one of these. I don’t want a girl of just average, everyday fitness. I want a super-duper-mega-fit, super-strong one  So I went online and ordered it from a store in San Francisco that a friend recommended. The store is actually a shop that sells sex toys, a store run by women for women. A tasteful store, believe it or not.

As I eagerly awaited the arrival of my new piece of exercise equipment while it was winged over from the west coast of the USA to the east coast of Australia, I had an embarrassing realisation of what might presumably happen at customs, when the parcel was x-rayed Would they open it, seeing what shape it was, what it was made of, and being concerned? Have a good snicker when they saw the goods? Or is it just something that they’ve seen maaaannny times before, now a bit of a yawn? Never mind, I reminded myself, they don’t know who they hell I am anyway so it really doesn’t matter.

So one day I get two things in the letterbox … a card from the post office saying I had an international parcel to pick up. As I hadn’t ordered anything from Amazon for, oh 2 weeks (WHAAAAT??), I knew exactly what was waiting for me at the post office. The other was an envelope from San Francisco. It was thick. I guessed, correctly as it turned out, that maybe it was a catalogue from this place I bought my exercise equipment from. Turned the envelope over to find  the flap on the envelope hadn’t been stuck down. Or if it had originally, barely.

This envelope travelled all the way from San Francisco to east coast Australia … open. Imagine how many people looked at what was inside. It wouldn’t bother me terribly except for one thing. I live in a very small town. Population 4000. Everybody knows everybody else, and if they don’t, it’s like two degrees of separation. The people at the post office know me. Bet they got a good giggle out of the catalogue, and raised eyebrows when they saw who it was for. Shit.

So I had to go into the post office that day to pick my parcel up. I couldn’t look them in the eye. They couldn’t look me in the eye. And to heighten my embarrassment even further, was the box itself. I thought they would go to great lengths to make it discreet. But on the description of the contents, in big letters, was ‘massage equipment’.

Aiyyyyyyyyyeeeee … could you BE any more OBVIOUS? Every woman knows what ‘massage equipment’ means ROFLAMO!!!!! I couldn’t get out of their fast enough.

When I got home and opened it up it was my turn for a laugh. First let me say, the barbell is a thing of beauty. Stainless steel, sleek, 7 inches long with a big ball down one end and a small one on the other. Quite heavy. But that’s the point. Anyway – the little box it came in was a cack. Here’s what the label said:

“Betty Dodson’s Vaginal Barbell
Betty’s Vaginal Barbell is both a practical exerciser to strengthen the pelvic floor muscle and an excellent pleasure device. Made of stainless steel, it is sturdy enough to become a family heirloom.”

What the FUCK??   I doubt somehow I’ll be leaving my sleek, stainless steel friend in my will to anybody hahaha!

But wait … there’s even MORE!!

I love a place that chuck’s in freebies. Included in the parcel was the cutest little thing …. a travel-sized, compact, discreet sweetie. A ‘snap and go vibe’. One AA battery not included!!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

That … is Sonnet CXVI by William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare yet! I had no idea he could write such beautiful poetry, when the language in his plays is too bloody hard for me to understand.

This one is now by far one of my favourites. Beautiful poetry Mr Shakespeare. I applaud you.

I’m not capable at the moment of expending the brain power and effort on writing. I just don’t have the headspace. I’m on a cusp at the moment … and needing to do a lot of thinking about where to go from here, plans, goals, how it is I will have to go about the things I know need doing – as hard and as painful as I know some of them will be. I’m kind of stuck until I work these things out. This week is one of revelations, warmth and beauty, but also sadness about decisions I have to make. So it’s hard, too hard, to get my head around thinking about anything else.

So I’m cheating again  and sharing a couple more of my favourite poems. This time by Bukowski. Both a little poignant and sad at the end… making them quite delicate pieces of work. The second is one of the saddest, if not the saddest, love poem I’ve ever read.

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Hours. I’m spending way too many hours awake lately LOL! Last night I had about 2 hours sleep. The night before I pulled an all nighter, and got a couple of hours in the morning. Insomnia – I cannot wait until this bout passes. It will, it always does. But I’m feeling pretty good regardless.

Hours. I spent 3 of them last night replying to a most beautiful piece of correspondence. Can you believe that? (yeah I know what some of you are thinking haha!). It wasn’t THAT big. I was not capable of blogging last night. No indeed 🙂 No my mind was totally involved elsewhere.

And I’m still not in a space that I can write that entry on abuse. I’m too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, though a bit spacey considering how little sleep I’ve had ! Too soft, warm and fuzzy. Mmm 🙂

So instead I’m going all nostalgic again and evening the scales – reminiscing about stays at my maternal grandparents’ house. I’m enjoying getting the memories down, as much for the memories themselves as the process of getting them in words for later on when my memory starts to decide to slow down 🙂

Grandma and Grandpa lived at Port Macquarie, reasonably close to where I currently live. These days, it’s only a 3 hour trip from Newcastle (the town where I grew up) to Port. In those days it was considerably longer, because the Pacific Highway has had a lot of rebuilding and rerouting since then. As a child it felt like it was an all day trip, but I’m sure it can’t have been any longer than 5 hours. We always knew when we were close to our destination because of the brilliant red volcanic soil and the lush emerald green of the grass. Port always had a feeling of exoticness about it when I was a child. With the soil, the greenery, the patches of rainforest, the palm trees in town and the Norfolk pines at the beaches.

 

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